5 ms·

Stomp The Heck Out Of Your Customer's Main Objection

63 points by murtali 13y ago

losethos 13y ago
This guy is ... misery. Bingo cards! I made a fucken operating system. It's done. Mine is humble compared to OSDev people. I mock them. I probably represent misery to them. game_over test_pilot begs_the_question chaos umm God saC:\TAD\Text\BIBLE.TXT nd to overthrow, and to spy out the land? 19:4 Wherefore Hanun took David's servants, and shaved them, and cut off their garments in the midst hard by their buttocks, and sent them away. 19:5 Then there went certain, and told David how the men were served. And he sent to meet them: for the men were greatly ashamed. And the king said, Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown, and then return. 19:6 And when the children of Ammon saw that they had made themselves odious to David, Hanun and the children ys...
crazygringo 13y ago
> some of the best results I've ever had for writing sales copy... come from repeating a simple tactic: 1) Find your typical customer's main objection. 2) Nuke it. I'd love to apply this... but I don't see how/where. I mean, your main tactic has to be explaining what the product simply is, and what benefits it will bring you. Overcoming potential objections seems far down on the list, not something you're going to put in your main ad copy or home-page copy.
- nswanberg 13y ago
  Sales copy doesn't have to be lengthy. It won't cover every benefit and won't cover every objection. Consider that the initial sales copy on Khan Academy is six words: three for the benefit "Start learning now", and three to address what is apparently a main objection: "Completely free, forever." As another example of addressing an objection in a complicated product, there's 23andMe. They take a different approach and address what might be the main objection, privacy violations, all the way at the bottom of https://www.23andme.com/howitworks/ https://www.23andme.com/howitworks/ It'd be interesting to see the change in signups if they'd made a reference to the privacy protections at the top of their homepage.
- patio11 13y ago
  Home page copy (probably not your H1) is an excellent place for it. Another one common in software companies is on the signup page itself. I often put it on a sidebar, along with other risk reducers. There are many other options if you do more involved sales with sales letters, email campaigns, or in-person sales, obviously. If your product is very involved, you can sometimes answer the objection right where you can reasonably assume it will first be raised. For example, if you require the clients to install an agent to gather some information from your server, you can reaonably assume many potential customers will immediately go "WHOA! Stop! That's incredibly risky", so that would be an excellent time to pro-actively mention that your agent runs with minimal privileges, is OSSed and hence less likely to have bugs, has run on 20k machines successfully, was tested by a reputable firm, etc.
drakaal 13y ago
>I'm an engineer, not a copywriter Then don't think you are qualified to write copy. You sell people by convincing them they can't live with out something. That they need it. They will do the rationalization for why they will buy it, if they feel they need it. What is the main objection to buying the latest iPhone? Cost. Often the feature differences from the previous model are not worth the price of a new phone, but people buy them by the millions. Why? they "Need" it. If you are selling to enterprise often the biggest objection is "I'll be needed less" your product is likely going to reduce the need of the person buying it. You can't reduce that objection. What you can do is convince them that they need to reduce their work load. That it is a good thing. You don't "stomp the objection" you instill a need.
- bliti 13y ago
  The "I'm an engineer, not a copywriter" line is part of his sales message. Not an issue, because he is an engineer who also writes copy, and helps other engineers sell software. This is the sales message that drives the point home directly to the "Need." I'd rather (pay to) learn about sales and marketing from an engineer who takes data seriously. Which is his business, and selling point.
  - drakaal 13y ago
    If it is his sales message he really shouldn't be a CopyWriter. I am a CTO. I write copy all of the time. Then I hand it off to a copywriter to fix it. Engineers should write copy, even build sales pitches, but you then reach out to marketing to make sure you are on message, and that you are following the tenants of good marketing. This post doesn't do that. He basically applied Jim Kukrals' messaging about networking to sales.
    - bliti 13y ago
      I cannot argue your points, because they seem to provide you with success. I cannot argue with Patrick's points because they seem to provide him with success. Thus I may arrive to the conclusion that there should not be any absolutes in marketing.
credo 13y ago
>> Find your typical customer's main objection. Nuke it. Interesting post with a lot of good advice based on the philosophy described above. I also think that this sales philosophy should have a qualifier around it. It is important for any salesperson to seriously consider the (potential) customer's objection objectively. Nuking the objection shouldn't be the primary goal and it shouldn't come at the expense of the customer's interests. In some cases, it is quite likely that the customer's objection isn't something that must be nuked. In fact, I'd even go further and say that (in some cases) a good salesperson should think of potential reasons why a product may be inappropriate (e.g. little value, too risky, too expensive etc.) for a certain customer. IOW in some circumstances, walking away from a sale (based on a customer's objection) might be the right thing to do.
- joelhooks 13y ago
  Right, for instance, if you actually do store all of your customer's data in your apartment on a previous-gen gaming rig...
- bmelton 13y ago
  The counterpoint to this, in the enterprise world, is to promise the customer the moon, then turn around and tell the developers to make it happen before the sale process completes.
  - joelhooks 13y ago
    The best is when sales low-balls to score the gig and leaves the development team holding the bag 8 months later when the scope is radically out of whack. /me sheds a sad lonely tear of sorrow
mercer 13y ago
I believe this is what Apple did brilliantly with their Christmas commercial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImlmVqH_5HM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImlmVqH_5HM).
rdl 13y ago
Basically there are two kinds of sales: high value/reasoned/important/logical sales, and impulse/low value/time limited/etc. sales. You address fundamental objections when dealing with a "real" client, and any attempts at deflection or subterfuge will be net-harmful. The only "trick" is knowing about internal champions and the customer's multi-person purchasing process (when the user isn't the buyer and/or doesn't have ultimate purchase authority in a single person). For random impulse shit, you can trick people. Used car dealers define the upper bound of bullshit for deal size. Generally few substantial purchasing decisions by educated (i.e. business or professional) buyers happen like that, but if you're selling a product on late night tv, you can minimize and bypass objections through trickery, "sell the sizzle", etc. Neil Rackham's SPIN Selling and Major Account Sales Strategy are the best books I've ever found on sales.
- adrianhoward 13y ago
  I'll second that recommendation of SPIN Selling. SPIN has an explicit focus on understanding the customer and their problems before selling solutions that's well aligned with the customer development / lean startup stuff that folk here will be more familiar with.
jdietrich 13y ago
This is one of the key reasons why long copy converts so much better than short copy. A significant proportion of prospects really want to buy your product, but have one deal-killing objection; They will read pages and pages of copy until their objection is addressed and click, you make the sale.

