Get rid of late-stage objections once and for all!

I was always a decent "Closer", I could always ask for, and push for a hard close at the end stage of the sale. I would get time, budget, and planning commitment early on in the sale and hold them to their word to aggressively push them to sign the order. Sometimes it worked, sometimes, didn't, I was doing the best at the time, with what I had. And what I had, was not much. This was early in my sales career, 20+ years ago, I was building a team of sales people and leading the NBO sales initiative for a young company, selling B2B, B2C.

I taught my team to sell aggressively, fast, push services, upsell, handle objections and and get the order signed asap. There was no good process in place and there was no formal way of funnel growth, pipeline predictability or way to forecast accurately. Looking back, it was a total shit show. We would always get o the end of the sales process, then, BAM! Objection, Objection, Objection! Objections everywhere, always rearing their head, derailing deals left and right, It's enough to make you want to bang your head against the wall.

Most late-stage objections aren't random acts of sales cruelty. They're often red flags that something went wrong earlier in the process, that we left stones unturned. I was so focused on closing deals, I forgot to build a solid foundation. I realized that objections were just questions that should have been been answered far earlier, now they were these seemingly critical roadblocks, steering the deal towards the inevitable closed-lost or even worse stalled! Late stage objections are a sign to you, your manager and the customer, that you did not do your job, period.

Let's look at a few ways to avoid late stage objections so you no longer have to have these late-stage, awkward, deal killing interactions with your prospects ever again.

• Did We Truly Understand Their Needs? Did we product dump, present and try selling them so hard on our great and amazing product, that we never actually did a solid discovery? We forget to listen deeply to the prospect's challenges. We ended up pitching features they don't care about or solutions that don't solve their real problems. Did you ask the right questions. The hard questions. If you dont ask them early on, they will be deal killers in the end. You need to consistently qualify, asking questions about money, losses, fears, budget, their team, the who, what, when, where and why of thier business. It's now or never. Start this and set these expectations of communication as early as your first interaction with the prospect. You would way rather hear, "It's not a good fit" now, than 3 months later after you, your team have put hundred of hours into the project. Get ahead of this now, and stop wasting your most valuable resource: Time!
• Did We Set Clear Expectations? Why are you so expensive. It's too much. Why are you so much more than your competitor? If you're hearing these objections, it may be too late, there are ways around these objections, late stage, though to never let these ones happen again, get ahead of it, set the expectations of your value by demonstrating your value, your teams resources, what are you putting in to the sales process that will eventualy be mirrored post-sale. Tell them you are more, let them know that you are a financially healthy company tjhat prodes yourself in profitability, and demostrate what that does for your company in your product, teams, service, and support, Show the value that being a profitable company will bring them and then also demonstarte the ROI from the robust discovery, that solving all of their key challenges will bring them. If you do this appropriately, they will think your product is cheap, even free! Based on the ROI.
• Do we have the right people/decision makers? Who all needs to be involved in the call, is probably up there as the most cliche sales questions. It's really not a question we should be asking, Its a statement that we should be educating with. It goes something like this: "Most of our customers are bringing in their legal team, procurement, product, IT, etc. on our calls at to align with project deadlines. Shoot me over those contacts, so I can be sure to loop them in on our meetings and communication." This is an example of asking the hard questions. You will be shocked by how many serious buyers will send you the contact information and it's a great way to get a read, qualify deeper and let the buyer know that you are serious about bringing value, alignment and visibility to the project. This is the single most important piece to get on top of objections early.

Ask powerful questions, set expectations address concerns early, with the right decision makers. A smooth sales process isn't about late stage objection handling and pushing a close, It's about aligning two companies, guiding your prospect towards a solution that creates quantifiable value.

By incorporating these tips and practicing them often, you'll transform objections from setbacks to stepping stones on your path to closing more deals and taking your game to the next level.

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