Overcoming Objections in Sales

Introduction

To close a sale you’ll have to get very good at overcoming objections. That’s typically the number one lesson you’ll learn on any form of sales training. We can widen the net further than just closing a transactional sale or securing a deal. Because if you’re in any walk of life, you’ll also need to be able to sell yourself, your idea and your beliefs.

So don’t be any under any illusion that ‘sales’ is not a skill you need to develop.

Sales skills are absolutely essential to your success. Both in your personal and professional life.

So as a summary, you may have the following things to sell:

• A product
• Service
• An idea
• Your belief

The list goes on.

Don’t be afraid to promote yourself

The reality however is, as mentioned above, most people don’t like the idea of being labelled as somebody who sells things.

I’ve been in this field for over 30 years and I say to people that ultimately what you’re trying to do is – persuade someone to buy into what you are offering.

You shouldn’t be afraid to do that if you believe in the value of what you’ve got to offer.

That’s the distinction here. I’m not suggesting you sell something you don’t believe in.

If you’re reading this and based in the UK, well selling and overcoming objections is something the British are not particularly good at. But if you go to America, you’ll find they’re not afraid to be bolder and to be open about what they’ve got to offer. In fact, they’re proud to be selling their product, service or idea.

Sales objections

The challenge of course is that in any environment you go to, whichever part of the world you’re in, whenever you offer something to somebody else you will get some level of objection.

Some people can perceive that as a rejection. 

Objections can come about due to the fact:

• Not everyone is going to like what you’ve got to offer
• Or fully understand what you’ve got to offer

This leads to genuine objections. Not rejection.

Try not to confuse the two. The reason this is not rejection as such, is because they are not rejecting you. They are rejecting your product, service or idea. Now it’s your job to find out why they are putting up a rejection. This is what we refer to as overcoming objections.

So remember, this isn’t a personal attack on you. But to overcome this sales challenge, you’ll need some skills.

Getting to the core objection

I have genuinely sold millions and millions of pounds worth of services and products over the years. In that time, I have experienced a lot of objections and also genuine rejections from people.

In order to deal with this, I have had to develop a multitude of skills to overome objections.

I added these skills in detail to my communications system which you can explore.

To help you get started right now, I have found that there are certain techniques that if consistently used have a big impact in overcoming objections.

With all these techniques there is an underlying sales phylosophy which I believe you should note down:

Think of getting to someones core objections like peeling an onion. Every layer of the onion is an objection. But not the most important objection to that person. So we need to:

Peel the layers like an onion to get to someone’s main objection.

Welcome objections

To be able to peel every layer of the onion you first need ot have the attitude of – “I welcome all and every objection”.

Think about it for a moment. Firsty we’ve already established that to get to someones core objection we first need to hear their less important objections. We can only do this by welcoming what someone has to say.

Secondly, think of overcoming objections as a skill to develop.

Whereas if everybody said yes to you all the time, you’re not going to develop any skills.

And sales is a skill worth mastering. It’s fundamentaly the are of your business which will unlock the greatest revenue.

I want you to see objections as an opportunity to literally sharpen sales skills.

When I feel like someone has put up an objection or rejection. The first thing I say to myself is that, at this moment in time, they just don’t fully understand what I’m offering them.

You can do the same. Simply ask yourself the question: What is it within what I’m offering them, that they don’t fully understand?

Remember it’s not personal (remember we’re talking about the different between objection and rejection).

They’re not saying – “I don’t like you” or “I object to you as a person”.

Now, a caveat here is, if you are not using the right communicaiton skills, you can be in a situation where they are rejecting you. If this is the case, then before working on sales, we need to work on your core communication. My communication system is design to do this, so explore that if you are in this situation.

But most of the time if you’re using the right communication skills, personal rejection is not the probelm, it’s in fact either one of the following (or a combination of both). They don’t understand:

• The value in what you are offering
• How it can help them solve their problem

Remember, with any objection you’ve got to get to the core of it – peeling the onion.

And to achieve that you need to welcome these objections.

Don’t go into this closed state, which of course creates resistance in people and everything turns negative.

The worst thing you can do when you hear an objection is to be defensive. Wht will happen is the other person can see this defence and then reacts. This perpetuates a cycle.

Instead, lean forward with open body language and start to peel the layers of the onion.

At this point you will be thinking, what’s the number one way to peel the onion? The answer is, asking powerful questions.

Overcoming objections with questions

Let’s look at a simple examples to asking the right question when an objection is presented:

Objection: “I’ve got an objection about the way this service is delivered.”

Question: Specifically, what is it about the way the service is delivered that you don’t like? 

Core Objection: “I like face-to-face, but from what you’re telling me everything is on camera. The service you provide, the coaching and the advice is all done on camera and zoom on the phone. That’s not how I like to operate.”

You’ll see in this simple example, the power of getting a specific answer using a question highlights their objection isn’t really so much you or in the serice, it’s in fact the way it’s been delivered.

That’s the first layer of the onion peeled.

Then you can say: What would be the ideal delivery for you?

Objection: “I’m okay with doing zoom calls once a week, but I would also want to meet at least once every two weeks, face-to-face.”

Question: If we could achieve that for you and make that work, is there anything else holding you back?

That’s peeling the next layer of the onion.

You’ve gone from one level, which is they’re resistant to, for example, the idea of online, and now you’ve peeled the onion and asked that question if we can overcome that what would be anything else I can help you with? 

They may say: “I’m a little bit concerned about how the pricing works.”

To which you can say: What specifically is it about the pricing you don’t like?

They may say: “I need to pay in instalments. I can’t pay the whole lot up front.”

To which you say: If we can overcome face-to-face, get access to you every two weeks and if we could work out a different way of paying for this, what would be the ideal situation for you to be able to move forward today?

They may say: “If I can pay monthly then I would like to purchase today.”

Now you’ve peeling the onion further and got closer to the core objection – installment price vs paying upfront.

In Summary

Using everything you’ve learned so far, including overcoming objections through questions. You will get to the core. And as you go through this process you will see the person’s objections diminish. Or get to a really big objection which often is money.

In fact most objections come down to money or timing. But you can’t jump to these, you need to extract it from them. This way you are able to overcome their genuine objection, rather than assuming this is the case for everyone.

So you can go ahead and start using what you’ve learned. Typically people who complete my Communciating With Impact programme use these techniques in:

• Telesales
• Public Speaking
• Door to door sales
• Online live chat sales
• Selling their family on their idea for what take away to order

Just remember, wherever you use your new overcoming objections skills, you have to peel the layers and do it in an honest and authentic way. This fundamentally comes from selling something you believe has value.