63 points by murtali 13y ago

This guy is ... misery. Bingo cards! I made a fucken operating system. It's done. Mine is humble compared to OSDev people. I mock them. I probably represent misery to them. game_over test_pilot begs_the_question chaos umm God saC:\TAD\Text\BIBLE.TXT nd to overthrow, and to spy out the land? 19:4 Wherefore Hanun took David's servants, and shaved them, and cut off their garments in the midst hard by their buttocks, and sent them away. 19:5 Then there went certain, and told David how the men were served. And he sent to meet them: for the men were greatly ashamed. And the king said, Tarry at Jericho until your beards be grown, and then return. 19:6 And when the children of Ammon saw that they had made themselves odious to David, Hanun and the children ys...

crazygringo 13y ago

> some of the best results I've ever had for writing sales copy... come from repeating a simple tactic: 1) Find your typical customer's main objection. 2) Nuke it. I'd love to apply this... but I don't see how/where. I mean, your main tactic has to be explaining what the product simply is, and what benefits it will bring you. Overcoming potential objections seems far down on the list, not something you're going to put in your main ad copy or home-page copy.

nswanberg 13y ago
Sales copy doesn't have to be lengthy. It won't cover every benefit and won't cover every objection. Consider that the initial sales copy on Khan Academy is six words: three for the benefit "Start learning now", and three to address what is apparently a main objection: "Completely free, forever." As another example of addressing an objection in a complicated product, there's 23andMe. They take a different approach and address what might be the main objection, privacy violations, all the way at the bottom of https://www.23andme.com/howitworks/ https://www.23andme.com/howitworks/ It'd be interesting to see the change in signups if they'd made a reference to the privacy protections at the top of their homepage.
patio11 13y ago
Home page copy (probably not your H1) is an excellent place for it. Another one common in software companies is on the signup page itself. I often put it on a sidebar, along with other risk reducers. There are many other options if you do more involved sales with sales letters, email campaigns, or in-person sales, obviously. If your product is very involved, you can sometimes answer the objection right where you can reasonably assume it will first be raised. For example, if you require the clients to install an agent to gather some information from your server, you can reaonably assume many potential customers will immediately go "WHOA! Stop! That's incredibly risky", so that would be an excellent time to pro-actively mention that your agent runs with minimal privileges, is OSSed and hence less likely to have bugs, has run on 20k machines successfully, was tested by a reputable firm, etc.

