5 Core Customer Objections You Need To Banish To Close More Sales Online
January 19, 2019 | Sean Foo
If you have ever been in sales you will encounter a mountain of excuses and objections when it comes to closing that deal and making the customer pay.
“Your product costs too much. It’s just too expensive.”
“I don’t have the time to learn how to use it. I’ll pass on it.”
“This product is interesting, I’ll probably make the purchase next month.”
Now these reasons range from financial factors to not having enough time and most of them stem from a variety of reasons that include:
- A previous purchase of a similar product that went wrong.
- A poor understanding of how your product can better their lives directly.
- Low trust in your brand and team (especially if you are a startup or a new business).
- Having an existing solution they feel is good enough for the time being.
While most of the time these objections that linger in the minds of your prospects aren’t your fault, you need to address them well if you want to close that sale.
In this post, we will be going through the top 6 objections that your business will face, whether you are selling a physical product or a software download.
By knowing these objections you can begin to address them on your website and landing page and banish those customer doubts and see your sales curve rocket!
The 6 Core Objections (and how to effectively address them)
1. It Is Too Expensive
The classic price objection also known as the ‘I can’t afford it’ objection.
Most of the time this can be solved by a strong benefits and features showcase, but let’s assume you have already laid out a compelling case to choose you but the sales just ain’t closing.
It’s time to use some advanced strategy!
Strategy A – Use ROI Based Testimonials
Sometimes there is only so much great product descriptions and copywriting can do to showcase how awesome your product is, but sometimes it just isn’t enough to establish enough value.
This is true especially if you are selling a solution that is costly or has a certain level of commitment to them.
An incredible way to show that your product isn’t too expensive is to reframe the conversation your prospect is having in their head.
This thankfully is easily done using customer testimonials that focus on highlighting the positive benefits of your product. Tangible results that just melt away the price objection.
Depending on your product, this can range from a huge amount of money earned to an incredible experience.
The key is to link your service to a return, whether tangible or not, and perhaps nothing establishes this better than ROI customer testimonials.
Kissmetrics uses ROI based testimonials to effectively establish more value in their products helping to banish away price objections.
After all, if their product brings in more revenue than the cost, their price tag is much easily justified and swallowed by the client.
Strategy B – Showcase Different Pricing Options or Tiers Of Services
Perhaps your prospect really loves your product but is really strapped for cash and depending on your business model, this can be easily solved!
Whether you are selling web design services or a health food subscription service, chances are there are quite a few ways to reduce the price for your customers without impacting your brand or cost of services.
BarkBox, America’s number one pet-themed monthly subscription service, uses a three-tier strategy of monthly plans for their customers to choose from.
This approach is great whether you are selling a physical product or a digital service. By offering a lower unit or monthly cost for a longer commitment, it becomes a win-win situation for your customer and your business.
This allows your customers to justify your prices to themselves – getting more value on average.
BarkBox cleverly also highlights free shipping as part of the plan together with a tangible savings amount to further entice their prospects to sign up.
Saleshandy, an email marketing software that we personally use, showcases different pricing options and neatly lays out the premium features their paid and more expensive plans have.
This helps to justify their prices to customers looking to upgrade or prospects thinking of coming on board to become a paying client.
To give their prospects even more price flexibility, they have added an annual and monthly billing option allowing potential customers to save an additional 20% for a year-long plan.
2. It Seems Complicated & I Don’t Have The Time
Sometimes your prospect could be loving your solution but is in a big rush for time to take action.
The most common reaction is to make a mental note to come back later and sign-up. (More often then not they will disappear, never to return)
The solution here is to make the process as simple (and brain dead) as possible to sign-up, buy or get started.
Basecamp simplifies this process making it simple at every turn.
Either the customer fills in their email or signup with their Google account, allowing for a truly fast and painless experience.
The last thing your prospect wants to see is a long and complicated sign-up form asking them to fill in 5-10 fields.
Remember that all you need to do is to capture the information you need, get your reader to make that micro-commitment and your good to go!
While this process might suit technology as well as simple products, sometimes you just need to capture more information from your prospect.
A great way to spice up and make a longer signup process user-friendly is to dress it up and use more visuals and less text.
VendHq does a wonderful job by guiding their prospects through the sign-up process with graphic visuals to make the selection more intuitive and less text heavy.
A great rule of thumb to have is if your signup takes you more than 20 seconds to signup, you are probably losing conversions in this short-attention-span world of ours.
3. My Current Solution Provider Is Good Enough
A huge portion of potential business lies in your competitor’s clients.
But, if you have been in business long enough, enticing them to jump ship to your brand is quite challenging and is harder than converting a new customer from scratch.
Thankfully, we have a few proven ways up our sleeves to help position your brand as the superior choice.
Tactic 1 – Showcasing A Direct Comparison Of Your Product Vs Theirs
Sometimes the best way to stand head and shoulders above the competition is to directly compare your solution versus theirs.
SendinBlue a relatively new entrant to the email marketing scene uses a direct comparison chart against MailChimp, the current leader in the email space.
