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How to Get Your Buyers to Stop Objecting to Price

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By Scott Dailey

julie andrews meme


Imagine this scenario:

You just finished making your product presentation and yes, it went as you planned – as you hoped even. Your buyer now knows the costs, and was sincerely engaged throughout. As for the other stakeholders in attendance, they leaned forward often and peppered you with good questions. Things looked good. As you were shaking hands with everyone, you even made sure to ask if you could field any lingering questions. After all, you’re not new to closing and “no, no, no,” is all that’s uttered. You, for a moment, feel triumphant.

“Now to close,” you silently meditate.

But suddenly, just as you’re getting ahead of yourself – just as you’re feeling unstoppable — the key decision maker pipes in.

“Thank you Scott. Very thorough presentation. I learned a lot. Of course, I’m going to need to think about it. And besides that, I also have a few other vendors Bob’s located, that I want to have a look at. Yah know; before we decide anything.”

Imagine this happening to you. It’s probably not hard to do at all. Surely you have encountered this very set of circumstances. Fired out of a cannon, you slay the room and ready your kill shot when seemingly out of absolutely nowhere, you’re faced with this very objection and its brawn threatens the close, the win, YOU!

Well then what would you say? What sort of ironclad retort would you have prepared ahead of your meeting? I mean, surely you would have had something cued up, right? What go-to answer would be cocked and loaded, ready to dispatch with absolute haste this oh-so common sales hurdle?

Remember that, in this scenario, you almost certainly spent hours preparing your presentation and dammit, that preparation has covered well your product’s features and has earned your audience’s respect. Kudos! But at that pivotal moment, when your buyer suddenly tells you, “no,” how would you have remembered that meeting? How would you recall that particular opportunity? Your presentation had done the heavy lifting. Your buyer believed you. Believed in you. Yet the objection emerged. What didn’t you do? Or said differently, what did you not, perhaps, do well enough?

Would your meeting be remembered for your failure to produce an irrefutable argument that squashed that objection as it grew wings? Would you, at that moment, convert your prospect into a buyer?

What Didn’t I Do?

Now let’s be clear on something. We’ve all heard this objection registered in a thousand different styles. But every time you do hear it, no matter the delivery or the packaging, I assure you, it’s the same old objection and an easy one to negotiate if you know why it’s being tendered.

You are getting this objection because you didn’t convince your buyer sufficiently that the benefit to using your service outweighs the benefit of keeping the money it costs to buy it. If your buyer values the money it costs to purchase from you more than the value your solutions yield your buyer, then you have no chance to make the sale. Only you can persuade the buyer to see value as something that has more appeal than cost. This your responsibility, not your audience’s.

You cannot simply prepare a world-class presentation, do your research and hypnotize your listeners and expect that the work is done. As a matter of fact, your research must be more immersed in how to field this objection, than it ever is in showcasing your product’s features.

Your products, their features, what makes them shine — it’s all for you and means nothing to your buyer. You must make them see that the value had in using your solutions creates the outcomes they seek. Do this and you’ll begin to help your buyer see that retaining the funds it costs to buy from you is less critical than getting hold of your solution.

Next time you encounter this objection – no matter the flavor it’s dipped in – try this:

“Great! I think that’s great, Sue. You should totally look at alternatives to me.

But if you’re shopping for a less expensive vendor, or what I mean is, if the continuing shopping exercise for you deals in finding the most inexpensive provider, then we don’t fit, I’m afraid.

If you’re truly going to shop around, then look for someone who is better than me, not cheaper than me. Better than me, you won’t find. But cheaper? I can throw a rock out of this conference room window right this very second and hit someone in the head who will do less for you, for less than me.”

If we’re tabling next steps because you want it less expensively, then this isn’t a fit, Sue. I’m the best. And I want to be clear on this point: I wouldn’t begrudge you a bit for looking for better than me. I actually encourage that.

But I don’t compete with cheaper than me. I won’t compete with it.

How about this: you’re the best at what you do, Sue and I’m the best at what I do. Let’s get this right the first time?”

In this scenario, Sue may actually believe she needs to shop around for competitive pricing, while never realizing she’s mistakenly comparing value with cost. There is no comparison to be made between average outcomes and successful ones.

Lead with value in everything you present to your buyer. This will not only help keep the conversation in your control, which is critical to the sales process, but it will also assure your prospects that benefits, when satisfying the buyer’s wishes, always outweigh cost.

