Defuse The Bomb Before It Blows Up

Sometimes, salespeople stress themselves out for no good reason. They sit around waiting for bombs to go off. Don't be one of those salespeople.

If you have the possibility of a recurring problem with your product or service, don't expose yourself to the stress of wondering when and how your prospect is going to lower the boom. Bring the issue up before the prospect does. Defuse it!

Here's an example:

You: One of the problems we may have Harry, assuming that we decide to do business together, is this: We don't provide local service. Is that going to be a problem?

Prospect: Yes, I'm afraid it may be.

You: Want to talk about that problem?

Prospect: Yes.

You: You start.

Bringing the problem up yourself makes it easier for you to handle the potential objection, rather than having to handle the problem while you're on the "defensive." This strategy can be applied to virtually any area of the sales process where you might reasonably expect to encounter a problem or disagreement: Financing, credit worthiness, delivery times, inventory status - you name it. If experience tells you that there's the real possibility of you and your prospect experiencing a bump in the road, you should find a way to talk about it ahead of time.

Don't let the fear of "looking bad" or "losing momentum" with the prospect stop you from addressing the most important issues. You will in fact, only look more professional in the prospect's eyes once you make it clear that you are willing to face rather than avoid obstacles. Finally, if the obstacle is in fact going to keep the two of you from doing business together you're better off knowing that now.

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I was part of Sandler Training about 9 years ago and recently we as a company decided to get back involved because we strongly believed in the system. After working with Mike and The Ruby Group for about 8 months so far, we definitely made the right decision. Mike and his staff are the best of the best and have contributed significantly to the success we have been having as a company. I'd highly recommend them to anyone looking to break out of the status quo and put a system in place that works.

Aaron Geh, The Karcher Group