If you sell B2C (or even B2B) and you get the “I have to convince my wife,” stall, how do you handle it?
If you’re like many of the sales reps I’ve been listening to lately, the answer is: Not very well.
So let’s start at the beginning. The first thing you need to do with this stall/objection is to isolate it. You begin by qualifying that the prospect you are speaking to is sold on your solution regardless of that the wife would say. You use:
“I understand completely – let me ask you: if your wife says she is fine with whatever it is that you want to do, would you move forward on this right now?”
If you get buy in with a “Yes I would!” then you have several courses of action to take. I like to then qualify what it would take to sell her (in other words, find out in advance of speaking to her what her concern is), so I would then ask:
“O.K., and what do you think it will take to convince her?”
OR
“All right, and what do you think is holding her back?”
OR
“What are some of the concerns she has?”
OR
“And what do you think she would need to hear to say yes to this?”
OR
“And how can I help you convince her on this?”
After you’ve gotten some input on what the potential objections of the wife are, and/or gained insight on what her possible buying motives are, then you can set up a time to speak with her (with the husband on the phone, of course) and move to close the sale. You can say either of these:
“Is she available now?”
OR
“Why don’t you go get her on the other phone now?”
If she is not available, then you need to set up an appointment to speak with her at the soonest possible time:
“How about first thing evening, what time would be good?”
To reiterate the steps above:
1) Make sure the husband (or whatever spouse or decision maker you’re speaking to) is on board.
2) Find out what the concerns or buying motives of the wife are.
3) Move to speak with her right then or at the soonest opportunity.
When you then get the spouse on the phone, you can open the call in many different ways. Here are a few:
First, use the information you received from questioning the husband:
“Hi _________, your husband has been telling me that he likes the XYZ and that you like it, too, but you just need a little more information on (whatever the concern is). Can you tell me what you’d like to know?”
OR
“Hi __________, it’s nice to meet you. I’ve been talking to (her husband’s name) and he’s quite interested in moving ahead with XYZ. What might it take to get you onboard as well?”
OR
“Hi _______, this is ______ _______, and your husband wanted me to reach out to you about the XYZ he’s been looking at. I’d like to answer any questions you have so you can feel as confident about it as he is. What would you like to ask me today?”
OR, if you know what the concern is and have a good response to it, open with:
“Hi ________, this is ______ _______, and I’ve been talking to your husband about XYZ. He tells me that you’re concerned with (go over reason), is that right?”
Now Listen….then,
“I’m glad you brought that up – you’re not the first person to have that concern. But the good news is that …” (overcome objection, then ask): “Do you see how that works? Does that make you feel better?”
If and when you get buy in, you simply close the sale with:
“Well, I guess you can see why your husband likes this. Here’s what I recommend we do…”
And ask for the deal. If she is not ready to move, repeat the above steps all the while ending with asking for the order.
Adjust any of these scripts as necessary, but then commit to using them – they’ll work for you as long as you’re willing to use them!