Tough buyers…We’ve pretty much…

Tough buyers…Easy solutions?

The second cousin to buyers’ objecting might well be those difficult personalities we occasionally need to engage. Those can vary from the aggressive type who tries to steamroll you, to the super timid buyer on the other end of the spectrum who’s afraid to make decisions.

It can also include that particularly irritating dude who knows more than you (and pretty much) everyone else about everything. And of course, the difficult personality list wouldn’t be complete without including the silent type who can shut us down with his silence – and the super talker who does it in precisely the opposite way!

Dealing with these folks isn’t a mystery. It requires adapting our approach and then going with the flow. For that aggressive personality, let him be in charge. The know it all? Defer to his “superior” knowledge by asking his opinions. For the indecisive buyer, we have to become careful and measured so he won’t feel pressured. And the silent type? He’ll be turned off by a lot of chatter, so there we slow it down, talk less and adapt to his more reflective style. Oh, and that chatter box? Just let him talk. Interrupt him and you lose.

These and more personality types are just the real world we live in. And by adapting to them we can (at minimum) blunt the negative effect of their peculiar style, and at best use that challenging personality trait to our advantage!

We’ve pretty much…heard it all.

Yep, you’ve pretty much heard everything imaginable when it comes to sales resistance. It can vary from, “We’re pretty happy with our current supplier … “Your price is too high” … “We’re too busy to make a change” … “It’s not a priority right now”, to the all purpose, “It’s not a good time”. Regardless of the reasons, we have to approach them all pretty much the same way.

First, it’s a roadblock, not a stop sign. So we begin by acknowledging it and then rephrase it to be sure we’ve understood their concern. And then we explain as best we can how we’ll address it.

Let’s take the “we’re too busy” objection. There we can ask if their concern has to do with fear of disrupting operations during the installation and start up. If they confirm that’s the issue, you now have the perfect chance to turn lemons into lemonade by explaining just how smooth and painless you’ll make the transition.

Of course there’re situations where an objection is both real and something we can’t just deal with as simple resistance. Where that’s the case, we may need to withdrawal and regroup so that we can design a better offering that can address that concern in a future attempt.

Next up: Eliminating objections.