If you ask 100 people what their greatest fear in selling would be, what do you think the answer would be ?

Well, based on my studies, 80% of the time you will get responses around the same theme - which is “the fear of helplessness”. The type of feeling you get when you are unable to convince the customer either due to the inability to invoke interest or to give the proper response to the customer’s barrage of queries and challenges.

As you can most likely have guessed, the most common fear here is in the area of handling or managing objections.

When it comes to objections, it usually instills a sense of fear in Sales people. This is because we feel that we didn’t do our job properly, wasted out time/resources or in the verge of almost losing the sale. And as such, many times we do not respond the best that we should resulting in hasty replies or showing the unnecessary lack of confidence.

In this session, I want to talk about the fact that objections are something that you should not be afraid of or uncomfortable with. On the contrary, we should be open and happy with the objections we get from our prospects. And so, we are going to focus on the psychology of objections and why they are actually a good thing.

Appreciating the value of objections and understanding how to manage them is certainly one of the most important mindset position and competency any great sales person should possess. Often, we will lose the sale just because we succumbed to objections without adequately addressing them and gave up too soon. In my experience, the seemingly most difficult objection is often the smallest of objections. For example the statement : “Your price is too expensive”. That to me, is actually one of the most common, but minor objection that anyone can get.

Frequently, that is said as a “knee-jerk” response. One that’s sub-consciously triggered by perceptions of misconception. And more often than not, this said even before we finish our presentation. Let’s talk about this more, and move further along.

What is an objection and why does it happen ?

An objection is defined as an unfavorable attitude which may be expressed as a verbal statement or question, or as non-verbal action that threatens the close of the sale.

The word “objection” means oppose to something (in conflict with something) or resistant to. For example, imagine, someone who is totally against abortion. Every time there’s a discussion on the subject, they will most probably be very vocal about it not be easily swayed the other way. They will stand their ground.

As such being opposed to is much stronger than resistance. And we need to know the difference. eg. The objection : Your price is too high ---- are they totally opposed to it or resistant to it ?

Most of the time you will see, objections consists of not the opposing type objections, but rather the resistance type.

A resistance may not be an outright rejection of your product or service; it is just the customer’s reason or excuse for not using your product or service now.

You must recognize an objection when you hear it. Most objections fall into one of four categories.

• Product/Service
  The individual objects to some aspect of your product or service.

• Postponement
  The individual wants to avoid an immediate decision.

• Price
  The individual thinks your price is too high.

• Personal
  The individual doesn’t like your personal sales style or your company.

Our objective therefore is to measure that degree of opposition so that we best respond to it. And it can come in various forms. For example, objections can come in 3 forms :

• Question
  eg. “Don’t tell it’s a direct selling business again...”
• Expressed
  They state it.
• Unexpressed
  They don’t even state it at all. eg. not interested without giving a reason, or someone doesn’t return your phone call for a long time eg. after you send them a brochure, letter, etc.

Lots of times, we don’t realize that we actually cause the unexpressed objections ourselves. It happens as we fail in some of the key communication principles or did not articulate well enough or because we were not alert to the signs of the customers’ earliest objections, which we could have handled easily there and then.

So whether expressed or not, basically it boils down to a result of two misses, which are :-

• Misunderstanding

•  Miscommunication

And this causes :

• Dislike decision making
• Prefer old habits
• Reluctance to give up something old for something new

• Unpleasant past associations with you or your company
• Resistance to domination
• Perceived threat to self image

In working with many organizations around Asia, I noticed that Salespeople get frustrated when they focus on half-truths rather than reality. This is exactly the case with handling objections as well. As such, understanding the psychology behind objections, setting the right frame of mind by aligning the value and truths behind objections rather than half-truths or myths will help you achieve outstanding results.

Here are the top five myths of Objections :-

• "It’s a personal."
  When the customer rejects my product, I feel that the customer doesn’t like me much.
• "It’s too expensive"
  Means that the customer has no money or budget to buy my product or service. And they are not going to buy if we don’t drop the price.
• "I have no time to meet you."
  The customer doesn’t have time to see you or is not interested at all to give you a chance to showcase your products / services.
• "Why should I buy now, It’s not even proven yet!"
  Means product is difficult sell and be ready for more rejections from customer. Most likely have to way for the product to mature further.
• "Let me think about it."
  means customer wants to think it over and take more time out to do further research. Therefore don’t push the customer anymore.
  
  

Please note that none of the above is hardly true. Here’s why :

• It’s nothing personal. They just don’t know enough or has some other misconceptions on your product/ service
• Price objection is mainly knee-jerk response. We need to manage it rather than assume the need to drop price.... ( STORY : Customer chose us because we were most expensive ... )
• No time is a great excuse especially if they don’t see the value of your offering. Need to re-look at your presentation and pitch.
• There are many customers who are willing to try your product even if there are the first ones. It just depends on your value add vs price offering vs risk guarantee you provide.
• Don’t wait for the client to do their own research. Most likely won’t happen as they are busy and unless it’s a pressing need, the “research” will most probably not take place. It’s better to help them with the source of information or comparison study on their behalf and still show neutrality.
  
  

Here’s are five reasons why you should welcome and appreciate objections :

• Enables us to understand the improvement opportunities of our product or service
• Shows that the customer is involved in the conversation
• Might just be a misunderstanding
• Basis to build trust and more opportunities to sell even deeper with the account
• Uncover their real objectives and learn from them
  
  

Objections provide an opportunity for us to build better long-term relationships with our customers, enabling us to uncover stumbling blocks early in the relationship. Openness and honesty breeds real trust and dependability.