1: The prospective client says, “The motor is too loud.”
Or, “I don’t like forest green.”
She is objecting to the noise of our product. Or, the color.
“Rainmakers welcome customer objections,” Jeffrey Fox writes in How to Become a Rainmaker, “because they know objections are simply the way customers express their desires.”
When we’re told: “Your price is too high,” we know our prospect’s objective is to get the correct value for the money invested.
“The objection tells the Rainmaker that the customer does not yet have enough information to make a positive buying decision,” Jeffrey notes.
2: What does the Rainmaker do with objections? She restates what was said as a question outlining a mutual objective.
The customer says, “Your delivery time is too long.”
The Rainmaker responds, “So our objective is to get you the product when you want it, correct?”
Why does this approach work so well?
“First,” Jeffrey notes, “this technique changes the tone of the language from adversarial to positive.
“Second, the customer’s yes response is an agreement—an invitation to continue the discussion.
And “third, the Rainmaker can now ask more questions to perfectly understand the customer’s concern and to move to a mutually acceptable solution.”
The Rainmaker continues asking questions. Like: “When exactly do you need the product?”
And, then: “If you will commit today to a six-month purchase agreement, we can forecast monthly shipments, thereby ensuring that you will get the product on the first of the month, every month.
“Why don’t we give this a try for six months?”
3: Customers are typically going to have questions and concerns. They need reassurance. They want to know more “about price, affordability, delivery, reliability, size, color, warranty, availability, and myriad other issues,” Jeffrey notes.
“These concerns are sometimes spoken and sometimes not,” he writes. “These concerns vary by customer and vary in importance.”
Rainmakers see objections as opportunities to share knowledge and information.
“Rainmakers love objections. . . They encourage objections,” Jeffrey observes, “especially the hidden or unspoken ones.”
Because they know “that the sale cannot be made until every customer concern, no matter how trivial it seems, is satisfactorily handled.”
And if the sale is not made, Rainmakers always ask: “Is there anything else that concerns you?” Or, “What else may be prohibiting us from moving ahead?”
More tomorrow!
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Reflection: How adept am I at handling objections? How might I utilize the tools that Jeffrey outlines above?
Action: Try it out. Run an experiment.
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