Month: July 2019

Listening is one of the communication tools you must develop if you want to dominate resolving objections. Another communication tool you’ll need to develop are your listening skills.

We cover listening skills extensively in our sales leadership and sales coaching sessions. However, these skills are also critical when you are opening a sales call, sitting across from your prospect conducting an analysis, and especially when responding to your client’s objections.

Typically, when you’re in a situation requires your listening skills, there’s a certain listening level to which we typically rise. Different situations will cause us to rise to different levels of listening. For example, you will listen to a child telling you about their school day at a different level than you would listen to your doctor talking about your test results. Supplement your library with our playbook on resolving objections, 7 Steps to Resolving Objections. Get it here.

5 Levels of Listening

Here are the 5 levels of listening we review in our sessions:

1. Ignore: At this level, we intentionally don’t listen. This is your level of engagement when you want to get rid of someone who is wasting your time. Yes, this level does have its uses.
2. Pretend: At this level, you create the illusion that you are listening. Usually, you’ll use your body language and modulate your voice to make the other party believe you are listening to them. But in reality, you are not paying close attention to what they are saying.
3. Selective: Here, you are listening for the things you want to hear and can use. Typically, couples having an argument will settle in this level. They listen for the appropriate place to intervene so they can make their point.
4. Attentive: Here, you listen carefully to the message content.
5. Empathetic: At this level, you listen from the other person’s perspective and can identify the content and emotion that the sender is expressing. At this level, you don’t judge the message. You are only attempting to understand as the other party sees and delivers the message.

Listening Skills in Resolving Objections

Now, when you are resolving objections, you are using your language to engage your prospect or client. And you’re listening to the responses to honestly see things from their perspective. Naturally, you want to be at the attentive or empathetic level to be in the best position to resolve the objection.

Now remember, your prospect or client is also at a listening level. If they are at the attentive or empathetic level, then you are resolving a real objection. However, if they are trying to get you out of their office by ignoring you, pretending to listen, or sometimes even selectively listening for the right trigger phrase, then you are engaged in a put-off. It’s time to head back to the start of your sales process.

6 Behaviors to Show You are Listening

Here are 6 specific things you can do to show the other person you are listening to them:

1. Look at the Other Person

Not looking at the other person in the conversation is a dead give-away that you are preoccupied. Either that or you’re simply not interested in what your presenter has to say. It sends a nonverbal signal that there is something more deserving of your attention than the current conversation.

2. Ask Questions

Asking questions and summarizing what you heard are verbal ways to let the other person know you are paying attention. If you are using the telephone as your communication tool and you don’t have the advantage of looking at your prospect or client, you’ll need to lean more heavily on asking questions and summarizing what you heard.

3. Don’t Interrupt

We’ve all had those moments where the light bulb went off, we understood what our prospect or client was saying, and we wanted to prove it by jumping in and finishing their thought. Please refrain from doing this. Interrupting the other person when presenting their ideas also sends an unspoken message – what they are saying isn’t important to you. Let the other person know that their ideas and what they have to say are important. This is critical in resolving objections. And it’s absolutely vital in your coaching sessions.

4. Stay on Subject

Naturally, you want to stay focused on the subject at hand. While it may make sense to bring in a related topic or solution, you don’t want to stray too far off course and send the unspoken message that something you are thinking about is more important than the current conversation. Stay focused on the current topic at hand.

5. Emotional Control

You want to be engaged. You want to be animated. And you want to express your views with passion. What you don’t want is to be controlled by emotions and have your conversation partner control you with a few, well placed words. I have seen sales reps lose deals because they had to be right and argued with the prospect. Reps have lost deals because they encountered an objection that they didn’t feel comfortable with and found themselves controlled by fear and desperation. I’ve seen reps lose sales because they got angry over a competitor sowing fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Remember, emotional content is a good thing to have, but only if you maintain control.

6. Respond Appropriately

Lastly, you want to be sure your response is appropriate to the situation at hand. You want to show that you were paying attention to the conversation. If you are at the highest level of listening, your response can be anything from an acknowledgement giving them the green light to continue to a summary of what you heard from their conversation followed by a trial close question. Just remember, to respond appropriately, you must pay attention to your prospect or client. You need to truly see things from their perspective.Here are 6 tactics to develop your listening skills and enhance your ability to communicate with your clients and prospects.

Summary of Developing Your Listening Skills

This is a quick summary of the levels of listening and tactics to enhance your listening skills and to resolving objections faster. In your endeavor to communicate with your prospects and clients, the more skilled you are at using your language to shape the conversation, the faster and easier you will find your sales process moving forward. Use this article as a training guide to help you develop your skills and become one of the top sales reps in your organization.

We’ll talk more about communication and listening skills in the future when we review coaching procedures for your team.  But for now, realize that any process that makes you a more adept communicator will ease any friction in the sales process and make you a more efficient, and effective sales rep.

