Feeling
Your Way Around an Objection
In sales and
in life in general, we all have to deal with emotions
and feelings. Feelings, whether rational or not, cannot be denied.
If a customer, partner, colleague, friend or loved one feels something,
that feeling is true. Now, granted, that feeling may be based on
a false assumption, bad
information or something irrational. However, denying someone’s
feeling is a recipe
for disaster, particularly in sales.
When a customer
raises an objection based on an opinion or a feeling, you can use
the “Feel, Felt, Found” technique to defuse their concern. Some
key phrases to watch for include I think, I know,
I feel, I don’t feel comfortable or I’m not sure.
When you hear these phrases, you know you’re dealing with feelings.
“Feel, Felt, Found” allows you to acknowledge
a customer’s feeling and then respond
to their concern.
There process has three steps and works
like this:
1.
Feel: I understand how you feel…
You are acknowledging
the concern
2. Felt:
I have/Others have felt…
You are pointing out why
that is a valid concern
3. Found: I found/Others found…
You are defusing
the concern and providing
a reason
Some examples of how Feel, Felt, Found
can be used are:
Customer: “I just don’t know if your
company can have the materials delivered to us in time.”
Sales Rep: “I understand how you feel. General Motors
felt the same way when they purchased
our materials for their Dearborn headquarters. Once they placed
the order with us, they found that we were able to ship the materials
to them well ahead of schedule so that they could be distributed
to their entire staff before the open enrollment period.”
In this instance,
a specific customer situation was used to alleviate a client’s concern.
The technique can also be used with more generic responses.
Customer: “We just don’t feel comfortable
working with your company
since we’ve never heard of you working in California.”
Sales Rep: “I can understand why you feel that way.
We had several
customers in Oregon feel that way when we first started doing
business there. After working with us and finding out about our
seventy-five years of experience and our Fortune 500 client list,
they found that we are a reputable supplier who can easily meet
their requirements.”
Another example might provide a customer
with a reference to an authoritative
resource to defuse their particular concern:
Customer: “I don’t know that your
servers have enough processing power to handle the vast amounts
of data we handle every day.”
Sales Rep: “I can see why you feel that way. Not
having enough
processing power could be disastrous. We’ve had other customers
bring up that same concern. Yet, when they read the Gartner Group
study on our servers and how they outperformed every other server
in the marketplace, they found that they could rely on our equipment
to meet
their needs.”
This formula
works very well. It allows you to acknowledge a concern without
telling a customer that they’re wrong. Rather than using showstopper
phrases like, “yeah, but”, you are able to answer their question
and then show them (in a gentle way) why their concern can be handled.
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