How to Handle Objections? The Funnel Sales Process
Have you ever wondered how to be more successful in your negotiation? How to be sure your interlocutor is really having a struggle about your offer and is not giving you a fake excuse?
In this article, I am going to share with you a sales process I have learned through my sales experience. It consists of 5 steps that will help you identify your prospect (or interlocutor) ‘s pain, and how to overcome it to finally conclude to a go to action:
1. Empathy
Put yourself in the shoes of your prospect/ client/ interlocutor. Make them feel you understand their problem/ pain/ issue (why they cannot buy/ do/ take).
2. Clarify
Once the problem/ pain/ issue has been identified, final confirm with your prospect/ client/ interlocutor their problem/ pain/ issue is confirmed by you and understood.
3. Isolate
Isolate the problem/ pain/ issue to make sure the road blocker is identified. By doing so, you make sure your prospect/ client/ interlocutor is not faking an excuse.
4. Empathy
You can always add a second empathy time to really show your shared feeling.
5. Overcome
Give a solution/ answer to the problem/ pain/ issue. Related to your company, possibilities, situation, the choices can vary.
6. Close
ABC, Always Be Closing, the basic of a salesperson. If you have done all this work before and cannot call to a next action, it has been useless, and a waste of time. Conclude this “discussion” with a next step: Buying, Signing, Doing, etc. it needs to be the thing you want your prospect/ client/ interlocutor to do.
Use case:
You are selling perfumes. A customer comes and seems interested in one of your products. You introduce yourself, start a chat, and finally you start discussing about the perfume they seem to like. They seem interested but still looks reductant. You make them smell and still, not decided to go to a next step.
You can ask a question with a closing step: “should I bring the perfume to the cashier for you?” As you can guess, the first answer will be no, but this is a lead for you to trigger the first step. You need to identify the problem/ pain/ issue of your customer. Let us say the answer is “I am hesitating with another one”.
In this example, I summarize the situation and the discussion, in real life, it can be very similar and/or very different. You will have to adapt your speech and attitude related to the person you will speak with.
Empathy + Clarify:
“Of course, those fragrances are so unique and amazing, I understand your struggle. This #2 perfume suits you very well too!”
“So you are struggling between those 2 perfumes, and you can only take 1 right?”
You make sure the problem/ pain/ issue is identified and understood by you.
In this use case, let us say it is not the only reason for the customer but you still cannot say why.
Isolate:
“Let’s put aside the fact that you have to pick only 1 perfume, would that make it easier for you?”
In this situation, the answer would be: “yes, if I could have the possibility to get both, I would!
Empathy bis, not obligatory, but can be added:
“Of course, those perfume are so good and suit you so well, I could also struggle between those 2!” (How many time have you heard those sentences when you go to a shop? Now you understand)
Overcome + close:
“Instead of picking only 1, if you want you can take them both!” (because it is pushy, use humor)
As said earlier, in order to explain more the process, this is not going to be the real excuse for the customer no to proceed to the next action: “actually, I cannot do that, it would become too expensive”.
Empathy+ Clarify:
Now you have found the real excuse (in this example): price/ money.
“Oh yes I see, you cannot afford the 2 of them, I understand it becomes out of your budget. Those are top brands perfumes and they are expensive individually. So, to make it clear, your budget can allow you to have only one of those right?”
Isolate:
“Let’s put aside the price, would getting those 2 perfumes make still sense for you?”
You kind of create a utopia for them, but it is necessary to be sure it is the real problem/ pain/ issue.
Overcome
“Here is what we can do, instead of taking a big (80ml) perfume of the #1 or #2, why not taking the small sizes (40ml) of them 2? The price will be around the same and you will have them both!”
Close
“So shall I bring them to the cashier for you?”
Again, this is an example for the funnel process, and does not include all the sales process you can have in the real world, i.e. cross selling, additional selling, etc.
I hope this article will be helpful for you and that you will be able to use it in your work tasks. It can be useful for sales, but also for any kind of negotiation situation.
As for your information, this use case has been done and executed by myself in my sales perfumes experience.
