In a perfect world, people would do everything we wanted them to do, when we wanted them to and no one would ever have objections. But then again, if that was the case, we wouldn’t be sales people; we would be order takers. That’s what separates person who takes orders from an experts sales professional who effectively persuades others to benefit from his/her service or product.
The first step in overcoming an objection is isolating it. Drill down to the specific objection and ask the person flat out if that is the only thing holding them back. Once you have isolated the objection, you must be empathic and understanding to the person but you must also remind them of why they are talking to you in the first place. If you asked the right questions in the beggining of your presentation and listened to the answers, you will easily be able to show that person why they need what you have to offer.
I make it a general rule to point out 3 benefits that the person is going to get by owning what I have to sell, tying it into their emotion and by watching their reaction; I can see if it’s working. If it’s not, I turn to what they have to lose by not owning it. Once I see the slightest sign of agreement (like a head nod for example), I reiterate the benefit and loss one more time and suggest that they buy. At this point, I do not ask. Once I see that the person understands and agrees with what I am saying, I suggest they make the purchase. I most cases, they do.
If the person poses another objection like the famous "I really need to think about it" (which isn’t an objection by the way). "I need to think about it" is a smoke-screen that camouflages the real underlying objection. This is where your rapport building comes into play. How many times have you convinced someone close to you (whom you have close relationship with) to do something because you either said something specific or said something a few more times than you would have to someone your not so close with because you may have "crossed the line?".
You see, in many cases, that invisible line needs to be crossed in order for the sale to be made. But you can only dare to cross the line if and only if the rapport you have built is strong enough to make the line seem as though it wasn’t crossed. Remember, for every level of rapport you build, the imaginary line that you cross gets further and further away; meaning more rapport means more room to overcome objections.
It’s a known statistic that 90 percent of all sales are made after the 4th attempt. So if that means overcoming an objection four times, so be it. Remember, four is the magical number and the reason why only 20 percent of sales people are top sales people is because roughly 80 percent do not ask for the sales more than twice. So set yourself apart from the sub par and align yourself with the elite.