How to Sell to the Defensive Homeowner
10 January 2014

How to Sell to the Defensive Homeowner

Todd Liles
Contributing Writer
CEO of Service Excellence Training

 

“I’m not buying anything today, so don’t even ask!”

That was the way John the Homeowner said “Hello.”  Having heard this hundreds of times before, I knew this was going to be a great service call.

Actually, the timing couldn’t have been better.  On that morning, I was doing field training and this was the perfect opportunity to demonstrate our methods.

When a Client Will Become Defensive

There are 3 main times in the service call when a homeowner will show a defensive posture towards the service technician.

  1. The Relationship Building phase.
  2. The Evaluation through Questions phase.
  3. The Presentation phase
  • The Agenda
  • The Overview of Findings
  • The Close

The Defensive Nature of the client means something in each phase of the service call.  Understanding why and what to do at each phase is the best way to create success with the defensive client.

Defensive Posturing During the Relationship phase:

Why is he defensive at the start? 

  • When a client puts forth a strong defense in the very beginning, this is a very good indication that he is prone to buying.
  • He is presenting a false wall.  His hope is that you will not ask him to buy anything, because he probably will.

Solutions for this Defense

  • Focus on the relationship.  Get to know the person.
  • Don’t flee.  You may be prone to skip past the relationship-building phase and just get the heck out of there.  Don’t do that.  Stay with the game-plan, and look for shared interests.

Defensive Posturing During the Evaluation phase:

Why is he defensive when you ask questions? 

  • This client fears giving you power that you will use against him.

Solutions for this Defense: 

  • Give a good reason to ask questions.
  • Ask fewer questions.
  • Ask the important questions.
  • Ask more questions later in the call.

Defensive Posturing During the Presentation phase:

Why is he defensive when you show him his options? 

  • You sound like you are giving a sales pitch.  Drop the bull-crap presentation.  You don’t like it, and neither do your clients.
  • You are confusing the client.
  • You are thinking and communicate about yourself.

Solutions for this Defense: 

  • Turn sales presentations into conversations with “your” thoughts and words.
  • Keep it simple and focus on results.  Results are the important outcomes, not the part to be replaced.  “Your system will cool again and be efficient.”
  • Make it about the client.  Your guarantees and warrantees, pricing structure, products, everything is about the benefit of the client.

 

 

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Hi, this is Todd Liles owner of Service Excellence Training.  I have a gift for you:

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This is a VIDEO recording of a Training Session that I did with my good friend Terry Barrett.

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