Discover more about resolving objections. Click here to get your copy of 7 Steps to Resolving Objections. A quick how-to guide to help sales reps resolve objections quicker and more efficiently.

Oh, and One More Thing…

Giving a shout out to my followers on social media who found my book, Selling is an Away Game, in a Hudson News location. Travel time is learning time. And readers are leaders! Show them some kudos. Give them a follow!

2 yrs ago my boss started telling me about this Lance guy. So at 9 mons pregnant (w/this peanut) I stayed at work until my due date to learn from him. Today I find his book at John Wayne Airport & am excited to take in even more of his expert knowledge! Big congrats @lancetyson! pic.twitter.com/EBwfTAQ1nQ — Jessie Zahner (@Athletchic) July 25, 2019

👀Spotted in the wild (Hudson News) with prime front and center placement! #bestseller congrats @lancetyson ….although I’m not sure why you’re in the ‘fiction’ section?!? (joking of course 🤣😂🤣) pic.twitter.com/ZTgXMp6Sjm — Ryan Cook (@CookTBL) July 24, 201

Here’s a question about sales objections I encountered a lot when we did lead generation work:

I keep running into objections before I even have a chance to introduce myself. What is the best way to overcome “I’m too busy,” “I do not have time” or “Call back in two months?”

One of the challenges we face with sales objections is knowing when we have a bona fide objection as opposed to the prospect simply trying to get rid of us.

For example, in the playbook, Seven Steps to Resolving Sales Objections, I started by recapping a story told to me by a master sales instructor. In that anecdote, Ed recounted how he had marveled at a high-powered car of one of his clients. But he didn’t balk at the price. That was because he simply saw it as a fabulous piece of art. He had no interest in buying the car!

Now, recognize this. When you receive responses like the ones listed above on your initial call, you’re not facing a sales objection. What you’re facing is a put-off.  For your prospect to make a true sales objection, they need to have some type of interest in your product or service. At the start of your call, you don’t even have their attention.  They are still preoccupied with whatever they were doing before you called. To them, you’re an interruption.

If you hear your prospect use phrases like “I’m too busy” or “I don’t have time”, remember that these statements are socially acceptable ways of them saying, “Get lost. I don’t want to talk with you.”  Their response most likely has nothing to do with a lack of time or you. It’s just a quick and easy way to get rid of you.

Circumventing and Resolving the Put-off

We’ve discussed a few tactics in past posts circumvent these types of early put-offs:

1. Open by addressing them by their name to break their preoccupation and get their attention.
2. Ask a question related to their business to get their attention and interest.
3. Open with a startling fact about their industry to get their attention and interest.
4. Use a known reference to gain interest and trust. Make sure your reference is in good standing!

From a strategic perspective, you want to keep the opening focused around the needs and interests of your prospect.  Keep your sales approach and your opening statements prospect-centric. Avoid taking a product-centric position in your introduction.

If you do find yourself immersed in this type of situation, start by assuming they are short on time. Ask to reschedule your sales call.  Recognize that you probably inadvertently opened the call talking about you, your company, or your product, which handed you the put-off.  So, use the opportunity to make a course correction. When you ask to reschedule, take a prospect-centric position.

For example: Bob: I’m too busy right now! You: I can appreciate that. Time is always at a premium. Bob, when would be a good time to call back to review an initial set of keywords we’ve identified for your website and the impact your digital marketing team can make with them?

Now, if you fail to get their attention this second time with a prospect-centric view, and they continue to say, “Nope. Still not interested”, then it’s time to move on to your second contact and build your web of influence at the account.

Using Your Communication Tools to Resolve Sales Objections and Put-offs

You’ll notice we used two elements here that we’ve also used when resolving genuine sales objections – the verbal cushion and questions. Remember, use all of your available tools in a strategic fashion to obtain a mutually beneficial outcome. When you’re facing a real sales objection, the prospect has given you their attention, they are interested in your product or service, and they have a real problem they want to resolve. If you’re encountering these roadblocks early in your sales process, they haven’t given you their attention, they aren’t interested in your service, and the only problem they want to solve is how to get rid of you as quickly as possible.

As you spend more time actively engaging new prospects and your listening skills become more discerning, you’ll be able to tell the difference between someone who really is pressed for time and someone who is just trying to get you out of their hair.

But your easiest and best way to address these early put-offs is to avoid them using the techniques identified above. Take a prospect-centric view at the opening of your sales call and truly see things from their perspective. Save your energy to creatively resolve the real sales objections later in the sales process.

Remember, selling is an away game. It takes place in the mind of your prospect.

To learn more about resolving sales objections, grab a copy of the playbook, Seven Steps to Resolving Sales Objections. Start coaching yourself and your team to shorter sales cycles and bigger deals today!

