Jill Konrath

Are buyer's expectations of salespeople changing? They sure are. Today's crazy-busy prospects have raised their standards in the past few years. If you just want to talk with them about your product or service, they have absolutely no time for you. All that information is on the Internet -- and they can read it on their own time. They don't need you for that.

One of the most interesting things I've discovered early in my sales career was the importance of questioning my prospect's questions. I was selling technology at the time. Now I'm not a real tech guru myself, so I had my sales support guy with me. My prospect was peppering us detailed questions about our system's capabilities. Unfortunately, we couldn't do a lot of what he wanted. I felt the opportunity slipping away.

How do you get a prospect to budge off their status quo? After all, they're already doing something to address their needs. Maybe they're using a competitor or perhaps they using in-house resources.

To make that happen, here's a strategy I've often found helpful.

How often have you been told, "It's not in the budget"? That's probably one of the most common sales objections that people give you. And, it's really totally irrelevant to their actual situation. First off, if you get that objection -- it's because what you said is too darn focused on your own product or service. You sound like a self-serving salesperson and they just want to get rid of you.

How can you reduce the risk involved in making a change? I don't think that we, as sellers, understand just how much a factor that is. But let me give you a quick example. When I first started in business, I had a prospect from a big company who loved my proposal. Seriously. He said it was by far and away the best -- and that they'd decided to go with my competitor.

Getting our prospects to make a change is tough. And, it's especially tough for us to bring up certain things that could possibly get in the way of doing business.

I'm talking about things like funding, buy-in and other show stoppers that prevent them from moving ahead. But just because we don't talk about them doesn't mean they go away. In reality, they just fester.

I don't know about you, but I've always been squeamish when prospects ask me about pricing. My stomach churns as I hope against hope that it will be a non-issue. It never is.

That's why I asked Mark Hunter, author of High Profit Selling, if he'd answer a few of questions. His new book is filled with numerous strategies to help salespeople deal with all sorts of pricing issues. (Note: Click here to get a free download of Chapter 1: http://thesaleshunter.com/high-profit-selling)

Five minutes. You wouldn't think it would be difficult to misconstrue those two simple words. However, after many years of marriage, I can assure you that it has two entirely different meanings.

To me, it's about five minutes, give or take a few. To my husband, it's exactly five minutes. On the dot. Not one second later. I drive him crazy.

Same thing with the word "Nothing." When my husband asks, "What's wrong?" and I say "nothing," he assumes he's off the hook. Truth is, he's in really deep trouble.

See where I'm going with this?