Selling in the year of the shrinking budget

1% of something is better than 100% of nothing

Have you or your team heard these a few times this year

• We are holding off on this until the market picks up
• This has been a tough year so we aren’t spending
• Our budget has been slashed
• We’d love to go ahead but we won’t be able to get the job approved
• Can we postpone this purchase until next year?
• We’ve got a freeze on non-essential spending this year

To succeed in selling in 2009 you must develop strategies for dealing with these.

I’m not denying that some of these are not genuine.

A lot of the time you here these objections (let’s call them excuses) because you have failed to sell in enough value.

I’d say get hungry and work hard to bring forward the purchase. The longer you leave it, the more likely it is you’ll end up with nothing at all.

Do you really understand their needs? Do you really understand their decision making process?

Do you understand their current process, issues, agendas, the roles of the people you are selling to?

As great sales people know you can normally predict (With about 90% accuracy) what a prospect will say when you are pitching to them.

Be prepared for the above by trying some of these:

• "That’s OK, let’s process an order now and we will invoice you next quarter"
• "Fine, let’s break down the payments into bite size pieces”
• "How much, realistically do you think you can access at this point in time?”
• "What do you suggest is a way of bringing this purchase forward?”
• "With what you have to spend, let’s look at still providing you with a short term solution“
• "Let’s look at a solution that costs you 30% less and still can assist you”
• “If you had the money, from what you’ve seen from me, what would you spend it on?”

Practice these responses at your next sales meeting. Modify them to suit your business.

Get hungry. As Billy Joel says, "Don’t let a good thing slip away".

Posted in Sales; Tagged Sales, Sales Management; Posted 26 August 2009 by Steve Herzberg