If you are in sales probably one of your new year resolutions is to do even better in revenue than you did in previous years, regardless of how well you did in the past.  Otherwise why would you be in sales if you don’t want to help yourself & your clients to achieve goals, be more successful and make more money?

One of the easiest, fastest way to improve your revenue results without knocking on more doors is to get better at handling sales objections you get from people already in your sales pipeline.  Objection handling is really sales 101 and if you haven’t had any form of training, coaching, internal discussion, peer-to-peer sharing…etc. then it is time to get on it.

To help you be more successful in meeting your revenue goals here are three simple actions you can take that will save you a lot of time, generate you more money and leave you with happier customers and bosses!

And please, stop ‘Winging it’, regardless of how many years you have been at it or how awesome YOU THINK you are at ‘thinking on your feet’.  Don’t just meet with your prospects without preparation. Do you want your doctor to be winging it in your next visit, or do you want her to follow a safe, effective & tried and true process in addressing your pains?

Follow these steps and I promise within a few short weeks you will come across as a more confident, trustworthy and capable sales executive, undoubtedly resulting in more deals and revenue.

• Create a Top Ten List: If you work in a team, you can turn this into a fun teambuilding activity. Order some food for lunch or after work for the team and work with your peers to come up with a list of the most common objections you get from your prospects. Then vote on the top ten most common ones. It is likely that 90% of your objections will be in that Top 10 list.

Once you got the list take the time to write out the word-for-word responses to each of the ten by each of the people in the session.  If you are working with your colleagues then go around and have everyone read theirs and pick the ones you like the most.  There maybe a few favorite responses to each of the objections because sometimes it is just a personal preference and that is fine. You have to like and feel comfortable with the words and the style otherwise you won’t do it or do it well.

Once you have the top ten objections and the responses write them out and share them with the team.

• Make it permanent: I am not big fan of the old ‘practice makes perfect’ because actually if you repeat doing something the wrong way you may only achieve perfection in doing it wrong! But I am a big fan of saying ‘Practice Makes Permanent’ because repeating the same behavior will make it stick more permanently in your mind and you don’t have to think about it. You just respond the same way, naturally.

It’s like when you first learn to drive a car.  At first you have to think to step on the brakes when you come to a stop sign.  But after a while stepping on the brakes at a stop sign becomes automatic.

You want to practice saying the objections out loud and responding to it out loud multiple times until you sound fluent, natural and believable. Please don’t get lazy and just mumble the words or say it in your head. It doesn’t work that way.  Practice each one at least 30 to 50 times.  Best to practice with a partner and audience and get their feedback and input.  Adjust and finetune your tone and inflection because they carry over 90% of what you are trying to say and less than 10% of your message is in the actual words you are using.

Another great way to self-coach is to record your responses on your phone (every phone these days has a voice recorder) and listen to it and be honest about how effective you sound until you believe your own voice.

• Never stop improving: one of the most exciting, and at the same time one of the most challenging things about the world we live in is that the only constant in our lives is change. We all have to continuously change and adapt. Selling is no different. As sales professionals we need to continue to learn and adapt to the world if we want to stay relevant and employed.  You need to continue to listen, observe and adjust your message and look for areas for improvement because we all have room for improvement.

So here it is.  Good luck and good selling.

Contact us for a 30 minutes conversation with real impact on your business.

About the author:

Mark Ghaderi is an author, sales coach, mentor, entrepreneur and social selling evangelist with twenty five years of driving business results across the globe.

Vital Strategies Pte Ltd. Provides Revenue Growth Services to companies across the APAC region, helping organizations to grow their top line through digital transformation and improving sales execution.

contact us at: sales@vital-strategies.com