The Feel, Felt, Found Technique and 3rd Party Stories

Overcoming objections can make or break any deal, that’s why I love teaching salespeople how the Feel, Felt, Found technique can overcome every objection.

The Feel, Felt, Found technique is a simple conversation where you tell your customer:

1. you understand how they feel,
2. others have felt the same way, and
3. this is what they found.

The Feel, Felt, Found technique isn’t new; it’s been around forever. But the basic technique is just the beginning. Most salespeople haven’t taken the time to really master it—and the secret to mastering this technique is using real 3^rd party stories.

The Feel, Felt, Found Technique

Create empathy with your client by telling them you understand how they “feel”. It tells them that you’re listening and it creates rapport. Moving on to “felt” tells them they’re not alone. You’ve worked with people who have felt the same way. It moves their focus off the objection and moves them to a place of trust. Finally, the “found” is a way to come to a resolution and show them that there is still a way to work it out.

Before we move on, let’s review one more time: the basic Feel, Felt, Found technique works like this:

1. FEEL: “I understand how you feel.”
2. FELT: “In fact, that’s not the first time I heard that – others have felt that way, too.”
3. FOUND: “And what they found was… (explain to them how you resolved the concern).”

Using 3^rd Party Stories

Here’s where we take it to the next level. When you use the Feel, Felt, Found technique with a specific 3^rd party story, you can truly handle 100% of the objections you hear. Whenever you tie your customer’s concern with an actual true story (a story with a happy ending!), you create instant credibility.

When your prospect’s objection sounds like a past client’s situation, simply use that past client’s story:

Client:   “I just don’t want to go through the hassle of moving my policy.”

You:      “You seem like the type of person who doesn’t make knee jerk decisions and I understand just how you feel. In fact, one of my clients, Christopher Smith, felt the exact same way. Even though all of the numbers lined up, he didn’t want to switch. Mostly because of the nightmare he went through getting his current policy set up. But I walked him through the entire process, the same way I will with you. I assured him that my team and I would take all the worry out of his hands. In the end, Christopher did move his policy – and he found that it was as easy as I promised it would. Now, he’s really glad he made the move.”

Here’s the beauty of this technique: You aren’t doing the selling —anymoreChristopher Smith is selling for you.

Become a Master!

Write down some stories from your existing (or past) clients for each of the objections you commonly hear. Often, you can use the same client/story to address more than one objection! You can likely handle all of the objections that come up with 3 to 5 good stories.

Invest some time writing down your stories and practicing them until they feel natural. Soon, you’ll soon find that you start to breeze past those objections without even thinking!

Using Feel, Felt, Found with 3^rd party stories really works. My sales coaching clients who have taken the time to master this technique have been able to take their careers to new heights. I’ve seen it over and over again.

Until next time—go sell some stuff!