8/30/2023-Objection Handling

Objection handling is not really about turning a no into a yes. Objection handling is about proactively addressing issues so they don’t turn into no’s. (The former is really hard, the latter is much easier.)

There are only so many selling days in a year (~227 net of weekends and PTO), so many hours in the day, and so many minutes you get to interact with your buyers.

Given you don’t have much interaction time with your buyers, you have to check their perceptions and conclusions about fit regularly. (Like…every time you interact with them.)

Objection handling doesn’t have to be formal or highly orchestrated.

This qualifies as objection handling, "So hey, I’ve talked about our offering enough for you to get what we’re doing…which parts present a challenge for you?"

Or, "From what you’ve heard, what’s gonna trip us up on moving forward?"

Today, create a similar question to the above that forces the customer to give you the truth about where you stand. Make it simple, direct, and in your voice so you can address speed bumps before they become ditches.

Once you got your killer OH question….ask it in your next meeting with a customer.

No matter what you sell, the same gravitational laws apply: move the customer as quickly through the process as possible. The reason sellers get strung out by buyers is they don’t ask the hard questions… mainly about the issues and misperceptions that can decay into objections.

Everything’s great at the beginning of the sales process, and then as you move together down the path with your prospect, opinions and perceptions are formed about everything and anything. Every part of your offering is getting hyper-analyzed and micro-judged.

But objections aren’t scary monsters; they’re just issues. Objections aren’t owned by buyers; they’re rented. Your job is to kick ’em out onto the street, out of the minds of your buyers. But know that other objections can move into your customer’s heads.

You work in a dynamic industry hawking an offering with many moving parts…and customers’ situations change by the minute too. This is all the more reason to obsessively check for objections and issues at every turn and with every customer representing a decision.

Tommy Boy provides our cheap trick thirty-second movie clip to help inspire you on not taking no for an answer. Silly? Yes. Accurate? YES.

What if your life depended on getting past no?

Point in that direction, and you’ll see how your objection handling muscle builds strength.