Anticipating Objections

The account manager stood across from my desk and held out his latest written presentation.

“Take a look at this and let me know what you think,” he said.

I looked it over.  What I was looking at was a typical presentation.  Nothing too interesting about it and nothing too objectionable, either.  While searching for thoughts to share with the seller, I came up with . . . 

“It’s a baked potato,” I replied.  (I was thinking dry and boring.)

“A baked potato?”

“Yes.”

“What do you mean, it’s a baked potato,” he demanded.

Noticing his agitation, I decided to avoid the question and ask one of my own.

“Why wouldn’t she buy this?”

“Why wouldn’t she buy this?” he parroted.

I waited since he had obviously heard and understood the question.

“I don’t know.  Maybe she thinks it’s too expensive or it won’t work.”

“Why wouldn’t it work?” I probed.

“I think it will work.  I was just trying to answer your question.  She might think it won’t work and if she thinks that then she won’t buy it.”

“Then tell me why it will work, instead” I challenged.

“This is a great promotion!  The Ford dealership has several Flex vehicles on the lot.  We have proposed to create a promotion in which our listeners can build their own family vacation.  The trick is that it has to be a driving vacation.  They can go to Disney World or they can go camping in the mountains or go to the beach.  They choose the basic itinerary and then build their prize around it.  They might choose to receive camping gear or scuba diving equipment or whatever goes with the vacation they choose.  The whole thing is a play off of the Ford Flex.  The Flex is a 7-passenger vehicle but it can be reconfigured depending on whether you are hauling people or gear or some combination of the two.  You see, it’s FLEXible – just like the prize in our promotion.”

His enthusiasm was contagious and I was getting fired up.  But, there was still more work to be done to overcome the objections.

Oh, you didn’t notice any objections.  Go back to my conversation with this seller and notice that he thinks the objections are that the price is too high and that the promotion won’t work.  But, wait, those aren’t the prospect’s objections, those are the possible objections.

Too often, we act as if we don’t know the objections because we haven’t yet made the presentation.  Most of the time, that’s not true.  We do know most of the objections because we can anticipate them from our previous history with the current account and with other similar accounts.  We can anticipate the objections because they might be our objections if we were asked to buy what we are selling.

Since my seller anticipates at least two objections, we should address those possible objections in the presentation.  Let’s get back to the conversation:

“Wow, the promotion does sound great!  Tell me again the purpose of the promotion.”

“We have been tasked with driving traffic to Ford dealers.”

“Will the consumer sweepstakes you are proposing drive traffic to the dealerships?”

“Without a doubt.”

“So, you are convinced the promotion will work and can easily handle that objection.  Is the promotion too expensive?”

“It’s within the budget I was given.”

“Okay, let’s recap.  You anticipated two primary objections and are prepared to handle both.  Now, do one more thing and put those objections into the presentation.  Put them right in there and then answer them.  What this will do for you is allow the presentation to stand on its own when it is passed along to those who couldn’t make the meeting but are part of the decision.”

Key lesson:  Don’t wait until you make the presentation to begin the process of overcoming objections.  Anticipate the most probable objections and make a winning argument to overcome them within the presentation itself.

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