10/3/2023-Objection Handling

Buyers come to your meetings with questions, issues, and objections about your offering. Deal with each as a box-ticking exercise….address them academically.

Doubts, misperceptions, and wrong information about your company and offering exist inside the minds of every customer you meet.

(Does that change your sense of urgency about growing your objection-handling skill? Hope so.)

Even if you just met with a prospect yesterday and addressed their issues about your offering, objections may be growing back inside their heads. Objections can grow inside your buyers’ brains like weeds in the cracks of a sidewalk.

Don’t assume everything is "hunky dory" with your buyers, even if they say, "yeah…we good."

In your meetings with buyers today, proactively address obstacles and objections that may be hiding in the dark.

Try this one, "So, what are you thinking could stall our progress toward a deal?"

Or, "What specifically do you think are the hurdles we face to doing business with you?"

Add to this menu by creating a scripted question in your voice that you’ll use to unearth obstacles from customers.

Whatever you do, don’t whimp out with this, "So…we good?" Besides being lazy, that question doesn’t force the buyer to answer honestly and with specifics.

While success in sales is contingent on a big tool kit, it is inarguable the following three skills are integral:

1. Objection handling: the skill to fight through brick walls with plastic spoons to get the deal.
2. Value proposition: the ability to present your company’s offering in a desirable and relevant way for the buyer.
3. Qualifying and probing: the dexterity to push and ask the right questions at the right time that get the customer to share information and collaborate with you.

Of these three, objection handling is the hardest because, in the minds of some sellers, it means introducing potential conflict. (And who wants conflict?) Some sellers misguidedly believe avoiding negative issues from buyer conversations is necessary, but that thinking is akin to stuffing your head in the sand and ignoring reality.

Your buyers have misperceptions and wrong impressions about your offering at any given time. That’s not a negative thing…it’s just a thing.

View objections as just one more item on an agenda you must tick the box for. Handling objections is not an emotional issue, it’s not an issue about ego…it’s just an academic exercise.

The buyer possesses everything from questions, issues, challenges, and objections in their head.

Don’t sit back. Address them.

This 7-minute Ted Talk from Eduardo Zanatta focuses on how to use failure as a lever towards success.

Eduardo asks, "Which is greater, your desire to succeed or your fear of failure?"

Great question!

Objection handling is a game of failure…you’re not gonna eliminate every objection your buyer has. But the good news is you can still get bought! Your job is to shrink objections.

Address obstacles and objections early before they grow big. Do that by facing your fears and asking direct, specific questions of your buyer about their concerns.