If it Sounds Too Good to be True

One of the biggest hurdles I needed to overcome in my early selling career was that I couldn’t work out an effective way to counter the, “It sounds too good to be true” objection. Over time, I became even more of a mess when I read in an article written by a marketing ‘expert’, stating, “Anything that sounds too good to be true, usually is”.

This bothered me for quite a time, until a former sales manager and friend of mine, John Abbott, gave me the answer I needed to hear, just after I sold a few machines for his company.

John was honest with me, and simply told me, I got that objection only because my existing presentation was both under-prepared and unstructured – and how right he was. I sold two of the three calls I had made selling a new product with very little preparation and even less rehearsal on my presentation.

The lesson I learned that day, was, any presentation that has not been prepared as well as it should have, and sells multiple user benefits, will always sound too good to be true. That incident happened around 35 years ago, and I hadn’t heard that objection in one call until recently when I sold a few live-stock investments. I only needed to hear that objection twice before I began to work on my presentation. And I’ve not heard it since.

Whenever this objection is raised by the prospect, what the prospect is really saying is, “It doesn’t feel right to me“, and the reason they’re saying that is, the opportunity you’ve presented has aroused enough interest for the prospect to want to pursue it further, but without personal involvement, the prospect became suspicious and invariably stated, “It sounds too good to be true“. The same can happen in any of the programmes – marketing, advertising, selling or communication concepts you create.

The secret here is, the way you get your initial marketing and sales presentations right, will be based on instinct, you’ll even continue to run with them, still based on instinct, but as time goes on, you’ll need to ensure that you have enough factors to involve the prospect, or your programme too could be perceived to be ‘too good to be true’. The reason why this happens, whatever new idea, concept of ideal you take on board, you’ll run on enthusiasm at first, and that will be enough to get your instinct heightened.

But as time goes on, and as your enthusiasm drops from high to good, so will your ability to draw on instinct. If you create a presentation based on involving the prospect in the first place, your enthusiasm level can drop a little, your instinct factor can even drop down to low, nevertheless you won’t hear them say, “It sounds too good to be true”.

Commit Yourself

The number one reason things don’t work is generally lack of commitment. Any under committed individual won’t do the long hours, set goals, plan, focus and strategise. They can’t, because they are not fully committed. At the most unexpected times (or whenever things go wrong), they lay the blame on every circumstance they’ll tell outside of their control, to anyone within earshot.

My question usually is, “Why is it the Government’s fault you didn’t make any money this week, when you knew what the Government was going to legislate against it many months before it became law, and had every opportunity to change direction in your business if you really wanted to?”

Lack of commitment can create wrong attitudes, and it’s a combination of the two (lack of commitment and wrong attitudes), that can cause the individual to miss, overlook, or even destroy a worthwhile business opportunity.

Now Get Organised

It has been said that marketing is about nine tenths visibility and one tenth acceptability. It’s the little thing that make people buy – the big effort is to get them to make them want to talk to you in the first place. The better your systems, the better you’ll sell. Now ask your self. How good is your follow-up system? How good is your incoming call system? How good is your referral system? How good is your customer attraction system? And how good is your overall marketing system?

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This Article is by Peter Collins – In a sales career spanning more than 53 years, Peter Collins has focused on helping and bringing out the best in others – whether it involves training or mentoring salespeople, managers, business consulting to SME’s. Since the 1970’s Peter has built a reputation as a Nationally and Internationally Published author, and has 68 business books to his credit, but he is mainly known for one book based on the Audio Tape series of the same name, Over 50 Ways of Closing the Sale. Peter had his first book published in 1969 and now has over 133 books in all, including Business, Marketing, Sales, Free Publicity, Body Language, Music and over 30 Christian books to date. Peters books have sold over 2.5 Million copies of his books over 49 years. In his personal life, Peter has been sought after as an encourager and motivator that has given of his time and talents freely despite his busy schedule. Subsequently, he has assisted churches, pastors, community and charity groups, as well as individuals through his teaching, training, development and on-going mentoring.

If it Sounds Too Good to be True

If it Sounds Too Good to be True

Commit Yourself

Now Get Organised

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