Responding to Objections in Sales Conversations
I’ve been so enjoying my Selling with Soul Masterclass! If you haven’t registered for it yet, you can do so here. Now, this week, I got the most amazing question about sales conversations. Someone said, “Monica, every time I get to the point where I ask for the sale, people start to have objections around money or time, and I get really nervous and I end up just wanting to get off the phone as quickly as possible.”
First of all, if that’s happening to you, please know that that is such a valid response. It’s not easy to sit there and listen to people’s objections without taking them personally.
But I want to remind you of something really important. Objections actually mean that someone is interested in buying from you. Let me explain.
The other day, I walked into a store and grabbed three pairs of pants – a black pair, a white pair, and a gray pair – and took them with me to the dressing room.
I tried on the black pair – they didn’t work. I took them off and tried on the white pair – they didn’t quite look right.
I took those off. I put on the gray pair, stepped outside the dressing room, and looked in the three-way mirror.
And even in that terrible lighting, I thought, Hmm, these look okay, but there’s a few things I’m not sure about.
Just then, a salesperson walked in. I said to her, “You know, I like these pants, but I just don’t feel like they’re dressy enough.”
She said, “No problem. I’ll go get you a belt and a fancier shirt.” When she came back, I added the belt and the fancier shirt, and I really started to like the pants more.
Then I said to her, “Well, they’re a little bit too long.” And she said, “No problem. We can get them hemmed.”
I thought about that for a second, then said, “But what if I wanna dress them down and be able to wear them out? I don’t want to buy them just for fancy occasions.”
She said, “Well, you know what, if we take that belt off, I have a great casual shirt that will make this a really great outfit for just going out on a Friday night.”
I tried on the casual shirt and it looked great. I asked her if these pants came in any other colors, just to make sure that this was the right color for me.
She came back with a red pair and a light green pair, and I decided that I definitely wanted to stay with the gray – and I ended up buying the pants.
Now, here’s what I want you to notice about this story.
Number one: when I tried on the pants that I didn’t like, I just took them off and put them back on the hangar. I didn’t have any objections – I just knew that I didn’t want them.
The pants that I ended up buying were the ones that raised objections – and the salesperson addressed each of my objections one by one until I bought the pants.
The next time you’re in a sales conversation facing a prospective client with a list of objections, I want you to remember that if a person has objections, it means that they’re interested in buying.
Your job is to be patient and walk them through the decision-making process.
Now, if you’re interested in learning more about how exactly to walk someone through this process – or if you’d like to just generally lead really connected sales conversations – definitely sign up for my Selling with Soul Masterclass. It’s coming up this week, and I’d love to see you there!
