Do you know how to handle your top 5 Buyer objections? Are you practised, prepared, rehearsed and know when and when not to answer an objection?
PreSales professionals handle objections all the time. It’s a very healthy sign; it means the Buyer is engaged and thinking about the challenges associated with your solution. Most salespeople get some form of objection handling training, usually at the beginning of their career. It’s rare, however, for that training to stretch to PreSales/SEs and even then, it turns out, PreSales need a different kind of objection handling tool.
For us in PreSales, objections carry a much greater burden than they do for salespeople. We, PreSales, are presented to Buyers as the technical or business expert; if an objection can be answered by showing the technology or by referencing knowledge of a case study or previous implementation, we’re expected to know it and even be able to show it.
We’ll walk through the structured, proven Winning Skills – PreSales objection handling tool called PIIITCH™ (Pause, Interest, Intent, Implications, Tell and Check). We’ll give examples and explain how and why it works and what it tells us about the need for practice, preparation and teamwork.
We’ll intersperse the conversation with comments and observations about the anatomy of this discovery call, exploring key elements of discovery:
In this video, Don Carmichael emphasizes the importance of objection handling for presales professionals, discussing the PIIITCH methodology, the difference between questions and objections, plus the need for empathy, understanding, and preparation in order to handle objections effectively. He provides practical advice on managing emotions, establishing comfort and rapport with clients, and creating high-quality resources to anticipate and address objections. Additionally, he offers tips on tackling objections in the moment, discussing pricing, and handling minor software glitches during a demo, while emphasizing the need for honesty and communication with clients throughout the sales process.
Don Carmichael is a PreSales coach, trainer and keynote speaker and the Founder and Chief PreSales Evangelist at Winning Skills Ltd. After a 30-year PreSales career including heading EMEA PreSales enablement at both SAP and Oracle, Don founded Winning Skills to elevate the PreSales skill set and help take the profession and craft forward as Buyer Enablers. Don has taught PreSales skills at Adobe, Deloitte, SurveyMonkey, Sage, Freshworks, Concur and many, many others. Don is co-host of the ‘Two PreSales in a Pod’ podcast series, has his own hashtag on LinkedIn #PreSalesbyDonCarmichael, and regularly contributes to web events.