Knowledge
Objections in the sales process and how to handle them
At the thought of objections, many people working in sales start to get nervous, and it is hard to be surprised. Every company has some weaker points that sooner or later will be revealed in the course of conversations with clients. If the client digs hard enough and long enough, they will probably get to them. The question is not “how to hide it”, but how to deal with it and win the client anyway.
It is worth remembering, however, that objections in sales are not a bad thing at all. On the contrary, they are a good sign, signaling the real interest of the person you are talking to.
If the client articulates doubts, asks follow-up questions or questions some of the issues you present, it means they are seriously considering what you are talking about. They are analyzing whether your solution can be useful in their reality. Questions and doubts most often result from the fact that they really want to understand what using your products or services would entail.
When do objections appear?
Objections can appear at any stage, regardless of how the sales processis built. Most often and with the greatest intensity they make themselves known after presenting the offer or running a demo: when it seems that the client already has the full set of information, their needs have been explored, the offer has been presented and the price shown. Then they look for weak points, ask questions to make sure that what they intend to use will certainly find application with them.
Do not fight objections
People often talk about fighting objections. In my opinion that is the wrong approach.
It is not about trading blow for blow and winning the battle of arguments, justifying your case at the level of logic and reason. Even if you come out victorious from this “duel”, proving to the client that they are wrong, that the facts look different, they may still have reservations and something may still block them from starting cooperation. An apparent win on arguments does not have to be a won sale at all.
A better metaphor than boxing here is judo. It is not about an exchange of blows, but about using the energy the client puts into formulating the objection, in order to better understand the heart of the matter and the real motivation behind it. The goal is mutual understanding and cooperation on both sides, not defeating the other person.
Revealed and unrevealed objections
Objections can be overt: the client says directly what does not suit them, articulates doubts, asks questions. That is a good situation, because you have the opportunity to react.
Much worse are unrevealed objections: the client has reservations, but either is not fully aware of them (“something does not feel right”) or does not want to share them. So you cannot respond to them, you cannot address them, you have limited influence on the decision they make, and you do not really know what stands in the way of starting cooperation.
Only discovering and addressing objections makes it possible to neutralize their possible negative effects. If you do not know them, you may simply lose without knowing why.
How to deal with objections in sales?
Instead of responding blow for blow and argument for argument, it is worth asking:
“Why is this important to you?”
“Why are you asking me about this in particular?”
“Why do you pay attention to this?”
“Where does your belief on this subject come from?”
“What causes such doubts?”
This last question is particularly valuable: it steers the conversation towards the expected result, not the doubt itself. You help the client describe what they really want, instead of circling around what they fear.
It is also worth remembering one thing: when a client questions something, it most often concerns a specific solution, communication or your company; they rarely refuse you personally as a human being. After all, the client usually does not know you. They do not know what kind of person you are, what beliefs you have, how you think. Objections concern the substance of the matter and the client’s perspective on the solution you are talking about. It is easy to take it too personally and go into defense mode instead of curiosity, and that usually makes the situation worse.
With good needs discovery you can, in fact, pre-empt a large part of these situations. The better you understand the reality in which the client operates, the more accurately you can assess why these particular issues, and not others, interest them. Needs discovery and dealing with objections are not two separate topics: one directly affects the other.
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If this article interested you and you want to learn more about objections on the client’s side in the sales process, listen to episode #5 of the podcast Droga Przedsiebiorcy (in Polish) |
Objections like to repeat themselves
If your value proposition is coherent, clients’ objections will be similar. That is good news: you can write them down, create a list and work out ways of dealing with them. Such material will be useful not only to you, but also to other people in the company who contact potential clients.
What is more, if you hear the same objections enough times, it is a good signal to go back in the sales process and build their neutralization directly into that process. Or, if you consider it appropriate, to change something in the value proposition itself.
Pre-empt objections before they occur
The best reaction to an objection is to make sure there is no room for it at all. If you know your business, your clients and their segments well, you can address potential doubts on your own initiative, long before the client formulates them.
A concrete example: if at the beginning of the sales process you tell the client that you license the software you create, but never transfer the full copyright, and you present the justification, and the client accepts this without reservations and goes further with you, then it is hard for them to expect at a later stage that you transfer those rights after all. You talked about it earlier, they accepted the terms, they went further. The objection disarmed itself.
In other words: you can clear the minefield before someone steps on a mine.
When the client does not accept justifications
If you come across a client who does not accept your reasoning, the key is from whose perspective you argue. The client does not care that you and your company want something. They do not have to respect or accept your “wants”. Everything you propose should be argued from the perspective of their interest.
Example: the client asks for a very long payment term. You can say: “as standard we have a seven-day term and we stick to it” and you will have the right to. Except that the client will still not be happy.
Or you can say something like: “the projects we deliver are usually key for our clients: you invest considerable sums, put in effort, and you probably care about having a stable partner who will bring the project to the end and provide support. For us to be such a partner, we need financial stability. If we always agreed to long terms, it would threaten our liquidity and, as a result, the delivery of projects. Including yours.”
The client does not have to accept this. But such argumentation gives a much greater chance of acceptance than a mere “because that is what we want”.
To sum up
Do not treat a conversation with a client as a battle of arguments. Instead, ask questions and dig deeper to understand the real motivation behind the objections. Asking “why is this issue important to you?” several times and probing the answers can help discover what the client themselves was not fully aware of. Sometimes thanks to this the client themselves better understands what is blocking them, and that can unblock going further in the process.
Build the neutralization of objections into the sales process and try to pre-empt them before they occur: instead of reacting, anticipate.
And if you really do have to argue, do it from the perspective of the client’s good, not your own interest.
