Sales Objections
Summary
Objection 1 - I need to think about it?
Objection 2 - I'm considering to attend another event?
Objection 3 - I don't have budget/too expensive/?
Objection 3.1 - How can I justify my ROI for attending this training?/What's my ROI if I send my people for this training
Objection 4- I want only part of the training (1 or 2 sessions) not the whole course?
Objection 5 - I/We don't have any problems?/We know what we are doing, no need for other training.
Objection 6 - Does your training covers Local or International Practices
Objection 6.1 - I know all local practices/I want to know local practices not international
Full Details
Objection 1
I have not made up my mind or I need to think about it?
What to Say?
Thanks for being frank on this. Based on my experience, when people usually mention this, it is because there are some unanswered questions they may have and that's holding them back from confirming their participation. If you don't mind me asking, what's holding you back?
Objection 2
Considering to attend another event eg I'm consider to attend/book/confirm this other similar training?
What to Say?
First understand and emphatise and then ask questions eg
I understand, its good to plan in advance for the year. By the way which training provider are you working with?/
Who are you considering? I know that as a matter of fact we are the best in the market.
Second proble & ask questions:
What made you considering them?
What do you expect to learn from their workshop?
Who is their Instructor?
What do past participants say about the Instructor?
What guarantees do they have if they fail to deliver on their promise?
Third start Selling.
MATCH THEIR NEEDS WITH OUR PRODUCT! SELL RELATED PRODUCTS!
Sell that we Specialize on Purchasing & Procurement:
“What makes us different is that we only focus on Purchasing & Procurement and are the Best In the market. Some of our clients are world class organizations like Schlumberger, Siemens, Celcom etc.
Sell the Instructor
And our instructor is the Procurement/Contracts expert ‘Robi Bendorf’ who always gets a 9/10 rating from our delegates. In fact the last time we had an event the GM of Motorola said ‘it’s the best workshop he’s ever attended.”
Sell the guarantees 100% & 200%
We don’t only say we are the best, we stand by it. You get a 100% and 200% money back guarantee.”
100%- if you are not satisfied when you come, we will be more than happy to refund back your investment.
200%- when you implement our training and it doesn’t make a difference in your department we’ll refund twice your investment.”
Finally, Close.
If you find our workshops beneficial will you send one or two people from your department?
Do you think you will attend yourself or you will bring other people.
Why not slot us into your list for March?
Also watch this short 7 mins video presentation explaining this objection or go to this link
http://internal-training.kavaq.com/objections-competitor-programs
Objection 3
I don't have budget/too expensive/?
When it comes to budget it's always a matter of what benefits the learning brings, never a matter of a dollar amount. However remember that this applies only when you are speaking to a real Decision Maker who understands the big picture and not some manager who simply has a certain amount of budget for training and he has to work with that.
When you deal with a real Decision Maker (which you should always do), then the question becomes:
What's the ROI of this investment?
Sof the first thing is that you always need to show the bigger picture and how much they can potentially lose if they don't apply the right strategies and tactics which they will learn when attending.
Second and equally as important as the first, it's always best that you share a real life example when a certain company lost tons of money because they did not have the know how (which we teach in the training). This depends a lot on your understanding of what you are selling, and especially so that you have a ready story from an actual client/prospect or company that you can find from reading business magazines and news.
For an example and illustration of this see the next objection 3.1.
Objection 3.1
How can I justify my ROI for attending this training?/What's my ROI if I send my people for this training?
This is another variation of I don't have the money, because the prospect is saying he got an issue with the money.
As usual you need to understand what the prospect is trying to say. In this case he's asking to sell him why he or his people should attend and spend the money with you.
Secondly, you must understand how your program is going to solve problems that cost their company money. When you understand that it becomes much easier to for prospects to get an ROI from the training. If you don't understand that, you will not be able to answer this objection and close the sale. So PREPARE
Here's an example for Contract Administration:
Well if your people are attending this training on Contract Administration at the top of my head I can think that they are going to learn the following:
1. How to manage project changes and delays. Both are the culprit for 6 or even 7 figures in any contract or project.
2. How to manage issues on Liquidated Damages or so called Penalties. These again are 6 figure amounts.
However I'll be frank I don't know your situation and I don't know how far this would apply to you. However, let me tell you a quick story as to what happened to one of our clients who sent 5 people to attend this course.
Some time back it was published in the papers that SOCSO was having difficulty with its IT systems provider Unisys. The issue was that UNISYS was telling SOCSO to buy new hardware from them, otherwise they would stop the servicing and maintenance. What did SOCSO want? The simply wanted the supplier to continue servicing and maintaining the old hardware. However they had two problems:
One they could not switch easily (without substantial additional cost) their system with close to 1 million members to another provider.
Second, the contract actually provided for what Unisys said i.e. they had the right to stop servicing the old hardware and now forcing the client SOCSO to buy the new hardware.
