Sales pros have compiled a list of 25 critical questions that organizations must be able to answer before they can achieve record-breaking sales results. Download this FREE Guide today and you'll learn why these questions are so critical to your sales success, and you'll find out how easy it can be to have the answers at your fingertips. This guide is packed with quick tips you can act on immediately to improve your results.

the key to handling objections

Embrace the objections of your prospects and customers.

Right now and over the next several weeks, position in your mind the regular objections you hear as not only an inevitable step to bringing in more business, but also a positive step. Objections confirm a level of need or desire for your product or service and help you better determine the next steps you should take in a sales process. For the prospect, it's your responses to the objections that help validate or support their buying decision.

This is the reason the responses to your top objections (those you and your team hear most often) must be planned and prepared with a professional's level of attention.

What makes the best response to an objection?

Be sure your responses show an appreciation for the objection in a way that validates the prospect's concerns, and then addresses the issue very directly. Any response that could be misinterpreted as defensive, evasive, manipulative or sarcastic should be eliminated. Leave slick and cute lines to your competition.

Once prepared, work through the delivery of each response with those on your team, as well as some individuals outside your sales department. Get genuine feedback, make appropriate changes and then practice the delivery of your responses until you have them as natural and as tight as your opening prospecting statements.

Selling is about helping your prospects and customers solve a problem.

Be non-abrasive. Think appreciation and validation. Be direct.

Get 3 sample responses to the "your price is too high" objection and a printable reminder to "appreciate & validate" objections.

objection quiz: Do you know the 8 reasons a prospect will stall in the buying process? Understand the 8 true objections.

referral relationships (think side-to-side)

Who could tell you who and where to call right now to find new business?

Think forward. Think backward. Think side-to-side.

You're looking for new untapped resources and relationships that can help you make connections. This is where the big sales players are - wired in everywhere.

Over the next two weeks, invest some time outside the money hours creating a list of potential advocates, third-party influencers and other relationships that could lead you to a solid pipeline of business.

Ask yourself...

What happens to make our customers need what I sell? What events occur?
Who sells the products or services purchased before mine are needed?
Who sells the products or services purchased at the same time as mine?
Who sells the products or services purchased after mine are bought?

You may be surprised by what you find. Just be sure your approach with these connections is a prepared approach - prepared to the same degree as you'd approach a prospect (see the opening statement tool).

What's untapped in your sales world?

Use this link for some ideas to get you thinking forward, backward and side-to-side.

sales words: buzzwords are deeply lame

We get paid to make contact and bring in sales. Woven through the process is our ability to effectively communicate through words (spoken and written).

We should take our use of them seriously.

In April, we began a series on improving our use of words. This is Part VII.

Catch up on:
Part I: relative words
Part II: absolute words
Part III: trite words
Part IV: sounding smart
Part V: aggravating intensifiers
Part VI: verbal tics

A buzzword is "an important-sounding usually technical word or phrase often of little meaning used chiefly to impress laymen."
-Merriam-Webster

Think about it... do statements full of buzzwords communicate anything specific to your prospects and customers? Do you like hearing buzzwords?

"Our innovative product will help you implement dynamic strategies..."
"We're leveraging value-added relationships for optimal processes..."
"This cross-functional partnership with XYZ corporation represents a paradigm shift..."

JustSell's top 14 deeply lame buzzwords... (See the whole list of 41)

• core competencies
• cross-functional
• dynamic
• innovative
• integrated
• interface
• leverage
• liaison
• metrics
• paradigm shift
• partner
• strategic
• utilize
• value-added (or "add value")

We don't want to alienate or confuse our prospects and customers. We want to use words that effectively communicate the value of the product or service we are selling.

Get the complete list of 41 deeply lame buzzwords and get some suggestions to get back down to earth.

sales tech tips

1. Save your customer's time and your time by skipping cell phone voice mail introductions.
2. Get instant addresses and phone numbers via text message.
3. Run web background checks (when joining a new company, making a new hire, on your most valuable prospects and customers).
4. Stay in the know with your most important customers, prospects, and competitors by setting up email alerts.

Submit a tip. Please email Catherine Baab-Muguira at . We'd love to hear from you.

top guides & tools from JustSell®

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Feedback, questions, or comments? Please email Catherine Baab–Muguira at. We'd love to hear from you.

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