The Science and Art of Selling by Alen Majer

Certain objections exist to every proposition in the world. What would a soccer, football or basketball game be like without the blocking of shots? And what your proposition is determines what the objections are.

Call on a thousand average people to whom your proposition is salable. You’ll find the self-same objections on the lips of the majority of them. And these objections, boiled down and standardized, resolve themselves into a very small number.

For instance, in the paint business the standard objections are:

(a) “Too much money tied up in present stock to consider changing.”
(b) “Nobody is asking for your products.”

And really these two objections represent the big buffing points of the paint salesperson today, found in the mouths of the great majority of their prospective purchasers.

Now considering the fact that the majority of a salesperson’s calls entertain the same objections, it is only reasonable to suppose that the same rebuttals or answers should overcome them. And that is more than just reasonable; it is absolutely so.

When I say objections, I mean what I say - bona fide objections, not merely excuses for not buying. That kind of objections is a reflection on the salesperson by not yet selling the customer. A real objection can be defined as a valid, existing reason for not taking the products or proposition. When it’s overcome the sale is made.

The effective rebuttal or answer to an objection is one that gets past; it settles it forever. Every salesperson should study and classify the objections met throughout his or her career. Then when these objections are fairly well established in mind, the salesperson should start formulating rebuttals.
They can be (the rebuttals) taken from colleagues, common sense, experience, and experiments.

Whenever an answer overcomes one of these standard objections and makes the sale, put that answer down as a standard rebuttal to that particular objection. There’s nothing better than your own success journal. Except for this book (Crucial Points to Succeed in Sales), you can’t buy one that is better.

And the first thing you know, your equipment includes a standard, effective rebuttal that will clear the path of every common objection you meet.

It is positively a shame to see salespeople stumble and stammer and “hem and haw” in answering an objection they have been up against forty times before. It is inexcusable.

Further reading:

• If you live by price - you will die by price
• How to win the deal without discounting
• Three Classes of Price Objections
• Six Common Objections and How to Handle Them

In my previous article about presenting, I was talking about how we can’t all be at our best every day or every hour.

But if you get your best possible presentation down on paper and then firmly entrench it in the back of your head, you’ll be certain to make a better average presentation than you ever have before. It will also give you confidence during off days.

Now, knowing what you do about your own proposition, if you were in your prospect’s shoes you’d want it, wouldn’t you? Well then your task is simple; you have only to make your prospect feel the same way about it that you do yourself and the order is yours.

And how are you going to do this?

By conveying to your prospect the very things that have made you feel the way you do. You can hardly expect the prospect to view matters the way you do in the first place. If they did, their orders would be coming in through the Internet or the mail.
That’s what you are there for - to make them feel the way you do and arouse their desire.

Fear – Haste - Uncertainty

• Fear is a dangerous four-letter word - an emotional response to impending or imagined danger that is tied to anxiety. They’re all enemies of the successful presentation. Why should you fear? The worst that can happen to you is not to get the order. And you can’t lose anything that you haven’t got.
• Haste, why should you hurry?
  You must make your listener understand in order to get the order. You certainly can’t make them understand by rattling off your presentation as if you were paid by the number of words you got out per minute. Listen and record yourself sometime. Are you interesting to listen to? Are you clear and with a voice of different tones?
• Uncertainty?
  You can’t be uncertain. You know too much of the merit of what you’re selling to waver one second from the absolute knowledge that you are there to benefit the person you’re talking to.

You’re too strong to let fear, haste, or uncertainty wrecks your plans. Leave them to the weaker ones.

I’ve seen lots of salespeople who the minute they encounter opposition put themselves on the defensive, and take the attitude of trying to prove that they are not liars. They’re predestined to failure.
You are the captain of your presentation.

You know what you are going to say. You know how you are going to say it.
You know that what you are going to say and the way you say it are going to direct your prospect’s mind to the final point of desire for what you sell.

So let your facts come as gospel. State them as undeniable, irrefutable truths. Let your deep sincerity and positive statements head off objections and overcome arguments before they are raised.
Assume that your listener believes you; give them facts they can believe, and in the majority of cases they will.
Simply make it easier for them to believe than not to.

