How to Overcome This Objection??

15 years ago

Good question. So basically they want to know if what you do for them will be worth it. Guess my answer would start by saying once they've got this website, they'll see an increase in potential customers, which could convert to buyers. Then I'd offer to report how many hits they actually receive once they have the website (which you can do via Analytics for example.) Then I'd also suggest they test the copy to see if they can increase conversions.

It's basically offering an on-going service - which is great for them and hopefully great for you too!

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Jason Kanigan

15 years ago

Yes, you can remind them that you will be showing them the stats so they can see the results of your service.

However, this is a plain old vanilla example of a prospect trying to turn the pressure of the sales situation back around on You.

Recognize it and turn it back to them. Why should you deal with this pressure?

"Miss Prospect, that's a fair question and it's been asked by business owners before you. Many of them have gotten involved in this service. Do you think they would have if it was a waste of money? Let me ask you this: what would you need to see that would show you people found out about your business by this service, and actually came in to buy something?"

Whittle their response down to something realistic and fulfill it at a price.

Get them to tell you how they want to be sold. That's your job.

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Norbi

15 years ago

Originally Posted by kaniganj

Yes, you can remind them that you will be showing them the stats so they can see the results of your service.

However, this is a plain old vanilla example of a prospect trying to turn the pressure of the sales situation back around on You.

Recognize it and turn it back to them. Why should you deal with this pressure?

"Miss Prospect, that's a fair question and it's been asked by business owners before you. Many of them have gotten involved in this service. Do you think they would have if it was a waste of money? Let me ask you this: what would you need to see that would show you people found out about your business by this service, and actually came in to buy something?"

Whittle their response down to something realistic and fulfill it at a price.

Get them to tell you how they want to be sold. That's your job.

I normally wouldn't use say something along those lines. S/He is already thinking "Is this going to be a waste of money?". By you repeating those words, that is all that might be left in their mind. Instead I would word with something powerful, like "Do you think they would be consistently considering this a great investment?"

But in this situation, I would personally try to find out what the true pain is.
The pain could be that they simply do not have a great method to track the source of the income. In which, you would simply lead with "What have you done in the past to track any type of marketing/advertising?" Plenty of business owners simply do not anything in place, and if that is the case all you have to do is present a solution to that pain.

However, most likely the pain is caused by their doubt in the product. In my case, I use a tablet with an internet connection. At that point, I would ask them about a product their spouse/gf/whoever might be interested that the prospect has no clue about. I would then use the tablet to walk them through what they normally would do to find a company. At that point, I would simply say "Do you want to be that company that is first amongst all your competitors? The company that has the first shot at showing your great customer service and your great products. Or would you rather be one of the companies that websites we didn't click on?" Without an interactive presentation, you can simply walk them through it. However, a tablet for an SEO/Website company is a powerful tool imo.

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LoriOnMaui 15 years ago

Thanks - that was helpful!
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RentItNow

15 years ago

Personally, I would move on to the next prospect, but that's me. I do not see a purpose in forming a relationship with a business owner that is not even on the same planet as his/her competition.

If I knew it was just a pressure situation as Kan said, I would tell them the stats of yellow pages versus google rankings. Also realize about 80 to 95% of people search for their products/services on google. Also that the top 10 listings on the first page of Google account for about 99% of the clicks? In fact, the first position will receive over 56% of the clicks alone. In other words, if their company is not on the first page of google, forget about people finding them. Btw, I do carry a copy of the google heatmap with me on sales calls.

Just my thoughts...

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BusinessGuru

15 years ago

Originally Posted by RentItNow

Personally, I would move on to the next prospect, but that's me. I do not see a purpose in forming a relationship with a business owner that is not even on the same planet as his/her competition.

If I knew it was just a pressure situation as Kan said, I would tell them the stats of yellow pages versus google rankings. Also realize about 80 to 95% of people search for their products/services on google. Also that the top 10 listings on the first page of Google account for about 99% of the clicks? In fact, the first position will receive over 56% of the clicks alone. In other words, if their company is not on the first page of google, forget about people finding them. Btw, I do carry a copy of the google heatmap with me on sales calls.

Just my thoughts...

Wow, I have to admit that this response definitely got to me. I totally agree; sometimes you just have to stand you ground and take a stance. First of all, you have to make sure that you never give away you power in any kind of business relationship but, really, I have to agree that the fact that you are promising first page google result is extremely powerful. If they cannot realize this, maybe they are the wrong prospects.

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Sue Bruce

15 years ago

Funny how these businesses don't have a web presence but the majority of them have a debit machine. Why? Because they know that if they don't, they will lose money.

No one has ever convinced them that they are losing money by not having a web site.

I would answer this way. "Well, we don't have any way of knowing how many customers have been searching for product/service over the last fifteen years and found someone else's site, but even if it was a few customers a week, that's money you've lost!"

