Yesterday we discussed the first 3 ways to work to overcome a prospective customer’s objections, today let’s discuss the last 2.

4. Dollarize Your Benefits Often when you get a rejection that is a knee-jerk reaction it can be because YOU have not quantified, or “dollarized” what you can do–how much profit you can create for your customer.  The perception of “value” is always going to be considered when purchasing a product or service (regardless of whether is dollar value or emotional value).  Therefore this value aspect must be presented.  To paraphrase Tom Hopkins, if you are trying to sell a website to a new prospect for $5,000, yet they were only ready to spend $3,000, you need to illustrate to the customer why they should spend that extra $2,000, and how your process is going to be worth that $2,000 investment.  My suggestion is to amortize the $2,000, and highlight how if over ten years the additional investment of $200 per year will quickly be overcome by the additional business that will be won with your website.  In business, the bottom line is king, focus on that and guide your prospect to full understanding of the financial benefits and they will choose you.

5.  No is GOOD I once read a piece written by a very, very successful Wall Street broker, who wrote that if he did not hear “No” several times per day, he knew he was not working hard enough.  Think about that, here is a guy who was top producer, yet even he was hearing “No” daily.  Therefore, in essence, “No” can be a good thing–it means you’re on track,and working hard.  Sso instead of letting “No” get you down, and spiraling you into a rut, embrace it, and understand that when you’re out there presenting ideas to people you will ALWAYS hear “No,” so, take advantage of it–LOVE IT!

6.  BONUS.  Learn from NO! Every time I interface with a prospect, at some point during the process I make a mistake–always.  Scheduling, follow-up, the presentation, wording, pricing, some aspect of what I do is wrong, which can ultimately end up in a rejection.  So, what do I do?  Learn from rejection.  My strongest suggestion to you is to review each step after you receive a “No” and highlight what you did wrong, and work to avoid doing this again.  This will make your end to end interactions with both customers and prospects stronger and much more engaging for them, ultimately leading you to a higher customer vs. lost prospect ratio.

I believe if you truly digest these aspects of rejection, you can learn to handle “No” better, overcome them, and when it is a real “No” understand “No” can be a good thing–in its own way.

What do you think?

Preston Ehrler, Webvantix

Recently I was finishing Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, and on p.244 – p.246 they began to discuss how the word “Yes” applied to becoming a trust agent, and how important it was to embracing this thought process–yet, so few do as “No” continues to be the knee-jerk reaction in so many aspects of our lives.  Bravo to Chris and Julien to highlight this, as yes, we are inundated with marketing and spam from all side, but sometimes, “Yes” can offer change for the better!

From a business perspective, if you are marketing or selling a product, no matter how super-wonderful-incredible-awesome it is, be prepared to hear the word no–or, not even to hear back.

Here are 5 specific ideas to what you can do when you hear “No,” and how you can use it to work closer with your prospective customer, as well as learn from business rejection.

1.  “No” gives you the opportunity to drill-down and understand why your prospective customer is rejecting you and your product/service.  If they spent the time to look at what you are proposing, and ultimately said “no” it is your chance to get closer to them by understanding why.  According to Tom Hopkins in How to Master the Art of Selling, you can say something like, “just to clarify my thinking, is it the the integrity of my company or my integrity that led you to no?”  They will almost always say that is absolutely not the case,  and you can work through various aspects of your offering, eventually getting to the chance inject “is is the investment that’s involved?”  This will almost always be the case–but that leads you to the opportunity to understand how much they ARE ready to invest/spend, and that’s where a professional must quantify the VALUE of your offering.  If you cannot ,then you are not prepared, and game over man!  Be ready to quantify that differential.

2.  Numbers, numbers, numbers.  Business is a game of numbers, plain and simple.  If someone says no, and means no, be prepared to move on quickly.  Don’t agonize over the loss of a prospective customer, just have another prospect in your pipeline.  If you have a quality product or service, there will be customers for you–always.  So understand that generating prospects through all aspects of your marketing campaign is critical.  Someone will always reject you.

3.  How many “No’s” does it take for you to get to a “Yes.”  Understand this formula and your business will thrive.  If you know over a period of time that you must cultivate nine opportunities to achieve a yes, then all your business becomes in a mathematical equation.  Plug that equation into your business model and see how well you can do!  If you can, through your marketing efforts, find ten prospects per week, you should be creating four new customers per month.  So, you must understand your pipeline and what it will take for you to create the new customer stream you need.

Tomorrow, yes, the day before Thanksgiving, I’ll post ideas 4 and 5.  If in the meantime you have any thoughts or ideas for dealing with “No” and rejection, please share them with us!

Preston Ehrler, Webvantx

When discussing SSI’s needs, it was immediately apparent that their new site needed to silo their visitors to the appropriate landing pages.

Greg Archbald, Director of Marketing for SSI said:

Webvantix did a wonderful job for SSI’s website. As a software provider for a niche market in the oil and gas industry, we were looking for a provider to build a website that not only stood out from those of the competition but also highlighted our company’s strong suits. Webvantix helped us bring to life a wonderful concept – a website that was very straight forward and fresh, appealing to both older audiences and newer entrants to the oil and gas business. I really appreciated Webvantix’s same day response time – I’ve had it the other way from other providers, and believe me it’s no fun. Great knowledge of design, and good attention to detail. A+ 100%

Bodies in Balance old website was a first generation site that was not helping them achieve any of their goals.  They wanted a site that was much more reflective of their beautiful facility and great staff.  After the launch of the new site they said:

We love it, we absolutely love it!

–Maryann Ruby, Owner, Bodies in Balance, Milford, Pennsylvania

No, I can't be bothered with another salesman, I've got a battle to fight

I’ve always loved this cartoon as it so perfectly captures the essence of being a salesperson.

I’ve agonized over this post for a while and finally decided to break it up into several posts.  The theme though is, are you a person that always says “no” just because of inertia and that it’s the quickest and easiest thing to say?  I find that I do, but mostly because whoever is presenting an idea to me does a poor job of quantifying what the advantage of their offering is to either me or my company.  Unfortunately, it’s just that simple.  I do think the phenomena is a direct reaction to how much we are marketed to.  Whenever I spend time on Twitter I notice how many people throw up links to “this made me $171,000 last month” or something like that.  Yeah, sure it did, and that’s why you’re so nice to share it with all of us on Twitter, give me a break.  So, how do we hold off the junk while being willing to take a closer look at something that may enhance our lives or grow our businesses?

About a year ago I was on a brief vacation and went to see the movie “Yes Man” with Jim Carrey.  He was the quintessential “No Man,” but then had to say “yes” to everything, and what I loved was, that his life and work changed for the better!

Could this happen to you, or me?

I’ll write at least one if not two more posts on this theme, including some thoughts on no and rejection from Tom Hopkins, as I think many people in business right now are hearing “no” more than they would prefer–and how to learn from it.

So what do you think, how about giving “YES” a chance, where otherwise, you would say no….just give it a try and let us know on this forum what happens!

Preston Ehrler, Webvantix