It all started a few years ago with Web 2.0, and now Sales 2.0 is the hot topic. What does this mean? Essentially, it means a complete transformation is taking place in our sales efforts, processes, tools, customers and markets, which all impact our sales cycle. As you can see from our 2007 Top 10 Trends White Paper, inside sales is still in the driver’s seat with increased deal size, which translates into more people being involved in the decision-making process.

As the customer’s buying cycle continues to evolve, their research of facts, pricing, and general understanding becomes more sophisticated. This means your selling process must start sooner and therefore, you can anticipate an increase in objections. Introducing Sales Objections 2.0.

Expect more and more objections to arise in the following 5 categories:

• Need: We all know multiple initiatives are sitting on everyone’s agenda this year and the urgency and need for your solution may easily take a back seat.
• Relationship: Although customers are more open to change than ever before, they also want to strengthen existing relationships with current vendors and partner with them in new ways. It may be tougher to displace the competition now.
• Authority: With more decision-makers involved in the process, more No-Po’s pop up each day. These are the people who have no power and no authority to make a purchasing decision.
• Product/Service: Although customers know more than ever before, they have less patience with anything too complicated and that lacks scalability and integration.
• Price: This is going to be a lean year; many budgets are already frozen for the first half of 2007.

How do you rebound? Here are some rebuttal strategies based on the category objection you may receive:

• Qualify your prospects to uncover the impact of their organization to determine potential for a need
• Create a strong phone introduction that creates urgency
• Determine if the prospect really knows what you are calling about
• Call wide at different levels

• Establish trust and rapport
• Learn how to sell against your competition
• Determine if the prospect needs to be sold or educated first
• Call wide at different levels

• Understand the various authority levels and learn the chain of command to include more decision-makers
• Present your product and align it to their “hot buttons”
• Early in the sale, set expectations that you plan to align at the highest level

• Provide opportunities to educate on your product/service
• Provide a cost-effective solution for easy entry
• Ask precision questions
• Neutralize their fears by providing added value for what you can deliver

• Qualify price versus ownership
• Determine if this is really a strong prospect who has potential
• Spend more time creating value and less time talking about budget
• Call at the highest level and learn the purchasing criteria

For more on objections, check out our blog on the Top 10 Objections Today.

Our TeleSmart 10 methodology is the only program exclusively designed for global inside sales teams and complements the field training programs you already have in place. Companies such as Agilent, Apple, Cisco, EMC, Harte-Hanks, HP/Mercury, Microsoft and VeriSign have all received training on our methodology.