I told him that years ago, my first sales manager, Peter Brooks, taught me a lesson that I’ve always remembered – even to this day.  He told me that the people we were selling to were just people, and that I had to treat them that way. 

I was working with a client last week and one of their sales reps expressed frustration when he was trying to explain to a prospect why his service would be a perfect fit for their office.  He had built rapport, found a need that his service was uniquely qualified to fix, but the prospect said she just wouldn’t be interested in it.  “What should he have done?” he asked me?

I told him that years ago, my first sales manager, Peter Brooks, taught me a lesson that I’ve always remembered – even to this day.  He told me that the people we were selling to were just people, and that I had to treat them that way. 

He told me I wouldn’t get very far if I tried to bull doze my way through them or if I acted like just another sales person.  Instead, he said, I needed to be sincerely interested in them and their needs, and I needed to find a way to show it.

And that’s when he gave me a warm, genuine way of handling the exact situation this sales rep was in.  He said that whenever a prospect or customer said no to a good offer or didn’t seem to make sense in their objection, he said I should always just ask them why. 

Specifically, he said to use this phrase:  “You know (prospect’s name), I love to learn.  Do you mind if I ask why?”  And then to hit my mute button and listen…

He said that the key to this question was in the way I asked it.  I absolutely had to ask it in a genuine and sincerely interested way (the opposite of challenging the prospect).  What I’ve found in all my years of working on the phone is that when I do ask it in this way, I invariably get an honest answer.  In other words, I learn what their true objection is. 

Sometimes I can overcome the objection, and sometimes I can’t.  If I can’t, then I learn to ask better questions on my next qualifying call, and if I can overcome it – or if I can help clarify something they may not understand – then I do.  But either way, I learn something valuable. 

And best of all, I don’t feel frustrated anymore.  That is the key to keeping my attitude strong and the key to persevering and making sales. 

I still use this technique and suggest you try it the next time your prospect says no…