Prospecting and Objection Handling

Dealing with objections is a core part of a salesperson’s everyday life. Whether it’s timing, perceived needs, or budget concerns, prospects can always find a reason to push back on what you’re offering.

Introduction

Dealing with objections is a core part of a salesperson’s everyday life. Whether it’s timing, perceived needs, or budget concerns, prospects can always find a reason to push back on what you’re offering. The good news? Sellers who successfully defend their product against buyers’ objections can have a close rate as high as 64%.

How you behave when a prospect pushes back can make or break your sale. Your ability to overcome objections and brush-offs calmly, cooly, and with the right data-rich stories, will differentiate you in these times of virtual selling. 

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Why Prospects Push Back 

Reframing Objections as Opportunities  

Objections are when buyers push back on what you are offering in the moment. While handling these concerns can be frustrating, especially when the majority of your conversation is not held in person.

In reality, however, objections are an opportunity for progress towards a mutual agreement. Any time your prospect raises a concern is a chance for you to establish and cement credibility with them. The more credibility you can create quickly, the further along you will be towards winning the deal.

Generally, a prospect objects for one of a few reasons:

• Because they are not yet a believer
• You haven’t explained the value fully enough
• They are establishing points for future negotiations.

Each of these options gives you an opportunity to move the conversation forward. In every sales call, the prospect is challenging the salesperson to deliver a solution that meets their needs in a specific time range at an investment level that aligns with their perceived budget. These challenges come in the form of sales objections.

Successful remote sales require effective objection handling to reduce all friction in
your sales process down to the moment your prospect believes the value of your product or service far outweighs the risk in making an investment with you. 

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How to Handle Objections: Tactics & Frameworks

Phone Behaviors that Get Results

Gong, a revenue intelligence platform for sales teams, recently conducted a study on the frequency of sales objections, where they occur in the call, and how long the
objection conversation lasts when overcome.

Here are tips you can take away from these top sellers:

• Take a Pause: Successful reps paused 5x longer than their counterparts and remained calm in the face of adversity. When a prospect introduces a concern, don’t be afraid to take a breath to consider exactly what you want to say.
• Slow Down: Top reps slowed down their talking speed when addressing objections speaking at 176 words per minute, while others maintained an average of 188 words per minute. Project authority when addressing concerns by speaking slowly, calmly, and with certainty.
• Talk Less: When a prospect voices a concern, it can be tempting to rattle off multiple reasons to reassure them. In fact, the average sales rep in this study addressed objections with a 21.45-second monologue. However, top reps talked far less overall.
• Counter with a Question: In our objection-handling framework below, we recommend that sellers help buyers feel understood by clarifying their concerns with a question. Top sellers counter objections with questions far more often than the average seller (54.1% vs. 31%).
• Validate Their Concern: Give your buyer the gift of feeling understood and you’ll carry powerful influence. Use the phrase “That’s a valid concern. It seems like you’re _____________.” Fill in the blank with an emotion they expressed.
  • For example: “That’s a valid concern, Kate. It seems like you’re pretty torn on what to do here.” You’ll have them feeling like you are an ally that can
    truly help because you get it.

Another tactic that you can employ to address buyer objections is what former FBI Negotiator and Never Split the Difference author Chris Voss, calls “mirroring.” This theory argues that by repeating the last few (1-3) words that your prospect uses, Mirror your buyer’s final few words with an upward tone:

• “The price is too high?”
• “Your boss said no?”
• “Timing is not right?”

By reflecting your prospect’s language and concerns back to them, you can make them feel heard and understood.

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Objection-Handling Framework 

Nothing beats being prepared for common objections. The more comfortable you
are at handling these with confidence, the more credible you will sound. And the
more credible that you sound, the more you can build trust with your prospect.

1. Maintain a Running List of Buyer Objections 

You have probably run into similar questions or concerns across calls. Start grouping
them into a running list of objections. Every time you hear a new one, add it to the list.

Write out your response to that objection and practice the back-and-forth dialogue.
We recommend that you write out multiple responses so that you are prepared for
several rounds of back-and-forth. For help crafting a strong response, you propose
a solution using the Feel/Felt/Found method detailed in Step 3. 

 

This practice will help you reduce any anxiety that occurs when you are put on the spot.

 

2. Break Down Any New Objections 

Even with a running list of prospect scripts, you will sometimes encounter a concern that you haven’t heard before. Don’t panic. Pause and take a deep breath. Your first objective isn’t to solve the problem, but rather to make sure that you understand what your prospect is saying.

Take a moment to digest what the prospect is asking you and why it is important to them. If you don’t understand either of these factors, it’s important to pose the right follow-up questions. 

Specifically, be sure to do the following:

1. Acknowledge the objection and ask to confirm you understand it correctly.
   1. Example: “OK, Tom, let me play this back to you so I can confirm we are on the same page. You feel like our software takes too long to deploy based specifically on what your friend told you, is that accurate?”
2. Ask clarifying questions to find the source of the objection and the business impact that it concerns.
   1. Example: “What type of time frame for implementation would be in alignment with your company’s expectations and goals?”
   2. After you fully understand the buyer’s difficulty, it’s time to propose a solution that addresses it.
3. Propose a Solution (Feel, Felt, Found) and Confirm it Satisfies the Concern
   When proposing a solution, don’t just tell prospects what you think they want to hear. Build trust by explaining how you have helped other customers with similar issues. Take them on a journey to help them set realistic expectations. We recommend framing this journey using the Feel/Felt/Found method.
   1. Feel: Reiterate the buyer’s objection. Show that you understand and are listening to their misgivings.
   2. Felt: Help the buyer feel that they are not alone in this concern. You have helped other customers with similar issues.
   3. Found: Explain the misconception behind the original expectation. What truth did other customers learn to satisfy their problem?

