276: Becoming a Master of Handling Objections

<p>Objections are good.  That sounds a bit counterintuitive I know, because what we actually want is to land a deal and an objection seems to be an obstacle preventing that from happening. There is a process for dealing with objections and we need to be disciplined to follow it every time and not be derailed by our emotions.  When we get an objection, our automatic response is to argue with the buyer and tell them why they are wrong.  How has arguing with the buyer been going for you?  Not too good I would reckon.  Even if you win the argument, the battle, you won’t get the order and therefore can’t win the war, if I can use that metaphor.  We need a better process than this.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Cushion.</strong></p> <p>Instead we need to go to our cushion -  a statement that is neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the buyer.  Placing a cushion between what they have just said and what we are going to say is critical.  We are all the creatures of our habits and if our habit has been to jump right in and correct the client about how wrong they are, the chances are high we will keep doing that until the end of time.  The cushion is a circuit breaker to tell our brain “hey genius, don’t argue with the client”.  The cushion buys us valuable thinking time to come up with the right response to any objection and there is only one response needed, so if we can stop ourselves defending our solution for a minute, we can start to get somewhere regarding landing this deal.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Why.</strong> </p> <p>What do I mean when I say there is only one response needed?  This sounds a bit bolshie doesn't it.  The first words out of our mouth after hearing the objection are critical.  We should always ask ever so sweetly, “may I ask you why you say that?”.  Now they have to justify the objection they came up with.  Sometimes I use the metaphor of being thrown a porcupine, bristling with all of those sharp quills, when we get an objection.  We have to throw that porcupine right back to the buyer by asking the ques