Most common Sales Objections

Sales is hard, you have heard me say that many times before. But, as part of any sales plan or sales strategy you have to know how to deal with cold call objections.

The first step in handling cold call objections is determining what they are, BEFORE you hear them from your sales prospect.

Your best defense against cold call sales objections is to have a defense or answer for them before you make the call on your prospect. Yes, I have said that a couple of times, I just want to make sure you are paying attention because it is critically important to successful sales.

The best way to determine what the mostly likely sales objections you will face will be is a multistep process.

First, talk to existing sales staff if you are new to the company. Find out what kinds of sales objections they are getting during their cold calls. Don’t be afraid to ask them how they dealt with them, no sense reinventing the wheel so to speak.

If you do not have any sales people to draw upon, then talk to manufacturing or operations. See what problems they are seeing with the existing customer base and ask them for potential ways to address these types of issues.

One of my favorite ways to learn what objections are the most common in a particular industry is to role play with existing sales staff. Let the newer sales people play the role of the salesperson and the veterans be the customers. This is a great way to get the veteran sales staff identify the most common objections as they try to outsmart the rookies.

If you don’t have a veteran sales staff this can be done with manufacturing or operations personnel. Sometimes, even the accounting department can shed light on the most common sales objections faced while prospecting.

If you have no other options, then it is up to you to figure out what are the likely cold call sales objections you will face. It is not as hard as you might think because there is usually a certain flow sales objections tend to follow.

Once you get a good base of potential objections and how you will deal with them, then start making sales calls, add to your list and rank the objections you are getting. Then go back and rework the way you deal with these sales cycle objections. This is something you should do throughout your career. Overtime you will not be adding as much and won’t have to rework the responses as often.

You will eventually get to the point that you can just ‘wing it’, that is until a new product or service is released, you change companies or most difficult change industries. Then, take what you have learned and start the process all over working out a new sales objections list and potential responses. One thing I can tell you is that it gets MUCH easier each time you do it. Starting out as a rookie sales person is the most difficult. After a few years you will have a much better feel for the process.

So, let me jumps start you on some sales objections you might run into. I won’t say these are in a particular order but some are more common than others.

“It’s too expensive.”

You had better have an answer for this in just about every industry. People like deals, the cheaper the better. How you deal with it is largely related to what you are selling. I encourage sales staff to not get into price based sales strategy. Once you start down that road, if it is the only tool in your sales toolbox, it will never stop.

There will almost always be someone come in with a cheaper offer and you will continuously be asked to match or beat it. I am not saying you cannot compete on price, only that usually this should not be your ‘go-to’ answer.

I encourage my sales staff to deflect this and get the customer or sales prospect to consider service, quality and benefits first. Then if we have to move back toward a price discussion at least the customer understands what they are getting for the price they are paying. Not all services are equal, sometimes cheap is just that cheap. Most customers expect a quality product or service. Yes they want to pay as little as possible, that is why you need to help them understand that you get what you pay for.

What makes your service or product stand out? Why is your company better?

“I don’t want to sign a contract.”

People don’t like to feel trapped; depending on your product or service this may or may not be an issue. If it isn’t, great.

If you need a contract then perhaps you can do a month to month or offer an exit clause if the customer is dissatisfied.

You could also offer discounts for a certain length of contract. I am not a big fan of this, I would prefer to give them some sort of exit clause unless you are having to spend a lot of money to get set up to produce their product. If so, then a discount might be the way to go.

Try to help the customer understand why you need the contract.

“I am under contact with someone else.”

This could be a deal killer, at least for now. Always find out when the other contact expires so you can start to follow up with the customer well before the expiration. You need to make sure they know you are interested in bidding so they don’t just sign another contract with their existing supplier.

There might also be ways to get out of the existing contract or perhaps you could provide other services or products not related to the existing contract.

As an example, while selling website development you might find your prospect has a year left on their contract with their existing web development company. You can do a couple of things. First, go ahead and give a tentative bid for when their existing contract expires. You can say you will have rebid closer to time if you don’t think your numbers will be good for a year, but this will still give you a chance to see if you are in the ball park when it comes to price. Since the customer is not looking to make a change you will probably find they will be very honest about their current pricing.

Another thing you can do is sell them another product. Someone has their website development contract, fine. Sell them a Facebook advertising package or an Search Engine Optimization (SEO) package. This gets you in business with the prospect now and keeps you on their mind moving forward.

“I don’t have time to do this now.”

Let them know they are losing money or customers everyday they put it off. Your approach would depend on what your product or service is but you still need to help your sales prospect to understand how important it is to address the issue. Usually, if you can prove they are losing money or customers they will eventually stop and listen.

Notice I said ‘eventually’, this is because you don’t want to be too pushy. Typically I would say I would follow up by email and then another call if the customer is busy a particular day (or week). In that follow up I would address the loss of money or customers. Then I would continue that narrative each time we spoke. Not too pushy, just enough to get it on their mind.

“I need to discuss with my staff.”

Normally this is just a procrastination response. You should deal with it just like the customer above that said “I don’t have time to do with this now.”

If that doesn’t work, offer to meet with the staff either individually or as a whole to discuss your product or service.

Continue to follow up.

“I had a bad experience in the past.”

This might apply to your company or a particular product or service.

If it was with your company (or a similar company), identify what the problem was and how you are different or have corrected it. You need to reassure your customer that whatever the issue is they won’t have it with you.

Same goes if it was a problem with a similar product or service. Find out what the issue was and address how things are different with your product or service.

This could also be a procrastination response. If so, continue to follow up and address the loss of money or customers for your prospect.

“We only work with people we know.”

This can be a hard one, one good response is “that is why I am here to introduce myself and get to know and your company’s needs. I don’t expect a deal today but would like to move toward finding out how we can help.” Just don’t be too pushy when you say it. You want to be respectful and smile when you say it.

I don’t care what anyone says, customers like smiles and self-confidence (not arrogance).

You can also discuss how sometimes change is good and that speaking to new people can give them new ideas for the future. All companies grow or fall behind. Of course, you have to be careful how you say it.

You could also suggest some sort of collaboration between you and their existing provider if that is possible with your product or service. You have to be careful to not do anything unethical if their current provider is their brother-in-law or something like that.

If there is an unethical practice going on you are better off just stepping away and following up at a later time. Perhaps there will be a new person at the company you can deal with at a future date.

These are just a few sales objections you might run into if you are just getting started with a new sales strategy plan. I could literally write an entire book on the subject, in fact I might.

Just get in there and start making cold calls. Your cold call script and your handling of cold call objections will improve with every call or visit.

Good luck!

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