Here’s an example of the Feel/Felt/Found method in action:

• “Customers that we recently brought on used to feel that way. They felt concerned that historically, our industry is notorious for complex implementations. We actually build our business model on disrupting our industry for this very reason. Our customers that are in your industry and are of similar size have found an average time of purchase to implementation to be between 3-5 weeks and time to value to be 1.5 months. Does this fit into the same time frame your executive team requires?” 

Finally, you will want to close this section by confirming that your solution does actually address their objections. Having the prospect verbally confirm your solution
helps cement your relationship. And, if the prospect isn’t satisfied yet, asking for confirmation lets you continue the conversation until he or she feels confident that their problem is addressed.

Before moving forward, make sure you have all of the concerns out of the way by attempting to surface other objections. When you’ve finished putting an objection to rest, ask for more: “What other reservations do you have?” This gets you to focus the rest of the conversation where it matters for them.

Let’s now dive into the most common objections you may have struggled with in the past.

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Top 5 Objections that Stop a Sales Deal

No matter what you’re selling, you’re likely to run into one of these five common objections from your prospects.  

1. Lack of interest: “I’m not interested” or “Send me information to review.”
2. Pricing: “I can’t afford this” or “It’s too expensive” or “We don’t have the budget.”
3. Lack of agency: “I’m not the decision-maker” or “I don’t have approval.”
4. Competitor or status quo: “We use a competitor” or “We already do this” or
   “We built a solution ourselves”.
5. Timing: “This isn’t the right time” or “That timeline doesn’t work for us.”

Luckily, because these concerns are so common, we’ve created specific strategies to combat them. 

Objection #1: Lack of Interest

• What NOT to do: Say “ok” and send generic information.
• What to do instead: Ask further questions to uncover topics of interest or pain points that you can tailor to the prospect’s needs.

This objection is the most common and usually the first one you’ll receive in an engagement. While you may sometimes get a straightforward statement (ex. “I’m not interested”), this challenge is often nicely masked as a request for details (ex. “Send me info”).

You can leverage this response as an opportunity to ask a few qualifying questions. Then, you can establish credibility by delivering information that carries relevant value to your contact. 

Objection #2: Price  

• What NOT to do: Give in on your price being too high without establishing the value that your product/service delivers.
• What to do instead: Focus on the value that you have delivered for clients just like them. Challenge them to focus on the benefit over the cost. 

The main thing to remember is this: for prospects to consider moving from the status quo, the perceived value must be greater than the price. Spend your time building higher value with stories of similar clients and the ROI they achieved both qualitatively and quantitatively. 

Objection #3: Lack of Agency 

• What NOT to do: Immediately move away from this person to engage someone else higher.
  What to do instead: Empower someone of lower influence to be your champion. Make it worthwhile for them to help you by establishing that you will address some of their needs.  

Most business-to-business transactions, even in small startups, involve multiple stakeholders. Some members have full decision-making authority while others are influencers behind the scenes. Be prepared to align the value of your product/service to potential influencers.  This positioning can help you establish a champion within your deal.

Objection #4: Competitors or Status Quo

• What NOT to do: Get defensive and/or bad-mouth the competition.
• What to do instead: Be prepared and knowledgeable about the competitor they are using or evaluating. Ask questions that address areas that competitors/their current system may lack and where you are at a position of strength.

Every salesperson should be able to make a strong case against their competitors. If you don’t have a strong sense of your position in the market, bring together your top sellers, CRO, and Product Marketing. Then, create a SWOT analysis grid of your top competitors to truly understand where you are stronger and/or weaker. This exercise can help you develop a series of objection handling and conversation strategies that play to your strengths and move away from your weaknesses. 

Objection #5: Timing

• What NOT to do: Plan to follow up months later without actionable next steps.
• What to do instead: Dig deeper to find the real reason that your prospect is missing the value. Or, if the timing is genuinely off, make sure to get a commitment from the prospect that you can hold them accountable to in the future. 

As the old adage goes, “timing is everything.” Well in sales, it might not be everything, but timing is a key factor in every deal. The reality is, it’s nearly impossible to get the timing exactly right naturally. Instead, salespeople have to create urgency and shorten the timeline.

• One of the most effective strategies we’ve found to push timelines up is by establishing value. Ask questions that uncover any compelling events or reasons to move from the status quo to sooner. 
  • If timing is an objection, it’s an indicator that your prospects aren’t actually bought in.
• Find out how the prospect defines their success criteria and paint a picture of what a successful journey looks like when they partner with you.
• Finally, if the timing really isn’t ideal, be sure to get a clear commitment on a future timeline.

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6 Key Steps to Objection Handling

1. Build a repository of the most common objections and the best rebuttals to overcome them.
2. Standardize your best responses to common objections and leave placeholders or room for customization.
3. Stay calm and focus on listening. There’s no such thing as a perfect response. You won’t say the exact thing to turn a prospect’s objection around every time, but you can listen well and remain human. Stay calm, pause, address concerns logically and in a matter-of-fact way, and provide customer examples backed by data.
4. Provide a solution that addresses the prospect’s concern. Repeat the buyer’s objection and walk them through how you have addressed this concern with other customers who felt the same way. Use the Feel/Felt/Found framework to take the prospect on a journey.
5. Incorporate responses into your Sales Engagement Platform. Then, take it a step further by building in automated workflows that address these common concerns.
6. Revisit call conversations to learn how to handle objections immediately over the phone versus waiting for a prolonged email back-and-forth much faster than email. Incorporate behaviors that slow down the call and pose more questions back to the prospect.