Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Duck, Dodge, Deflect


How do you not talk about what they want to talk about, without being blatantly obvious? Do you act deaf, like you didn’t hear their question or, what was that? I sorry, did you say something?

The goal of dodge ball is not to get hit. If you can see the ball coming, you can generally avoid it easily. If you take your eye off the ball, it shows up quickly. Often too quick to dodge, then you have to deflect, if you can.

A sales question is that ball hurling towards your head. If you have paid attention in the sales process, you saw this question coming, long before it ever left their hand. You should have been able to position your demo to address these questions. If you felt it best to avoid them, you will have at least been able to come up with a plausible answer.

If you were sloppy in your discovery or qualifying process, you may have missed something. If you did, one of these sales questions may come out of nowhere. You cannot ignore this question, it will knock you out of the game.

Be ready to deflect this question.  Acknowledge the question and just nudge it away. If you cannot think of a great way to deflect, call a timeout.   

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