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Overcoming Sales Objections for Small Business Networks
Do you need help overcoming sales objections? Do you sell computer networks, or other IT-related products and services to small businesses? This article provides tips and hints so you can be overcoming the most common sales objections heard when selling networks to small business prospects, customers, and clients. The problem generally begins when you start talking about a network upgrade. Around the time, many small business prospects, customers and clients will dwell on cost. These small business prospects, customers and clients often neglect to consider the soft costs of not properly investing in a network? such as lost employee productivity when imprudent corners are cut, downtime when fault-tolerance is an afterthought, and service costs from computer consultants when difficult-to-support or "dead-end" solutions are selected primarily because of their low price tag. No matter how thorough your initial consultation, IT audit, site survey and network design reports, some unforeseen client objections may pop up just before you get the client's authorization to proceed (generally a signed contract and retainer or deposit check). Why Overcoming Sales Objections is SO Crucial Because one relatively minor concern might threaten to derail the entire sale, you need to gain the critical business development skills for overcoming sales objections, with some of the biggest small business network deal-closing obstacles. Empowered with these strategies for overcoming sales objections, you'll be much less apt to get emotional, defensive or just plain annoyed. You can then stay focused on keeping your eye on the ball and figuring out the best way to solve the prospect's or future client's problems ?and of course, close the sale. Remember, your company isn't in business to solve prospects' problems; only those of paying clients. Overcoming Sales Objections: Apathy I hope you get a good night's sleep before this sales objection rears its ugly head. You need a powerful force to overcome apathy. If small business decision-makers have an apathetic outlook toward the prospect of implementing a network, your decision-makers might take weeks, months, or perhaps even years before feeling a sense of urgency about your proposed network project. However, once you discover the roots of this apathy, you'll be better able to push (or at least nudge) the approval process along. Here's a typical example you'll find in the field: The small business owner sees no problem with their existing peer-to-peer network. One or two seemingly innocuous foul-ups, however, can cause the small business owner to see the "light". With a Microsoft Windows peer-to-peer network, for example, the "server" seems perfectly reliable until the person working on the PC functioning as the server inadvertently hits the reset button with his or her knee. If you need to be overcoming more of the common sales objections, you must be very adept and recounting these kinds of cautionary tales with the right timing, delivery and empathy. Using Network Reliability to Overcoming Sales Objections PC/LAN network reliability can also get called into question when the user of the peer-to-peer server inadvertently performs an unannounced, unscheduled shutdown and restart because a software setup program prompted a reboot. With peer-to-peer networks, protecting data is usually also an afterthought. If the peer-to-peer server isn't protected with fault tolerant hard drives, a reliable tape backup drive, a server-class UPS, and updated antivirus software, a peer-to-peer server becomes an accident waiting to happen. So while any of these factors can turn apathy into your opportunity, sometimes a little divine intervention steps in to help you in overcoming sales objections. One day a lightning storm and blackout pushes your client's "server" over the edge. When power's restored, the server cannot even boot up to its welcome or logon screen. So now, the small business owner is scrambling with the internal guru at 2 a.m. trying to restore the company's corrupted contact management database, which contains 25,000 records and three years of data. Fear of Catastrophic Data Loss and Overcoming Sales Objections Situations such as catastrophic data loss, although horrible tragedies for those affected, are great motivators for combating apathy and overcoming sales objections. All of a sudden, the small business owner becomes extremely receptive to your suggestions about your proposed networking solution, which of course features centralized security and data protection. Discontinued technical support is another powerful counterforce for overcoming apathy-rooted sales objections, especially when you are talking about vertical, industry-specific software, such as niche applications designed for accountants, attorneys, physicians, realtors, auto body shops and restaurants. After a certain point, the independent software vendor (ISV) selling vertical, industry-specific software draws a line in the sand and stops providing technical support, annual updates, and patches for older versions of their product. So if your client is an accounting firm that needs updated tax tables (they'd basically be out of business without them), your client is forced to upgrade the tax software, which often in turn forces an upgrade of the server. This results in a call to your firm to upgrade their server (and several related highly lucrative product sales and service opportunities for your firm), all as a result of the "domino effect" from an ISV calling the shots. With this kind of scenario, you don't even need to do much of the work in overcoming this sales objection. Your prospect's, customer's, or client's vertical ISV has done the "heavy lifting" so to speak in overcoming sales objections. So besides fears of unreliable systems and vendor-mandated upgrades, you can also overcome apathy by discussing your prospect's, customer's or client's competition (without naming names, of course). If you work with many small businesses in the same industry, and you are seeing a software or more general technology trend that drastically alters the competitive landscape in your prospect's or client's industry, by all means call this to your prospect's or client's attention, as a means of overcoming sales objections. The Bottom Line If you sell and service IT-related products to small businesses, you need to develop your sales skills for overcoming sales objections. This article introduces you to three different major categories of small business IT sales objections and helps you understand simple anecdotal closing strategies for overcoming those sales objections... and most importantly, closing more big-ticket sales. Joshua Feinberg is a 15-year veteran computer consultant, an internationally recognized expert on small business computer consulting. He has appeared in dozens of business and IT trade publications including CRN, VARBusiness, Microsoft Direct Access, TechRepublic, American Express OPEN Platinum Ventures, Entrepreneur, Inc, SCORE, Small Business Computing, and USA Today. To learn more about Joshua's proven strategies for overcoming more small business networking sales objections, visit his site at http://www.lan-wan-integration.com
