this first before even talking about your Mercedes car it completely disarms the prospect. Essentially the prospect is looking for a feeling of importance and subconsciously he thought he could get it by telling you why the BMW is better than your Mercedes. Now that you’ve agreed with him initially in acknowledging that the BMW is a fine car he cannot get his feeling of importance through arguing with you.

Amazingly, when you take this approach prospect

As many of you probably know there are countless numbers of sales books available on ‘how to overcome objections.’ Indeed I have read many of them myself and almost every one of them is well written and they all offer sales people countless points to help them overcome objections prospects make. Some of my favourites are the strategies which enable sales people to overcome the issue of a price being ‘too high.’

The only difficulty I see with such strategies is that you are immediately positioning yourself against your prospect to defend your product/service. With such tactics, you are effectively arguing with your prospect albeit in a friendly way (I hope!). Wouldn’t it be better to begin by agreeing with your prospect from the start? Does that mean you have to condemn your product? Of course not. If for example you are selling Mercedes cars and your prospect comes in to your dealership and starts by saying “The BMW is a far nicer car with a leather interior, your Mercedes doesn’t even come close.” The average salesperson starts by either criticising the BMW cars or at best ignoring the reference to them and instead immediately citing a benefit of the Mercedes and noting that the BMW does not offer such a benefit. When you do this you are arguing with the prospect plain and simple, and that is certainly not how to get him to buy from you. Regardless of whether you are correct, even if your prospect knows this he will refuse to totally accept your points because of his pride. You have positioned yourself against him and he cannot concede your point with out damaging his own self-esteem.

Wouldn’t it be better to begin by agreeing on some level with your prospect, for example by saying “The BMW is a nice car Mr. Prospect, there’s no doubt about that, and there leather interior does look very sleek.” When you say this first before even talking about your Mercedes car it completely disarms the prospect. Essentially the prospect is looking for a feeling of importance and subconsciously he thought he could get it by telling you why the BMW is better than your Mercedes. Now that you’ve agreed with him initially in acknowledging that the BMW is a fine car he cannot get his feeling of importance through arguing with you.

Amazingly, when you take this approach prospects

gies is that you are immediately positioning yourself against your prospect to defend your product/service. With such tactics, you are effectively arguing with your prospect albeit in a friendly way (I hope!). Wouldn’t it be better to begin by agreeing with your prospect from the start? Does that mean you have to condemn your product? Of course not. If for example you are selling Mercedes cars and your prospect comes in to your dealership and starts by saying “The BMW is a far nicer car with a leather interior, your Mercedes doesn’t even come close.” The average salesperson starts by either criticising the BMW cars or at best ignoring the reference to them and instead immediately citing a benefit of the Mercedes and noting that the BMW does not offer such a benefit. When you do this you are arguing with the prospect plain and simple, and that is certainly not how to get him to buy from you. Regardless of whether you are correct, even if your prospect knows this he will refuse to totally accept your points because of his pride. You have positioned yourself against him and he cannot concede your point with out damaging his own self-esteem.

Wouldn’t it be better to begin by agreeing on some level with your prospect, for example by saying “The BMW is a nice car Mr. Prospect, there’s no doubt about that, and there leather interior does look very sleek.” When you say this first before even talking about your Mercedes car it completely disarms the prospect. Essentially the prospect is looking for a feeling of importance and subconsciously he thought he could get it by telling you why the BMW is better than your Mercedes. Now that you’ve agreed with him initially in acknowledging that the BMW is a fine car he cannot get his feeling of importance through arguing with you.

Amazingly, when you take this approach prospect

“The BMW is a far nicer car with a leather interior, your Mercedes doesn’t even come close.” The average salesperson starts by either criticising the BMW cars or at best ignoring the reference to them and instead immediately citing a benefit of the Mercedes and noting that the BMW does not offer such a benefit. When you do this you are arguing with the prospect plain and simple, and that is certainly not how to get him to buy from you. Regardless of whether you are correct, even if your prospect knows this he will refuse to totally accept your points because of his pride. You have positioned yourself against him and he cannot concede your point with out damaging his own self-esteem.

Wouldn’t it be better to begin by agreeing on some level with your prospect, for example by saying “The BMW is a nice car Mr. Prospect, there’s no doubt about that, and there leather interior does look very sleek.” When you say this first before even talking about your Mercedes car it completely disarms the prospect. Essentially the prospect is looking for a feeling of importance and subconsciously he thought he could get it by telling you why the BMW is better than your Mercedes. Now that you’ve agreed with him initially in acknowledging that the BMW is a fine car he cannot get his feeling of importance through arguing with you.

Amazingly, when you take this approach prospect

ou are correct, even if your prospect knows this he will refuse to totally accept your points because of his pride. You have positioned yourself against him and he cannot concede your point with out damaging his own self-esteem.

Wouldn’t it be better to begin by agreeing on some level with your prospect, for example by saying “The BMW is a nice car Mr. Prospect, there’s no doubt about that, and there leather interior does look very sleek.” When you say this first before even talking about your Mercedes car it completely disarms the prospect. Essentially the prospect is looking for a feeling of importance and subconsciously he thought he could get it by telling you why the BMW is better than your Mercedes. Now that you’ve agreed with him initially in acknowledging that the BMW is a fine car he cannot get his feeling of importance through arguing with you.

Amazingly, when you take this approach prospect

this first before even talking about your Mercedes car it completely disarms the prospect. Essentially the prospect is looking for a feeling of importance and subconsciously he thought he could get it by telling you why the BMW is better than your Mercedes. Now that you’ve agreed with him initially in acknowledging that the BMW is a fine car he cannot get his feeling of importance through arguing with you.

Amazingly, when you take this approach prospects usually begin to remark that the BMW isn’t actually that great or else they point out benefits of your car without you even mentioning them! In effect the prospect begins to sell themselves on buying your car and in this way they subconsciously achieve their feeling of importance. This makes the prospect much more receptive when you suggest further benefits of your Mercedes to them because now your are not positioned against them but rather in agreement with them. The same applies when a prospect makes an objection regarding a specific aspect of your product, don’t disagree, acknowledge the objection and then show, don’t ‘tell’ the prospect why that objection is in fact not a disadvantage. In other words don’t overcome your prospects objections, help them overcome their own! If you say it they can doubt you, if they say it it’s true!