Sales professionals must believe passionately that they have an obligation to get buyers to stop asking questions about cost by producing answers that deal in value. Therefore, every action you take should be meant to provide satisfactory answers to questions your buyer may not even know he or she is asking.

Author’s Bio: Scott Dailey is the Director of Strategic Development for the digital marketing company Single Throw, in Wall, New Jersey. Scott leads the marketing and sales department for Single Throw and is an ardent lover of all things digital marketing and lead generation. You can follow Scott on Twitter at @scottpdailey.

Get More Sales and Better Revenue Numbers

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asaleeDoes your sales team enjoy your sales meetings? Or have you caught the telltale glazed eyes that let you know the stacks of work back at their desks are looking a lot more attractive than your meeting right now?

Done right, your sales meetings can boost your profits, help your team bond, and bring you the insights you need to drive your business forward. So what makes for a great sales team meeting?

Follow these five tips to turn your sales team meetings from boring to brilliant:

1. Keep Your Focus Narrow

As the article “Ideas For Sales Meetings – Sales Skills Development” points out, cramming too into too little time leads to dull meetings that drag on and bore your sales team.

By picking a focus for each meeting – such as a specific skill or product – you’ll make your meetings more effective.

Your team will have time to digest the new information and learn from it. You can’t cover multiple topics effectively, so narrow your focus.

2. Offer Something to Take Away

If you want your team to get something from your meetings – offer them something!

The goal of your sales team meetings isn’t to give your team an info dump and then send them back into the field. The goal is to make your meetings count, improving your sales and getting the most from your team.

To do that, add fun and interesting skill building exercises, team bonding activities, or even bring in an expert to teach something new.

Use your meeting time to strengthen your sales team and you’ll see the benefit in your business turnover.

3. Give Everyone the Floor

Being talked at for the duration of a meeting really makes it feel like a drag for your team.

Instead, get them engaged by making sure at least some of the meeting time is dedicated to giving everyone a chance to have their say.

Keep the conversation productive with direct questions and great time management to make sure everyone gets a chance to contribute without the discussion getting too far away from the key point.

If you make the conversation about everyone, your team will be more engaged.

4. Presentations? Make Them Pop

Presentations can be an engaging way to get your point across during sales meetings. Or they can be the point when your sales team starts surreptitiously checking their smartphones.

To make presentations work for you, keep them sharp and relevant. Try adding multimedia such as sound bites, video or images, and inject something new, unexpected, humorous or interesting to keep your team’s attention.

Make time in your presentation for interaction, such as questions or even a simple show of hands.

5. Make Time for Motivation

Adding motivation to your team meetings adds an element of fun and competition that encourages your team to do better.

You can offer rewards, for both a job well done, and for excelling at in-meeting activities. The rewards can be as simple or as impressive as you like. Don’t forget the simple act of thanking your team, praising the team as a whole and any particularly outstanding performers.

Make sure your team knows you appreciate them, and give them a reason to give you their best.

Your sales team meetings don’t have to be a chore.

Following these tips will help you build meetings that your team will benefit from, leaving them feeling valued, motivated, and with new skills ready to bring to the table.

Photo credit: Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

About the Author: Tristan Anwyn writes on a wide variety of topics, including social media, SEO, sales skills and team meetings.

5 Social Customer Service Tools You Should Know About

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By Diana Gomez

Gone are the days of customer service phones ringing off the hook.

While some people may still want to use traditional means to connect with companies, modern consumers rarely want to pick up the phone if they experience a customer-service issue.

Instead, they’re turning to social media to voice concerns and ask questions, knowing that a simple tweet is often the best way to address an issue quickly and easily.

Social customer service tools

Did you know that 42 percent of consumers who complain on social media expect a response no more than 60 minutes later?

This may seem unreasonable, but compare that with the time it should take for a resolution via phone. And these days, the advent of social media has not only opened up more communication channels, but it has lowered patience. A recent study showed that people who complain on social media on nights and weekends expect the same service and response time as they would during normal Monday through Friday business hours. How can companies keep up with that? What a beast.

Smart companies are catching on that social media is their strongest customer service tool. KLM, for example, the leading airline in customer service, realized the importance of social media in 2010 when Icelandic ash left tens of thousands of customers stranded in airports everywhere. It was the biggest interruption to European air traffic since World War II.

Those customers turned to social media for solutions to their travel woes, and KLM responded. Soon after, the airline made social media the focus of its customer service efforts. Resolution time was cut to one day, and one social media post is responded to within one hour — and it all happens via social media.

There are several tools out there ready to help companies get their customer service needs under control as efficiently as possible using social media. Here are a few I’ve found to be worthwhile.

