Hi All,

I'm looking for some pointers/examples for creating an interactive objection handling exercise for some telesales staff that I will be training next week. I have a list of responses and objections, I just need some help on how to make it interactive and fun. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Thanks

Peter

Hi Peter... I've been a sales person, and I've designed and facilitated a lot of sales-focused courses over the past 6 years or so, and I guarantee you-- the canned objections/response thing doesn't fly.

It's also a mistake to focus on handling objections when what you really want sales people to do is prevent them in the first place.

The key to handling objections is not to be exposed to a list of canned responses. The key is to know how to acknowledge the objection and ask more questions -- and think on your feet. Have your participants brainstorm what THEY think common objections to the sale usually are. Then have them problem solve and role play together to overcome the objections.

Then, move on to showing them how to prevent objections in the first place.

There are some really fabulous books on selling that address preventing objections and some great ways to handle objections. Soft Sell and The Accidental Salesperson are two that I'd start with.

Peter,

You have to start somewhere, and since not everyone will be able to prevent all objections from coming up, it's not a bad idea to address the topic, but Laura is right in advising the best strategy will be in the needs assessment and pitch, not the re-pitch or overcoming objections.

If you want to create an exercise that will help with this sort of topic among salespeople, I would reccommend a roleplay where your salespeople are responsible with identifying the weakness of their pitches and coming up with responses tailored to your product. If you want it to be more useable right out of the box, then give your people one of the two lists you came up with and have them work together to come up with the other list on their own. This will help to cut your prep time and the feeling of the exercise just being some canned program. Be reminded though, you want to keep things basic because this should just be a back-up plan for your agents.

A good resource for any trainer (sales or otherwise) to keep your program interactive is "The Ten-Minute Trainer" by Sharon Bowman. It's full of quick 1,5 and 10 minute exercises that can serve as good templates for any curriculum.

Peter,

I have found that audiotaping...recording conversations with callers/customers/prospects provides a great group debriefing and learning tool. The recording can be used to handle real problems in a "solve this problem as a group" type of environment. Real problems, real people. Try and select meaningful examples...this will take effort. And if you can take the "who" out of it, it will be very powerful for everyone involved.

Fighter pilots debrief every flight with an audiovideo player that documents WHAT happened, WHEN. The key to the debrief is finding the WHY and then making traction to finding the HOW to capitalize. They go to lengths to try to not hurt feelings or not to promote too much boastfulness by removing the WHO....

sf,
Boom

Hi Peter,

I also do sales training, and I agree with Laura that teaching canned responses is not the best way to go.

What we do is teach our salespeople to answer an objection with a question. Instead of firing back at the customer with a quick response, our reps probe to find out the reasoning behind the objection. Then when they understand where the customer is coming from, they use their product and business knowledge to present a solution.

This approach accomplishes three things: it teaches sales reps to treat our customers as individuals with different needs and concerns, it shows customers that they're being listened to, and it removes the pressure of having to come back with a quick "answer" for every possible objection scenario. It's basically teaching sales reps how to listen, probe and then advise our customers.

This approach isn't natural for most salespeople. In general, I find that salespeople tend to talk more than listen, (no offense to those with a sales background--I was a salesperson for 5 years and had to overcome this tendency too) so responding with a request for more information and then actively listening to the answer is something that has to be learned and practiced.

In our training, we have the reps brainstorm their most common objections, we discuss the possible reasoning behind each objection from the customer's point of view, and they brainstorm questions that they could ask to lead them to the source of the objection. Then we set up role-plays so they can practice. They are interacting, sharing ideas and practicing throughout the entire class. All I do is direct the activity, record all the ideas that come from the participants and provide coaching where necessary.

I hope this helps, good luck!