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Businesses small & large deal with sales objections every day. Not every client will decide for themselves and sometimes, they have to be convinced. There's no secret sauce or tricks to figuring out where your prospect's concerns are coming from, but dealing with them directly, concisely, and honestly is perhaps the best approach.

Cost

No matter how you price your product, there's always going to be someone who'll think that it's priced too high. It doesn't matter if you'd lose money if you decide to lower pricing, people will want it more dirt cheaper. Who can blame them? Money isn't always easy to come by. Working around it is relatively simple, though you can't really guarantee success for every negotiations in your sales pipeline.

What you might have to do is to outline where each expense is coming from, essentially justifying price to your client or customer. Don't forget on how all those expenses come together to produce a unique service that your client can't get anywhere else to help seal a deal. But, largely explaining line-item wise is best avoided if the customer's focus is not more about value you deliver over money spent.

"Things are okay as they are" Most people go by "Don't fix if it isn't broken" philosophy. A good way to work around that one is to simply mention that you're not fixing what isn't broken. You are providing them with an improved service that gives them more for their money and time.

Lack of Trust In You, Your Company, or Product

This common sales objection will come up at some point, especially if you're a new or small business, the only way to work through it is to earn that trust with openness, transparency, and references. Your business needs to be on track every step of the way to that trust. Sales people often fear customer objections. Actually, objections are beginning of serious sales process, not the end of it. With a right approach, handling customer objections will increase both sales and customer satisfaction.

"… In sales, when you're nice, people like you. When people like you, they're willing to entertain your idea."

Redesign sales processes with focus on personal interaction. Often, large organizations spend a great deal of money on sales processes that prove ineffective because a personal element of a sale is not properly addressed. Sales managers need to redesign sales management process with a focus on personal interaction and understand that it is imperative they follow-up after sale is closed. Personal interaction with prospective customers can make a great difference in profit margins, but mostly, when sales force effectiveness is improved, it can create long-term and on-going customer relationships.

Purchase decision-making factors reassessed

The final decision to make a purchase is generally influenced by several factors, which includes the buyer’s past experience, demographic factors (age, sex, education, income), cognitive biases based on beliefs in personal relevance and brand commitment. We wrote a post about curbing the anchoring effects in sales. Anchoring is a cognitive bias, usually prominent when you start relying too much on the first peice of information to make a sales decision.

".. In a startup culture, you’re the chief salesman. Always create a sense of demand, rather than waiting to have demand."

Different sets of values are coming down to a purchase decision. Sales managers need to analyze and consider these factors (values in order to understand what drives purchase decisions and what may have an impact on your sales outcome. At the same time, they need to consider respect an organizational hirerachy. Sometimes, personal biases and desires may distort information about their customers.

Sales managers as "financial advisors"

In the competitive business environment of today, organizations are reallocating their resources with a focus on 'cost cutting'. Sales managers need to understand difference between cost and value in order to develop an effective value proposition. The next step is to implement pricing and margin management practices. The trend portrays sales managers learning finance fundamentals in order to better understand business and impact of discount, price and margin management on sales. In doing so, they will be able to achieve better profit margins.

Before you read this..

Here's a blog detailing the sales side of marketing. Did you know that 45% of telesales reps feel they do not have the right analytics before making a sales call? Enlarge your sales capacity and close at least 30% of your sales deals better with the right partners. Good Marketing helps you convert faster, and lessens time on your sales pipelines. Read on ⟶

Effective time management

Sales managers have to be skilled at effective time management in order to manage hundreds of customer accounts, often in distant areas This helps them maintain their resources and keep track of their large customer base. Effective time management is supported by a great number of analytical tools that assist sales teams to categorize prospective customers (who would probably be interested in new sales offers) and existing customers (In aim of converting them into repeated customers). Nowadays, sales managers are trained to organize their sales teams in a way that can allow sufficient time for follow up with customers and offer best solution to their needs. Effective time management becomes a major challenge when you start using the right collaboration tools.

