I sell IT software and I have been working on this prospective customer for about 4 months and they raised an objection about whether our software can do a certain function; I visited them again and took my IT Director to demonstrate this functionality and then when I went to close them, they said “they need to meet with another vendor before making a decision.” I feel like I did everything I could to win the business, am I missing something?
This is extremely frustrating when you do everything you can to win the business, and it’s still not enough. However, rest assured, there is a great technique that I would recommend here that will stop this from happening again. It’s called isolate the objection. So next time a prospect raises an objection towards what you believe to be the end of the sales cycle, say to the prospect “is this the only thing stopping us moving forward?” and remember to close your mouth and enjoy the silence. If the prospect umms and urrs after this question, then you must ask what else do you need to do to win their business? In your situation they would have mentioned seeing another vendor, you need to find out who and what you’re being compared against and then ask what will they be basing their Decision on? This will help you highlight how you are the right choice for them.
If the prospect replies yes then you reply that’s great and you can use a trial close if you feel it’s necessary I.e., so once I’ve demonstrated our software has that functionality, you’ll be ready to go ahead, is that right?
