Of course, ALL of your clients lie. Sometimes they lie for good reasons, but still, that doesn't justify why they lie.
Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash
Very often there is a disconnect between what they say and what they want. When trying to close a deal, figuring out whether they are lying is very crucial.
I'm not someone who is in Sales daily, but I deal with these things quite often enough to know that most of the objections are lies or excuses. I think that it's never their intention to be dishonest and when they're not confident in you, or your product or service or... maybe even themselves, they try to spare others their feelings by lying.
Not only do clients do this but more than 90% of people do.
Photo by Ashkan Forouzani on Unsplash
Here are 6 examples of what they say and what they actually mean:
- You are TOO expensive (I'm not sure this is the best use of my money)
- I need to check with my partner (Nah, I'm not feeling this. I doubt it I'll choose you)
- I trust you, you're the expert (I know what I want, but am curious to see what you'll come up with. I'll stay quiet and watch)
- I have to think about this (I'm sure I can get it cheaper elsewhere)
- Can you do it for less? (This isn't THAT valuable to me)
- Do your magic (I'm not sure what I want, let's see what you can do)
What to do next?
Find out what's going on in their mind, dig deep to find out the TRUE objections. This rule applies to everything!
Photo by Alejandro Escamilla on Unsplash
How do I dig deeper? Ask more questions like;
- Are you the primary decision maker?
- What is the reason you can't go ahead right now?
- When they say it's TOO expensive, you could rephrase the last part, "TOO expensive"? Can you provide some context?
- How would you measure success for this project?
- Can you tell me more about that?
Ever been lied to by a client? Let me know in the comments what the most common one was and how you dealt with it.