Overcoming Sales Objections

Overcoming
Sales
Objections

Greg Woodley 1
www.sellingandpersuasiontechniques.com
 Overcoming Sales Objections

About the Author

Greg is a salesman. He has never been a Sales

Executive, an Account Manager, a Rep or a Senior
Account Manager because he feels a salesperson should
be comfortable with the concept that they are a
Salesperson.

Greg has been selling for 25 years. The first 23 years was
in Industrial sales of some form. He has sold into many
industries including paint, plastics, furniture, tanning,
agriculture, rubber, construction, adhesives, inks, food,
cosmetics, vetinary and cables. He has also negotiated
supply contracts to import goods from the USA, UK,
Canada, Germany, Netherlands and Japan.

Naturally, he has attended a number of sales training courses at home and overseas
and is an avid reader of sales and management books. During his 25 years Greg
was trained in the Lee DeBois sales system, Consultative Selling, the SPIN Model
and Persuasion Engineering.

Being in sales is one thing but doing it well is another. Greg has had much success
over the years. He has sold as much as $7million in a year. His worst result was 94%
of budgeted sales and 99% of budgeted profit. He sold his way to a shareholding in
the last company he worked with and was semi-retired at the age of 46.

He is semi-retired because he will NEVER stop working and because he has a desire
to help other salespeople live a good life, free themselves of money worries and
retire early.

OK. Greg can sell but teaching and coaching is another matter.

Greg has a BSc in Chemistry from Sydney University. He is a Master Practitioner of

Neuro Linguistic Programming (an advanced communication model which helps
understand and modify human behaviour as well as modelling excellence). In 1998
he trained in “The Mastery Skills of Group Dynamics” in Colorado, USA. He has held
qualifications in Workplace Training. More recently he has been trained in one-on-
one coaching skills acquiring a “Professional Development Certificate in Coaching
Practice” from the Psychology Department of the University of Sydney and is an
Associate Certified Meta-Coach (ACMC) with The Meta Coach Foundation.

Greg has always believed that there is a better way to do almost anything. This is the
Japanese concept of Kaizen (continuous incremental improvements). His motivation
during his sales career was to help companies achieve their desires. If he couldn’t
help he got out of their way.

Over the years Greg has become more interested in helping people that helping
companies. His desire is to make the world a better, happier place one sales person
at a time.

Greg Woodley 2
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 Overcoming Sales Objections

PART ONE: SALES OBJECTIONS? .......................................................................5

1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................ ............................ 5

2. W HY DO WE GET O BJECTIONS?................................ .................................... 6
3. W HAT IS YOUR ATTITUDE TOWARDS OBJECTIONS? ................................ .........7
4. W HAT TYPES OF OBJECTIONS ARE THERE ?................................ ................... 8
5. NOW LET’S LOOK AT TRUE OBJECTIONS. ................................ .....................10
PART TWO: OBJECTION HANDLING BASICS................................................12

1. THINGS NOT TO DO WHEN OVERCOMING SALES OBJECTIONS ......................... 12

2. HOW DO YOU GO ABOUT OVERCOMING SALES O BJECTIONS? ....................... 15
PART THREE: OVERCOMING OBJECTIONS..................................................21

1. SPECIFIC T ACTICS AND PATTERNS – “YES…BUT”................................ .........21

2. SPECIFIC T ACTICS AND PATTERNS – AGREEMENT F RAME ............................ 22
3. SPECIFIC T ACTICS AND PATTERNS – “OR, NOT?”.......................................... 23
4. SPECIFIC T ACTICS AND PATTERNS – “FEEL, FELT, FOUND.” .......................... 24
5. SPECIFIC T ACTICS AND PATTERNS – “SURE ENOUGH TO HAVE DOUBTS” ........ 25
6. SPECIFIC T ACTICS AND PATTERNS – “THE ONE QUESTION .” .......................... 26
7. SPECIFIC T ACTICS AND PATTERNS – THE CONTRAST FRAME ........................ 27
8. SPECIFIC T ACTICS AND PATTERNS – “COMPARED TO WHAT?” ....................... 28
9. SPECIFIC T ACTICS AND PATTERNS – “HOW WOULD YOU KNOW..?” ................ 29
10. SPECIFIC TACTICS AND PATTERNS – TREATED QUESTION .......................... 29
11. SPECIFIC TACTICS AND PATTERNS – FUTURE PACING ................................ 29
12. SPECIFIC TACTICS AND PATTERNS – REOPEN A DECISION .......................... 30
13. SPECIFIC TACTICS AND PATTERNS – PUT OBJECTION IN THE PAST ............. 31
14. SPECIFIC TACTICS AND PATTERNS – “JUST SUPPOSE ..” ............................. 31

PART FOUR: SLEIGHT OF MOUTH REFRAMING .........................................33

1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................ .......................... 33

2. SLEIGHT OF MOUTH ................................................................ ..................36
3. W HAT IS “THE MAGIC BOX?” ................................................................ ......36
4. HOW MANY DIFFERENT WAYS CAN WE LOOK AT SOMETHING TO REFRAME IT?.. 38
5. SPECIFIC EXAMPLE ................................ ................................................... 38
6. SPECIFIC EXAMPLE ................................ ................................................... 43

PART FIVE: MINIMISE OBJECTIONS OCCURRING .....................................49

1. “INOCULATE AGAINST OBJECTIONS”................................ ............................. 49

2. HOW TO HAVE FEWER OBJECTIONS COME UP. ............................................. 49
3. RAPPORT BEFORE CLOSING ................................................................ .......50

