When people ask me in sales trainings how they can turn their no’s into yes’s, I get a creeped-out feeling because the underlying assumption is often: How can I manipulate everyone into saying ‘yes’ to my sales pitch? And those are the kind of sales techniques that make sales people feel scummy.

The truth is that you want people to say no if your product or service isn’t right for them and you always want people to know that they can say, ‘no’ if the product doesn’t fit their needs or their budget. However, if you’re hearing a lot of no’s from prospects who really are qualified candidates then there are two underlying problems you need to consider.

The Two Main Reasons that People say ‘No’ are…

  1. Certainty: I’m not confident that your product or service is really the solution I need; and
  2. Trust: I’m convinced about the solution, but I’m not sure you are the right person to deliver it.

Either of these can be deal breakers… or at the least deal delayers, so it’s important to look at where those objections are coming from.

In the 13-week Profitable Business Accelerator course and with many of my private coaching clients we work on exactly HOW you can increase the levels of both trust and certainty in prospects to make it easier for them to say ‘yes’ with confidence.

Increasing Certainty

This affects your prospect’s confidence in your value proposition and reduces rejection on the basis of doubt and fear about your solution.

Indications that you need to work on building more certainty into your presentation are:

  • Questions about price;
  • Technical questions about specific features and benefits;
  • The prospect is looking at different solutions to the problem (rather than different solution-providers)

You can increase certainty in the value of your solution through your elevator pitch and your presentation. You know that you’ve done a good job (or that your solution doesn’t fit) when your prospect’s focus changes from “What will I do?” To “Who will I get to provide this solution?”

Increasing Trust

This relates to your prospect’s confidence in your ability to actually provide the solution. It may be based on their perception of your capacity and expertise, the degree of relationship and rapport they have with you, and their existing relationships with other providers of the same solution.

Indications that you need to work on developing more trust through your presentation are:

  • Questions about capacity and timing;
  • Questions about process;
  • Indications that they are talking to (or plan to talk to) other providers of the same solution.

You should work on increasing the level of trust you engender by ensuring that your appointment-setting script and follow up process builds your prestige and fosters relationship; that you presentation materials highlight your expertise, and by changing your proposal and post-appointment follow up process.

Learning how to build relationships that foster both certainty and trust is vital for your career as an influencer and high performer so if you’re hearing a lot of no’s during your week (sales, relationships, career etc), identify where they are coming from and take the necessary steps to engender more certainty and trust in those around you.

Once you do this, you’ll find it’s much easier to get to ‘yes’ and your sales closing rate will skyrocket.

#TuesdayTips

“I really think you’ll love this skincare product, it’s 100% plant-based and all the packaging is environmentally-friendly and …”

“That’s not what I’m really looking for in my skin-care regime.  I want quick, easy, and effective.” was my response.

“But …”

And she’s lost me.  She didn’t listen.  Yes, I care about the environment, I care about the ingredients and all that – but when it comes to skin-care I care more about how it makes my skin look and feel, and how easy it is to use.  I’m busy, and every product I use needs to fit in with my lifestyle.

When you are selling something, listen to your prospect and ask questions so that you can work out what is most important to them, and discover why they would consider buying your product in the first place. 

You can only sell if people are interested in buying from us, so why do people buy?

People Buy When They Know It Is For Them

One of the problems service-based businesses face is that clients have to buy your services before they can fully understand the benefits you bring to them.  I hear this a lot from service operators and it frustrates me intensely. 

If you think about it you understand exactly why prospects won’t buy into something that they know little about because you wouldn’t do it yourself.  Savvy business owners stop complaining and start educating their prospects about the value of the service and what it will actually do for them.

I’d like you to meet Elizabeth, a Natural Therapies Practitioner who also offers Kinesiology, Emotional Freedom Technique and several other very valuable modalities.   She charges $125p/hour for her sessions and all of the clients she has worked with have had amazing transformations in their health and well-being so she has some very convincing testimonials and case studies.

Like most service business owners, Elizabeth needs more clients but she had trouble getting people to buy an introductory session to learn how these modalities might help them.

That’s not just Elizabeth’s problem, it’s a problem for many of us!  Why would anyone want to invest $125 just to find out whether something can help them? Most people have other things to do with $125 than just ‘try’ something out.  Even worse, what if I decided to give it a whirl and didn’t get the result straight away? I would probably go out and tell others about how Kinesiology doesn’t work and label Elizabeth as a quack to some of my friends/family. Terrible, but it does happen.

Elizabeth and I discussed the importance of educating people about Kinesiology and those other modalities – and how they could help.

How Can You Educate Your Prospects?

Elizabeth could hold a free monthly information session. Say, the first Monday of the month you can run an education session for 5-10 people that tells them about kinesiology, explains the problems it solves and the conditions it treats.  You might even provide a quick demonstration – but you mostly want to focus on the results it has given others.  You might make it free, or you might charge a small fee – but your goal for this session is not to make money, it is to get people in the door, so you need to balance a perception of value, with a ‘no-brainer’ situation.

This gives people who would never pay $125 just to ‘try it out’ the chance to get to know you and understand what you do without spending money on something they know nothing about. You can really raise their value perception. But you can also talk about what kinesiology can do for your prospect. Maybe they need it, maybe they don’t. Perhaps they really need it desperately, but they might not know that.   Once you’ve got them in the session you can talk about all these issues kinesiology and the other modalities address, and something triggers their response,  “Oh, I see value in that now, because it will release this issue that I’ve got, can I come and have a session?”

Problem solving, and how your solution helps people is much more interesting than if you talk about processes like muscle testing. Most prospects won’t really resonate with the details of your process because they don’t care – but if I’m a chronic migraine sufferer and you say, “I’ve got this thing called kinesiology, it helps with migraines and here’s the proof, come and talk to me about it.” then that’s helping me solve a real problem.  I don’t connect with the features of kinesiology, I connect with the benefits of it.  So what’s the end outcome? Ask yourself that question and then talk about those things – the solution to urgent problems.

Create Opportunities to Educate

Look, I get the struggle to attract clients, but I work on the philosophy of empowerment – I’m all about empowering people to move towards the goals they really want.  Complaining about the economy won’t change anything (although what we focus on does get out energy), but taking action to change will. I hope you’re starting to see how valuable this material is – if you understand yourself, and put yourself in your buyer’s shoes, you’ll find ways to help them understand the value of what you do.

You need to think creatively about demonstrating the value of your service – education does take effort, but it is much more effective than sitting around complaining about not having clients, or people being unwilling to pay your prices.

Meta Description:  Understanding what is important to your prospect in their buying decision is a crucial factor in closing sales.

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By popular demand we have turned many of our multi-day workshops into multi-week online courses with a live day to kick them off. Learn more at https://businessgrowth.mykajabi.com/masteryoursales

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