When I do sales training, it’s not uncommon to find that the majority of salespeople are looking for me to give them a silver-tongued response to help them overcome their most common sales objections. Whether it be price objections, think-about objections, or the “shop-around” objections — these are the road blocks that ultimately get in the way of contractors closing the deal. 

Now as much as you might hope I’d share that during training sessions, or use this article to give you my first, best choice to quash all of these objections, I think it’s much more important to focus on the sales process. I say this because the sales process is the recipe designed to eliminate all objections — other than price or time. 

The entire goal of the process is to get the prospect to come to the conclusion that they’d have to be crazy to choose anyone other than you for the project. If successful, you increase the perceived value of doing business with your company, and give the prospect something powerful to consider when they’re trying to determine if you’re worth the extra cost.

The process also helps contractor salespeople gain the four key commitments necessary for you to close the sale:

• The first is a commitment to their NEED. Do they recognize they have a problem and are they committed to fixing it?
• The second commitment is to your COMPANY. Have you told them a company story and are they confident in your ability to handle the project?
• The third commitment is to your PRODUCT. Do they believe in the products you’re using and are they happy with all of the choices they’ve made?
• The fourth commitment is to the PRICE. Do they understand the full nature and scope of your offer, and is it “affordable?”

When we teach the process we encourage salespeople to ask commitment questions after the inspection, the company story, and product presentation stages. After securing these agreements we then ask the following “trial close question” that tees up our proposal:

“Great! So, usually at this point our customers tell us we’re comfortable with your company, we love your product and if you can make this fit into our budget we’d like to schedule the work. Is that where we stand?”

If they say “no” we shouldn’t give them the price until we understand the reasons for their negative response. If they say “yes” it now comes down to you dropping your price and then asking them to get on your schedule.

Now if they tell you they want to “think about it” you can use the process to question their reasons by asking:

“Mr. Prospect, earlier in our discussion you told me that you were comfortable with our company, loved our product and the only thing standing in our way is the affordability. So is it the deposit, the monthly payment, or the total that’s getting in our way?”

Price and “shop around” objections can also be answered using the sales process. But you’re going to need to come to my seminar at the IRE to learn that. Hope to see you there.