5 Tips for Overcoming Sales Objections

I Recently came across this great article by Dale Carnegie.  For those of you that are not familiar, Dale Carnegie was an American writer, lecturer, and the developer of famous courses in self-improvement, salesmanship, corporate training, public speaking, and interpersonal skills. Born in poverty on a farm in Missouri, he was the author of How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936), a massive bestseller that remains popular today.  Below are Dale Carnegie's "5 Tips for Overcoming Sales Objections". 


Objections are one of the most common obstacles salespeople face.  Anyone in sales will tell you that only a portion of objections are legitimate; the rest are stall tactics to unconsciously hide the real objection.  That being said, how you handle them will determine whether you make the sale or not. 

Responding "effectively" to a prospect's objection, supported by logical evidence and reasoning, will help you gain a new client.


The 5 Tips For Overcoming Sales Objections Are:

1.      Thank Someone For Making A Good Point - Thanking a prospect for asking a good question or making a statement will go a long way in breaking down their defenses.  Also, complimenting a prospect will help them have good feelings about themselves and your company. 

2.      Find Out What A Prospect Wants - The easiest way to find out what a prospect wants is to ask them!  It sounds simple, but some salespeople forget to do this and tend to answer questions for the prospect.  Instead, ask: "Is _____ what you want?"

3.      Counter Point - Counter the objection with information about your product or service that overcomes a prospect's objection.

4.      Attempt To Close Again - After you have dealt with the objection, try to close the sale again with a "trial close."  The prospect will likely respond with either buying signals or more objections.  Once you know where they stand, you will know how to proceed.

5.      Practice - Practice handling objections before you talk to a prospect.  You may want to write down the last 15 objections you have heard from recent prospects and develop a natural-sounding reply.  Practice reading these to yourself and others.  Before you know it, you will be more confident handling objections and you will close more sales.


The 5 Competencies For Overcoming Sales Objections Are:

1.      Customer Acquisition - Great salespeople are able to identify and convert prospects into customers and customers into referral sources.

2.      Stress Management - Great salespeople are able to handle stress and maintain a positive attitude.

3.      Interpersonal Skills - Great salespeople display a consistent ability to build solid relationships of trust and respect inside and outside the organization.

4.      Communication - Great salespeople are able to communicate well; both orally and in a written format.

5.      Become A Trusted Advisor - Great salespeople create an environment with customers to maintain a positive long-term relationship.  They develop programs to create customer loyalty and referral sources.  By becoming a trusted advisor, sales research has determined that you will walk away with a sale 70% - 100% more often than your competition!

Summary: The proper techniques and preparation will help you overcome a prospect's sales objections so you can close more business.  Objections are always going to be part of the selling process. How you handle them can make or break you. 

"When life hands you lemons, don't just make lemonade. Open up a lemonade stand."

Deserving Victory

Hoping for success is not enough. Deserving it is what really matters. What does it mean to deserve success?

Success only comes to those who work long and hard, who we are really willing to pay the price in blood, sweat and tears. Hard work is the basic building block of any kind of achievement. Without it everything else is pointless. If you look closely at all great organizations, great teams, all great people, the one common denominator is a second to none work ethic. The intense effort to achieve is always there. This is the one given if you want to be successful. When it comes to work ethic, there can be no compromises. Any other promise of achievement is fool’s gold.

There is evidence of fool’s gold all around us, people looking for a quick weight-loss plan or a get-rich quick scheme. Short-cuts fail.

Outwork everybody in sight. Sweat the small stuff. Sweat the big stuff. Go the extra mile. Put your heart and soul into whatever you do, no matter what it takes.

Success is not a lucky break. It is not a birth right. It is not an accident. Success is a choice.

Here are some quotes from other hard workers:

• "I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious."  Vince Lombardi

• "Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven't planted." - David Bly, American politician

• "Nothing will work unless you do." - John Wooden, American college basketball coach

• "Always make a total effort, even when the odds are against you." - Arnold Palmer, American professional golfer

• "The highest compliment that you can pay me is to say that I work hard every day." - Wayne Gretzky, Canadian ice hockey player

• "Satisfaction lies in the effort, not in the attainment. Full effort is full victory." - Mohandas Gandhi, Indian religious leader

• “Good things might come to those who wait, but only what’s left over from those who hustle” - Abraham Lincoln, American President

• “I've never viewed myself as particularly talented. I've viewed myself as slightly above average in talent. Where I excel is with a ridiculous, sickening work ethic. While the other guy's sleeping, I'm working. While the other guy's eating, I'm working. While the other guy's making love, I mean, I'm making love, too, but I'm working really hard at it!” – Will Smith, Actor

Nine Things Successful People Do Differently

by Heidi Grant Halvorson 

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Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren't sure, you are far from alone in your confusion. It turns out that even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy when it comes to understanding why they succeed or fail. The intuitive answer — that you are born predisposed to certain talents and lacking in others — is really just one small piece of the puzzle. In fact, decades of research on achievement suggests that successful people reach their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do.

1. Get specific. When you set yourself a goal, try to be as specific as possible. "Lose 5 pounds" is a better goal than "lose some weight," because it gives you a clear idea of what success looks like. Knowing exactly what you want to achieve keeps you motivated until you get there. Also, think about the specific actions that need to be taken to reach your goal. Just promising you'll "eat less" or "sleep more" is too vague — be clear and precise. "I'll be in bed by 10pm on weeknights" leaves no room for doubt about what you need to do, and whether or not you've actually done it.

