Avoid, Address, Prevent
I’m convinced that in family and business, a sin of Omission is as bad, if not worse, as a sin of Commission. Before you pre-judge, let me explain. I do believe that some things don’t need to be said so the “Omission” part does have some conditions. What I do mean specifically is that if you know something that your customer or partner needs to know you owe it to them to provide the information.
Objections are kind of in the same light. First of all, and especially with brand new salespeople, anything that a current or future client may ask is seen as an “objection“ and it’s not. Many times, what we see as an objection is merely a request for additional information to help support their buying decision.
If you notice a specific question coming up frequently you should identify that item and build it in to your presentation. Now let’s address the 3 options in the article title, Avoid, Address, Prevent.
Avoid – by no means am I telling you to ignore a prospect’s question. What I mean by “Avoid” is you know in your presentation that you are going to cover this item and possibly several others in the same are of interest in the flow of your conversation. As much as I tell attendees at any function that I speak at, “Out of respect for your time, If you have any questions please make note of them and we will be sure and cover then at the end of our time and we may even get to your question(s) before we get to the Q & A time. In the event I don’t, hold me to covering it to your satisfaction before we wrap up. I know there are of specific importance to you and we want to be sure to address it.” You haven’t necessarily avoided it but you’ve successfully delayed a slew of machine gun like questions that can derail your conversation and de-value your expertise and value creation
Address - In the flow of conversation there are “points of interest” or “challenge” questions that my come up such as “price”, delivery time”, “quality or service”, etc. If it makes sense to you to now handle those points of interest, you should do so. Simply put, the deeper into your presentation you are the more feasible and, quite frankly, critical it may be to now address it. To now “Avoid” may make it appear that you’re not truly listening to them and can shut down your remaining time.
Prevent- The final option is not last because it’s the least important. It’s last because it like to list things alphabetically. As mentioned in the last sentence above before the “Avoid” discussion. I’ve always been a fan of full disclosure and I think most if not all prospects are as well….as long as you’re not “Info-dumping” to show off your mastery of bullet points from a marketing brochure. Again, if a question or objection tends to come up frequently it needs to be in your conversation. A solid presentation is timely, consistent, thorough, fair, and honest. Anything short of full critical info disclosure is not your best. Your goal should not be to convince them to join your company as a new customer. Your 1st focus should be to make it as easy as possible to seamlessly decide in your favor. Period. Summary - Preventing objections beats the crap out of handling them and is a much more valuable use of everyone’s time…and you’re handling them anyway.
Objections? Bring 'em on!!
August 8, 2017