Using Innovation in Sales

Any salesman, no matter how successful, will tell be able to tell you stories about objections. An objection is when the prospective customer has not been convinced by the sales pitch that has just been presented. Objections can come in different forms and according to Richard Denny, there is an effective three-stage process that can be used to deflect objections:

1. Ask Back
2. Agree and outweigh
3. Provide the answer

Many of the innovation techniques I've discussed on this blog can be used to make the implementation of this process more effective. A creative approach to objections is a positive approach. There's nothing worse than getting defensive when confronted with a seemingly illogical objection from a prospect, apart from maybe becoming patronising or even aggressive. So, if you receive an objection when trying to close a sale, take a deep breath and be creative and positive in how you respond.

Understanding the problem is a key foundation to being creative, and that's what the first of Denny's stages is about. Repeat the objection made by the customer to check your understanding and ask questions to ascertain if that's the real crux of the objection or whether it's actually something else. For example, "we have no budget" could actually mean "I don't have budget authority" or "we're nearing the end of our financial year and the books are closed until next quarter", or even "I don't know what my budget is". Repeating and probing the objection may reveal some opportunities that you can use to circumvent it and make the sale.

The "Agreeing and outweighing" stage presents further opportunity to apply creativity techniques to help your customer work around their initial objection. What you're agreeing with here is the customer's thought process that led them to the crux of their objection. That's an agreement that you both understand the core of the objection and that you both want to look at ways of dealing with it, creative ways of dealing with it. Remember, as Denny points out you are agreeing with the thoughts not the objection itself - if you do that the sale will be lost. The next step is to outweigh this objection sensitively and creatively. Take your prospect on a journey where you help them to identify creative ways around their own objection. They'll appreciate the time you're taking to help find a solution and it won't seem like you're trying to outwit them, knock down their objection. Your customer needs to follow their own thought process and come up with a solution.

Next let's think about providing this solution, the third stage. This is where we can get really creative and use some of the brainstorming techniques mentioned in other posts of this blog. Let's look again at the "I've no budget" objection. Having used the Ask Back technique and performed some quick and simple cause and affect analysis, we may discover that the crux of the objection is that they have used all their budget up already, a budget has yet to be allocated or they don't really want your product and are using budget as an excuse. Forgetting the latter and assuming the objection has been given at face value, we can use our creative powers to help the prospect find the funds needed. Guide the prospect through an impromptu brainstorming session, using whiteboards or paper and pen where possible. Get them to think about all the possible sources of funding that might be available to them, from other departments who might also benefit from your product or service, can they defer payment to make use of next year's budget, what about creative payment terms etc etc.

Overcoming objections is essential for any successful salesman in closing a deal and creativity techniques can help overcome these objections and at the very worse show your customer that you're truely dedicated to finding a solution to their problems and that you're prepared to work on the partnership with them. Most importantly it demonstrates to the customer that you can bring something new to their business - innovation...

Next time we'll look at the use of other creativity techniques in the sales process, including Generating Sales Prospects, Closing the Deal and using Innovation as a USP.