Sales trainers are often asked to help sales people come up with new methods to overcome objections, in other words how to respond when a buyer says ‘No’.

Well first of all you have to understand there are many different types of ‘No’ and if you fail to position which one you have heard you are not likely to respond in an appropriate manner.

So this article is aimed to help salespeople appreciate four different types of ‘NO’

NO – I can’t afford it.
Sometimes people want exactly what you are offering; unfortunately they simply cannot afford it. In B2B situations maybe their budget simply won’t stretch to your asking price. Maybe they have been given a limit on how much to pay for such an item. However in a B2C environment the decision could be based upon their inability to pay the price you are asking.

NO – I can’t justify it.
Often people would like to go ahead with your proposal but feel they might struggle to convince other people their decision was justifiable. I am sure many people would like to have the latest high spec computer on their desk with a High Definition touch screen display. However what would other people think if they went ahead and purchased one?

NO – I am going to compare prices and then maybe get a discount from you.
Some buyers will not place an order until they are completely satisfied they have the best possible price. Many consumers are now using price comparison sites to help them satisfy themselves that they have found the best deal available.

NO – I never pay the asking price.
There will always be buyers who simply refuse to pay the asking price. They see it as a personal challenge, and would rather walk away from buying something they really wanted and could afford than pay the full asking price.

The greater understanding you have of the type of buyer you are dealing with, then the better equipped you will be to correctly interpret their responses, especially if they say ‘NO’!

So remember, before you take ‘No’ for an answer, make sure you understand what type of ‘No’ it is!

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I have wittered on many times about how important it is to create demand or even desire for your products or services BEFORE you try to sell them, and just yesterday I saw a great demonstration of the impact this can have if you do this properly.

As a Mac convert, I could not wait to see the latest keynote from Steve Jobs and his team at the WWDC, a gathering not usually recognised in sales circles. There were over 5200 attendees there; they sold out in 2 hours. They couldn’t find anywhere bigger to host the event!

During the keynote many references were made in relation to Mac’s continuing success I loved the quote by John Paczkowski, of AllThingsD, who said “There’s really no other way to say this: The Mac is kicking ass.”

What an enviable position to be in, to be seen to be so far ahead of your competitors you are ‘kicking ass’?

Mac sales had grown 28% year on year whilst the PC market had shrunk by 1%, and let us not forget that the Mac has been outgrowing the industry for the last 5 years.

There are two key drivers behind this:

1) The ongoing development of some amazing products.
2) The amount of demand this creates.

Just imagine the impact on your business if you were to continually improve your product or service and consequently increase the demand for it.

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No matter how experienced you are, no matter how much sale training you have received, no matter how confident you are and no matter how creative you are, unfortunately there will always be some occasions where you are delivered a negative response.

Background, Attitude, and Curiosity will get you into a situation where you can create demand for your products and services, but only if you’re prepared to face a surprise challenge or objection at any stage of the buying process.

You will be challenged, so you need to be prepared, otherwise you won’t get the chance to progress the sale.

The first thing you need to create is an automatic responses to a negative reaction.

If you are armed with a polite response to a negative answer You will have the chance to progress the call despite the initial negative reaction. If you are not, and they’re unenthusiastic, you will either give up, or feel deflated and start wittering um, actually, basically: or even worse you’ll be all bravado and start telling them ‘You Should really consider this as it is such a good offer……’ which will turn them off even more.

A good reaction to a negative response is:

‘You must have a very good reason for saying that: do you mind if I ask what it is?’

Other potential spins on this can include,

‘You must have a very good reason for/not wanting to see the samples/not wanting to consider this until next spring’ (or whatever). You are still building the relationship while praising their judgement, and at worst you’re seizing the opportunity to do some market research.

By staying calm and positive you let your potential customer know that you are not phased by their response you are simply trying to gain a better appreciation why they responded in that way.

Staying in control will give you a much better chance to create more demand for your solution and keep the opportunity to win the business alive.

