“We just won’t do anything until this virus situation is resolved…”

Sounds familiar? Should. You probably get this objection, or some version of it, every day now.

And for good reason. We are all in uncharted territory now. Some of you reading this are working from home, a whole new challenge, some stores and businesses are closing for now, and the highways are as clear as they were in 1965 (see, it’s not all doom and gloom).

Anyway, how do you handle this objection when you’re prospecting? Here is some practical advice and a word-for-word way to handle this current objection:

First: take off your “salesman hat”. No one wants to be thrown hard right now. Instead, what they want is to be heard.

I always teach reps that one of the most important soft skills they can learn is simply talking and listening to someone. Sales reps have a hard time with this, but now is the perfect time to practice this skill.

Second: It is important to emphasize to prospects and customers that what we are going through now is temporary. This will happen.

Third: This is the perfect time to evaluate (your product or service) and be ready to step ahead of your competition. In other words, what they do now will position them to be ahead or behind other companies in their market space.

And you can help them do that…

Here’s your script to use while searching for leads and setting up demos:

Prospect: “We just won’t do anything until this virus situation is resolved…”

You: “I completely understand. We’ve never seen anything like this before, tell me, how are you dealing with it?”

[Hit MUTE. Let your prospect or client vent. They want to be heard right now-not pitched-and you will separate yourself from all the other desperate salespeople out there if you act as a trusted advisor right now. Share how you’re dealing with it as well.]

After they’ve got it all out:

“You know _________, we all know one thing for sure: while this is scary, and while we may have several weeks before things settle down, it’s ultimately temporary. And that’s at least comforting, you know.” ?”

[Get their buy in on this.]

“In the meantime, let me tell you what other companies I’m talking to are doing. They’re using this downtime to evaluate and compare services like ours, so when it comes time to make a purchase decision, they don’t waste time.” “. to your competitors.

“What I would suggest is that we schedule some time so I can show you what your options are and what other companies are leaning toward. Are you at least open to that?”

NOTE: If you want to use a stronger loop than, “are you at least open to that?” you can use any of the following:

“Let’s schedule something for this week so we can show you… do you have your calendar open?”

PRAYED

“In fact, if you have a few minutes right now, let me take you to our website…”

PRAYED

“What time and day might be good for you later this week…?”

PRAYED

“By the way, are you the right person to talk about this?”

Regardless of the mooring you choose, start qualifying now and schedule an appointment for a demo.

As always, the best way to overcome any objections or deadlocks is to be prepared ahead of time. Use/adapt/customize this script to make it work for you and your industry.