drakaal 13y ago

>I'm an engineer, not a copywriter Then don't think you are qualified to write copy. You sell people by convincing them they can't live with out something. That they need it. They will do the rationalization for why they will buy it, if they feel they need it. What is the main objection to buying the latest iPhone? Cost. Often the feature differences from the previous model are not worth the price of a new phone, but people buy them by the millions. Why? they "Need" it. If you are selling to enterprise often the biggest objection is "I'll be needed less" your product is likely going to reduce the need of the person buying it. You can't reduce that objection. What you can do is convince them that they need to reduce their work load. That it is a good thing. You don't "stomp the objection" you instill a need.

bliti 13y ago
The "I'm an engineer, not a copywriter" line is part of his sales message. Not an issue, because he is an engineer who also writes copy, and helps other engineers sell software. This is the sales message that drives the point home directly to the "Need." I'd rather (pay to) learn about sales and marketing from an engineer who takes data seriously. Which is his business, and selling point.
- drakaal 13y ago
  If it is his sales message he really shouldn't be a CopyWriter. I am a CTO. I write copy all of the time. Then I hand it off to a copywriter to fix it. Engineers should write copy, even build sales pitches, but you then reach out to marketing to make sure you are on message, and that you are following the tenants of good marketing. This post doesn't do that. He basically applied Jim Kukrals' messaging about networking to sales.
  - bliti 13y ago
    I cannot argue your points, because they seem to provide you with success. I cannot argue with Patrick's points because they seem to provide him with success. Thus I may arrive to the conclusion that there should not be any absolutes in marketing.

credo 13y ago

>> Find your typical customer's main objection. Nuke it. Interesting post with a lot of good advice based on the philosophy described above. I also think that this sales philosophy should have a qualifier around it. It is important for any salesperson to seriously consider the (potential) customer's objection objectively. Nuking the objection shouldn't be the primary goal and it shouldn't come at the expense of the customer's interests. In some cases, it is quite likely that the customer's objection isn't something that must be nuked. In fact, I'd even go further and say that (in some cases) a good salesperson should think of potential reasons why a product may be inappropriate (e.g. little value, too risky, too expensive etc.) for a certain customer. IOW in some circumstances, walking away from a sale (based on a customer's objection) might be the right thing to do.

joelhooks 13y ago
Right, for instance, if you actually do store all of your customer's data in your apartment on a previous-gen gaming rig...
bmelton 13y ago
The counterpoint to this, in the enterprise world, is to promise the customer the moon, then turn around and tell the developers to make it happen before the sale process completes.
- joelhooks 13y ago
  The best is when sales low-balls to score the gig and leaves the development team holding the bag 8 months later when the scope is radically out of whack. /me sheds a sad lonely tear of sorrow

mercer 13y ago

I believe this is what Apple did brilliantly with their Christmas commercial (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImlmVqH_5HM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImlmVqH_5HM).

rdl 13y ago

Basically there are two kinds of sales: high value/reasoned/important/logical sales, and impulse/low value/time limited/etc. sales. You address fundamental objections when dealing with a "real" client, and any attempts at deflection or subterfuge will be net-harmful. The only "trick" is knowing about internal champions and the customer's multi-person purchasing process (when the user isn't the buyer and/or doesn't have ultimate purchase authority in a single person). For random impulse shit, you can trick people. Used car dealers define the upper bound of bullshit for deal size. Generally few substantial purchasing decisions by educated (i.e. business or professional) buyers happen like that, but if you're selling a product on late night tv, you can minimize and bypass objections through trickery, "sell the sizzle", etc. Neil Rackham's SPIN Selling and Major Account Sales Strategy are the best books I've ever found on sales.

adrianhoward 13y ago
I'll second that recommendation of SPIN Selling. SPIN has an explicit focus on understanding the customer and their problems before selling solutions that's well aligned with the customer development / lean startup stuff that folk here will be more familiar with.

jdietrich 13y ago

This is one of the key reasons why long copy converts so much better than short copy. A significant proportion of prospects really want to buy your product, but have one deal-killing objection; They will read pages and pages of copy until their objection is addressed and click, you make the sale.