My favourite objections

As a salesman, I am met with countless objections on a daily basis. Many are given in a polite, dare I say, apologetic manner, and those people are just plain lovely. Seriously, I get off of the phone, fully aware that I will not be doing business with that person but at the same time, slightly uplifted at having had a pleasant conversation.

Others, are just plain rude. You know the sort – people who say “We're all sorted thank you” before you even tell them why you're calling. It's fine, I've no reason to take it personally because these people don't know me, and they may well just be having a bad day, which instantly puts up a barrier to any type of sales call, whether they need the service or not.

Either way, there are some objections that I just love hearing, essentially because they are not really objections at all. As sales people, we learn to tell the different between a genuine objection and a person just trying to get us off of the phone. A less experienced, or even less confident sales person will thank them very much, hang up, look at their shoes, mope for a few minutes and then get back to work. A more experienced sales person will take the time to understand the true nature of the objection and then continue with the call if he or she feels it is warranted.

Let me make one thing clear – not all sales people are pests. Oh sure, the kid with one GCSE interrupting your dinner to tell you you've won a free kitchen makeover is a pest, but we're not talking about that guy today. No, we're talking about people offering goods and services to your business. Naturally, that is where we come in.

I was inspired to write this blog because I was on the receiving end of my favourite objection this week. “We already have a supplier thank you”. Well of course you do! How else would you get the stuff? If you didn't already have a supplier, it would mean that you don't utilise the service I'm offering anyway, in which case we can just as easily leave it there.

Clearly what you're probably saying to me is that you're not in the mood for a sales call, or that shifting suppliers is just too much of a hassle so you'll just leave things as they are. Listen, that's fine, and if your supplier is giving you the best service, the best prices, the best creativity and the best commitment to your relationship then of course you shouldn't shift. But ask yourself, when was the last time you ran a little checklist to make sure that they were giving you all that? What's more, how much damage would it do to try an alternative, just to see if they're any better? The worst that could happen is that your faith in your original supplier is reinforced, and that can only be a good thing.

Now I could wax lyrical about all of the other objections that are out there, just waiting for me to overcome, but I don't want you thinking that I'm sat here with a big book of scripts. I don't work from sales scripts because I don't like to think of my call to you as a typical sales call. I'm offering my help – yes it comes at a price, but the promotional merchandise surrounding what I do is just the tip of the ice berg. I am offering the chance to improve the outcome of your marketing, and surely an offer like that sells itself.