What, exactly, are they scared of?
Sales Anxiety was the basis of my research at The University of Texas in grad school and why many people dislike “selling.” It turns out, it’s not simply SELLING IN GENERAL that a person dislikes, the majority of people specifically dislike the stages of Prospecting and Handling Objections.
Arguing without arguing
It’s tricky when it comes to refuting the customer’s protests (“It’s too expensive!” “I don’t need that.”), because, as a sales person, you are balancing two competing goals: arguing your side while maintaining a positive relationship with your customer.
Feel-Felt-Found
So, how do you argue with a client in a diplomatic way? Use the Feel-Felt-Found strategy to answer their objections:
Prospect: “This service seems awfully expensive…”
You: “I know how you feel. One of best clients felt the same way last year because our product price was 5% higher than their previous vendor’s. What they found was that, while we cost a bit more up front, our premier support saved them over $9,000 annually in service costs. In the end, the client actually saved money over the lifetime of the product.”
Let Someone Else Do the Arguing
The idea is to acknowledge the prospect’s concerns, and using a proxy (another client), show why the concern might be unfounded. Let your client handle the objection for you! Of course, to do this well you will need to be familiar with your client base and why they’ve bought from your organization in the past.
This works well in presentations if you proactively use Feel-Felt-Found to pre-empt objections that you commonly hear. You’ll seem savvy and fair-minded!