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The role of a British sales-person isn’t to ‘sell’ in the American sense. If you want to sell to British customers (and other customers who have somehow acquired the famous British reserve), you have to do something different.
You have to make your potential customers want to buy.
You have to create demand!
The ‘ABC D’ of selling!
No it doesn’t stand for, Always Be Closing…Don’t! My ABCD stands for Always Be Creating DEMAND.
You can call it Desire, if you like. I often do. Either way we are talking about keeping the emphasis on creating a proposition that is shaped around what the customer wants. In our job we are contacting, networking, following up, and our aim is never to concentrate on the close: our challenge is to create demand for what we offer.
Everything we say and do should ensure we increase the amount of desire the customer has to do business with us, so much so I believe we can safely say, “It is not our job to SELL, it is our job to make customers want to buy from us!” Call it facilitating the buying process if you like.
Once that’s done, closing is the easiest part of the job. In fact, if you create enough demand, you don’t ever need to close. The client or customer doesn’t need to be “closed on”. Like an expertly created meal, when it’s done, it’s done. No further work required.

So, how do we create demand?
Well to start with, we have to put our customers, potential and existing, FIRST!
Yeah, I know. Radical eh?
We find out:
Exactly what they are trying to do and what challenges they face
What will help them to achieve their goals
What their customers are demanding of them
How we can potentially help them achieve their goals
What doubts they may have about committing to the transaction
Why it’s in their interests to deal with us, not our competitors.
In fact we have to find out as much as we can about any sales opportunity

The key to achieving this is differentiation. We have to differentiate ourselves from our competitors by gaining a better appreciation of the customer’s precise requirements; if we do this well we can shape our proposition, to fit their expectations. By doing this better than our competitors we will offer a more compelling proposition and we will create more demand. The more demand we create for the proposition the more we make the customer want what we can provide rather than what our competitors offer.
If you can master the art of creating desire or demand, closing the sale is not difficult.
And if you want a route map for how to create demand to buy, how about another mnemonic list:
Attitude
Background research
Curiosity (questioning skills)
Defence against objections.
Over the coming chapters, we will discover what each of these really mean but just to whet your appetite consider this:
Without genuine curiosity and innovative questioning skills, you can’t build background. Without background you can’t create demand. Until you create demand you have not created any differentiation. Without differentiation you face an uphill struggle to overcome objections, which will have a negative impact on your attitude. Without attitude you will lose heart before you master your ABCD…and so it goes on.
This is why you should consider following my ABCD. If you do I promise you the road to successful selling will be a lot less challenging and a lot more enjoyable, not to mention rewarding!

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It was a cold, wet and windy day in 1982 when I set out from Swansea to Staines for an interview, whilst I felt quiet positive about the interview, there seemed to be forces telling me not to go. The day before my car had developed a problem so I had borrowed on from a good friend. I left in plenty of time as I somehow knew the journey would not be a straightforward one.

Dressed in my best suit with my highly polished shoes new shirt and tie I set off five hours before the allotted time of two o’ clock. I had not been in the car more than thirty minutes when the rain got much worse causing traffic to slow down almost to a halt. There were long delays at the Severn Bridge I was pleased with myself for allowing so much time. As I passed the bridge I could see the sky getting even darker this was not going to be a pleasant journey.

About ten minutes later everything suddenly went black I realised the bonnet on David’s car has popped up as I was doing fifty miles an hour on the M4! Not being able to see anything ahead was very scary I indicated and slowly pulled left onto the hard shoulder and got out to have a look.

By the time I had got the bonnet down I was soaked wet through. What was I to do now? Carry on and get to the interview looking like a vagabond or give in to the forces and turn around. I decided to carry on and find somewhere to tidy up before going to the interview. The rest of the journey was carried out in the slow lane (Not one I had ever used much prior to that day) travelling at speeds around 30 miles per hour, getting some very strange looks from everybody who passed me!

Eventually I arrived at Staines and found the offices; I drove passed them to the nearest pub (No not for a drink although I certainly needed one!) and found the quietest corner of the car park. Stripping all my wet clothes off and turning the heating up full blast I reckoned I had about ten minutes to dry them. After ten minutes I dressed again in the heavily steamed up car and headed to the pub toilets to straighten myself up, I looked at myself in the mirror and could not believe my eyes. None of the preparation was apparent I looked a mess! Yet again I thought about turning back and heading home, something inside told me not to.

Ten minutes later I was in the reception area waiting to meet the sales director, he ushered me into his office offered me a coffee and a cigarette, (It was a long time ago) and asked, “Did you have a good journey down?” I accepted both and told him exactly what had happened. He took one look at me and said “If that is true, I certainly admire your tenacity” I suddenly realised that not turning round and going home was exactly the right decision.

