Don’t Try and Overcome Objections.

Ok, this is going to sound like a radical, even crazy idea at first. But if you stick with me, and think about this, you will see that it makes perfect sense. If you’re in the world of selling for any length of time, then you have come up against objections. Objections, a ‘bad word’ for many sales people, a time to fight for some or a challenge to rise to for others. Most sales people struggle with objections and want to know the best way to handle them.

Well, think about this: Who is it that has the objection? Is it YOU? No. You have no objection with your product or service and you would buy what you sell every time. It’s the prospective customer who has a “reason” not to buy. So then, why do sales people try to overcome an objection, when it is actually the customer who needs to overcome the objection?

I’m not being sarcastic or funny here, I’m serious. You see, sales people do everything to come up with ways to overcome an objection when it isn’t really possible. Sales techniques teach you, the sales person has to do all sorts of things to overcome an objection, when the truth is it’s the prospect that has to overcome the objection. If the prospect objects on price, they’re the ones who need to get over the price, not you. It is the prospective customer who has to overcome their objection.

Ok, how do you HELP them overcome their objections? That is the key…HELP them. Start thinking differently about objections. Help the customer by giving them more information; more of an education, provide them with the knowledge they need and they will overcome their own objections!

Happy Objection Handling!

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training

Natural Born Sellers

Click here for my comments on Natural Born Sellers Episode III

Stop Press - for my comments on Episode II click here: Natural Born Sellers II

Make sure that you sign up in the top right hand corner of my webpage for regular Natural Born Sellers blog updates.

I’m going to be pulling no punches when commenting on the sales tactics used by the participants - good and bad.

I’ll also be commenting on the companies involved too and what they are doing well and what they could be doing better to make more sales so watch this space!

Natural Born Sellers will be avid viewing I’m sure!

Make sure that you don’t miss the show every Thursday at 9:00pm and also my comments on a Friday morning.

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training

Telephone:
0800 849 6732

Natural Born Sellers - The ITV’s answer to The Apprentice?

Click here for my comments on Episode V

Click here for my comments on Episode IV 

Click here for my comments on Natural Born Sellers Episode III

Stop Press - for my comments on Episode II click here: Natural Born Sellers II 

It was more like the "Diet Coke Of The Apprentice" or "The Low Fat Spread Of The Apprentice" as Dr Evil would say! Now I know loads of people will whine "But it’s not supposed to be like The Apprentice" and I’ll reply back with "Bull - there are too similarities and which show came first?"

Don’t get me wrong, another time and another place and this show would be a huge hit and although I enjoyed watching it, I still had the feeling as if it was after the Lord Mayor’s Show somewhat. I also think it will do well to remain on ITV 1 for the full 6 weeks but time will tell and I have been wrong once before.

So what is the concept of the show?

Well 8 sales people battle it out to earn as much commission as possible over 6 weeks working at a variety of different companies with a 6 figure prize at stake. Each week there is a "TOP DOG" who has to vote off one of the bottom two earners in commission.

So here are my thoughts on show 1… IDEAL HOMES FURNITURE STORE The show started off introducing a super confident 25 year old called Scott who made me cringe a little with his intro.

There’s a fine line between feeling confident on the inside but coming across as arrogant and Scott has this problem. Two frightened pensioners looked like rabbits in the headlights as they were being bulldozered into the sale - what would he have been like if the cameras were not there I wondered?

Sure, he made the sale. But was it out of skill or intimidation? Would those same people come back again for anything else? Scott was then pulled up for being late and blagged the Sales Manager Andy.

He then ratted on one of his fellow sales team - overall he is the type of stereotypical gum chewing wide boy who thinks he’s Tom Cruise out of Cocktail or Maverick from Top Gun! He did make a huge blunder when out in the car park trying to coax buyers in. He approached a couple who said "We’ve already been in the store and couldn’t find what we wanted" and he just let them walk on by. He should have offered to help them look and take them back in the store - you can’t sell chairs standing next to a Wheely Bin in the car park me ole China!

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Carrying on with the "Let’s beat up Scott theme" - sorry mate but you had it coming and you’ve got broad shoulders - when the Sales Manager gave him some feedback he just did not want to listen "I just want to hear positives" he said.

Well guess what?

Sales is a profession where you will "fail" 70% of the time so you’d better get used to bad news and learning from your mistakes is the only way you will learn.

I loved Scott’s positive mental attitude by the way - this should not be tempered and there is no doubt he can sell, this is not in question - what is in question is the way he sells. I believe he has enough raw material to earn 500k per year as a sales person if he could channel his skills and sales approach in the right direction. My God, I’m sounding like a Jedi Master!

