“Successful sellers concentrate on objection prevention and not objection handling.”
Spin Selling — Neil Rackham, page 5
For the first 500 years of professional selling, every book written on the subject had a chapter teaching the importance of overcoming a buyer’s objections. “If they say this, you say that. If they bring up this concern, you counter with the following to keep them off guard.”
I am going to stop short of referring to these tactics as shear nonsense. They might have worked 500 years ago, but they never were examples of relationship selling.
If people are not concerned in one way or another when parting with their hard earned cash, they should be. Notice I prefer to reference these feelings as concerns or issues rather than objections.
When I began sharing my personal thoughts on professional salesmanship, I remember suggesting the use of “what-if scenarios.” Should the buyer raise a legitimate concern on subject x, give some thought to how you would address that particular concern. I think of it as doing your homework.
The better approach is conjure up the same “what-if” list but address each concern in your presentation BEFORE they raise the issue. In other words, as Mr. Rackham suggests above, “to concentrate on objection prevention.”
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