Then go into the stats and numbers. Really like the heatmap idea. It's visual proof. Some owners need that.

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RentItNow

15 years ago

Originally Posted by Sue Bruce

Funny how these businesses don't have a web presence but the majority of them have a debit machine. Why? Because they know that if they don't, they will lose money.

No one has ever convinced them that they are losing money by not having a web site.

I used to train business analysts by taking them outside the huge gold tower the company was in and telling them to look inside what a customer sees. They would say, I don't see anything of course. I'd them hand them a laptop and say look again. They would of course pull up the company's website. If that site was not easy to find and had the capability of achieving the customer's goal, I told them to find the company that did. Was a powerful lesson that all of us should remember to tell our clients. Look outside...in -- not the reverse. Who cares what it cost, it is how people find their business now, plain and simple.

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midasman09 Banned 15 years ago

"Sales" is a "Game of NUMBERS"!

"Newcomers" to the "Sales Game" spend TOO Much Time trying to "Convince or Persuade" prospects to be INTERESTED in what they're selling!"

In any given "niche" (ie; Small business owners) there are only X who realize the importance of having a Web Site!

You do NOT have TIME....to try and "educate" and "inform" prospects on the IMPORTANCE of having a Web Site....these days.

I just was delivered the THIRD Phone Book in my small town of 20, 000.... for the year 2012 (Phone Co Book....Local Newspaper Book and..."Yellow Book just received) It is HALF the size of 2 yrs ago.

3 Phone Books....in a town of 20,000? And ALL are half the size they were 2 yrs ago? Biz Owners who do NOT....Know what's going on around them...I do NOT have Time to Educate and explain the "Facts of Life"!

What we do is....
PHONE Prospects (local biz owners and professionals) telling them that we noticed they do NOT have a website (surprising how many DON'T have a website)....and....we'd like to make a Mock-Up to show them...AT NO OBLIGATION! If they like what they see...we can go forward.

We then make a Mock-Up for those who "agree" to have us make a Mock-Up (at NO obligation) Those who don't....we forget about.

Those who agree to have us make a Mock-Up....we close 1 out of 3!

Again....it's a NUMBERS GAME!

Don Alm...."numbers man"
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Jason Kanigan

15 years ago

@Rent: You make a good point and one that I had thought of. However, I think it's too early to dismiss the prospect just yet.

If the OP or anyone else wants to move on to the next prospect when they get feedback like this, it will get them to stay in front of receptive people. And like you point out, that will get you to Yes faster.

On the other hand, you are in front of this prospect right now and it only takes a few seconds to ask this qualifying reversal. If they can give you a solution that you can make money off of, why not do it as long as the client won't be a real pain?

Funny how we're back to personality "fit" here. People commonly think money and need are the two big hurdles, but it's really personality that is the big one.

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Jason Kanigan

15 years ago

There's more than one objection going on here. You want to find out quickly if there is a hurdle you just can't overcome with this prospect, and if there is a clear way of continuing this conversation towards success. So being Tough is the way to go.

People are afraid to bring up the tough question. But the process works much faster if you do.

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zannix 15 years ago

Unfortunately, it seems that it is very hard to come up with a "tracking method" for SEO services. Yes, you can always deliver statistics for how many visitors visited the site, but you can't really claim how many of them turned out to be their customers, at least not with most businesses.

For example, for a food-delivery business you could. You simply enter a different phone number on the website (different than the usual phone number) and track how many calls they get through that number.

However, in most cases you just can't do this, because people won't even call, they'll maybe just read the offer, get their address and then visit them to buy something from them...

If that's the case, there's no way a business owner would want to ask every single customer - hey btw, have you come here through our website?
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Jason Kanigan

15 years ago

Ask THEM, get THEM to tell you how to sell to them! Put the pressure on them! It doesn't matter if you don't know how to do it; they will tell you how they would like to be sold to. Be Tough! Ask the uncomfortable question!

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ryanmckinney

15 years ago

It would seem that is the client's problem? Your job is to get them traffic,ranked, and build a good optimized website. How their inside sales funnel works isn't your problem? Unless you want to tack on some more fees to help them convert the sales funnel as a consultant?

One of my clients asked me something similar, "well how do I know they will buy from me and not go somewhere else?" I basically said (paraphrase) "I do not know, but I have helped your website optimization to capture leads so we can follow up via e-mail, and your sales team can follow up via phone, I have the keyword for the landing page landing on that page of your site (google x outboard, land on x outboard page and not xx page) and your phone number is listed, so if they call, your sales department will take over" -

I don't have cool comebacks like Jason, but I am working on the "psychology" part of it!