Oh, and One More Thing…

If you’re looking to make good use of your travel time, take a page from one of our sales trainers, Traci Tigue. Pick up a copy of Selling is an Away Game, available at many Hudson News locations.

When you’re in the field, your sales activity requires the use of various communication elements, like the verbal cushion. To be effective in sales, you need to know how to communicate with your prospect. However, you also need to be adept at using the various communication elements at your disposal.

For example, being able to ask thoughtful, probing questions will enhance your sales process and earn your prospect’s trust. Ask those questions at the wrong time, however, and you become a bumbling sales rep.

That’s why in sales, we take steps to reduce friction and eliminate arguing with the prospect, especially when they bring up any sales objections.  Remember, a sales objection is something your prospect sees as an impediment to moving forward with the sale. As highlighted in our playbook, “Seven Steps to Resolving Objections”, if they have no desire to move the sale forward, then they would have no objections.

Sales objections, therefore, are opportunities  to advance the sale, provided you can address the issues and resolve the objections.

That’s why the first steps in resolving sales objections are critical. This isn’t the time for conflict or expressing your opinions. If you want to avoid conflicts at the first stage in resolving objections, use a communication element called the verbal cushion.

What is a Verbal Cushion?

Now, I’m sure when you hear cushion, a seat cushion is probably the image that comes to mind. In fact, that’s a good analogy for what we want to develop. A verbal cushion is a word or phrase that acts as a buffer in a conversation.  It’s a neutral phrase that keeps you from getting into an argument with your prospect.

Remember, if your prospect is voicing their perception of a particular challenge, getting dragged into an argument won’t help you move the sale forward. Also, becoming defensive won’t help win their hearts and minds. And going on the attack won’t help either.

If your prospect makes a claim about you, your company, your product or your service, you want them to define, defend, and explain their statement. But that won’t happen if you react defensively or make a statement that steers the conversation off into a verbal ditch. Instead, you want to redirect their energy back to a place where it can be useful. So, after acknowledging their statement, redirect the conversation back to your prospect. Have them explain their claim without directly challenging them or arousing resentment.

The Verbal Cushion in Action

In our past coaching sessions, with our clients and our internal team, we used a variety of vanilla phrases that acknowledged the prospect’s claim without being confrontational.  For example, “your price is too high” was one of the most common objections our inside sales team heard. And often the new sales rep would try justifying the price and argue with the prospect.

That phrase, “your price is too high” is actually information poor. The sales rep needs more information. So instead of reacting by justifying the price, our sales reps were taught to pause and respond with a neutral verbal cushion that acknowledge they heard the prospect:

“I can appreciate that. Investments are important.“

And from there, the inside sales rep could then redirect the focus back on the prospect to define, explain, and defend their claim with a question:

“When you say price, how do you mean?”

Below are additional examples of neutral verbal cushions:

Remember, the foundation of sales is the ability to communicate effectively to achieve an outcome. Communication elements like the verbal cushion are indispensable in your sales process. Use coaching sessions like this  to learn how to use them well.

To learn more about resolving sales objections, download a copy of the playbook, “Seven Steps to Resolving Sales Objections” here. Start coaching yourself and your team to shorter sales cycles and more deals today!

Back in 2016, I penned an article for Selling Power that addressed selling and opening the sales call in the new digital era where we are inundated with apps, devices, and instant price comparison.

Most of that material can be applied to how a sales rep conduct themselves when opening a sales call. Remember, your prospects have massive information at their fingertips. They can find a mountain of information on your people, your company, and your product. Also, they can find similar information from your competitors. They can do instant comparisons between your solution and what your competitors are offering. And they can get quick access to reviews and testimonials from your clients, customers, and even prospects.

To this end, and I made this argument in that Selling Power article, the sales rep of today has to be more than a walking encyclopedia with hair who can merely regurgitate information and take orders. Successful sales reps must provide real value, and help show they can provide real, differentiated value when opening the sales call.

In that article, I highlighted 5 ideas your sales reps need to improve their success rate for opening a sales call. Those tips are:

Building Rapport When Opening the Sales Call

First, let’s look at building affinity. Your sales reps must be skilled at developing rapport quickly so they can build the relationship and the trust that comes along with that relationship. As the adage goes, people buy from people they like. While there is a certain level of truth to that, I think it’s also important to recognize that people buy from people who are like them. So, when coaching your team to achieve rapport when opening the sales call, include the following:

Getting Feedback When Opening the Sales Call

Next, you must get your people to create feedback loops. While this might sound a bit technical, it really isn’t. Your sales reps need to know if they are on point with the solution they are presenting or if they are driving the process off road. Feedback comes in many forms. However, here are two that you’ll want to coach your people on immediately:

Opportunities for Coaching

We’ve just reviewed only two of the 5 ideas outlined in that Selling Power article. However, there are still plenty of opportunities for coaching your sales reps. Here are three that come to mind:

Opening the sales call is probably the most important part of the sales process you can coach your sales reps on. It is the foundation of everything we do. Like building a house, when you start with a strong, solid foundation, putting all of the other pieces in place becomes a lot simpler and easier.

