6. Penetration Selling -- Penetrating the Barriers to Commitment

The fifth and final step of the Penetration Selling process is “Closing”. Closing is defined as getting a firm commitment from the prospect to acquire the product or service which is being offered.

The key barriers that need to be penetrated in order for the close to be successful are often referred to, among sales-trainers, as “Objections”. This is a catch-all term which includes any and every thought a prospect might present, or action he might take, that acts to block the completion of the sale.

Some of these objections are rooted in sales-resistance, where the prospect himself becomes somewhat unwilling to make the purchase and is resisting the salesperson’s efforts to close the sale. And some of these objections are simply logistics problems that the prospect has, which require some practical steps to be taken, in the real-world, in order for the prospect to be fully ready and able to complete the transaction.

An example of sales-resistance is: A prospect who needs and wants to purchase new roofing because his current roof is leaking badly, who is perfectly cooperative and fully willing to proceed through the early steps of the sale, but, who, when the salesperson asks him to make his commitment (to put down some money and to sign a contract), has an irrational fear-of-making-a-wrong-decision creep up on him, and the prospect begins to invent a flurry of reasons, or objections, why he can’t close the sale.

An example of a real-world objection is: A prospect sees a boat that he very much wants to buy, but at the last minute realizes that the boat might be too wide to fit through the doors of his storage garage, and so he wants to put off the decision until he can measure the doorway to confirm the workability of owning that particular boat.

There are almost as many theories among sales-trainers on how to handle objections as there are objections. Many schools of sales-training offer a long list of “types of objections”, each with its own unique name and a different formula for how to handle each type.

In the Penetration Selling system, we discover that all variations of customer concerns and objections fall into only two categories, and the handling for both categories is very similar. The two categories are:

1) Those objections which can be successfully handled with communication alone, and

2) Those objections which require a Real-World handling.

There is a powerful, four-step formula in Penetration Selling which fully handles any kind of objection. The formula is based upon highly workable techniques which allow the salesperson to neutralize the objection, at its source, before the objection can manage to sabotage the sale.

The proper application of this four-step formula allows the salesperson to successfully penetrate any objection a prospect may put in his path. When an objection is addressed with this powerful formula, the objection is reduced down and out of the way of closing the sale.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The unique, approach of the Penetration Selling system, and what makes this prospect-friendly system so powerful, is that the key barriers of each of the five steps of the sales process, are clearly identified, and the proven and effective techniques for penetrating, deflating and evaporating these barriers are simple and precise.

Penetration Selling is a simple, highly effective selling system, in which the road is laid open wide for the successful closing of the sale – to the satisfaction of both the salesperson and the customer.

(c) 2007, Harry Frisch, STI Publishing. All Rights Reserved. Penetration Selling is a trademark owned by STI Publishing.

6. Penetration Selling -- Penetrating the Barriers to Commitment - To learn more about this author, visit Harry Frisch's Website.

Like this article? Share it with your friends

E-Mail | Print | More

Related Articles
1. Penetration Selling -- The Five Steps -- An Overview
	Penetration Selling is the powerful, five-step selling system, which was developed by Harry Frisch and introduced in a series of articles, written by Frisch, originally published in The LATEST Magazine, in 1996. ...
2. Penetration Selling -- Penetrating the Marketplace
	The first step of Penetration Selling, Prospecting, is defined simply as locating someone to sell something to. This is where the sales process begins. This is the step in which you, or your organization, locates ...
6. Penetration Selling -- Penetrating the Barriers to Commitment
	The fifth and final step of the Penetration Selling process is “Closing”. Closing is defined as getting a firm commitment from the prospect to acquire the product or service which is being offered. The key barri...
4. Penetration Selling -- Penetrating Your Prospect's World
	The number one barrier that needs to be penetrated during the Qualifying step of the sale is the lack of knowledge of the key motivations a prospect has for possibly purchasing one of the salesperson’s products or s...
3. Penetration Selling -- Penetrating the Prospect's Reluctance to Communicate
	Once your prospect is “located”, the Prospecting step is complete and you are ready to begin the “Opening” step. In Penetration Selling, Opening is defined as getting the prospect into open, trusting communicatio...

---

Related Forum Posts
	Blog pinging
	Business magazines
	Re: A Book For New or Experienced Entrepreneurs - Act Now
	Online Sales-Keep it Simple!
	Website suggestions
	Prime Means of Selling
	How to be green?
	Cost vs Benefit