Are the following phrases becoming a routine part of your sales day?

"We just don't have the money right now; come back and see us next year."

"Everything looks great, but we've put a halt on any additional spending right now."

"I would definitely sign up for your service if I was sure we were still going to be in business a month from now."

If they have, you are not alone. In fact, many of the salespeople I work with have been looking for ways to work around these objections, and many think the solution would be to lower prices for the immediate future. Before you jump to that conclusion, though, think about this: in spite of the rapidly changing nature of doing business in difficult economic times, having success as a salesperson is still ultimately based on your ability to build relationships with others, whether prospects or current customers. When you can accomplish this, you'll be amazed at how quickly the issue of price disappears.
You see, those price objections you are running into are simply that: objections. Despite what you're hearing every day on the news (we'll save that topic for another day), relatively few companies are actually at the point of having to close their doors. Most of them are using the price excuse as a convenient way to say "No" to the steady stream of salespeople they see every day. To change that "No" to a "Yes" takes the same thing today that it took when the economy was booming: rapport with your prospects. It goes without saying, of course, that you must provide a quality product or service at a competitive price, especially when your prospects and customers are tightening up their budgets. You also need to be looking for ways to provide additional value to your customers along with your product and service. Once you've achieved that minimum standard, however, the focus really becomes your relationship with your customer. And though your relationship as the salesperson with the customer is the starting point, I'm also speaking of the overall relationship between your two companies. Whether it's communications between their accounts payable staff and your credit department or the interactions between their warehouse staff and your delivery or service personnel, each component contributes to the overall relationship.

What, then, should you as a salesperson be focused on in order to maintain and improve your relationships with your existing customers? How can your attitudes and actions be directed in a way that will help you to build new relationships with prospects, thereby attracting new customers and overcoming price (and all of their other) objections?

For the past few years, I have been writing and speaking about an approach to selling called DROP DEAD Sales. What is DROP DEAD Sales? It's a method that can radically increase your results when it comes to building and maintaining great customer relationships; more than that, DROP DEAD Sales offers a way to improve the quality of the relationships throughout your entire life.

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