Salesforce

Salesforce is the tool that drives the customer-service machine of KLM. How does it work? Its system extracts customer-service requests from over 150 million social media networks, blogs, forums and more using customized keyword identifiers. The tool’s technology works its magic by searching comments and phrases combining, for example, #KLM, @KLM, and any KLM mentions with customer-service trigger words like “help” or “my flight is late.”

The cool part is that the software can then prioritize the results automatically using the purchase history of the customer and their activity level on social media. So if you have a big Twitter following and you’re a frequent flier, you’ll probably be placed at the front of the customer-service queue. Pretty nifty.

LiveOps Social

Another social customer service tool, LiveOps Social, is a cloud-based contact center/virtual call center software. But instead of tickets submitted through voice, online contact forms, or email, it searches requests on Twitter and Facebook and then submits a ticket that way. The concern is then placed in a service queue alongside all the other requests, but it is prioritized according to the customer’s social and service history.

Social Dynamx

This social customer service tool lets companies manage one-on-one, real-time social conversation. The system automatically routes customers to an agent based on his or her expertise, work group, current caseload, average time to respond and service satisfaction rate. Work groups represent different issues, so say a product has a very specific issue — a work group is created to address that particular concern, and they’ll receive all the tweets relating to that issue. If a customer prefers a different agent, or expert, that change can be easily made.

SparkCentral

Companies that handle a high volume of customer service requests are turning to social media helpdesk platform SparkCentral. Formerly known as TwitSpark, the key to its success lies in the response time. This tool provides super fast and efficient follow-up customer service over Facebook and Twitter. From seemingly petty problems to crisis management, it’s all automatically prioritized and attended to promptly.

ConverSocial

Used by big companies like Google, Barclaycard, and Hertz, ConverSocial is a cloud-based social service solution for large-scale monitoring. Using sophisticated technology, the service decides for itself whether or not a social media complaint warrants a response.

Any Tweeter out there can understand that not every tweet deserves an agent to spend his or her time responding to it. ConverSocial totally gets that. Like other tools, it prioritizes a response according to social and customer history. More serious issues of course would go to the front of the queue. If a response is delayed, the system automatically reroutes the issue to a new agent.

Has your company used social media to resolve customer service issues? Please share your experiences in the comments!

Author’s Bio: Diana Gomez is the Marketing Coordinator at Lyoness America, where she integrates social customer service and business marketing strategies for USA and Canada. Lyoness is an international shopping community and loyalty rewards program, where businesses and consumers benefit with free membership and money back with every purchase.

Is your productivity productive?

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“Does it generate revenue?”

This is one of the questions that floated around the room during our Genius Shared retreat in Chicago a few months ago.

clock says time lost cannot be regained

We were discussing goals, productivity, and action plans (things that send a tingle up the spine of every productivity nerd).

But many of us forget to apply the “does it generate revenue” test to our actions.

If you’re running a business, this has to be the litmus test for everything we do during working hours. Not that every single thing you do has a direct line to revenue, just that you get those things done FIRST.

Yes, you can write a blog post (just make sure you’ve optimized it with a call to action).

Yes, you can Tweet (just track results…have you created a social segment in Google Analytics?).

No, you can’t keep your personal Facebook page open on your desktop all day.

Yes, you can attend a luncheon for people in your industry (just go in with a plan to chat with potential partners).

No, you don’t need to check email more than 5 times in an 8 hour work day.

Yes, you can go for a run after you accomplish that one big revenue-generating thing for the day.

On a day-to-day basis, make sure that you’re investing time in the things that will keep your business moving forward.

What are you doing FIRST today? Does it generate revenue?

Author’s Bio: Rosemary O’Neill is an insightful spirit who works for social strata — a top ten company to work for on the Internet . Check out the Social Strata blog. You can find Rosemary on Google+ and on Twitter as @rhogroupee

Photo Credit: gothick_matt via Compfight cc

Providing the Full Value of a Purchase

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By Lisa D. Jenkins

I’m building my backpack gear set and this past weekend I bought a sleeping bag. Not a regular “throw something on the floor because we’re out of beds” type bag, but a serious “keep me warm in the wilderness at zero degrees” type bag.

sleeping bags

I had no idea where to start, so naturally I began researching on the internet. I learned all kinds of important buzz words: R factor, temperature rating, fill power. These words were everywhere, the implication being they were important and should be factored into my purchase decision. The issue was that I didn’t understand HOW to factor them in.

I’m a newbie.

