"Educating" Prospects

Keep getting this feedback from my manager - that I need to handle more objections on the phone by "educating" prospects.


Have tried this, and of course it doesn't really work. We sell to enterprise, high director/VP finance folks and I don't think rattling off a bunch of statistics will change their minds or sway them (we sell fraud prevention).


I think it's more of an issue of timing and that people can't experience the pain of a fraud until it really hits them. Difficult thing is that you can't just simply google search for people who have experienced fraud...


IMO - a better way for us to prospect is to instead lean on partners/relationships with mutual customers. Have tried this and it has worked swimmingly.


But: for leads that are ICP where we don't have an "in", my manager keeps on pushing me to try to fight these "not interested" or "we have a good process" objections that I don't really see a way to win against.


Thoughts, savages?

๐Ÿ‘‘ Sales Strategy
๐Ÿ“ž Cold Calling
7
oldcloser
Arsonist
3
๐Ÿ’€
"Will you please level with me, Bob. One more question then I'm out of your life. Ok? Level with me. Is your process so good that you won't evaluate a competitive solution at a lower price point?"
js2458
Politicker
1
Enterprise SDR
Will try this one out. Manager will probably harp on me for being too negative, but w/e worth a shot!
pirate
Big Shot
2
Account Executive
Essentially yes but in reality people know what they want. At the same time if you can find a gap then go for it
SalesBeast
Politicker
0
Sales Leader
I think your manager is a fucking moron. Try educating somebody in an industry likely longer than youโ€™ve been selling about something they know more than you about. Let us know how that goes.
My last company pushed this challenge/education of clients bullshit and I was the only one that didnโ€™t do it. I kept closing deals and the rest of the sales team didnโ€™t close one fucking deal for 7 months.
People want to just have a problem solved. Stop trying to outsmart them. Tell your manager to eat shit.
js2458
Politicker
0
Enterprise SDR
This is how I feel. Now I'm sure there are a few ways to try to atleast handle the "smokescreen" objections, but there for sure is no outsmarting these guys.
ExtremeVibeChecker44
Arsonist
0
Inside Sales
Only gets worse when you see to CISOs // CTOs in really technical niches.
BigShrimpin
Politicker
0
Account executive
educating them isnt bad but you need permission to do it, if you can demonstrate you understand their potential pains enough for them to believe you know what youre talking about you can go on that path but nobody picks up the phone for an info session you need to earn that
Natsochist
Good Citizen
0
Director of Product Sales
Where are you getting the objections? Is this during cold calls? Scheduled convos? Demos? Timing / scenario would adjust my willingness to try and educate.

It can be done - I usually think of it as a level set. โ€œHereโ€™s the context for what weโ€™re about to discussโ€
js2458
Politicker
0
Enterprise SDR
Cold calls. Once a prospect is interested I have no problem. But canโ€™t for the life of me figure out how to retain people on the phone.

I used to sell B2B events to smaller tech companies. Had no problem there - in fact, I broke a bunch of company records around cold calling (110+ meetings booked in 3 months, 7 deals closed totaling 550k+ in revenue). So it canโ€™t be that I suck in general at cold calling. I just suck at cold calling to this target market.

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