What I Learned As A SaaS Entrepreneur and Operator

Scrub For Objections!

Early in my sales career, I was coached to “NEVER raise an objection that the prospect did not raise first. “

Is that good advice?

When engaged in a simple person-to-person sales process like selling a car, it is probably great advice. If the customer is worried about horsepower, you don’t need to bring up fuel efficiency unless asked. However, when dealing in a complex, enterprise-level selling environment, experience has taught me that following that advice could either significantly delay or kill a deal all together.

Enterprise selling often involves pitching groups of people. For example, you might have to pitch a room of 10 customer service managers at one time. Human dynamics make this a very different sort of interaction compared with simple one-on-one selling.   Generally, people in corporate settings strive to maintain the appearance of agreeability. As a result, groups tend to move in herds. In group-selling situations, once a thought leader or manager signals a position of support or disapproval, the herd will generally follow. However, just because the herd tends to move in one direction does not mean they all agree on their destination. The immature enterprise salesperson will often report back that they had a “great meeting and not a singe person raised a single objection!”   As a sales manager, I would cringe when one of my staff filed such a report.

 When selling to groups, it is important to not get snake-charmed by the herd mentality. Instead you must scrub…and scrub hard…for objections to be voiced. If you leave that room and there are unvoiced and unaddressed objections, you are likely to have problems later. Here are some tricks to uncover the unvoiced objection:

1. Embrace all non-verbal cues that indicate an unvoiced objection. If you see a raised eyebrow or suddenly crossed arms, politely (DO NOT BE CONFRONTATIONAL…BE INVITING) ask that person if they heard something that does not sit quite right with them. Remember, if you can get this person to speak, they are doing you an enormous favor by saying what others are almost certainly thinking…that is exactly what you want!
2. Ask early and ask often for objections.   I typically divide my presentations into logical segments that include at least a problem statement and proposed solution. After each segment, I pause to ask directly for objections.   Remember, if you scrub and clear all objections about the problem statement, you are 80% of the way home to having the support of the group.
3. If no one will voice them, you might consider bringing up the most common objections you hear from other clients. Yes…you read that correctly…if things are going too good to be true, you might consider bringing up the objections some in the room are almost certainly thinking but not voicing. In fact, at the end of most of my presentations, I include a couple of slides listing and addressing the most common objections clients raise. If necessary, I never hesitate to use them.

One final note. Obviously, don’t proactively bring up an objection you don’t know how to overcome. That would be silly. However, if in asking directly for objections, the client brings up one you have no good answer for...simply defer it and tell them you will need to research the answer...and count your lucky stars you found out when you did.

Not only will these techniques help you uncover problems with your proposal, aggressively asking for objections never fails to earn a client’s respect and trust.