In one of our popular recruiting books for college coaches, “Selling for Coaches“, we spend some time talking to coaches about a great sales technique called “feel, felt, found.” Lots of you have told me that you’ve used this line of reasoning with your prospects over the years, with good results.
For those of you who haven’t read the book, the concept of “feel, felt, found” is simple:
Let’s say that your prospect is raising an objection about the location of your school…it’s too cold for them, and they aren’t looking to play at a place where it snows frequently. You might answer them, using this technique, by saying, “I understand how you feel, Susan. In fact, a lot of prospect that I talk to have felt the same way when they were first looking into playing at our program. But what they found when they looked more closely was that it only snows here about a month out of the year, and its actually kind of fun to go skiing, snowboarding, and all of the winter sports you can do with snow on the ground.” That’s the technique, and when its used properly it works wonderfully.
But I’m also starting to hear back from some of you that while you love the concept, the exact wording of the “feel, felt, found” technique can sound repetitive. So, here’s another strategy that keeps with the spirit of the “feel, felt, found” technique while making it sound completely different.
Restate your prospect’s objection as a question. This is a great strategy that can get you out of “defending” a negative about your program, and get you into being a “problem solver” instead.
Here’s how it might work, using the same example as I outlined above. Turn the objection into a question: “So really, Susan, your question is what are the advantages of playing at a school that get’s some snow for about a month out of the year?” Or, “So what you’re asking, Susan, is why would you want to come play for us when it snows most of December?” As you ask this question, it’s important to nod your head. That may sound like a stupid detail, but it’s important. It gets your prospect to subconsciously agree with the premise you are re-stating, and helps to transition their objection into a question. In effect, they nod along with you and communicate to themselves that they are agreeing with your point.
Once you’ve asked the question, you can use the same principles of “feel, felt, found” to lead your prospect through your answer and line of reasoning:
“That’s a great question because a lot of prospects I talk to initially ask the same question about the cold weather during December and the fact that we get some snow.”
“And you know how our players would answer you right now if they were here? They’d say that its a blast and a great time of the year because they go skiing, snowboarding and do all the cool stuff that goes along with having some snow on the ground for a while. In fact, most of them wish it would last longer…because the warm weather comes back pretty quickly.”
That’s just one example of how to use the technique. If you’ve read any of our recruiting guides for college coaches, you know that you can combine that strategy with a lot of other techniques to ensure that you don’t sound like a broken “feel, felt, found” record in front of your prospect. Now, you can add this technique of turning an objection into a question to your mix.
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