This is for you if you have tried selling to corporates but only got objections (or if you fear objections keep you from trying to sell to corporates in the first place).
Three reasons for sales objections
There are really only **three reasons** why you come across sales objections when speaking to corporate prospects:
>>Your offer and messaging don’t clearly define the value, ROI, and *why* they should buy from YOU.
>>Your message is targeted at the WRONG person.
>>You are making it more difficult for them to buy by not scaling your offer
But actually, the objection itself will give you a BIG clue on where you are going wrong and how you can fix it!
*If you’re hearing something like, “We are also speaking to other providers” you have not set yourself apart from your competition and are seen as a commodity.
This most often happens when you are not focused on a specific niche and haven’t really worked out the deep challenges your prospects are facing.
Make this objection **go away** when you work on positioning yourself as the expert on your topic in their niche.
It only takes a little upfront effort – you can do it in a matter of days (YES, seriously – I have written more on this here): http://impactfulnesslab.com/how-do-i-know-what-pain-points-my-corporate-prospects-have/
Just think: WHO would prefer to buy from a generalist vs a specialist? Right, NO one!
Breaking down these objections – what do they mean?
*When you hear that they don’t have the budget, one of two things (or maybe both) are going on:
>>You haven’t set out clearly what ROI they can expect from working with you, or
>>You are not giving them different options to scale your offer up or down to fit in with what budget they DO have.
Why people do the latter is what totally confuses me when I hear complaints about sales objections.
Surely, if a company is interested enough to talk to you about your offer, you can find ways to give them options? I don’t mean lower your price (NEVER do that).
Ways to overcome possible objections
**For example, descope part of the offer, reduce the length of your work, or change the level of direct access to you.
There are a million ways of adapting your offer so that potential clients can get a taste of working with you – and then include more work in next year’s budget!
Talking about ROI’s sometimes makes people a bit uncomfortable because they are often unsure how to work out the financial impact of their work.
In my 1:1 work with clients, I show them how to use my proprietary ROI calculator that gives you an idea of the potential for saving or revenue increases in a matter of seconds based on data that is widely available, like average annual salaries for your industry and % changes in e.g. productivity based on your topic.
*So what about when they say that now is not a good time?
You might have done your **research**, worked on your **positioning** and you’re highlighting **the ROI**.
But they’re still telling you this is not the time to solve their issue that is potentially costing them lots – sounds a bit nuts, right?
Are you going to the right person?
The reality is that you are *probably* speaking to the wrong person.
I mean that you have targeted your message to solve a specific problem but **the person you are talking to** does not feel this as an urgent problem (which doesn’t mean the organization isn’t suffering from it!)
For example:
*An operations director is concerned about team productivity and their people burning out. They are less bothered by increases in healthcare or recruitment costs as long as they can meet their performance targets.
*The HR director, on the other hand, is less bothered by dips in productivity as long as they can keep healthcare and recruitment costs low…
Sounds dysfunctional?
Yep.
But this is where you need to **focus** the core of your message on the likely priorities of the person you are talking to – not just the priorities of the company.
I could go on, but I hope the point has been made.
Contact me for more information
If you want to fast-track your positioning to land multiple 5-figure contracts with corporate clients in as little as 2-4 weeks, send me a DM (even if you don’t have an offer yet).
I’ll ask you a couple of questions to find out if your offer idea is ideal for getting these results and what would be the best way for you to land your first or next corporate client.