Armed with my fledgling knowledge I went out into the brick and mortar world to find someone with expertise who could help me choose the right bag.

My first stop was a well-known big name outdoor store. The clerk was mostly friendly but seemed a bit exasperated when I used the words I’d learned during research. I lined out how I expected to use my bag, explained I’d be backpacking with it and asked her to point me toward likely contenders and help me choose one.

She walked me to a rack of hanging bags pointed to one end and said, “The women’s bags are at this end. Each one is tagged with specs you can use to figure out which one you want.”

Tags. So basically, reading – like I’d done on the internet – before I walked through the front door of this store with the hope that an educated human could help me? Not what I expected.

We left and headed to another outdoor store. Where I hit paydirt.

The owner spent almost an hour and a half explaining everything I needed to understand about sleeping bags so I could choose exactly the right bag. I learned that, for me, loft was more important than fill, and that fill was more important than temperature rating. I also learned that fill power is misleading and that temperature ratings are incredibly subjective.

Then I looked at tags on roughly a dozen bags, and this time I understood how to filter the tag information. I took an hour getting in and out of two bags and deciding which one I wanted. It’s a bit heavier than I’d expected, weighing in at just under 3 pounds, but I am fully confident it’s the right bag for me.

On our way out, I realized the store had been closed for an hour and half. I was so embarrassed. I began apologizing and the owner told me no apologies were necessary. Then he said, “I don’t want you to be sorry about the time you spent here. That time let me give you the full value of your purchase. You let me teach you how to make the right choice for you and that’s important because you’re unique and your needs are unique. This type of sale is one of my favorites.”

And that’s when it hit me.

Buzz words are like sleeping bag tags.

We all use them – sometimes with irony and sometimes in earnest. What those of us who use those words in blog posts, presentations and website copy need to remember is that buzz words serve us, the holders of knowledge, not the customers who need the knowledge.

Customers come to us because they need our product or expertise. Tossing a bunch of jargon at them from a landing page or slide deck doesn’t let us speak to their unique needs. Nor does it help them truly understand how we’re the best fit for the gap they need to fill.

Get around the buzz words.

Every website has copy and the use of some words is inescapable because things like SEO matter. But there are ways to go beyond the buzz words and help customers feel confident in choosing our services or products over those of another vendor.

Follow the buzz words up with simple language that demystifies what you offer.

Install live chat on your website so prospects can communicate with a human.

Respond to inquiries with a phone call instead of an email.

At a certain point, our customers need to have some questions answered. They might not even know which questions to ask. It’s our job to help them learn what those questions are and how to prioritize the answers for themselves so they can make an informed decision.

When we give customers the full value of their purchase, they’ll convert with confidence.

Author’s Bio: Lisa D. Jenkins is a Public Relations professional specializing in Social and Digital Communications for businesses. She has over a decade of experience and work most often with destination organizations or businesses in the travel and tourism industry in the Pacific Northwest. Connect with her on Google+

Photo Credit: sdbrown via Compfight cc

3 painless ways to get prospects to commit more often

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By Scott Dailey

Every year your sales manager adds up your “Yes’s” and your “No’s.” And in both of these buckets resides a few of each. I mean after all, that’s sales. There’s always a few when compared against the hundreds or even thousands you tried all year to persuade.

But there’s another bucket, another category of leads that needs to be measured with far greater emphasis then were your wins and losses.

Three railroad tracks diverging

It’s that category of lead that, year after year, actually by contrast to the other two, is filled to the point that it’s spilling over and out of its container.

It’s the “Unknowns.”

What came of those perpetually silent buyers you doggedly pursued?

You know the ones. You’d try tirelessly to apply the techniques outlined in your latest Dale Carnegie read, only to see each of your efforts met with a roaring silence that seemed to grow antagonistically louder with each try? Not even a “No” out of them. Just silence. A screaming, nagging and endless quiet.

So there you are, each year adding up the wins and losses, and examining in some decidedly perfunctory and obligatory manner, those very leads we learned little from because they unceremoniously escaped our grasp like air casually fizzles out of a balloon.

And off we go to do it all again another year.

“Why not, ‘No’?”, you ask yourself over and over again. And I agree. Why didn’t you get at least a “No?” Here’s why: you didn’t insist on one. You were so concerned with being polite, ginger and careful, that you’ve forgotten that you have a right to clarity. You’ve forgotten that you’ve earned the right to demand clarity.

If this describes you, you have fallen for one of the biggest traps I see sales reps fall into most: the “I’m only a sales rep” trap.

