Is there an elephant in the sales room with you? A big hairy one that your customers cannot resist looking at? A gigantic elephant of an objection that you are failing to address in your marketing?
That elephant is the reason your potential customers are not buying your product or service. It’s the sum of all their worries and concerns about buying from your company. It’s the reason they hum and haw instead of making a firm decision.
Every sales process reaches that dreaded point where you need to address all the objections your potential customers have to buying your product or service. It’s where sales are won or lost depending on the skill of the sales professional.
What if your marketing did all that heavy lifting for you? What if it answered those looming questions before they were even asked? What if your customers came into the sales process feeling confident about buying?
That’s what your marketing should do.
How Successful Marketing Speaks to the Elephant in the Room
I love how the Ancestry.com commercials handle potential objections: upfront. It speaks directly to all the people who may be curious about their ancestral heritage, but find the idea of starting the research process intimidating.
The ad says, “You don’t have to know what you are looking for. You just have to start looking” and then goes on to explain how EASY it is to use and how you don’t have to know exactly what you are looking for to find it because the site makes suggestions on where to look next.
Smart site. And smart marketing because it leaves the viewer with no questions about their ability to make the product work for them because the product literally does all the work!
How to Address Your Elephant Objections Upfront
#1: Get Inside their Heads – Understanding buying and objections means you need to play psychologist and get inside your potential customers’ heads. What worries them about buying? Why do they think it won’t work for them?
#2: Don’t Assume It’s about Money – Don’t always assume your potential customers are too cheap to buy your product at full price. Rarely is price the main buying objection. Dig deeper and uncover the REAL reasons they are hesitating.
#3: Mirror Your Sales Process – Design your marketing materials to mirror your sales process. Sit in on a few customer calls or pitch it to a room of prospects and ask them to share their actual concerns. Your marketing should step them through that entire process in the same logical manner.
#4: Focus on the Positive – Don’t raise new concerns by focusing on the negative. Instead bring up the objection in a positive light by pairing it with the solution. Talk about worries that it’s going to be hard by emphasizing how easy it is for anyone to use.
#5: Use Customer Testimonials – Ask your best customers to do the talking for you. The reason testimonials are so effective is because they speak to your potential customers in the same language. Use case studies to show how easy it was for an ordinary customer to use.
