Hands up if you use your phone to make new business calls? (Sam raises her hand) Hands up if your number one objection from prospects right now is 'I have no budget?' (Sam raises her hand) Hands up if you know what ALL of your typical responses are and how to handle them? (Sam does a one man mexican wave!) So how many times did you raise yours? I wonder if we have enough of you to do a full on virtual mexican wave??? When it comes to new business calls at GSA, we probably come across the same 3-5 typical and over used responses from prospects. No matter what service we're trying to stimulate interest in, whether we're calling the PR Director of Sony or the Finance Director of Nike - we tend to get just a handful of these little blighters. So, what are they then... 1. I have no budget 2. I already use an agency 3. Not interested 4. Tried it before and it didn't work 5. Please send me an email and call me back Do these sound familiar??? An objection can be an indicator of many things - a sign of interest, a concern or fear, someone just telling it like it is, or a prospect afraid to say they're just not interested. But how well do you understand what your prospect is really telling you? Listening to telemarketing calls is part and parcel of what I do. Recently I listened in on a great call session for a client. She made a great appointment from her 'wish list' of prospective clients and toward the end of our session I gave her some feedback. This consisted of; slow down when you're introducing yourself, acknowledge a decision maker's response by giving what we call "a verbal nod" and ask more about the objections you're receiving so you know how to handle them in future. I must admit, I wasn't very shocked when she told me 'but if a prospect says they have no budget- what can I say to them other than fine?' This was the first time I realised my client felt uncomfortable about objections. Don't we all? Firstly, there’s no need to fear an objection, instead embrace them and you might just get a different response. Don’t take things at face value either, so they’ve said they have no budget - well have they completely cut budgets or simply re-allocated? When will they review? How much do you REALLY know about this typical response? And how much SHOULD you know… There are hundreds of telemarketing techniques out there. The key is to find the ones you need most, the ones that are most natural to you and make the response to an objection as compelling as your reason for calling. There's nothing wrong in digging a bit deeper to understand your prospective client's needs. For example when my client was faced with "I have to be really cautious right now as we don't have the budget" she could have acknowledged his response and used something like "I’m not surprised John, everyone right now is naturally cautious about budget, is it that you have no budget for training now, or no budget ever?" Instead her response was "ok John, I'll give you a call next year to see how things are". Nearly every organization is cutting/re-allocating budgets within one or more areas. So don't be surprised if you hear this old line one too many times. Instead, try finding out more about it and start buildling your sales pipeline...after all, there's no future without one! Good luck! Samantha Oggelsby Drop me a line GSA Business Development Ltd Training & Development Manager www.getsoundadvice.co.uk