If your strategy for overcoming objections doesn’t kick in until the price objection is raised, it’s often too little, too late. In the first installment I used the example of a floor dealer named Cody (a composite of many dealers I’ve worked with) to demonstrate how smart dealers use strategic marketing to begin overcoming objections long before the prospect ever sets foot in the store. In this installment we’ll look at what happens when one of Cody’s prospects walks into his store.
Cody realizes that he needs to continue setting himself apart from the competition, so when a prospect walks in he has trained his team to never say, “How may I help you?” or “Tell me about your project.” Why? Because these phrases give control of the sales process to the prospect. For example, if the salesperson says, “How may I help you?” the prospect is likely going to reply with something like, “I’m looking for laminate for my kitchen, dining room and living room.” So, the salesperson takes the prospect over to the laminate display, and what’s the most likely first question from the prospect? “How much is it?”
By saying “How may I help you,” a salesperson inadvertently introduces a premature product and price discussion. Cody knows that product and price should not be discussed until much later in the process. So, Cody and his sales team say something completely different when somebody walks in.
What they say does several important jobs:
- It’s totally different than what the competition says.
- It instantly positions the salesperson as a trusted authority.
- It keeps control of the sales process with the salesperson.
- It builds value into the sales process.
- It gets the prospect to sit down for an in-depth consultation.
Once the prospect sits down, the salesperson is trained to hand them a beverage menu and ask them what they would like to drink. Then the salesperson walks them through a series of questions that create more differentiation and expert positioning, further making Cody’s store the obvious choice.
Cody knows that what others say about him is 10x more powerful than what he says about himself, so he has framed photos of clients and their reviews all over the store. He also has monitors showing a continuous loop of before and after photos of completed jobs and short interviews with happy clients.
Cody also took his “Perfect Floors Guide” strategy (which I discussed in the last installment) a step further. We helped him self-publish the Guide as a short book, which he keeps on display in his showroom. He’s now a book author, further positioning his expert status.
Cody’s sales team uses a visualizer to show their prospects what their rooms will look like with various types of flooring. They use the visualizer both in the showroom and in the prospect’s home.
Already, the prospect sees Cody and his team as utterly different than the competition. But Cody isn’t done. Instead of discussing price at this point he schedules an in-home visit to do the measure. And that’s where even more magic happens. I’ll cover that in the next installment of this series.
Jim Augustus Armstrong is the founder and president of Flooring Success Systems, a company that provides floor dealers with marketing services and coaching to help them attract quality customers, close more sales, get higher margins and work the hours they choose. For information visit FlooringSuccessSystems.com.