If people new what contract they were getting themselves into, they would probably have negotiated something better. What would have possibly happened is that SOCSO just signed suppliers contract without much if any changes.
So the question now becomes: Is 4,995 RM enough ROI to avoid a problem that could cost Millions?
What do you think? Don't you agree with that? How do you avoid such problems then?
Comments:
As you see the example above is based on knowing the product being sold ie contract administration course and more importantly telling a story from an actual client. Take note that if the information is not Public news you MUST not reveal the client name, but just mention 'a company/organisation/client'.
Objection 4
I want only part of the training (1 or 2 sessions) not the whole course?
Again understand what the prospect is saying. In this case prospect is saying that he found useful and relevant part of the course and likes to attend that. But he does not want to learn the other parts (maybe they're not relevant to him, he thinks he knows them, or anything else). You can say:
I can guarantee that you are not going to find a course on .... specific part they mention goes here ... . What you can do I believe is:
First, Just don't attend because it is too much and then you'll miss the part that you want to learn about.
Secoond you attend and understand the whole process of ... workshop title or topic ..., including ...specific part they mention goes here . When we actually cover your specific concerns in the course, then please ask all the questions you want to ask as that will help you understand everything regarding ...specific part they mention goes here ....
Third what I can do on my side is to get 30 mins to 1 hour with our instructor after the end of day 1 where you can ask any questions you may have, or have our instructor explain more on your interested topic.
Finally, what I have seen is that many times you can learn from what other participants are doing regarding your own area. That gives a real insight, since these are people like you who can tell you how they do things in their company
From what I mentioned then, does it make sense to attend the training?
Objection 5
I/We don't have any problems?/We know what we are doing, no need for other training.
Again you must understand why the other person is saying this and when they are saying it. The most likely scenario which most new & seasoned sales professionals face, is that as soon as you mention your product or service the prospects says they don't need or they don't have any problems.
Or in rare cases it may be that they are really experts (however experts become & remain experts by continuously learning).
Say the following with excitement (since they are not going to expect what you're going to say below):
WOW, that's great. It's the first time I'm hearing that someone does not have problems relating to ....topic/title of training ... What I found is that most ....target audience eg contract managers ... have ... outline problems faced by target audience eg delays, timeliness, contract negotiations. I believe you would have already found tools and methods to overcome these problems. I hope you can help me, what are some tools to avoid these and other problems people face in ...topic/title/focus of training ...
This will help to understand whether they really don't want to listen and they are just brushing you off. If this is the case, they will refuse to answer the question and simply just say they don't want to hear anymore.
However if they start talking, most likely they may reveal that there are things that they can do better. If they still say that don't have any problems you can still ask the following:
If there ever would be any problem, what do you think it might be? or
If there's something that you want to improve what would that be?
Once they answer that, and what they say happens to be in your workshop (which should be most of the cases), then simply say:
Well, if I may insist, since we are covering this topic and other potential problems that you may face in the future, wouldn't it help that you learn how to prevent the problem and have a plan in place?
Objection 6
Does your training cover Local or International Practices?
In this case you must understand first what the prospect want local or international practices. You simply do that by asking back:
Are you looking for Local or International Practices?
But before you do that, fill in some details and then only ask the question eg
We first cover world class practices that companies need to apply regardless of the country. However that does not mean that we do not refer to local practices when the need arises. Before I go on, are you looking to find out more about local or international practices?
If they say international practices:
As I just mentioned the whole training is based on best international/world class practices. For example we cover best practices on ....fill in some unique content of the training .... Based on what I just mentioned, does this sound as something you and your team would benefit from attending?
If they say local practices:
As I was just saying while we cover international practices, whenever needed we refer to local practices. For example when we touch on Purchaser Price Index, while we refer to practice in US from the US Labour Department we also show you how to find similar local practices in Malaysia by using the website of Statistics Department in Malaysia.
Based on what I just mentioned, does this sound as something you and your team would benefit from attending?
If they don't say anything and is left to you then say:
You know what, whether Local or International most practices have certain best principles that are applicable accross the board. Let me take a general example: When we talk about ethics in purchasing it is an international and local practice that you do not accept gifts from your suppliers as that jeopardises your impartiality. So regardless of the country, you don't accept a holiday to Paris from your supplier, or a fridge/TV for your home.
Does this make sense?
If he says Yes, then say:
Great, as I was mentioning this training covers best practices on ... 2 to 3 key areas ... and helps you avoid/manage problems like ....state some problems that training answers ...
Based on what I just mentioned, does this sound as something you and your team would benefit from attending?
Objection 6.1
I know all local practices/I want to know local practices not international
That's fantastic. Then what we teach are world class/international practices that are applied worldwide which makes every procurement/tender/contract (whatever your target market) manager/professional world class. All I can say is that you come and find out about these world class practices, and benchmark your expert local practices.
How does that sound?