How to handle difficult buyers
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As salespeople we’ve all run into difficult buyers at some point. They tend to come in one of two types:
Defensive buyers — who are tight-lipped about providing information.
Impatient buyers — who just want to see the product or even just get pricing.
The keys to handling these two types are to understand the root cause of their behavior and have a set of techniques to help them open up.
Getting a defensive buyer to open up
The root cause of defensiveness is fear. Fear of saying something that the salesperson will use against them, fear of disclosing information, fear of making a mistake. Buyers usually get defensive when they don’t understand the buying process or if they’ve had a prior bad experience with a salesperson, leading them to think all salespeople are sharks.
Some proven techniques to overcome this:
Creating an agenda. This gives you the opportunity to ask, is there anything else you’d like to add?
Using a recap slide. This gives you a tool to guide the conversation into boxes. “Let’s review what’ve discussed so far. Did I get that right? What did I miss? What else piqued your curiosity?
Using insights to show that the buyer is not alone. Insights are powerful because they help frame the conversation in terms of the impact your buyer is looking to achieve and how to measure success. Insights also prompt your buyer to talk about their current situation. “How does this resonate with your situation?”
Showing that you are listening. The #1 gripe buyers have with salespeople is that they rush to prescribe solutions without first diagnosing the problem. The key here is active listening, so that you can recap and ask a follow on question. “You mentioned X, I’m curious what makes that a priority for you?”
Not being pushy. Avoid “sales-y” behaviors like talking up your product, knocking your competitors, manufacturing urgency and getting into pricing and negotiation discussions too early.
Getting an impatient buyer to slow down
The root cause of impatience is having a specific question and wanting it answered. Buyers often get impatient when they think they are far along in the buying process and already have a solution in mind.
The two most common impatient scenarios are:
Just show me the product!
Just tell me the price!
Just show me the product!
This happens when a buyer has a specific use case and solution in mind and wants to see if your product matches their solution. They’ll say something like “can’t I just see the product?”.
The techniques to overcome this are:
Acknowledging the situation and using it to do discovery. “I’d love to show you our product. Can you tell me features are you most interested in seeing?”.
Asking follow up questions to understand why. “You mentioned wanting to see the reporting capabilities. What kinds of reports do you need to run?”
Asking the same question different ways. “Usually when people are eager to see our product its because they’ve got a specific use case they are looking to solve. I’d love to start the product demo there. What’s top of mind for you?”
Just tell me the price!
This happens when a buyer is deep in the buying process with another vendor, often with one or more proposals in hand and is shopping around for additional quotes so that they can show their boss that they are getting a good deal. It can also happen in the renewal process, where the buyer is trying to get more favorable terms from an existing vendor.
Its very hard to win in these situations unless you know you are so cheap that it will force the buyer to rethink their existing vendor. The key is to qualify the opportunity as efficiently as possible so that you don’t waste time on it.
The techniques to overcome this are:
Acknowledging the urgency. “It sounds like you are pressed for time. Are you trying to make a decision this week?”.
Acknowledging you are late to the process. “I’m guessing you already have a vendor in mind? What do you like most about them?
Calling bullshit. “It sounds like you are pretty happy with the vendor you’ve chosen. What’s prompting you to look at alternatives so late in the process?
Asking for buying criteria. “Besides price, what are your top 2 criteria for selecting a new partner?”
Being willing to walk. “It sounds like price is your only criteria. If that’s the case, I don’t think we are going to be the best fit for you”.
I’d love to know what types of difficult buyers you’ve run into and the techniques you’ve found work well in handling them!
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