Avoid the pitfalls of long words and small superfluous arguments. Remember that the salesperson, to be effective, must get it across in the quickest, most convincing sort of way. Long words and so-called “clever talking” defeat their very object; they are offensive instead of impressive. And those little, good-for-nothing arguments don’t get the orders. Stick to the big points of your proposition: the points that count - the tried and true order-getters.
You know them. Use them.

Whenever you open your mouth to make a presentation forget that you ever made one before, or that you’re ever going to make one again.

There is just one person in the world to be sold, and that is the person you are talking to. You can’t sell that person by thinking of the person you sold yesterday or the one you are going to sell this afternoon. The person is before you; concentrate on that one.
Remember, no matter how old your arguments are to you, they ring fresh in that person’s ears. And the same points that sold your proposition last year and the same ones that will sell it next year will sell it this very minute to the person you’re talking to.
Leave no possible questions unanswered in your prospect’s mind. Some people have a tendency verbally to say, “Yes,” without really being convinced, just to be agreeable or avoid argument. Instead of trying to get a mere verbal assent, bend your endeavors toward making a prospect’s mind completely and absolutely convinced of the truth of what you are saying.
In this way, step-by-step, as you go through your presentation you will gain a general approval on every point you make. Then - when you return to the net result of getting the order - your prospect cannot raise a point, and go back and disagree with you.

To learn more about the Crucial Points to Succeed in Sales and how to use them to improve your sales results, get my e-book here.

In your approach you have won the prospect’s interest. You have put them in the mental position where they are ready to purchase if you prove up your claims. And you can prove up these claims because you made them, knowing in advance that they were merely a preface to showing your proposition.

What is the mission of your presentation?

To create desire for your products. That’s all. And the minute that is accomplished, the order is yours for the taking.

Let your presentation be organized, well thought out, with a beginning, middle, and an end. Don’t take any chances in your presentation. Know what you are doing.

Once a friend of mine was demonstrating a new steam cleaner to an interested contractor. He failed to ground the unit as he usually did. The lesson is still in his mind ten years later: his prospective buyer leaned against the machine, receiving an electric shock that did not hurt him, but it sure killed the potential sale.

The rule that a person travels familiar roads more rapidly and surely than they can pick their way along unknown paths absolutely applies to demonstrating.
Consequently, prepare and practically memorize a standard presentation of your proposition; have it in such shape, like a pilot’s check list, so that your mind is dealing with the person you are talking to. And if emergencies arise, instead of groping for something to say, you have already rehearsed for it.

The best speeches, the greatest orations, the ones that have made history, have in the great majority of cases been prepared beforehand and carefully memorized.

I don’t mean to say that you should write out a presentation or demonstration, then commit it to memory, and try to repeat it word for word. Just know it well. But I do say that you should have a standard practice in presenting or demonstrating your proposition. Again, remember the pilot’s checklist. No matter how many times you’ve flown, no matter how smart and capable you are, following a standard practice will be worth your effort. Let this presentation of yours be born of your experience and that of others in selling your product.

Sit down with a pencil and a lot of paper, or behind your computer screen. First, jot down the big talking points of your proposition. Then organize them with a beginning, middle, and an end. Then write out a presentation, putting yourself in the other person’s place, and weighing the effect upon them of every word you’re going to utter. Remember, you’re a salesperson, not an author.

Cut down. Boil down. Eliminate. Abbreviate.

Then when you’re satisfied that you’ve got the shortest, best, most convincing, most complete presentation of your product that you are capable of giving, commit it to memory. Yes, commit it to memory. And if you doubt the effect on others of memorized words, witness the actors who, with the same speeches, make different audiences laugh and cry at the same places in their play night after night after night.

Yes, when you are convinced that you have the best presentation you are capable of giving, then memorize it.

Take it out on the firing line. Add to it. Take away from it. And you’ll find yourself with a presentation that will bring down the game in the shape of orders.

We can’t all be at our best every day or every hour. But if you get your best possible presentation down on paper and then firmly entrench it in the back of your head, you’ll be certain to make a better average presentation than you ever have before. It will also give you confidence during off days.

To learn more about the Crucial Points to Succeed in Sales and how to use them to improve your sales results, get my e-book here.