Moving onto to some of the other "Natural Born Sellers"… I liked Danny. I’d employ him. Down to earth and he listened to his customers, focussing on building rapport rather than being a smart $%£^! Thea - "I’m used to sophisticated sales"

Yeah right.

If flashing your nellies and low cut tops help you to close "sophisticated sales" then Jordan could make a mint selling top of the range linux servers. Now let me think of some of the other words of wisdom I can pass onto my sales trainers from Thea for the next time we are delivering a session: "Sex Sells" "It’s an advantage to be good looking" "It’s important to be sultry and easy on the eye" "Selling is like romancing someone - you don’t go to the tiolet half way through chatting someone up"

They are real killers aren’t they?!

Another NO NO in my book was the following line that a chap called Leighton made to some customers: "I don’t mind if you say no, there are plenty of other customers that will say yes" Yup, that must have made your prospects feel real special! Come on! What 1980’s book did he get that from?

Gavin made me laugh when he said "I’ve got the fire in me today" with all of the passion of a wet lettuce. He wasn’t convincing me!

And whatever happened to Anna-Marie? Who? Yes, she was a contestant too but we never heard her name once after the intros. That must mean that she wins it!

So Danny was crowned TOP DOG after the first week and good on ya Dan but probably the winner of the show was IDEAL HOMES FURNITURE STORE who dispelled the myths of hard selling in furniture stores with a philosophy of "Trust and Integrity" said by their Sales Manager Andy.

So there were winners and losers but was everyone being themselves? Are some out for fame at the expense of their sales careers? After all, this is a reality TV show where you never quite know whether people are being the real them or not…

So it’s onwards and upwards to Wakefield where West Yorkshire Windows will be the host for the next episode.

Sean

PS If you’re wondering why I have not mentioned Nick who got fired, in my book he would have been fired on day 1 for turning up late!

Enough said.

Sean McPheat

The UK’s #1 Authority On Sales Success

MTD Sales Training

Telephone: 0800 849 6732

Want to sell properly?

Sign up to receive my FREE weekly sales tips. Just click on the link below and I’ll also send you 20 FREE sales improvement audios as a bonus:

CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP TO THE SALES TIPS

Is It Positive Thinking or Ignorant Bliss?

There was an old man who lived by the side of the road. Fizzy drinks and hot dogs are what he sold. He was hard of hearing and he could barely see, so he had no radio nor did he own a TV. But he did sell hot dogs and he sold them by the case load.

He put up a big sign at the side of the road advertising how good his hot dogs tasted. He’d stand on the street and, “Buy a hot dog!” he would insist. People came by the truckload, his hot dogs they couldn’t resist. His orders for buns grew every week and he stocked up on fizzy drinks, mustard and hot dog sausages.

The old man was selling hot dogs by the ton. He was making money and having fun. But then one day his son came home from college to lend a helping hand, and the young Business Graduate immediately saw something about business his father didn’t understand.

“Dad, don’t you watch TV? Haven’t you heard the news? Fuel prices are up, jobs are down and people are feeling the pinch. You’d better be careful, the young graduate said, “The whole world economy is deep in the red.”

So the old man cut back on his orders for fizzy drinks, hot dog sausages and batches. He took down his big sign by the side of the road. He didn’t bother to yell, “Buy a hot dog!” to the people who passed by. Why, with the economy the way it is, he thought, what good would it do?

The old man’s sales fell overnight, and he had to tell his son that he was right. “You were right; the world is in a recession.” And the man who once sold hot dogs thanked his son for the valuable lesson.

It’s always a good idea to know all you can about your industry and it’s important to be aware of the the state of the economy. However, as this story shows, you certainly don’t always have to accept it.

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training

The 3 Biggest Cold Calling Mistakes

I could talk for hours about advanced cold calling techniques; how to increase cold calling effectiveness and setting appointments and closing sales on the telephone. ‘What am I saying’, I have gone on and on about it hundreds of times in MTD Sales Training Material.

However, I reminded of what my mum always used to say: “Sean, as complex as things may look, they can become really simple if you look at them from a different angle.” So, I did, and realised that although there is a thousand new and extremely advanced techniques I could teach you, looking at the problem from a different angle, I saw there were only a few things that you should NOT do.

Just a few simple things that if you avoid, you’ll increase the results of your cold calling immediately. So, here they are. Avoid these simple cold-call killers and you’ll set a few more appointments and close a lot more sales.

Get rid of the smile and enthusiasm at the beginning of the call. I know all your life you’ve been told to wear a big smile and be enthusiastic, critical mistake. It is the old-school Smile and Dial mentality that has consumers sick and tired of Sales People and Marketers.

Don’t be perfect. You heard, off cause you should learn your “pitch” flawlessly. But remember, stutters, fumbles and broken chains of thought occur naturally in real conversations. No one talks perfectly. The more perfect you sound, the more the prospect knows he’s one of a hundred you’ve called today. Let’s face it who wants to be Mr. 89. That’s why they tell you to “take me of your list”.

