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Fact: Every product or service has 7-10 common customer objections.

If you think about your prospecting and selling efforts over the last year you’ll realize that you heard the same 7-10 customer objections. These objections will be different depending on what product or service you’re selling, but they will be repeated over and over.

It’s hard to come up with brilliant answers when we’re standing in front of a customer and attempting to answer an objection on the fly. Doesn’t it make sense for us to prepare responses to these objections ahead of time when we’re in a better environment to do so?

Being ready with answers can benefit us the most when addressing specific objections that are unique to our industry or competitive environment. Let me give you an example:

Physician to pharmaceutical salesperson, “I don’t need another pharmaceutical company pushing their products on me. I’ve got reps coming out of my ears and too many drugs to keep track of as it is.”

This is a customer objection that is specific to this industry and would be difficult to answer if we weren’t prepared. However, this particular sales professional is prepared and here is her planned response when she hears this common customer objection.

“And that is exactly the reason you do need to talk to me. Our company has a comprehensive range of drugs that will meet the vast majority of needs you will see as a pediatrician. You’ll be able to actually reduce the number of pharmaceutical companies that you use.”

If you want to take this to the next level, get with your sales peers and compare notes. Agree on a list of 7-10 common customer objections and as a group create solid responses.

There is no reason to be caught with our pants down when it comes to customer objections that we encounter on a frequent basis. We can have answers in our hip pocket.

If you’re not already a subscriber, <click here> to receive Sales Vitamins™ by email or <click here> to subscribe to the RSS feed. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

Price objections. Salespeople expect to get them and customers expect to give them. Most of the time we greatly exaggerate their importance and significance and I can prove to you that I’m right.

There have been numerous studies on the most important issues to buyers when they choose a vendor. The issues identified in these studies are consistently and virtually identical. These issues are (ranked in order of importance):

1. Availability of product or service
2. Risks of partnering with the vendor
3. Service
4. Quality
5. Price

Notice that only items one and five have an objective measurement associated with them. We can tell the customer if we have the product or not and we can certainly tell them a price.

However, we can’t provide meaningful quantification regarding risks, service or quality. Our customers know that we can’t accurately give them this important information so they don’t ask about it.

But they do ask about availability and price. Customers seem to have an unending stream of questions about price, which makes us think that it’s a priority to them. It’s not, but they know it’s a question with an answer.

How do our customers get data in order to answer their higher priority questions about risks, service and quality? They get it through time and relationship with us. Over time a customer’s experience with us and our company will fill in those information gaps for them.

Evidence of this can be found in long term customers’ price sensitivity. Generally speaking, the longer we do business with a customer the less price sensitive they become. Why? We have provided them with answers regarding risks, service and quality, so price has been relegated to its proper place in their perspective, fifth.

Remember that most price objections are stated objections, not real objections. Our prospects and new customers are simply trying to learn something about us when they ask about price. We’ve got to be careful not to read too much into questions about price.

If you’re not already a subscriber, <click here> to receive Sales Vitamins™ by email or <click here> to subscribe to the RSS feed. © 2008 Scott R. Sheaffer

I’m not talking about employee terminations here. I’m talking about when your customers or prospects dismiss your sales efforts.

Prospect: “I can’t meet with you until the end of the year Debbie. Do you have some literature you can send me in the meantime?”

Debbie has just been dismissed. We all know that prospects don’t read collateral material and they use the, “Can you send me some literature?” ruse to make you go away. It’s an objection. Remember, a customer or prospect objection is anything they do to get you to stop the selling process. They want you to stop selling them and they’ll come up with anything, whether true or not, to make that happen. Their goal is not to give you good information at this point; their goal is for you to leave them alone.

There are many kinds of dismissals. Another popular one is the, “Call me back in six months.” dismissal. Do you really think they want you to call them back in six months? They’re just buying some time.

So what do you do about customer or prospect dismissals? First, recognize dismissals for what they are. The customer or prospect is trying to disengage you. You may have engaged the decision maker at the wrong time, you may have the wrong decision maker or you might not be explaining your product or service very well. Do a reset on this sales call and correct whatever is causing the problem. Second, ask yourself if you are getting more than your fair share of dismissals. If you’re getting an inordinate amount of customer or prospect dismissals then it could mean that you are not contacting qualified prospects, you’re forgetting to develop the relationship with the customer or you’re not listening and getting enough information.

Everyone gets dismissals. It’s a sign that you’re out there beating the bushes. That’s a good thing. Just be careful not to take too seriously what the customer or prospect is saying when they dismiss you because it’s almost certainly not accurate information they are providing. When you get a dismissal understand it for what it is; if you are getting too many, then modify your sales approach.

My 24 year old daughter who is two years into the beginning of a successful sales and marketing career called me yesterday. She said, “Dad, I used one of the sales techniques you taught me and it worked!” I was so dumbfounded that I didn’t know how to respond. Not because the technique worked, but that she actually listened to some advice from her father.

I asked her what happened. She told me that she has been working for some time to close a large deal. She was in a meeting and the key decision maker kept throwing objection after objection at her to the point where it almost turned into a whining session. After about an hour of responding to these objections she realized things weren’t going anywhere, in fact, she may have even been losing ground with the customer. And then she remembered what I told her about ignoring objections.

Ignoring objections is very powerful yet most salespersons don’t use this tool. It’s not used very often because it seems somewhat scary. Here are some key points in using this technique:

1. Studies have shown that the first objection that a customer or prospect throws at you is typically just a knee jerk response and carries little real importance to them. The first objection is a good objection to ignore.
2. If you have fielded one objection after another and see no end in sight, this technique can help end the barrage. If you keep responding to a stream of objections, the customer or prospect sometimes sees no need to stop. Remember, it takes two to tango. This is exactly the point that my daughter stopped responding to the customer’s objections.
3. No need to feel anxiety about using this technique. Why? If the objection is really important to the customer or prospect, they’ll bring it back up and you can handle it head on at that time.
4. So how do I ignore an objection? You acknowledge that you heard the objection and then just continue. It’s really very easy.

Customer: “Your price is too high.”
Salesperson: “Oh (or uh huh)…(pause)…did I tell you that we provide service on everything we sell?”

5. So what is the message to the customer? It’s the following metamessage, “I’m not going to do any more bending for you Mr. Customer and now it’s your move.”

When I was a salesperson I was hesitant to use this technique until I saw it used successfully by a standout salesperson at the company where I was working at the time. Once you start to use this technique and get proficient with it you’ll get addicted like I did. Not only does it help you deal with the objection at hand, but it demonstrates how empty and meaningless most objections are that we get from customers and prospects.