Every month I receive a variety of questions from salespeople and their managers. These come from a variety of sources - my live seminars, the monthly phone seminars, questions that are sent into my newsletter, and issues that arise in the course of my consulting work. Out of all of these, I select those that I think have the most universal application, and respond to them here.
When we get through to the person we want to talk to, we most often hear that they are happy with their current supplier. How can we overcome that?
You are encountering the classic B2B prospect put-off. There are a number of ways to deal with this. Here's one. Let's recognize that the conversation seems to be centered on the wrong issues. When you call for an appointment, the issue is not whether that company should buy from you. The issue is whether or not the person on the other end of the phone should invest 15 - 30 minutes of time with you. You should be selling the appointment, not your company. In other words, focus on giving them a reason to see you. The reason to buy from you will come later.
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Think about these questions before you call:
- Why should someone spend 15 minutes or so with you?
- What are they going to learn?
- What will that investment of time do for them?
Let's create a scenario and work through this. Let's say that you manage to get the person you want to talk with on the phone. You give your short intro pitch, and ask for an appointment. Your prospect says, "We're happy with our current supplier."
You say, "I appreciate that, and I in no way expect that you'll change that. There may come a time when you current supplier can't deliver, or perhaps isn't able to meet your changing requirements in some other way. In that case, it would be helpful for you if you had a relationship with an alternate supplier. I'm suggesting that you invest just 15 to 20 minutes with me so that you'll have the knowledge you'll need to avoid a potential crises some time in the future. I'll be in your area Monday and Tuesday of next week. Which of those work better for you?"
Let's examine what you did. You changed the focus of the conversation. It's no longer about his relationship with his current suppliers. It is about how he would be wise to invest some time with you. You are not selling your company, you are selling the appointment.
Then you gave him a reason to see you - some benefit that the prospect will gain from the appointment. You didn't threaten the current relationship in any way. Then you immediately asked for the appointment again.
That's one way to deal with this extremely common objection.
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If you have any comments or questions, email them to me. I do, of course, reserve the right to edit.
Here are a few articles by Dave
that you might be interested in reading:
- The Impenetrable Account... How do you sell to an account that is in the hands of a competitor? It's a great question, reflecting one of the most perplexing and frustrating situations every sales person faces. In this article Dave expalins how to get an account away from your competition.... {Read More}
- Developing Account Strategies... Our objective is to equip you with an understanding of the principles and processes you'll need in order to develop effective account strategies. First, let's define our terms. Strategy means a series of steps designed to bring your prospect or customer from where they are now to where you want them to be. It's the long-term view. Realistically, it's a planned series of sales calls in which each sales call has a distinctive set of purposes, a distinctive piece of education, a person or set of people to speak with, and a distinctive agreement that you'd like to attain. The purpose, the timing, the organization, and the sequence of that series of sales calls is the strategy. It's the long-term perspective, the big picture, of what you want to do and how you want to do it.....[ {Read More}
There are also many other action-packed articles for sales professionals that offer how-to solutions to every day sales problems that you can read online at www.davekahle.com/article.htm.
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