How to Close the Sale in an Interview Part III: Handling Objections 1

Now that you’ve connected with the client, asked them questions to determine their needs, and presented what you have to offer that matches their needs, it’s time to ask them if there are any other needs or concerns you haven’t addressed. You may get more great stuff you can work with!

What you’re looking for is known in professional sales as “objections.”

An objection, simply put, is a concern or consideration that is preventing the prospective client from saying “Yes! I’d love to team up with you!” Your immediate response may be disappointment, but it should be excitement!

When a prospect expresses his or her concerns, it means he/she is considering hiring you, but has some concerns and trusts you enough to express them.

In my experience, the hardest concerns to help people with are the ones they don’t express. If they won’t tell you the concern, you can’t help them resolve it! That’s why it’s so important to establish a connection from the moment of first contact and build it throughout the call(s).

If they feel enough of a rapport with you, they’ll be willing to tell you what’s causing them to hesitate.

It’s possible you may already know most of their concerns at this point, because they’ve told you somewhere along the way. But those concerns may still not be completely resolved in your client’s mind. Or there may be more.

Here are a few different ideas for questions to ask at this point:

What questions do you have that I haven’t yet answered?

• What concerns do you have, if any?
• What expectations do you have that we haven’t addressed yet?
• How good of a match do you think my skills are to your needs?

You could say this is the most important part of the whole interview process, to listen to their answers and respond. Of course, it’s easy to reassure them if you’ve got exactly what they want, but what if you don’t?

Yikes! Now what?

No worries. You can still pull this out of the bag.

Let’s look at skill sets first. What if they want a skill or set of skills you don’t have?

Ok. First, ask yourself:

• Do I want to do this?
• Am I willing to learn how to do it?

If it’s something you don’t know, but are willing to learn, you can express that to your potential client.

The best tactic is if it’s something you could also provide for other clients; offer to acquire the skill without charging the prospect for your time, if they hire you. If it’s a specialty item only they would ever need, then simply express your willingness to learn.

If it’s something you don’t enjoy and you don’t want to learn, or if you know you’re not good at it, tell them with sincerity that it’s not something you do, but you’d be happy to refer them to someone who does do it as a specialty (always have some referrals up your sleeve just in case).

If you’ve done a good job of connecting, and of attracting prospects that you are reasonably qualified to work for, then there’s an excellent chance this will take care of the objection.

I do not recommend taking on something you truly aren’t good at, just to get a client. A great deal of your booming VA business will be built on referrals, and you aren’t going to get the glowing referrals you want from a client if they aren’t thrilled with your work in a particular area.

The same is true if your prospect wants certain personality traits. For example, if they want an extrovert, and you’re an introvert, if you try to be extroverted to get the job, it probably won’t work. They’ll be dissatisfied and there go the referrals – out the window.

Coaches are a great example of this. Given their chosen profession, they tend to be very interested in creating relationship, and this includes with their VA’s. If you’re the type of VA who prefers less contact and just wants to retreat into your office and do your work, you might be better suited to specializing in working for a different type of entrepreneur.

To learn what to say to other common objections, check out my post

“Part IV: Handling Objections in an Interview 2,” where I list the top four objections VA’s get and how to respond to them.