Rita, a salesperson in a textile manufacturing company, makes a sales pitch to a representative of a garment manufacturing company. During the sales presentation, Rita shows the representative a few samples of the new fabric that Rita's company recently introduced in the market. The representative, however, expresses concern that her customers may not be keen on wearing clothes made of those fabrics. Rita responds to this by saying "I can certainly understand your apprehensions. Mark, from a company similar to yours, had the same concerns initially. However, we recently received feedback from him, and he says that his customers love the clothes made from the new fabric." In this case, Rita uses the _____ method to handle sales resistance.

Explanation: The feel, felt, found method is a strategy that is age-tested and has been proven to persuade customers gently into a new way of thinking about a particular product or service.

There are three separate but essential parts to the feel, felt, found method, they are;

- Feel, which is basically used in the context below:

“I understand how you feel.”

Using sentences like this will let a customer know that you heard him/her and that you can relate with his or her complaints.

- Felt, which is usually used in the context below:

“Initially, other customers felt that way.”

Using words like these is basically letting the client know that their initial thought about the product or service is common, and that it is subject to change.

- Found, which can be used in the context below:

“What they discovered, however, was that after taking so and so action was that they got positive results"

This will let the client know that there is an action that should be taken to get the desired result, and this is the action you want the client to take.

This is the strategy that Rita in the question above used.