Slow it all down! Have some confidence in yourself. Don’t be afraid to let people talk. Welcome a response instead of trying to avoid it. Don’t be afraid to allow the prospect time to think and respond.

Avoiding these three common mistakes won’t solve all your cold calling or telephone marketing problems but they will certainly help make it easier.

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training

The Natural Born Sellers roadshow moved to Wakefield this week with West Yorkshire Windows.

Click here for my comments on Natural Born Sellers Episode III

Here are my observations, comments and thoughts…

A School Boy Error
Danny’s first attempt at a sale was a right cock up. Two straight talking OAP’s came into the showroom, he duly set the appointment, went out to their house, measured up and then gave them a quote that was 50% higher than their budget.

He should have qualified the amount they had to play with and worked around this. Instead, he wasted a lot of time and effort and then came back to work with a right mard on.

Dan The Man, After Dan The Sad Man
Danny won for the second week on the run. However, he had a very slow start bemoaning the fact that he had “nothing to offer them” to make a sale. No discounts, no offers - nothing.
Does that mean that Dan has to have discounts to make his sales? Does it mean that he can’t be “proud” of the prices and sell the value?

Maybe.

This was evident when he deliberately went in 2k over the price with one prospect to be knocked down by the 2k to get the deal. Sure, he said the customer was happy and most likely they were but I’d have thought he was taking the p1ss out of me if he could reduce the amount by 2k at the drop of the hat.

Did he use this tactic to win? Is it in keeping with the West Yorkshire Windows philosophy of “no push, no hard sell?” Andrew, WYW - What do you say? Reply to the blog below.

Make It Happen
Scott gets some stick but he lead the way for the cold calling campaign. He looked at the sales situation in the showroom and then made something happen. He made 250 calls in one day and started to close down some of the leads. Then, all of the other sales people jumped on the bandwagon and made the calls too.

There is GOLD just sitting there in your leads database. Sometimes getting a “NO” actually means “NO, NOT YET” so you should work all of the names and numbers on your list of those people who have made enquiries.

I think the company will start to use this process from now on - or they should anyhow.

The Joker
Gavin’s too friendly and nice. There comes a time when being a friend needs to turn into being a supplier.

I don’t like the hard sell approach but their is a soft sell and then there is the Gavin “Let’s make a joke out of everything” soft sell.

That’s not for me, it would annoy the hell out of me.

Positioning Is Important
Anna Marie is not a “typical looking” salesperson and she uses this to her advantage. In an industry that is viewed with a little mistrust she can excel with this viewpoint by positioning herself as “not a typical salesperson”.

It’s a great selling point. Just imagine that a prospect has seen 3 pushy sales people and then Anna Marie walks in and says “I bet you’ve seen some really hard sell salespeople so far, well I’m not like that….” now if the prospect feels this way they are in Anna Marie’s web!

Now, I’m not saying that she uses this approach but she can sure slip under the radar.

Prospects like real people and Anna Marie falls into this category.

Happy Selling!

Sean
PS Well done West Yorkshire Windows - I think you came out of the show looking good as a firm full of integrity.

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training

Telephone:
0800 849 6732

The Sales Improvement CD Programme that will change the face of selling as we know it…

Well, after 9 months in the making, I’m finally going into the recording studios at 10:30am today to record what will be, in my humble opinion, the sales programme to change all sales programmes.

I’m not recording just one CD but instead a whole programme consisting of 10 x 60 minute CD’s.

I can’t tell you what the programme and concept is just yet for legal reasons but it’s going to provide you with the very latest cutting edge tools and approach that I have tested during the past 9 months.

It’s going to change the face of selling as we know it and it will blast yours sales into orbit.

I’m due in the studios for 5 or 6 days with an anticipated launch date of mid November so make sure you’re on one of my lists to be notified.

I’ll catch you later, probably with a sore throat!

Happy Selling

Your’s very excited…

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training

Telephone:
0800 849 6732

The competition took a cut throat approach tonight as the “silent assassin” Anna-Marie voted out one of the strongest contestants in Scott English.

Gavin was yet again in the bottom three and is by far the worst sales person in the group and has been from day one. Although very likeable, he talks a good talk but doesn’t delivery the goods.

Scott on the other hand, I have taken to. He’s shown a “softer side” since episode one and his enthusiasm and work ethic is awesome. A real go-getter. Take this as a complement Scott - Anna-Marie did the right thing in voting you off, I’d take it as a huge compliment. With you out of the way, Anna-Marie has a far better chance of winning the whole thing.

Okay, let’s get on to some good, bad and the ugly of tonights show.