I basically told him in a tactful way, "you pay me to get your page ranking, and to help you generate leads, you don't pay me to make the actual sales"

It made sense to him, so he talked to his sales department director, found out what is selling best, and we moved part of our SEO to that department to get the calls.

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Jason Kanigan

15 years ago

I don't consider it a comeback to ask them what the heck they mean, though

99% of screw-ups in Sales come from both sides assuming they know what the other is thinking. Take the time and get them to explain to you what they want.

Prospects instinctually want to put the pressure on the salesperson. They do this without even thinking about it. So you recognize when this is happening, and reverse it so that they tell you what they need in order to buy.

Nobody else bothers to do this, so you'll stand out. "If I do this, then you'll do that" is the format of the agreements you want to get all along the way.

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ryanmckinney 15 years ago

Originally Posted by kaniganj

I don't consider it a comeback to ask them what the heck they mean, though

Haha, I just mean in general, you got an answer for everything, I seriously should make a swipe file of some of your post replies!

Another thing, is it is easy in the moment to get stumped by the question, and sitting back on the forum and re-thinking it and conveying it is much easier.

Once these sort of responses are instinctively spatted out over and over, I am sure it makes it easier.

At the time of my answer to my client's question, I just said what made sense in my mind, I like what travelin guy said about getting back to the numbers, and reminding them of those, makes sense.
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zannix

15 years ago

Yeah well, as someone above already mentioned - it's just the way advertising works. When you pay a listing in the yellow pages or air a TV commercial, all you can do is hope that someone will be interested and order stuff from you. You can't invest in a commercial that will SURELY get you sales... right?

Only THIS is an even better "commercial" because it targets people who are already looking for products/services that HE/SHE provides!

Am I missing something here?

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Jason Kanigan

15 years ago

YES.

The reasons people buy are their reasons, not your reasons!

To find out what they are, you have to ask them. Sometimes this can be uncomfortable, and you have to be Tough for a few seconds.

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jjjust007

15 years ago

I agree with ryanmckinney. I get this all the time. only most of the time it is, well in order for me to continue I have to see that I am getting clients.

They are hiring you to build a website and get them ranked on the first page of Google. It's not your job to get them sales or even know if they are going to get sales. They should have already researched the industry.

My response is always:

You hired me to get you on the first page of Google for your keyword phrases. It's not my job to close sales for you. Of course I say it nicely, but you have to keep their expectations in order. I hope that helps.

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travlinguy

15 years ago

This is when you hit them with the "numbers" explanation. It's all about numbers. Once you know you have the Website highly optimized, a specific number of people will take action. That may be one out of a hundred, it may be 10 out of a hundred, it will vary.

The actual conversion rate of "desired actions taken" can be tweeked but eventually you'll come to know what to expect. This is your selling point, your hook.

Once you know what to expect it's up to you along with the merchant to come up with a plan to get more and more people to keep visiting the site. Whether that's from SEO or some paid method is incidental. Tell them it's a numbers game, because it is, and you can't go wrong.

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Michael Bucker

15 years ago

Their problem is one that is a sales issue not a traffic issue. You are providing the traffic. The simple law of averages will increase their business. If they want the turnover per visit it their site they need to look at the sales end. Often people mistake a web person with sales professional. To receive the results they are really wanting they need both. However sales pros usually are not web builders and web builders are usually not sales pro. They need a team. So question is what content they should put on the site that will sell their product.

Team up with some sales pros on here and offer them as a contact to you prospects as the next step past traffic increase. Reminding them that based on the law of averages and numbers an increased number of visits always produces increased sales. Increased sales beyond that is a sales issue which you have built those contacts as well for your clients. This make you more valuable than the average web builder, seo etc etc.

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leeone

15 years ago

Focus on letting them know what they hired you for and continue to state the benefits of what you can do for them as it relates to building a website and getting to the 1st page of Google to get traffic. This is what they hired your for and this is what you should always focus on. This is what you are good at. Don't talk about things you have little experience in. Keep your focus again on you talent in building websites and getting them on the 1st page of Google to get traffic.

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davidmelamed

15 years ago

In your shoes....I would do the following...

1) lead them with questions to agree that they have used google to make a purchasing decision. (Have you ever looked on google for sushi in your zip code, or an airport service... get them to visualize and admit that they have found services through google, and than it should be easier to get them on board.)

2) appeal to their ego/ potential loss... show them their competitors ranking and ask them if they want to continue losing customers to their competitors who are clearly not as "good as them".... Talk about how what you do is help google give them the credit and rankings they deserve that they rightfully earned....

Bottom line, can you guarantee results? maybe not... but thats not your problem...can you deliver the rankings and SEO efforts you promise? YES, that's your only job...

Getting them comoftable taking the risk, well that really boils down to how good you are at establishing your credibility and ability... good luck.

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