CRM changes to CX

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has proved to be a successful business strategy over the past few years. However, as products and services become increasingly commoditization and easier sold over the Internet, sales managers need to do more than manage the relationship with their customers. They need to implement a total strategy that can provide them with information about a customer’s total experience with the organization in order to enhance customer satisfaction. CRM is being taken over by customer experience management (CX), which seeks to make any customer interaction with the organization a positive one, so that customer satisfaction and loyalty are cumulatively addressed. Customer experience is expected to help sales managers achieve better sales results.

Addressing social media marketing

Businesses use "Social Media Marketing" as an effective communications tool. Sales managers now integrate social media into their sales schedules with an aim to reach a broader group of prospective customers and expand their customer base. Social media allows sales managers and organizations to capitalize on great advantages of online marketing and gain a competitive advantage by improving their positioning. The results can be impressive as social media offers opportunity of instant promotion to a huge customer base globally, thus building a reputation for any sales organization.

Phone-based sales

As organizations become increasingly competitive on a global level, management expect sales teams to make greater use of mobility and teleconferencing services through advanced Smartphone technology. Perhaps, the most obvious trend is shift from field-based sales to phone-based sales. Yet, this is a major challenge for sales managers as physical presence is mandatory in sales.

".. Sales reps who are resourceful invest 90% time outside any workplace. One can't arrive close sitting behind desks."

On the other hand, when technology is properly used it can significantly contribute to higher sales profits. If customers feel they can reach the management anytime, anywhere, they are more likely to agree on purchasing. Sales managers need to take advantage of this trend in order to establish mutually exclusive, long-term relationships with their customers and convert this trend into a win-win situation.

Customers in charge of buying process

Over the recent years, customers have become more sophisticated. They know their needs and are able to find the right product or service that can meet and satisfy these needs. Instead of waiting for a salesperson to give them a call, they take initiative of putting up barriers in pre-purchase stage. They research and update themselves to make their final purchase decision. Sales managers need to understand shift of consumer behavior, where customers are in charge of buying process in order to achieve better service. Customers are keen to address a genuine interest of the salesperson to meet their need to just complete a profitable sale. This is a major challenge for sales managers, and handle the complicated play of selling when it comes to pitching products to a gate-keeper, an influencer vs a decision maker.

Outsourcing

The more sophisticated customers become, the more expertise they require from sales consultants. This puts sales managers on the quest for expert sellers. Sales teams need to add value to "selling relationship" and be able to offer customized services to their customers. This not only will allow them to complete a sale, but also to avoid product monetization that has thin profit margins and invites more suppliers to sell at a lower cost. Expert sellers who handle outsourced sales have an advantage in credibility and sales effectiveness when they communicate their passion for your product/services in demand and are physically present to solve customer problems and challenges. And, its a wise choice to outsource the sales process if your business demands sales outsourcing!

Use Customer Objections to Increase Sales

Many sales professionals-perhaps even most-dread the moment a customer comes up with a serious objection to the product being offered. Instead of dreading objections, salespeople should hope for them. Until there is an objection there is almost no chance of a sale.

Sales consultants need not be spoon-fed, they teach themselves how to sell. Some of the best salespeople learn how to be persuasive as kids & capitalize on naturally when they grow. Good salesmanship is nothing more than maximizing the positive and minimizing the negative. Every great entrepreneur is wired the same way. They are great salesmen.

A company can’t succeed without a sales team at the helm. You need to be able to sell your product/service to build a business.

In conclusion, the challenges of rapidly changing business environment can be anticipated with new trends in business landscape. Sales managers need to adjust their sales practices according, in order to capitalize on beneficial customer relationships and higher profits. On the other hand, it is important to foresee potential downswings in profitability. The extensive use of technology may undermine an importance of physical presence in sales.

WeLoveSales

A fisherman does not dread a tug on his line. In fact, he eagerly awaits it. It is his cue that he may accomplish his objective if he acts with skill and finesse. If you are a salesman, a serious objection is the tug on your line. People do not object to things in which they have no interest, they obviously ignore them. When a customer tells you what they don't like about a product, they are implicitly telling you what they do like. Good luck SELLING!