Episode #202: Objections Required In Sales In Japan
The Japan Business Mastery Podcast
Buyers should buy and not quibble, hesitate or question. That at least is what salespeople hope for. The reality is we want buyers to object. If we don’t get a commitment to buy right then and there, the next best case is they give us an objection. No objection then no sale. Let me explain why.
If we are giving our presentation and at the end the buyer doesn’t have any objections but are also not ready to purchase then we are in trouble.
Now if they have no intention to make a purchase there is no point their wasting any energy on the due diligence component. When we get an objection, it indicates interest. Getting very poor questions is also another warning signal. If the sale is expensive or complex, then we want a lot of quality questions.
Sometimes the person we are presenting to may not be the final decision maker.
The person sitting across from us is a catcher of data and information to relay to others within the system. They will not have many objections, because they are probably not going to be the end user. We need to get feedback from the real decision-makers in the firm on what worries them, so we can address it.
Recently, we had a meeting with a large financial institution and the size of the deal was 10x, that means the scope of the solution was probably ten times what they were expecting. The investment amount was in line with that scope and also 10 X what they probably expected to pay.
Walking out of the building after the meeting, I noted to my colleague that they didn’t have enough objections. If the scope was that much bigger than they were initially thinking, there should have been more issues raised. We need to get some solid objections if we are going to make this sale. No objections is a bad sign. We haven't shown enough value or time urgency to inspire then to take our offer seriously. So contrary to what we salespeople all want, which is a sale with no objections, in fact we need them to make the sale. So work hard to get objections so you can complete the deal.