“A problem well stated is a problem half solved.” Charles F. Kettering

With a few variations, 80 percent of the objections sales people hear are:
“It’s too expensive.” (I can’t afford it.)
“It’s not in the budget.”
“I don’t need it.”

These objections point to a problem with a single cause: the customer has little appreciation for the value of your offering.

Essentially, the customer is saying the problem your product solves is not serious enough for the price tag. In the buyer’s mind, the cost of buying is greater than the value that would be gained by ownership.

Value-type objections like this are bad for the sales process because they indicate the customer just isn’t interested. The best sales strategy here is not to “handle” these objections, but to prevent them. Help your customer realize that the “little problems” are really BIG problems. This goes a long way toward preempting value objections altogether. Creating value is a huge key that is taught in B2B sales training courses, and should be used everyday.

In the sales cycle, the customer moves from Change, to Discontent. Change triggers Discontent. During the Discontent phase, the customer:

1. Recognizes a problem (or opportunity.)
2. Asks “just how serious is this problem?”
3. Asks “how much will the solution cost?”
4. Finally determines “I need to buy!”

In your role as Doctor during the Discontent stage, your challenge is to uncover more than problems. Many sales people made the mistake of trying to uncover only problems. Problems are rooted in events which have already happened.

Opportunities look to the future. It is so much more effective to look at both problems and opportunities. Doing so enhances the value of your offering and helps preempt value objections, as mentioned before.

When dealing with problems, customers often don’t recognize how serious the problem is. It is the consulting sales person who helps them realize the full ramifications of “small” problems.

Remember, studying the Key Success factors in your customer’s organization and how they are carried Function-to-Function. This area is ripe for studying the “full ramification” of “small problems.”

Your number 1 priority is to develop your B2B sales team to sell better than you can sell. You must attend a sales seminar to gain these valuable skills! To achieve this priority you must share your talents and skills with your people in such a way that they learn what you already know. What specific improvements in the skill or attitude of your people came about last week as a result of your sales coaching efforts?

If the answer is “not much”. It is time for you to engage in sales management training. Recent research has found that the highest producing salespeople are those that work for sales managers with a “hands-on” coaching style. Sales managers that monitor, direct, evaluate and reward their salespeople on a on-going basis; and, these high-performance salespeople were found to have a greater level of commitment to their organizations when they worked for a sales manager with this “hands-on” coaching approach.

Your company can increase sales and reduce sales turnover by installing a culture of coaching within your sales management team. You cannot install a culture of sales coaching simply by training sales managers how to coach. Instead, your training solution must also solve the obstacles that prevent proactive, hands-on sales coaching from actually happening.

We hope this informative article helps you and your team sell more and sell faster!

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