Conversations vs. Combat

Does your sales team know the difference between conversation and combat?

Far too often, salespeople will get into verbal hostilities with their potential buyers. They hear a question or an objection and automatically go on the defensive!

This is not a trait you want to see in one of your sales reps. You’re simply not going to close a sale with a customer you’re also arguing with. The last thing you want is for your sales rep to “win” the debate and have your customer sit back and shut up. This is a sign of apathy and it won’t lead to anywhere positive for the sales rep or your organization.

Want your sales team to be successful?

You must encourage them to maintain conversations instead of engaging in debates. As long as your customer is asking questions and even presenting objections, a seller can continue the dialogue in a positive manner and potentially close the sale.

Here are a couple important points to consider when it comes to objections and customer conversations:

1. It All Starts With Mindset

Get your sales team to stop looking at objections as a negative thing and encourage them to view objections as a sign of interest. This simple shift in perspective will remove the need for combat, debate or arguments, and instead facilitate conversation and allow your team to help move the discussion forward by asking questions and providing answers.

2. Know When to Change the Conversation

There are going to be times where your sales rep does everything in their power to maintain the conversation and get through objections but they still won’t get anywhere. Encourage them to change the conversation and move on. They don’t need to feel the need to continue on with a conversation that isn’t moving forward. They can live to fight another day…as opposed to choosing to combat with a prospect in the moment.

[bctt tweet=”Remember, selling to potential customers isn’t a right bestowed upon your organization.” username=”EngageColleen”]

Every conversation with a potential client needs to be handled with care, and when egos get in the way, and your sales team is more focused on proving a point rather than engaging in conversation…it’s hard to create lasting sales success.

Ensure your sales team and organization know the difference between conversation and combat. One leads to trust and often a sale and the other leads to nothing more than a bad taste left in your prospect’s mouth.

Engage Selling helps organizations develop and review sales strategies to ensure they meet their business objectives. Learn more.

2 responses to “Conversations vs. Combat

  1. Yes, you are right … nobody wins a war.
    The thing that saved me 99.9% of the time was curiosity. Even when I’d get objections I’d want to understand it. What it meant. How they reached that conclusion. And doing that kept me asking questions.

  2. The key thing in sales is to awake a certain amount of curiosity. And by a properly built-up conversation it is possible to grasp a client’s attention and keep it in span. So discussion is alright, quarreling and being aggressive is a critical mistake, especially in B2B sort of business.

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