For additional ideas on opening the sales call and executing your sales process, get a copy of Selling is an Away Game, available online at Amazon, fine bookstores and many Hudson News locations.

Salespeople pursuing a single point of contact when prospecting is like an engineer designing a system with a single point of failure. One mishap and your whole project crashes!

When Prospecting, Don’t Create a Single Point of Failure

My director of technology once told me about an experience he had in the early creation days of our call center. He said he had called into a local manufacturing company and was hooked up with the director of sales. He had done everything right, moving the relationship towards selling a set of training programs for the company’s sales team.

After two weeks of conversation, diagnosis, and evaluation, the talks suddenly stopped. In fact, my tech director said his contact just went completely dark.

After leaving his tenth creative voicemail, my tech director finally phoned in and called the operator for information. And that’s when he learned that the sales director, his single point of contact into the company, had suffered a debilitating heart attack and was out of action for at least two months. And according to the operator (remember, this is a small company, so information was less compartmentalized) the owner of the company hadn’t made a decision about a replacement.

So, in an instant, almost a month’s worth of effort was gone. When I asked my tech director how he handled the situation, he said he simply dropped the contact and the company. He said, “I spent a lot of time learning about this guy’s challenges, his professional life, his family, and his business. It may not have been the right move, but I felt that asking for a new contact in the company was extremely callous and unfeeling. If I was going to start with a new candidate, I might as well start with a new candidate in a fresh company. I didn’t want to leave the impression that I was a sales rep who cared for nothing but making the sale.”

The Prospecting Solution That Resolves This Challenge

I can understand the reasoning here. Everyone has their own style of dealing with these situations based on their personality, skills, and experience. But as a sales manager, you’re probably wondering, “How do I coach my people to deal with situations like that?”

Well, I’m here to tell you, the best way for anyone to address this type of situation is to head it off before it happens.

Here’s the deal. Studies have shown that 82% of sales reps feel challenged by the time it takes to research a prospect just to make the initial cold call. Thinking back to the earlier situation from my tech director, that’s the start of a major time commitment. But many sales reps often use prospect research and data collection as a crutch. For them, the inefficient sales rep, Google and LinkedIn have become the purgatory of sales activity.

The Art of Spiderwebbing to Create a Web of Influence

So here’s the solution to this particular challenge. On average, your salespeople should have 3 different decision makers within an account with whom they’re prospecting. Let’s define these decision-makers as:

In most B2B sales, it takes 2 to 3 decision-makers to influence a decision. So, it’s best to call in, probe the organization, and find the important stakeholders who will be directly impacted by your solution. Don’t get me wrong, using one of the online marketing databases is a good start. But you’re still better off calling into a company and striking up an conversation with the gatekeeper or a manager and getting references rather than relying on a database of contacts that’s updated every 2 to 6 months. This methodology for using cold call prospecting to discover these decision makers is called Spiderwebbing. It’s one of the techniques we review in our programs. It’s also something we teach sales managers how to coach their team to use to be an effective prospector.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit, it’s easy to connect with a Level 3 contact. But to shorten their sales process, they’ll need to meet with a Level 1 or 2 decision maker. Level 1 decision-makers have more power and can make a decision quicker. They will ultimately be the ones who close the deal. However, sometimes they are the hardest to secure an appointment with. Level 2 decision makers ultimately may control the budget but will also rely on the opinions of the Level 3 managers.

Enhancing Your Team’s Prospecting Process

Here’s my question to you: Do your salespeople have the capacity, talent, and bandwidth to cold call your target market? Are they banking on a single point of contact like my tech director? Or are they developing a rich network of contacts using techniques like Spiderwebbing? As sales managers, it’s our job to train and coach our team to reach success. But coaching individual team members is enhanced when you give them coaching based on their strengths, weaknesses, skills, and abilities.

If you are anything like me, you’ll probably spend some time during this Independence Day weekend reviewing your team and assessing what they need to help them reach their full potential. That’s why during these holiday breaks, I’ll spend some of that time reviewing our salespeople’s backgrounds. I’ll then determine the skills and abilities they need to enhance their effectiveness. By the same idea, our processes will help you and your team do the same. We measure your team’s skills gaps and blindspots. We then help you create a system to achieve a level of performance with your team through assessments and coaching.

Contact us directly and discover how individual assessments, leadership coaching, and training can enhance your team’s overall prospecting effectiveness.

For more ideas on how to coach your team on prospecting and cold calling, get a copy of Selling is an Away Game, available online at Amazon, fine bookstores and many Hudson News locations.