Critical Selling

8Dealing with Objections: Return to the Land of Discovery

Objections: when it comes to sales, it's one of the issues sales professionals are most interested in. That's because all sales professionals, regardless of tenure or industry, have come face to face at least once with an insurmountable objection that they just couldn't overcome and, because of that, lost the sale.

These losses can for a long time nag sales professionals, who mull them over again and again, thinking that if they just could have overcome that one objection, they would have made the sale. These lost sales become the stuff of legends, those war stories about duking it out with customers—they hit you with an objection; you hit back with a solution. They hit you; you hit back.

All too often, objections result in epic battles between the customer and the sales rep—battles that, in all reality, no one actually wins. But objections should never turn into a battle of wills. Objections aren't about the battle, the art of war, or the sword and armor you bring to the table. Dealing with objections, rather, is about letting go and getting on the same side as your customer. Sales reps who try to overcome objections by showering the customer with more and more information, punch after punch, will struggle to close the deal—not to mention to build trust. But top-performing sales professionals understand that dealing with objections isn't about wearing down the customer. Top performers don't show up with a fighting mentality. ...