As you know, I often get emails from readers of my ezine , “Secrets of the Top 20%”, asking me how I would handle various selling situations and objections.
Someone sent in a request asking me how to deal with the, “We are used to the status quo and don’t want to make waves” objection. This reader also wrote that he had been told by another training company that he needed to, “Make them painfully aware of something they don’t see coming at them (like a freight train) and develop a more compelling message.”
As you might imagine, he wasn’t able to come up with anything that was working.
By the way, I must comment here that I frequently hear this about other “sales training” companies: they are quick to offer what sounds like good advice, but they don’t provide the specific solutions to back it up.
As you know from reading my ezines, watching my YouTube videos or reading or listening to my books and CD’s, I not only tell you what to you, but also how to do it.
In this case, I think the reader was having trouble with this technique because, to begin with, it’s not a good approach.
Trying to convince someone that what they’re doing is a bad idea and it’s going to lead to big trouble (so you can say, “I told you so” later), isn’t going to endear you to anyone. What I recommend instead is to find a way to bypass this obvious initial resistance and find a way present your product or service in a non-threatening way.
Your goal on the prospecting call isn’t to overcome objections (which this isn’t, by the way), but rather, to qualify and set a date up to demo your product or service.
Here are some sample scripts to help you do just that:
Objection: “We are used to the status quo and don’t want to make waves…”
Approach One:
“I’m completely with you and believe me, I don’t want to rock the boat. But because things change all the time, there might come an instance when you need to consider your options. So let’s do this: I’ll set a time to give you a brief demo of what we do and how it might help you.
After we do, you can then decide if you want to do anything with it now, or keep it in your back pocket in case you ever need to consider a different source – sound good?”
Approach Two:
“I understand and I’ll try not to make too many waves here. Just out of curiosity, when was the last time you did compare services and pricing – you know, just to keep current on what’s available to you?”
Approach Three:
“I’m with you and believe me – I’m not here to cause trouble. But let me ask you this: isn’t it wise to at least know about your options just in case you need to make a change at some time in the future?”
Approach Four:
“I’m with you. So tell you what: instead of me trying to sell you something, let me just educate you on what’s currently available in the marketplace – you know, so in case you need something further down the line, you’ll know who to call – make sense?”
Approach Five:
“No problem, I fully understand. Let me ask you this though: If something were to happen to your current provider, wouldn’t you at least want a dependable backup plan so you didn’t miss a beat?”
The point of these rebuttals is to bypass this resistance so you can get in front of a qualified lead and pitch your product or service. Obviously, once they agree to do a demo with you, you’ll want to ask other qualifying questions.
As always, I encourage you to practice, drill and rehearse your responses so you can internalize them and deliver them in a natural way.