Editor's Note: Last week veteran sales trainer Dave Fellman led an APDSP members-only webinar titled "Staring the Sale." He covered a range of topics on selling print, from prospecting to qualifying leads to doing a needs analysis for a prospect. But one key topic was how to respond to five common sales objections. Below is an edited transcript of that portion of Fellman's presentation. To see the whole presentation, or to read the entire transcript, click here to visit the APDSP Member Center, then click on the "Reports and Recorded Webinars" link on the left.
Objection: "I'm really busy right now"
Fellman: The answer to that is pretty straightforward: "When would be a better time?"
Objection: "Call me next week"
Fellman: My experience is that when somebody says, "Call me next week," it means "I'm busy right now, but I might be interested." I don't push too hard against a soft obstacle, so I'm just going to say, "You got it." And then I'm going to schedule the call on my CRM or my calendar or whatever I use as a follow-up machine. And when I make that call, here's what I'm going to say: "Hi, this is Dave Fellman from Dave's Printing and Graphics. I hope you'll remember, we spoke briefly last week. You asked me to call you this week. We were talking about setting up an appointment. How does your schedule look for..." The point is that this is an opportunity to set up that first substantive conversation.
Objection: "I don't need anything right now"
Fellman: You could say, "When do you expect to need something?" And then you could schedule your follow up for some time before that happens. But maybe instead you could say, "I understand, and that doesn't bother me at all. I know that there are a lot of salespeople who are only interested in you when you have something to quote on. But see, what I would like to do is to meet with you sooner rather than later, because I'd like to see if I can start learning enough about you and what you're doing so that when it does come time that you need something, I can be more than just another salesperson who could give you just another quote. I want to see if I can figure out how to bring some real value."
I wish I could promise you that this strategy always works. It doesn't. In my experience, I've never found anything yet that works every single time in selling. But I know that I have surprised some people over the years with this approach. And I also know that the people who seemed to respond well to this approach also seem to be people that I was able to engage with pretty well and pretty quickly.
Objection: "We're happy with our current supplier"
Fellman: When I hear that, I say, "Can you tell me who that is?" And it's been my experience that most decision makers will tell me. Once I identify the current supplier, my competitor, I say, "Oh yeah, they're very good. In fact, they're probably the second best printing company in our area." And the response I'm hoping for here is the laugh, the little giggle that tells me that they get the joke, and then I'm going to say, "They are a good company, but so are we. And what I'd like to do is to get to know you, evaluate your needs and wants to see if there might be some way that we aren't even better."
Here's another observation. Most people, if they've got a good supplier, tend to be satisfied with that. They think "good" is good enough. But many people, if you can get them to just start thinking about the possibility of "better," that intrigues them, that engages them. And maybe you get on to the next step where you want to go.
Objection: "Just send me some literature"
Fellman: In my experience, "Just send me some literature" is just a knee jerk reaction. That's the kind of thing people say when they want to get you off the phone. And I don't want to just send somebody literature off into the atmosphere someplace. So here's what I say to that: "I can do that, but it seems to me that me sending you literature is just like me coming in there and boring you with a 25-minute presentation about all the cool things that we do. Don't you think it's more important that I get out there to learn about your company, to find out exactly what you might need from me?" In my experience, the best way to get people to do what you want them to do is to position it as a benefit to them.
This article was just part of Fellman's presentation. To see the whole presentation, or to read the entire transcript, click here to visit the APDSP Member Center, then click on the "Reports and Recorded Webinars" link on the left.