The Sales Objection You See Coming Is the One to Address First

By Cal Thomas, Sandler Northern New Jersey
Experienced salespeople usually have a pretty good sense of where a sales conversation could run into trouble. Maybe the prospect has been working with the same provider for ten years. Your price might be higher than the competition. You may not have a local warehouse, or your implementation timeline may be longer than the prospect would prefer. Whatever it is, there are often issues we can see coming well before the prospect raises them. The question is what we do with that information.

Our natural instinct is often to leave the issue alone. After all, why introduce a potential problem if the prospect hasn’t brought it up? We want the conversation to keep moving forward, and the last thing we want to do is give someone a reason to reconsider.

The problem is that avoiding an issue rarely makes it disappear.

More often, it means the conversation happens later, when the prospect has already turned it into an objection and we have less opportunity to understand or influence it.

There’s a Sandler Rule that captures this idea well: “The best way to get rid of a bomb is to defuse it before it blows up.”

Consider a salesperson competing against a long-standing relationship. A prospect has worked with the same insurance agent for ten years. You may believe you can provide better coverage or service, but there’s another factor involved that has nothing to do with the proposal: loyalty.

Instead of ignoring it, you might say, “Sam, I know you’ve been working with your current agent for a long time. Even if we determine that we can offer you a better solution, I imagine it could be difficult to walk away from someone you’ve had that relationship with. Is that something we should talk about?”

Nothing negative has happened. You haven’t criticized the competitor or tried to convince the prospect that the relationship shouldn’t matter. You’ve simply acknowledged something both of you already know is part of the decision.

The same approach works when the potential issue is on your side of the table.

Suppose fast delivery matters to a prospect, but your company doesn’t have a warehouse nearby. Rather than hoping the subject never comes up, you could address it directly: “Mary, I know quick delivery is important to you. We don’t have a local warehouse, so I think we should talk about what that could mean and whether it creates a problem for you.”

That kind of conversation does two important things.

First, it builds credibility. Prospects notice when someone is willing to discuss the potential drawbacks of doing business together, not just the advantages.

Second, it gives you information you would never get by avoiding the subject.

Maybe that ten-year relationship isn’t as strong as you assumed. Maybe local inventory isn’t particularly important because emergency deliveries are rare. Maybe your higher price isn’t a concern once the prospect understands the cost of continuing with the problem they are trying to solve.

Or perhaps the issue really is a deal breaker.

That’s useful information too.

One of the traps in selling is believing that our job is to keep every opportunity moving forward. Sometimes our job is simply to help both sides determine whether it makes sense to move forward.
That becomes much easier when we are willing to talk about the difficult issues while they are still just issues, rather than waiting until they become objections.

Before your next important sales conversation, ask yourself a simple question: What am I hoping the prospect doesn’t bring up?

There’s a good chance that’s exactly what you should be prepared to talk about first.

Before your next important sales conversation, ask yourself a simple question: What am I hoping the prospect doesn’t bring up?

There’s a good chance that’s exactly what you should be prepared to talk about first.

And the same principle applies earlier in the sales process. Small mistakes in how we prospect can create problems before a conversation ever begins. Sandler’s free guide, 6 Modern Prospecting Mistakes and How to Avoid Them, looks at six common mistakes sales professionals make when trying to create new opportunities, along with practical ways to avoid them.

Download the free guide: https://info.sandler.com/marketing-sitelet-whitepaper-6-modern-prospecting-mistakes?nbcrefid=f4466758