BONUS INSIGHTS: Knowing These 6 Common Types of Sales Objections Can Boost Your Sales EFFECTIVENESS
In my experience as a sales trainer and coach, I find that most salespeople think that there’s never a good time to deal with a sales objection. They try to avoid them because from their perspective, it slows down the sales process. And there are just too many places where they can lose control of the process.
The truth is that many salespeople have misconceptions about sales objections because they don’t have a repeatable process for identifying, qualifying, and resolving them. In fact, most salespeople mistakenly confuse put-offs for valid sales objections.
When the salesperson finally realizes that their prospect was never interested in their service but was politely trying to get rid of them, the salesperson has already spent too much time, resources, and personal capital trying to move the phantom deal forward.
In doing a quick search on the internet, I see that everybody has a special way to handle specific sales objections. And yes, there will be elements of your resolution that are specific to the industry, the product, and the environment you are working in. But from my experience, sales objections tend to fall under 6 general classifications that will govern how you resolve them. These classifications are:
- A genuine sales objection
- A stall or a put-off
- Misconceptions and misinformation
- Buyer biases, prejudices, and skepticism
- Sales objections that are unsolvable
- Trivial sales objections
Let’s look at two of these.
The Genuine Sales Objection
The genuine sales objection is a legitimate concern on the part of the buyer. Now if you can solve this problem, then the sale moves forward. And the nice thing about this is that the buyer wants you to succeed. Genuine sales objections reveal that the buyer has a real interest in your product or service. These indicate that the buyer is mentally integrating your system into their environment, and they are finding the bumps that could produce hiccups. You may have to get creative when addressing the specifics of these objections, but they are solvable. Read my post on how to respond to sales objections.
The stall or put-off
This classification is interesting. As I said before, most sales reps think they have an honest to goodness sales objection that needs addressing when they have a stall or a put-off. They then spend a lot of time and energy trying to resolve an issue that their client has no interest in. In fact, the only thing the prospect wants is to get rid of the salesperson with as little friction as possible. So you’ll hear things like, “Your price is too high” or, “I don’t have time now” or, “it’s not in the budget.”
Stalls and put-offs are used to either slow down the sales process or to completely stop it. It’s a way the prospect uses to take control of the sales process away from you, the salesperson.
One of my favorite Dr. Seuss books is “Green Eggs and Ham.” I read that book to my kids numerous times. But when you think about it, that book is all about the sales objection. When you go back and read the text, and it’s an easy read - it will take about 5 minutes, what is the first objection that the protagonist says? It’s “That Sam I Am. That Sam I Am. I do not like that Sam I Am.” His objection has nothing to do with the product. He wants to dump the salesman. Even when the protagonist relents, he says, “Sam, if you let me be, I will try them. You will see.” In other words, "Stop bothering me, pal. I'll sell myself."
So, the protagonist’s whole story line about hating green eggs and ham has nothing to do with green eggs and ham. It’s all on Sam I Am. And then, after he tries them, he says, “Hey! These things are pretty good.” Suddenly, Sam I Am has credibility, earned the protagonist's trust, and the two become best buddies.
Remember, the stall is all about the buyer exerting control over the sales process and the put-off is about putting off the sales rep. Neither has to do with your product or service. The 7 step process for resolving objections will help isolate and identify these objections and give you some direction in how to effectively address them. But I can tell you right now that if you are experiencing a put-off, then you didn’t open your call correctly and you have little credibility. Read my posts on opening a sales call, and then go back and sell yourself first in such a way that you establish credibility, and you are seen as a valuable asset instead of a bothersome salesperson.
Read the full article on the the 6 common types of objections here for additional information.
Back to the top