THE BAD

Come on ITV WTF are you doing moving the show to 10:40. Get a life! The ratings are only 1.7 million but what did you do about it? Nothing. There was not advertising, no promotion. I think ITV have come out as the worse sellers of the lot! You could have positioned it in the right way, not as the BBC’s Apprentice but something completely different. With no pre-sell it was always going to be demoted to a later slot.

By the way ITV - Sales people like me and all of the other sales people around the country work long bloody hours so staying up to 11:40 on a school night is not on.

Ok, rant over.

Scott - you should have kept tabs on that mum and son when handing them over to finance. They are not sales people, never have been, so I feel they lost you a sale.
Scott - one thing that annoys me with you is when you always use “Trust me” it’s complete tosh! You don’t need to use that all of the time. The trust will come with what you say, you don’t need to say it - let your prospects feel it and it will help you close more sales.

The Good

Dan - great closing line. That guy was umming and arrrring and you took over with “Shall we start doing the paperwork?” A nice lead in to the next steps - well done.
Dan - the look of your face when having lunch Thea made my night!

Anna-Marie - thanks for your call to my office today. I enjoyed our chat. Well done on winning tonight. Well done on overcoming the discount request too - you built the value and kept your cool.

Scott - your work ethic is awesome. Lively, enthusiastic - spot on. Well done for using your initiative to cold call the limo firms. You “made things happen”. The show will be worse off without you.

The Ugly

Just about everything Thea did.

Overall Thoughts

ITV was the natural born loser tonight by moving the slot. My dark horse as mentioned on my very first blog Anna-Marie is still in the running although she is keeping very tight lipped on whether she won or not.

Selling Limos at a trade show is tough especially at £50k+. It takes technique and the right approach and when having a stand the art is having a number of luke warm to hot leads before you open the doors who know where you are etc

Onto next week!

Sean

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training

Telephone:
0800 849 6732

"Hi Sean, thanks for coming in to see me. Now, I’ve been recommended to use you from our 2 biggest suppliers who pay us £2 million a year each so if nothing else I thought I’d call you in to keep them happy and to see whether you can actually improve our sales at the same time. Now, in my opinion one off sales training doesn’t work unless you can tell me otherwise and I’m very anti-risk and don’t like spending money. I’m the down to earth Director of the company whereas the MD and FD don’t mind taking risks - so we’re a good team. So, what do you do and how can you help us?"

Phew!

No rapport, no small talk - straight into it.

So what are the lessons from this?

Now, I’m not going to tell you what I said but let me go through what my thinking was so you can start to develop this mode of approach:

"Hi Sean, thanks for coming in to see me. Now, I’ve been recommended to use you from our 2 biggest suppliers who pay us £2 million a year each so if nothing else I thought I’d call you in to keep them happy and to see whether you can actually improve our sales at the same time"

WHAT DID I TAKE FROM THAT STATEMENT?

1. These suppliers must pull some weight with them - find out who they and the person who contacted them

2. Possibilities of showing what we did for those companies and the results we achieved - social proof of our claims

3. This guy is a straight talker. So no fluff. Be straight to the point, business like and results orientated

"Now, in my opinion one off sales training doesn’t work unless you can tell me otherwise and I’m very anti-risk and don’t like spending money"

WHAT DID I TAKE FROM THAT STATEMENT?

1. Have they had their fingers burnt in the past with training that did not work?

2. He mentioned "one off" training does not work. Find out what he means. Does he have experience of "on-going" programmes and whether these work or not

3. He doesn’t like taking risks. Whatever we do needs to be justified to results, The risk needs to be on MTD Sales Training and not on his company to do business with us. He will msot likely want to see tangible evidence that the money was worth the spend. He doesn’t like spending money so let’s prove out worth with a low risk, low cost pilot and them measure the programme and then roll out

"I’m the down to earth Director of the company whereas the MD and FD don’t mind taking risks - so we’re a good team. So, what do you do and how can you help us?"

WHAT DID I TAKE FROM THAT STATEMENT?

1. He’s most likely the "It does exactly what it says on the tin" kind of person! Be straight with him and focus on the practical, real world elements of our training

2. Who has the decision making authority - him or the other Directors. Is he a key influencer or the DM

LESSONS

Now, I’m sure I had other thoughts at the time but I’ve just gone over my notes from the meeting and the areas above are the ones I could remember!

So the guy spoke for about 1-3 minutes yet I was able to process all of the above points of consideration. Our meeting took just 34 minutes in total!

So read between the lines with what your prospects say to you and then be flexible in your approach in coming back with questions.

Happy Selling!

Sean

PS
We are starting a sales improvement programme for the company in January 2009. 2 days per month for 12 months!

Sean McPheat
Managing Director
MTD Sales Training

Telephone:
0800 849 6732