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Careers and Employment How Many Salespeople Should I Hire? One of the most asked questions I get is how many sales people does it take to get the revenue numbers needed. Personally, I believe in large sales forces because in highly competitive situations the largest army wins. That doesn't mean, however, that you can go out and hire 100 sales people if all you can possibly sell this year is a million dollars if everything goes right. So how do you decide how large a staff you need? The Hidden Competition: Avoiding the 2 Most Common Competitors There are really only two types of competitor: Not Enough Fresh Sales Leads? Marketing is the New Sales Your sales are down and leads are rare. The phone's not ringing. Let's blame marketing! 3 Steps To Getting A Sales Meeting The best way to get a new customer is to clearly identify who you want to do business with and then get in front of them. They can then see what you look like, possibly see what your product looks like and also examine any data or statistics you might have. It gives you the ideal opportunity to start building a positive working relationship with your potential customer. Sales & Marketing Plan Strategies Design and Implementation of a new Sales & Marketing campaign must be carefully thought through from the beginning. What message do you want to send about your company, products, and services? What are the anticipated results? What is the execution strategy? What is the cost ratio versus expected return? Run a Productive Business From Your Car-Office The way we do business has changed dramatically over the past 10 years. More products and services are now being offered outside traditional premises. You no longer have to go to a bank to complete your transactions or home loan applications. Insurance brokers visit your home or office; retailers deliver products directly to your home. This change in distribution methodology has meant many of us now run a car-office. Free to Succeed: Effective Sales Leadership Using A Coach Approach About 2 years ago, I participated in a training program I'll never forget. The leader divided us into two teams. Each team's task was to fire a whack of darts into each number on a dartboard. The leader of Team A was given instructions that his team had to hit the numbers in a certain sequence. He then related the sequence, number by number, to his team. Keeping Your Sales Team Motivated Sales managers frequently approach me for advice on how to keep salespeople motivated, especially when sales reps get into a rut - and seem to keep slipping deeper into it. Telling managers what not to do usually solves the problem. Most managers do things to de-motivate salespeople without even knowing it. 6 Common Mistakes in the Sales Hiring Process Is lack of sales results, more sales training costs, months of unearned salary and damage to your company's image or reputation your company's method of NOT finding good salespeople? For most companies it is! 6 Steps to Avoid Losing Summer Sales It's a fact - the online world dies down in the summer time. Kids are out of school, families are on vacation, there's fairs to attend to, and many are just spending too much time outside to be online. For those that market mostly online, the summer months could be eating your profit. The good news is, it's easy to take your product to where your market is - offline. The Art and Science of Managing Expectations in Selling It is very easy to fall into a trap with the customer by extending offerings beyond that of what the company infrastructure is able to supply in a reasonable timeline. Whats a Professional Sales Manager? I was in the depths of a major depression. As a third year salesperson with a good company, I was doing well, and was on my way to becoming the top salesperson in the nation for that company. But business had slowed down a little, and I did not have my usual number of proposals out for consideration. So, I wasn't as busy as usual. As my activity slowed, I began to worry. My doubts increased to the point where I had thought myself into a real depression, stuck on the question of "What's the use of trying?" The more negative my thoughts became, the less energy I had. My lack of energy led to fewer and fewer sales calls, which of course, led to less activity. And that led to more depressing thoughts. I was caught in a powerful downward spiral. Sales Pipeline Forecasting Is There A Better Way? To put it mildly most companies sales forecasting just isn't delivering, a staggering 90% of the deals do not close as forecasted even when the close probability is 75% or over. Even more astonishing is that 54% of forecasted deals are lost to competitors or to a no decision. The ACCOUNTABILITY Challenge for Today's Business Management In today's 24/7 driven business word, accountability is becoming a more critical issue for every business owner, manager, executive and salesperson. The challenge is to realize that accountability is just not a single issue, but an issue with many supporting elements. To maintain and thrive as an accountable individual first requires overcoming the fear to embrace these elements and then a plan of Action to ensure that YOU are an accountable individual. Are Your Sales Meetings Boring? Many sales meetings are boring and a waste of salespeople's time, say the majority of salespeople I interview. A review of what's going on in the market is good to know, but to be effective, sales meetings need to be a lot more than that venues for quick market updates. Seven Deadly Sales Mistakes That Cost Business Owners Big Money - And What To Do About Them 1. LOOKING for a "quick fix" to close more sales sales aren't closed, they're opened. To Increase Your Sales and Revenue Make Sure To Add Value What are you and your company's services and products worth to customers? What is the value you and your company bring to your customers? When working with customers and organizations, it is important to distinguish the difference between worth and value and to set a baseline value for the contributions you bring to the table. To illustrate, following is a simple example based on a company that provides training to other companies: Energize Your Organization No matter what you do, it seems, your employees do only what's absolutely necessary to get along. You've handed out raises across the board year after year. You've been as generous as you can be with various incentives. Now you are at wits end. You ask in frustration, "What will it take to motivate my employees?" 4 Marketing Myths Threaten Your Sales These 4 marketing myths can cause you to lose sales if you base your marketing decisions on them. But the related marketing tips I included with each myth will boost your sales if you act on them instead. Small Business Marketing: Overtaking Your Competitors Few businesses keep tabs on competitors, yet such knowledge can give you a distinctive competitive edge. Building a file on them, looking at everything from the customer's viewpoint and asking suppliers and employees what they know about them can be worthwhile. Keeping a jump ahead of the competition means knowing precisely what they are up to. Here are some tips to help you stay one, if not several, leaps ahead.
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