“I WANT TO THINK ABOUT IT”

The most feared sales objection is “I want to think about it.”

When a prospect says “I want to think about it” at the close, what they are saying is:

1. I’m not sold on the problem.
2. I’m not sold on the solution.
3. I’m not sold on the price.

It can only be one of these three things. So when you hear “I want to think about it,” it means you, the salesperson, failed during the qualifying phase.

How? For starters… Chances are you didn’t establish what I call:

“Problem Recognition”

Problem recognition is the first phase of the qualifying process. It’s not enough for you, the salesperson, to see a problem – you have to confirm that the prospect sees a problem and agrees they want it solved.

Once you have established problem recognition and identified your prospect’s role in the decision-making process and their time frame for wanting a solution, the next step in the qualifying phase is to identify what their ideal solution looks like.

After you have problem recognition and understand their ideal solution, you need to qualify on price by giving the prospect a range (low to high) on what it would cost should they decide to use your solution. If they agree that the price range works for them and that they like your solution, you exit the qualifying phase and move into the sales process’s presentation phase.

When you learn to master this qualifying process, give presentations that hit the mark, and then use what I call the “Close On Solution Concept,” you will no longer hear or fear to hear, “I want to think about it.”

What is Close on Solution Concept?

Close on solution concept is me asking a question at the end of the presentation that confirms our solution solves their problem.

It sounds like this as you wrap up the presentation:

“Mr. Prospect, I know I’ve been throwing a lot at you in a short time period, but let me ask you this… what do you like best about what you’ve heard so far?”

Prospect now gives you their positive feedback on what they like, and you then respond with

“Does this sound like what you are looking for?”

Now, if they just told you what they like about what they heard in your presentation, the only answer you will hear is some version of YES. To which you reply:

“Great – I would really like to earn your business now – other than price, is there anything else stopping you from moving forward with us now?”

This is called closing on the solution concept.

The prospect will either say, “No, other than price, we are in,” and now you negotiate the final price, or they will give you an objection. But what you will not hear is “I want to think about it” because if you did your job correctly, you confirmed problem recognition, their role in the decision-making process, the timeframe for solving the problem, they agreed to your solution, and they agreed to the price range.

So if they are not ready to move forward, there is some other objection standing in their way, and they will POP with that objection, and now you run the SalesBuzz 5-step objection handling formula.

Easy peasy.

Now – here’s where you can get yourself in trouble and still hear the “I want to think about it objection.”

If you ask the “problem recognition” questions, or “decision-making” role questions, the timeframe questions or the ideal solution questions, or the price range questions and do not LISTEN to the answers you get back, and you keep moving forward with your sales presentation, you could still end up hearing “I need to think about it.”

For example, let’s say you ask their ideal time frame question, and they say, “Sometime in the next six months,” and you just move on to the next qualifying question; you are going to run into trouble when you go for a close.

Why would a prospect wait six months to solve a problem?

Again this is just an example but a very common one.

If your average prospect makes a purchase within 30 days or less of the initial contact, and you ask a prospect their timeframe qualifying question, and they say six months, and you move on without understanding the reason behind it, you are not qualifying.

It’s not enough to just ask the right questions at the right time. You have to listen to the responses you get back and determine if their response equals a red, yellow, or green light before moving on. And if it’s red or yellow, you have to know how to handle that before asking the next question.

With that being said, we all make mistakes during live sales calls, so if you messed up and you hear a prospect say, “I want to think about it,” respond with:

“Mr. Prospect, there are only three reasons why a customer says they want to think about it…

They are either not sold on the problem, not sold on the solution, or not sold on our price.

Which one are we dealing with?”

Get them to say which reason and then use the SalesBuzz 5-step objection handling formula to handle and close the deal.

Fix that, and call reluctance disappears.

– Michael Pedone

Michael Pedone is the CEO/FOUNDER of SalesBuzz.com – On-demand sales training program that teach B2B phone sales techniques that work.