How To Overcome The Partner Objection
In this article, you’ll learn how to overcome the partner objection; which is one of the more common sales objections you’ll come across during your sales conversations.
The real questions is though; is how do you overcome the partner objection in a way that’s not pushy or in a way that lacks empathy?
In this article, you’ll learn how to overcome the partner objection objection, as well as how to proactively prevent it from coming up in the first place.
How To Overcome The Partner Objection – Why It Comes Up
You’ll need to learn how to overcome the partner objection because it come up for two distinct reasons.
Firstly – it comes up if a person is feeling potential pain for investing in your product or service, compared to the benefit they’ll receive from the investment.
People buy for two reasons – to move away from pain, and to move towards pleasure or a desired outcome.
If someone feels that they won’t get their desired outcome versus the investment they’ll have to make, they may use the I need to talk to my partner objection as an excuse not to move forward with buying.
The second reason the partner objection may come up – is because the price or meaning of owning the product or service may be something that would also affect her in some way.
This is completely normal – and usually is the more valid reason this sales objection comes up.
How To Overcome The Partner Objection
In our sales training; our students learn how to overcome the partner objection in two ways.
The first way which is the most effective, is to prevent it from coming up in the first place, and the second way is to handle it if it comes up anyway.
Prevention Is Better Than A Cure
When learning how to overcome the partner objection, it’s always better to prevent it from coming up, then trying to handle it if it comes up later.
The best way to do this, is with the initial work you do at the beginning of your sales conversation.
This is by qualifying.
Qualifying Your Decision Makers
A key ingredient to preventing the partner objection, is to find out who the decision makers are in the first place prior to going into your sales conversations.
What use would it be going into your deep diving sales questions with just the husband or wife, if they aren’t exclusively the only decision maker?
Would there be any use in delivering a sales presentation to the husband or wife only, if the spouse also needs to know the ins and outs of your product or service?
Many Sales Professionals and Business Owners make this mistake, and then hope that the one spouse will go and relay exactly what you’ve shown the husband.
This is a bad strategy, because you’re relying on someone else to sell on your behalf and relying on someone else to get you results.
It’s important to be qualifying your sales leads prior to your deep dive sales conversation, so that you can ensure who the decision makers are, and that they can in fact afford what you’re selling.
To learn more about qualifying and how to do it correctly, read the linked article directly below.
Further reading: Qualifying Sales Leads – A Step By Step Guide
Using An Intent Statement
Something we teach in our online sales training program called The 5% Sales Blueprint, is something called an intent statement – also known as a pre-frame.
An intent statement or pre-frame is something we use to set up expectations for the sales conversation – this handles objections early and positions you as a trusted adviser.
The pre-frame looks after three key things.
First – you let them know that you’ll be asking deep diving questions.
You need permission for this, as you’ll have to ask questions that uncover pain, so it’s always best to get permission prior so they don’t feel uncomfortable with your questions.
It also ascertains whether you can in fact help solve their needs or not.
The second thing is to find out who the decision makers are.
As mentioned, the best way to learn how to overcome the partner objection is to prevent it from coming up in the first place.
Simply ask “If they are happy with what they hear today; if you can in fact help them that is – is everyone available to say yes if they wanted too and proceed forward, or would they need to talk to someone else?”
If they respond with yes and say they’ll need to talk to their partner, then it’s absolutely important to schedule in a time where they’re both present prior to proceeding with your sales call.
So many Sales Professionals and Business Owners make the mistake of proceeding anyway; and because it happens time and time again, they need to learn how to overcome the partner objection.
The key is to only go into sales conversations with decision makers at all times.
This way, you won’t waste your time with people who won’t buy, and you won’t come across in this case the I need to talk to my spouse objection.
Related article: How To Use The Intent Statement For Sales Success
How To Overcome The Partner Objection If It Comes Up Anyway
Let’s say hypothetically you’ve used your intent statement or pre-frame, and they hit you with the I need to talk to my partner objection anyway.
The way to go about this, is to learn what they would like to talk to their partner about in particular?
So, if they give you the I need to talk to my partner objection, simply ask “No problem at all – what in particular did you want to talk to your spouse about; is it the price?”
What we want to do here is uncover what other potential sales objections they may have, that they haven’t shared with you this far.
We don’t use sales scripts often as they can usually do more damage to your sales then benefit them, however we do have a staged approach to handle objections.
To learn this approach, click on the article directly below to learn how.
Further reading: Objection Handling – Your Step By Step Guide
Final Thoughts
Learning how to overcome the partner objection is important because it is a common sales objection, however isn’t something that should be hard to deal with if you take care of it proactively.
Always have your sales conversations with all decision makers, to prevent the I need to speak to objection from coming up later.
Want To Close Sales Easier?
Are you committed to closing sales a lot easier, and consistently?
If so, you should check out our self-paced and affordable online sales training program; The 5% Sales Blueprint.
It’ll give you everything you need to close sales consistently.
To learn more, simply click on the link below for more information.
Our Online Sales Training Program – The 5% Sales Blueprint.
