Professional Website Design

Being in the working world for almost…er, 20 years now, all of them in either financial or technology sales and marketing, I have come to learn that the constant to the business universe is the objection. Unfortunately I have no clear cut understanding of why various individuals throw out the objections they do, but here I will not only list some of my all time favorites but I will also discuss objections and what they really mean and perhaps a bit about how to handle them.

I will go all the way back to my early days of sales during the fall of 1990 when Iraq had invaded Kuwait and the world was holding its collective breath wondering what was going to happen…my job was to convince people they should be investing their money…

Objections Through The Ages:

There is going to be war with Iraq (The market skyrockets the day the actual bombing begins)

The market is too high (It went higher)

The market is weak and stocks are crashing (The market corrected and went back higher)

A very recent conversation:

“Preston, Bear Stearns is being purchased for $2 per share, things look terrible, when is the market going to crash?” (Looks like it already did–as Warren Buffet has said: “Buy when there is blood in the streets.” Unfortunately most don’t and instead they buy when things are at their best and euphoria is high. Bad idea.)

Let’s examine some objections I hear when discussing web sites with business owners…

Things are too slow, let’s wait until they pick up. (You must plant before you can reap)

I have enough business, what do I need a web site for? (Not for long, besides, tell that to Coke, Microsoft and Apple)

I’m computer illiterate. (Your customers are absolutely not)

I don’t go online. (Your potential customers do)

My customers don’t go online, they’re too old. (What’s the fastest growing Internet demographic? Seniors!)

I will have to hire someone new to handle it. (What’s wrong with more business than you can handle? A tank of gas is $100!)

I’ll get too much business. (Awesome!)

I don’t have enough business. (Perhaps you need to market your business more effectively? You can no longer just wait for customers to walk through your door)

And my all time favorite:

We already have a website. Yes, and it looks like it was done by a three-year old! This came from a house painter, who had a site that was so bad that it must have turned potential customers away, as it even had horrible grammatical errors in the text! I would not hire him to paint a doghouse.

Remember, a bad website for a professional can cause the opposite of the desired reaction, which is to motivate the potential customer to engage the company. Would you hire a lawyer or accountant, or a web designer who had a poorly designed site that was difficult to navigate? How does that reflect upon their business?

My response to these objections is simple: Understand what they are really saying. According to sales trainer extraordinaire Tom Hopkins “Objections are the rungs of the ladder to sales success.” Usually objections are due to a single question: cost (the secondary concerns about web site creation are almost always due to the about the amount of time and work necessary to create the site itself ). For more on working with objections, I highly recommend Tom Hopkins’ classic How To Master The Art Of Selling, pp.187-197. (Selling itself seems like a four letter word, but being “sold” a product or service that is needed is a good thing–not a bad thing. I believe it is the selling of items or services that are not necessary that has truly given salespeople a bad rap.)

Essentially when answering these web site objections, all this boils down to is the expense and time involved worth it?

There is a simple, yet objective, answer I can offer: According to Forrester Reasearch:

“More than 70% of U.S. homeowners use the Internet to make purchasing decisions.”

What can be extrapolated from this statement? If you own a business, no matter what type, your potential customers are researching your product or service online, period. If you’re not up there or you web site looks unprofessional, your competition is winning, and very simply, you’ve lost–and in this world where gas is going to $4/gallon, and milk is already past that point, we all need every bit of business we can get!

As people who read this are primarily business owners, we all deal with these types of objections. It, of course, is easiest for the person we are selling to, to do nothing, just let inertia take the lead. Yet, by not making a decision, they ARE making a decision. A tragic example of this involves family friends who were in their late 30′s and had children. The husband out of nowhere had a heart attack and died. Unfortunately they did not take the time to plan properly and therefore had no life insurance. I’m sure that with today’s marketing an insurance flier, or commercial had passed right in front of them.

Remember, life and business are dynamic; move with them and you and your family will prosper, fight against them and you will be left behind.

The next post will discuss marketing your business and how to reach more people!

Thanks for reading, best of luck in all endeavors!

Preston Ehrler

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