

Stomp The Heck Out Of Your Customer's Main Objection - murtali
https://training.kalzumeus.com/newsletters/archive/sco_reminder

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credo
>> _Find your typical customer 's main objection. Nuke it._

Interesting post with a lot of good advice based on the philosophy described
above.

I also think that this sales philosophy should have a qualifier around it.

It is important for any salesperson to seriously consider the (potential)
customer's objection objectively. Nuking the objection shouldn't be the
primary goal and it shouldn't come at the expense of the customer's interests.

In some cases, it is quite likely that the customer's objection isn't
something that must be nuked. In fact, I'd even go further and say that (in
some cases) a good salesperson should think of potential reasons why a product
may be inappropriate (e.g. little value, too risky, too expensive etc.) for a
certain customer. IOW in some circumstances, walking away from a sale (based
on a customer's objection) might be the right thing to do.

~~~
bmelton
The counterpoint to this, in the enterprise world, is to promise the customer
the moon, then turn around and tell the developers to make it happen before
the sale process completes.

~~~
joelhooks
The best is when sales low-balls to score the gig and leaves the development
team holding the bag 8 months later when the scope is radically out of whack.

/me sheds a sad lonely tear of sorrow

------
rdl
Basically there are two kinds of sales: high value/reasoned/important/logical
sales, and impulse/low value/time limited/etc. sales.

You address fundamental objections when dealing with a "real" client, and any
attempts at deflection or subterfuge will be net-harmful. The only "trick" is
knowing about internal champions and the customer's multi-person purchasing
process (when the user isn't the buyer and/or doesn't have ultimate purchase
authority in a single person).

For random impulse shit, you can trick people. Used car dealers define the
upper bound of bullshit for deal size. Generally few substantial purchasing
decisions by educated (i.e. business or professional) buyers happen like that,
but if you're selling a product on late night tv, you can minimize and bypass
objections through trickery, "sell the sizzle", etc.

Neil Rackham's SPIN Selling and Major Account Sales Strategy are the best
books I've ever found on sales.

~~~
adrianhoward
I'll second that recommendation of SPIN Selling.

SPIN has an explicit focus on understanding the customer and their problems
before selling solutions that's well aligned with the customer development /
lean startup stuff that folk here will be more familiar with.

------
crazygringo
> _some of the best results I 've ever had for writing sales copy... come from
> repeating a simple tactic: 1) Find your typical customer's main objection.
> 2) Nuke it._

I'd love to apply this... but I don't see how/where. I mean, your main tactic
has to be explaining what the product simply _is_ , and what benefits it will
bring you.

Overcoming potential objections seems far down on the list, not something
you're going to put in your main ad copy or home-page copy.

~~~
patio11
Home page copy (probably not your H1) is an excellent place for it. Another
one common in software companies is on the signup page itself. I often put it
on a sidebar, along with other risk reducers.

There are many other options if you do more involved sales with sales letters,
email campaigns, or in-person sales, obviously. If your product is very
involved, you can sometimes answer the objection right where you can
reasonably assume it will first be raised. For example, if you require the
clients to install an agent to gather some information from your server, you
can reaonably assume many potential customers will immediately go "WHOA! Stop!
That's incredibly risky", so that would be an excellent time to pro-actively
mention that your agent runs with minimal privileges, is OSSed and hence less
likely to have bugs, has run on 20k machines successfully, was tested by a
reputable firm, etc.

------
mercer
I believe this is what Apple did brilliantly with their Christmas commercial
([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImlmVqH_5HM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImlmVqH_5HM)).

------
jdietrich
This is one of the key reasons why long copy converts so much better than
short copy. A significant proportion of prospects really want to buy your
product, but have one deal-killing objection; They will read pages and pages
of copy until their objection is addressed and _click_ , you make the sale.

------
drakaal
>I'm an engineer, not a copywriter

Then don't think you are qualified to write copy.

You sell people by convincing them they can't live with out something. That
they need it. They will do the rationalization for why they will buy it, if
they feel they need it. What is the main objection to buying the latest
iPhone? Cost. Often the feature differences from the previous model are not
worth the price of a new phone, but people buy them by the millions. Why? they
"Need" it.

If you are selling to enterprise often the biggest objection is "I'll be
needed less" your product is likely going to reduce the need of the person
buying it. You can't reduce that objection. What you can do is convince them
that they need to reduce their work load. That it is a good thing. You don't
"stomp the objection" you instill a need.

~~~
Pitarou
> If you are selling to enterprise often the biggest objection is "I'll be
> needed less"

Seriously? Do you have experience of this?

In my experience, people these days recognise that progress marches on, and
the only viable response is to embrace it.

~~~
adrianhoward
_Seriously? Do you have experience of this?_

Can't speak for the poster - but this is something I've seen a _lot_ in the
enterprise. I think it's a more common reaction with larger organisations
because, due to their size, they tend to silo and specialise work more. So you
see this pattern:

* You find $solution to make X better

* You try and sell $solution for X into $company - who refer you to the X department that does nothing else but focus on X

* Since $solution is very disruptive for department X - it tends to get rejected.

This might not _just_ be because department X is thinking "I'll be needed
less" \- but it's very often a component of it.

In these situations it's often better to approach the head of department X, or
the person in charge of the head of department X. They often can see the value
more easily since they're more invested in results that the way things are
done currently.

~~~
Pitarou
Ah, I see.

As you say, to me that's not an object to overcome. That's a sign you're
talking to the wrong people.

~~~
drakaal
You are an idiot.

The person who "owns" the group you are going to reduce the work of is the
person who makes the decision. If you don't get this, you haven't sold to
Enterprise. Small Business this doesn't hold true, Medium it only partially
holds true. But in Enterprise the best sales are the ones where you are going
to sell someone $100k worth of stuff that will put $200k worth of people out
of a job.

The only way you overcome this is when a group is in a growth stage and doing
more with less means not hiring people.

When you are selling solutions to reduce people you are often selling to the
guy you are going to put out of work, or at least his manager.

~~~
emmett
Your point, true or false, is completely obscured by its first line. Please
don't bring that kind of vitriol into our community here. It doesn't help
convince anyone, but more to the point it grossly violates community norms
against being a jerk that exist for a reason.