Almost thirty years on I still know I made the right decision as that day changed my life, when I was offered my first job in sales!

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So the new financial year has started for many companies, and a number of them will be finalising or implementing their training and development plans. There is always a pressure on managers to get the best return on investment from any training and this year will probably prove to be more demanding than previous years in that respect.

So this month’s article is aimed at helping you ask some questions about your planned training initiatives prior to making that all important decision.

1. How can you ensure the training will align the delegates’ individual needs with organisational goals?
2. Will the training be tailored to the current skills levels and the skills and competencies defined in their role profile?
3. Have the expected behaviour changes and measures of success be committed to before the training event?
4. Are you certain the training motivate the participants sufficiently to instigate the required behavioural changes?
5. Are the managers of the participants fully committed to this initiative?
6. Will the delivery of the training be participative, memorable and enjoyable?
7. Has some form of follow up coaching plan been developed and agreed?
8. Will the training be measured, both quantitatively and qualitatively?

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If every business, every customer, every objective and every sales person is different then a sales training course designed for someone else’s sales team is unlikely to be right for your sales team.

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Depending on the size of your team there will be a number of different types within your overall team, and it is highly likely that the majority of your sales team will not be made up of ‘Star Performers’ ,
They probably look something like this:

Star Performer: Limited in numbers, worth their weight in gold!
High Pressure Closer: Wins their share of business, – fails to build long lasting relationships.
Relationship Specialist: Builds good customer relationships, – can fail to spot sales opportunities.
Sales Scholar: A professional student of sales, NOT a sales professional.
Systems Specialist: Knows their way around the systems, – doesn’t spend enough time with customers.

So it is important do everything you can to develop your team and create more ‘Star Performers’
Often when a sales training initiative is being considered, reasons for NOT training certain groups are identified, some examples are listed below:

Possible Reasons not to train:
Star Performer: Too valuable to take off the road!
High Pressure Closer: Would be offended if they believed we think they need training.
Relationship Specialist: Will always be a good account manager, but not proactive enough to warrant training.
Sales Scholar: Has probably heard it all before.
Systems Specialist: Don’t spend enough time in face to face selling situations to deliver an acceptable ROI.

However, it is not a good idea to exclude these groups from sales training events
here are some reasons why:

Star Performer: As they do such a good job they will be upset from being excluded from such an event. These people are eager to learn and open to change.

High Pressure Closer: Send this group on the pilot programme the more they are involved the more they will tell their peers what a great course it is.

Relationship Specialist: Managing an account is not enough in today’s business environment. Developing new business from both existing and new accounts is critical.

Sales Scholar: This group need to understand how to implement their ideas. Behavioural change is the key.

Systems Specialist: Even utilising today’s technology, salespeople in this group need to develop better influencing skills so they are more confident in the face to face selling situation.

Location, Location, Location, most people understand the significance of this in the property market so why not adopt a Training, Training, Training mentality when considering the ongoing development of your sales team?

The more you train your salespeople, the better they will become. They will be able to adapt their selling style to accommodate different types of buyer. They will be equipped to ask better quality questions and by listening to the answers create more proposals that meet the requirements of your customers. They will be more motivated to make important changes to their everyday routines. They will make more of an effort to differentiate themselves from your competitors’ sales people. The potential benefits are endless.

In order to realise these benefits there are three key elements that need to be in place:
1. Pre training communication
2. The training event
3. Follow up

Pre training Communication:
The more a sales person understands why they are being asked to attend a training event, and more importantly what’s in it for them, the more they can link the corporate benefits to what impact it will have of their personal motivators the more they will want to participate.

The Training Event:
These people are used to being out and about. Make sure the event is interesting, relevant and participative. They will all know what it is like to fight to stay awake as a trainer waffles on for hours demonstrating their new Power Point skills! The more involved they are the more likely they are to discover how new ideas could impact their results.

Follow up:
From action planning to coaching, there are many ways to follow up the training itself. In order to achieve the maximum return on investment you will need to decide how you are going to measure the results. Remember -You can’t manage what you don’t measure!

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We are currently seeking three companies who would like to transform their sales in the coming year.

As some of our interim projects coming to an end, appleton are looking for three new companies to work with in 2011.

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