2. Seize the moment to act on your goals. Given how busy most of us are, and how many goals we are juggling at once, it's not surprising that we routinely miss opportunities to act on a goal because we simply fail to notice them. Did you really have no time to work out today? No chance at any point to return that phone call? Achieving your goal means grabbing hold of these opportunities before they slip through your fingers.

To seize the moment, decide when and where you will take each action you want to take, in advance. Again, be as specific as possible (e.g., "If it's Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, I'll work out for 30 minutes before work.") Studies show that this kind of planning will help your brain to detect and seize the opportunity when it arises, increasing your chances of success by roughly 300%.

3. Know exactly how far you have left to go. Achieving any goal also requires honest and regular monitoring of your progress — if not by others, then by you yourself. If you don't know how well you are doing, you can't adjust your behavior or your strategies accordingly. Check your progress frequently — weekly, or even daily, depending on the goal.

4. Be a realistic optimist. When you are setting a goal, by all means engage in lots of positive thinking about how likely you are to achieve it. Believing in your ability to succeed is enormously helpful for creating and sustaining your motivation. But whatever you do, don't underestimate how difficult it will be to reach your goal. Most goals worth achieving require time, planning, effort, and persistence. Studies show that thinking things will come to you easily and effortlessly leaves you ill-prepared for the journey ahead, and significantly increases the odds of failure.

5. Focus on getting better, rather than being good. Believing you have the ability to reach your goals is important, but so is believing you can get the ability. Many of us believe that our intelligence, our personality, and our physical aptitudes are fixed — that no matter what we do, we won't improve. As a result, we focus on goals that are all about proving ourselves, rather than developing and acquiring new skills.

Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong — abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. Embracing the fact that you can change will allow you to make better choices, and reach your fullest potential. People whose goals are about getting better, rather than being good, take difficulty in stride, and appreciate the journey as much as the destination.

6. Have grit. Grit is a willingness to commit to long-term goals, and to persist in the face of difficulty. Studies show that gritty people obtain more education in their lifetime, and earn higher college GPAs. Grit predicts which cadets will stick out their first grueling year at West Point. In fact, grit even predicts which round contestants will make it to at the Scripps National Spelling Bee.

The good news is, if you aren't particularly gritty now, there is something you can do about it. People who lack grit more often than not believe that they just don't have the innate abilities successful people have. If that describes your own thinking .... well, there's no way to put this nicely: you are wrong. As I mentioned earlier, effort, planning, persistence, and good strategies are what it really takes to succeed. Embracing this knowledge will not only help you see yourself and your goals more accurately, but also do wonders for your grit.

7. Build your willpower muscle. Your self-control "muscle" is just like the other muscles in your body — when it doesn't get much exercise, it becomes weaker over time. But when you give it regular workouts by putting it to good use, it will grow stronger and stronger, and better able to help you successfully reach your goals.

To build willpower, take on a challenge that requires you to do something you'd honestly rather not do. Give up high-fat snacks, do 100 sit-ups a day, stand up straight when you catch yourself slouching, try to learn a new skill. When you find yourself wanting to give in, give up, or just not bother — don't. Start with just one activity, and make a plan for how you will deal with troubles when they occur ("If I have a craving for a snack, I will eat one piece of fresh or three pieces of dried fruit.") It will be hard in the beginning, but it will get easier, and that's the whole point. As your strength grows, you can take on more challenges and step-up your self-control workout.

8. Don't tempt fate. No matter how strong your willpower muscle becomes, it's important to always respect the fact that it is limited, and if you overtax it you will temporarily run out of steam. Don't try to take on two challenging tasks at once, if you can help it (like quitting smoking and dieting at the same time). And don't put yourself in harm's way — many people are overly-confident in their ability to resist temptation, and as a result they put themselves in situations where temptations abound. Successful people know not to make reaching a goal harder than it already is.

9. Focus on what you will do, not what you won't do. Do you want to successfully lose weight, quit smoking, or put a lid on your bad temper? Then plan how you will replace bad habits with good ones, rather than focusing only on the bad habits themselves. Research on thought suppression (e.g., "Don't think about white bears!") has shown that trying to avoid a thought makes it even more active in your mind. The same holds true when it comes to behavior — by trying not to engage in a bad habit, our habits get strengthened rather than broken.
If you want change your ways, ask yourself, What will I do instead? For example, if you are trying to gain control of your temper and stop flying off the handle, you might make a plan like "If I am starting to feel angry, then I will take three deep breaths to calm down." By using deep breathing as a replacement for giving in to your anger, your bad habit will get worn away over time until it disappears completely.

It is my hope that, after reading about the nine things successful people do differently, you have gained some insight into all the things you have been doing right all along. Even more important, I hope are able to identify the mistakes that have derailed you, and use that knowledge to your advantage from now on. Remember, you don't need to become a different person to become a more successful one. It's never what you are, but what you do.

Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D. is a motivational psychologist, and author of the new book Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals (Hudson Street Press, 2011). She is also an expert blogger on motivation and leadership for Fast Company and Psychology Today. Her personal blog, The Science of Success, can be found at www.heidigranthalvorson.com. Follow her on Twitter@hghalvorson