While SendinBlue obviously doesn’t have all the awesome features that MailChimp has, their comparison is focused on one aspect they know they will win: pricing.
Depending on the customer type you are trying to attract and the different features of your product vs your competitors, choosing the right area to do a comparison is key.
A strong direct comparison is the combination of clear features that beat your competitors that is also important and desired by your target audience.
Tactic 2 – Create & Use “Jumped Ship & Happier Than Ever” Testimonials
When it comes to social proof, testimonials ranks as one of the top ways to influence and persuade readers.
This is especially true when you are trying to get your prospects to leave their current provider and switch to your brand…but you can’t just use any random testimonial…
You need to get and use one that showcases your customer acknowledging your product is better vs her previous experience and loving it.
Woodpecker.co does a fantastic job with this by curating and showcasing testimonials that clearly show dissatisfaction with a previous provider and why Woodpecker is now the preferred choice.
4. I Have Been Burned Before / Wasted Money On A Similar Product Out There
It is always a good assumption that your prospect might have tried a similar solution but had poor results from using it.
While having testimonials and powerful product copy can help melt away this concern, there are also two other avenues that you can use to further address this objection.
The Free Trial (Perfect for software and non-physical products)
When it comes to lowering risk for your customers, perhaps no other strategy can beat the free trial.
By allowing your prospect to give your product a try for a set amount of time, you can get them to fully understand and experience your product so that if they convert into a paying customer, you know they really love your product and that also helps the likelihood of any refunds of complaints decrease greatly.
Netflix does a phenomenal job by offering a free month of unlimited movies and tv shows to their prospects to entice them.
The body copy also banishes away any objection to cancelling by stating the powerful combination of ‘no commitment & cancel online at any time’.
It shows transparency and honesty.
Now the awesome thing about free trials is to look beyond the surface of just asking for a sign-up.
Yes, it is technically just a sign-up, but it allows you to keep marketing and trying to convert them into a paying client during the period of the free trial.
Now if your product is popular, strong and from an established brand, you can even charge some money for a trial subscription, which is exactly what Spotify does.
Now you might be wondering why does Spotify even bother to charge $0.99.
Why not just give a 100% free trial versus a 90% discounted trial?
Won’t it attract more sign-ups?
Well…yes…but having a paid trial also brings a hidden benefit, other than the obvious revenue.
Prospects who pay for a trial are actually considered paying customers and because of this, the mental barrier of paying has been overcome and these trial users have a much greater percentage of conversion to a full-price long term paying customer.
Now free trials aren’t for everyone.
The thing about free trials is that it is best used for software and online products/services where the cost is minimal for each prospect enjoying the trial.
The Money Back Guarantee
Another powerful psychological feature to include in your sales copy is the promise of a money back guarantee.
A guarantee instills confidence in your prospect in your product, after all, you are so confident about it working that if it doesn’t, you will give them a refund!
Tony Robbins the master motivational and business coach uses a money back guarantee for his courses to instill confidence that it really delivers results.
This is rather important for big-ticket purchases whose value is not directly tangible.
Another type of guarantee that goes above and beyond is what I call the ‘Double Guarantee’.
While this version of the money back guarantee might sound insane, it is actually very effective in a digital world where more businesses are starting to adopt the money back guarantee tactic.
Russell Brunson excels in the double guarantee by not only giving back cash to any dissatisfied customers but also allowing them to keep the product.
Obviously, this tactic won’t work for all business types, it will also require you really work out the math on the value of each of your customer to ensure you aren’t spending more money than is needed.
Now when it comes to money-back guarantees, there is little to fear as if your product is really good, only a small minority will be dissatisfied and only a small percentage will actually ask for a refund.
5. I’ll Think About It And Come Back Later
Most entrepreneurs know that this excuse is the polite kiss of death especially if you are in a very crowded market with loads of competition swarming around.
When it comes to taking action, many prospects (including ourselves honestly) love to delay and postpone taking that next step forward.
The best ways to spur your audience to take action involves creating a powerful sense of urgency through:
- Limited time offers that give huge discounts
- Time-sensitive offers rewarding gifts for taking action now, not later, but now.
- A limited supply of product/orders that will disappear once they are fully bought.
Quickbooks uses November’s Black Friday Sale to bring a time-sensitive offer that provides a whopping 70% discount to their prospects.
This is a classic approach to creating urgency taking advantage of any holiday or shopping season.
Coffeeam knows the power of coupons or discounts perks to get your customer to take action quickly.
The moment you enter their website, you see the pop-up below asking for your email sign-up.
What is so great about this offer is that you are giving away something for just a micro-commitment of an email address.
This not only helps spur your reader to take action but also help start the customer relationship on a great note.
Conclusion
While writing a strong product description filled with compelling benefits and shiny features are important, taking time to understand and address your customers’ objections are equally as important.
As marketing gets more competitive and customers are getting spoiled for choice, it is now up to businesses and marketers to convert attention into action…
And one of the best ways is to address any potential customer fears and objections on your landing page or website pre-emptively.