Let me explain.

I have a 10-year-old. If you were to ask him three or more years ago what Daddy does, he would have told you, “My dad fixes computers.” As a matter of fact, his mother would have also added that Daddy also fixes hair driers, TVs or blenders – or for that matter, anything with wires attached to it. Three or more years ago, this explanation sufficed nicely. If I told my son then what I really do, he would have never understood. It’s too complicated for a child that young. So I waited.

Fast-forward to today. Only recently my now 10-year-old son asked me again, “Dad, what do you do at work.” This time I told him the truth. I said, “Fin, Dad makes sure people have jobs, so they can pay their mortgage, their rent and feed their kids.”

Let’s get something straight: you are not a sales person.

Don’t let your silent prospects lull you into thinking that’s what you are either. You are a facilitator of commerce. Your job is to make sure your buyers have revenue, which creates paychecks, which keeps the rain off of their heads. That’s mighty damn important work! Letting your buyer’s silence marginalize the importance you play in their lives is not only narrow-minded, it’s also extraordinarily selfish of you. How dare you keep your buyers from the success your solutions can produce for them.

Force your buyer with everything you have to commit to something.

A “Yes” is a commitment. A “No,” while far less desirable, is also a commitment. Here are three key ways I attempt with every pitch to get a commitment from my buyers.

1. Remind them that clarity is your goal, not the sale.

Early, you’re likely busy pledging time to building trust. Those initial efforts should be led by declarative statements that convey your desire for clarity, over the sale. A few things happen when you take this approach: (a), you send a disarming message to the buyer that you’re actually happy to walk away promptly if it doesn’t fit. (B), you’re conversing! You’ve engaged your buyer in conversation that has nothing to do with your proposal, but rather the ease with which communicating with you occurs. This is a wonderful and organic way to establish a trusting partnership. And (c), You’re standing out. Imagine how many pressure sales situations your buyers have seen throughout their careers. Now imagine how unlike theirs is by comparison to yours. Nice job! You’re now rising above the noise.

2. If your initial attempts are met with silence, double down.

Weakness gets you nowhere. Buyers are busy, in demand and frankly probably have a lot of bad habits that cause your email to drop to the bottom of their inbox.

They’re not saying, “No” because they know your service is important to them. You’re just not important enough to move up their poorly conceived list of priorities. Get them to commit by asking them tough questions about the very things that matter to them: their legacy with their firm, cash flow, payroll.

Be direct and respectful. Believe it or not, those two characteristics can reside within the same conversation – written or spoken. You can be both frank and professional. Is your buyer so swimming in success that five minutes with you would constitute a colossal and categorical waste of their time? Of course not. And this leads me to #3.

3. Reduce the scale and grandiosity of your “Ask.”

Stop leading with, “OMG, I gotta get this sale!” Try downgrading the size and requirements of your “Ask.” Instead of asking to present, ask for an appointment. Better yet, instead of the appointment, ask for five minutes. Compel them to give you five minutes. Say something like, “you’ll know in two minutes, if the additional three will be worth your time.” Or perhaps combine ideas #2 and #3 to form something like this: “Surely you’ve blown five minutes professionally on tasks far less important than how to generate new revenue channels.” Heck, I bet your buyers have wasted more time thinking of reasons not to give you those five measly minutes.

Remember, you are not a sales person. That’s just a label lazy people give to people skilled enough to create revenue. You are a facilitator of commerce. You direct revenue from your buyer’s customers into your buyer’s hands. I can think of few vocations more honorable, more integral and frankly, more worthy of your time.

Obligate your buyers to commit to their future. A “No” is a commitment to an outcome, same as is a “Yes.” Stop letting them enjoy the view from the cheap seats and help them see the outcome of their decision to say, “Yes” or their decision to say, “No.”

So, next month if you continue to have a bucket overflowing with “Unknowns,” stop believing what can be done, has been done. Demand clarity. Get them to commit to an answer. If they want you, but can’t find a way to prioritize you, then help them see the loss in their silence. Help them see the enormity of the decision to answer with silence. And in those less complex cases when they simply don’t want you, make them declare that to you.

Make them say it: “I. Don’t. Want. You.”

Author’s Bio: Scott Dailey is the Director of Strategic Development for the digital marketing company Single Throw, in Wall, New Jersey. Scott leads the marketing and sales department for Single Throw and is an ardent lover of all things digital marketing and lead generation. You can follow Scott on Twitter at @scottpdailey or visit his blog at scottpdailey.com.

Image via Flickr creative commons by marfis75.