Can objections be a good thing for sales?

- So what happens if you've proposed a solution to a customer, you've thought it through really carefully, you've recommended the best thing to do based on what their needs are, and they have an objection? Well, don't worry. It's not the end of the world. Quite often objections are actually just a sign of interest. And if they're saying, "well, you know, but how would I install it?" Or, "will it take me long to learn how to use it?" That's actually a sign that they want it. So objections aren't necessarily a bad thing, and sometimes, objections are not real because people have this fear of commitment, which is built into us, it's just a worry that if we do buy it, afterwards we might think, "oh no, what have I done?" So sometimes objections are just because the person's too frightened to take the plunge and spend the money. But, I read somewhere, don't know if it's true, but most car adverts are not actually to try to sell you the car; they're actually to convince you after you've bought the car that you've bought the right one. There's a thing called buyer's remorse where after you've bought something, you think, "what have I done?" And, do you ever still shop around looking at prices of things after you've bought them cause you're just trying to reassure yourself, "yeah, yeah, I did get a bargain." So, every time you see that sexy BMW on the telly, you think, "yeah, yeah, I did buy a good car, yeah, I am just like that guy, that cool guy driving that car." So, that's apparently what they're doing, which is sort of weird, isn't it? So, we do have this fear of commitment and fear of ending up with buyer's remorse, and the easiest option is just to not commit and just come up with some objection, even though you actually want it. So, often objections are not the real one. There's another reason why people may not come up with their real objection straightaway, which is that they've still got the real one if they need it. So they might try and fob you off with a fake objection in the hope they don't have to play their real card. Once they play their real card, if you can answer that, then they're in real trouble, aren't they? They have to buy it. And, of course, sometimes their real objection might be a bit embarrassing. They might not want to admit they're frightened of doing it, or that they don't like you, or whatever it is. So there might be reasons where they may not want to tell you the real objection. But clearly, if we can't find out what the real objection is, we can't handle it, so we have to find out the real objection in order to be able to handle it and make the sale. Now, returning to my theme of "is it dodgy?" I don't think it is. I think to find out what is really worrying them is important, and maybe we can help them, maybe we can't. Maybe we can handle this objection. Maybe we can't. I don't know. But we need to find out what it is before we can really handle it. Now I'm going to talk about price in more detail later, but is price usually the real objection? And, I would say it isn't. When people say, "it's too expensive," I think that's a classic example where they're trying to fob you off with a fake objection, and the real objection is that they don't particularly, they don't feel convinced that what you're offering can help them with their problem. So, how do we get round a fake objection? Cause you can't just say, "well, that's not the real objection. Come on." So, what do we do? And, the answer is, there's a technique called peeling the onion, which is a brilliant technique. And what you do with the peeling the onion technique is you say, "apart from that, is there any other reason? You know, if I could sort the price in some way, if price wasn't a problem, then would you buy it?" And, you can use different wording. You don't have to say, "apart from that." You could say, "as well as that." And in some ways, that's better to say that because then you're not being so dismissive. So you can say, "well, as well as the price, because I know it's a bit expensive, are there other, is there any other reason why you wouldn't buy it?" And if they say, "well, no. It's really just the price," then you know that you do have to handle the price objection, and I'll come back to how to do that in a later video. But, 9 times out of 10, they'll say, "well, yeah, the other problem is, you know, I'm still not convinced of the reliability," Or, "I'm just thinking it's going to be a bit hard to learn how to use it," Or whatever it is. And if you think about it, what's going on in their mind when you say, "apart from the price, what do you think?" they know that if they say, "well, it's only price," that if you then handle price, they've got to buy it. So you're forcing them, really, to come out with the real objection. If you want somebody to use the new computer system, and they say, "oh, you know, the screen gives me a headache," don't get bogged down on some argument about screens or the cost of replacing a screen, because you're probably wasting time and money handling objection that's not even real. So, just get rid of that one, and say, "well apart from the screen, you know, what do you think?" Or, "if we could sort the screen, would you use it?" And now, they've got to either say, "yeah, if you could sort the screen, I'd use it," or they've got to say, "well, actually, I still wouldn't because, you know, I don't understand the menu system." And of course, now we've got the real objection. They don't want to admit that it's too difficult for them to use, or that they're finding it difficult to use. So then you got to handle that. "Well, let me show you." So, peel the onion and find the real objection. You might have to peel the onion a couple of times. So when they say the menus are difficult, you could say, "well if I can sort the menus for you, make it easier, or if we can somehow get round the menu problem, would you use it then?" And they may even have a third objection, or they may just say, "yeah, I would." But once they say, "yes, I would," then you'd know you found the real objection, and that's the one you've got to handle, and the great news is you don't have to go back and handle all the others. You've only got to handle the last one, cause the last one is the real one. So, the first thing you should do with any objection is peel the onion, especially with price. The first thing is to say, "well if we could sort that for you, would you buy it?" Always peel the onion when you're faced with an objection.