Why shouldn’t customers lie, especially if they feel the salesperson is lying to them or if they think by lying they’ll get a better deal?
It’s a sad state of affairs when customers come to believe this, but in too many situations, it’s the real world.
Customers like to lie because they’ve either been lead to believe or have had first-hand experience in seeing how they can get a better deal by lying.
This is especially true when they feel the salesperson is about to try and close the sale.
Customers at this point love to throw out outrageous comments that are designed to have one objective — to scare the salesperson. When the salesperson gets scared, they many times revert to the worst tactic any salesperson can do and that is to cut the price.
The best way for a salesperson to work around this problem is getting the customer early on to reveal their needs and wants. Early in the sales call, the customer is less likely to throw out outrageous statements. When you, the salesperson, are able to get this information early and are able to get the customer to verify it, then they are more prepared to know the outrageous statement is just that — outrageous.
You might ask how do you handle the outrageous lie?
Simple by asking the customer to explain more.
Many times they’ll be at a loss to explain more and will then begin turning the conversation back to their real needs. You’ll be able to spot this if you’ve learned earlier what those needs actually are.
Don’t be suckered into the outrageous lie, or for that matter, any lie.
At the same time, it’s important anything you share with the customer is 100% truthful. Nothing will destroy a person’s credibility faster than by saying something that is not 100% accurate. Yes, the customer may not spot the lie, but you know it is a lie.
Copyright 2011, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.
One Response