Greg Woodley 3
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 Overcoming Sales Objections

4. ATTITUDE TOWARDS SALES & OBJECTIONS ................................ ..................50

PART SIX: OVERCOMING YOUR OBJECTIONS ............................................52

1. W HAT ARE THE OBJECTIONS YOU HEAR MOST OFTEN? ................................ .52
2. FORMULATE RESPONSES TO YOUR O BJECTIONS .......................................... 55
3. REMEMBER TO USE “JUST SUPPOSE ”........................................................... 56
5. COMMON OBJECTIONS (LINK TO ANSWERS TO ASKOBJECTIONS) ................. 57

PART SEVEN: PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER .................................................58

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER ................................................................. ............58

T HAT’S ALL THERE IS FOLKS – IT’S UP TO YOU NOW ................................ .........60
APPENDIX 1 ..............................................................................................................61

APPENDIX 2..............................................................................................................63

APPENDIX 3 – REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION ............................................64

DISCLAIMER AND/ OR LEGAL NOTICES:

The information presented herein represents the view of the author as of the date of
publication. Because of the rate with which conditions change, the author reserves
the right to alter and update his opinion based on the new conditions. While every
attempt has been made to verify the information provided in this report, neither the
author nor his affiliates/ partners assume any responsibility for errors, inaccuracies or
omissions. The author and his affiliates/ partners shall in no event be held liable for
any loss or other damages, including but not limited to special, incidental,
consequential, or other damages. Any slights of people or organizations are
unintentional. Any reference to any person or business whether living or dead is
purely coincidental. If advice concerning legal or related matters is needed, the
services of a fully qualified professional should be sought. This report is not intended
for use as a source of legal or accounting advice. You should be aware of any laws
that govern business transactions or other business practices in your own country
and state.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: No part of this report can be changed, or reproduced

in any form whatsoever, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and
recording, or by any informational or retrieval system without the express written,
dated and signed permission from the author.

Copyright © 2010 Gregory M Woodley

Greg Woodley 4
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 Overcoming Sales Objections

Overcoming Sales Objections

Part One: Sales Objections?

1. Introduction
Have you ever experienced the following?

You are in front of one of your biggest accounts. You've asked the right
questions and gave a dynamic presentation. So much money hinges on this
client's answer. Your heart is beating rapidly. Your hands feel clammy. The
time has come to ask for the order.

You take a deep breath and say, "Let's do it!"

But, the client pauses and says,

"I’m just not sure. I need to think about it. Call me in six months."

End of the road? No!

Sale in six months? No!
More than likely the client is ready to buy and is just afraid of making an
immediate decision. If his fears were eliminated, he'd buy now!

So, why do so many salespeople leave with no sale?

They never learned the art of overcoming sales objections and hanging in
there to get the sale. That’s what this eBook is about.

Greg Woodley 5
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 Overcoming Sales Objections

Uncovering and overcoming sales objections challenges you intellectually and

emotionally.

It requires that you know not only your product, but yourself and your prospect
as well.

Product knowledge, creativity, sales tools, and confidence in yourself, your

product, and your company must all come together in overcoming sales
objections and closing the sale. You must combine technique with honesty
and conviction to get the prospect to resolve any lingering doubt or conflict.

2. Why do we get Objections?

Whether you've been selling for a day, a week, or a number of years, you
know that whenever you make sales calls, there are objections.

Why do objections come up?

Well, if you were selling the perfect product and made the perfect sales call
objections would not come up. Since neither you nor your product are perfect
then it’s likely that you’ll encounter objections.

Objections are a natural part of the selling process.

If there are no objections, it could mean that the prospect is apathetic.

While Objections do not really help they do show that your prospect is
interested and enable you to give more information to the prospect.

The more information the prospect has, the easier it is to make the sale.
Hence objections are part of the process that results in the prospect getting
the information he needs to decide to buy.

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 Overcoming Sales Objections

3. What is your Attitude towards objections?

How do you feel about objections?

Do you fear them?

Perhaps even dread them?
Do you look forward to them?

What do some well know sales trainers think about objections?

"Champions have almost an affection for even the peskiest objection"

(Tom Hopkins)

"There is no such thing as an 'objection,' and therefore there is nothing

to 'overcome."' There are only questions. (Plotkin,).

I can stay resourceful and creative if I only ask myself, "What's great
about this question?" (Robbins)

"Objections are the rungs on the ladder to sales success." (Hopkins)

So.

Aim to develop a positive attitude towards objections so that you truly

welcome them.

[Did you know that the best sales people in the USA close most of their
sales after the FIFTH NO!!!
So, every time you get a NO! You are one NO closer to a Yes

Remember, every product has some problems.

"There's not a product or service. on the market that doesn't have some
built-in objections and at least a few minor problems." (Hopkins).

You will never sell anything that doesn't have some weaknesses that couldn't
be improved.

So, study the weak points and turn them into advantages.

While it is almost guaranteed you will get objections if you’ve failed to

established need, rapport, credibility or trust, objections are really your
opportunity to sell. Objections give you insight into what the prospect is

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 Overcoming Sales Objections

thinking, a chance to focus on the major issues that concern your prospect,
which allows you to plan the next step of the sales presentation and turn
those objections to your advantage in order to make the sale.

The best way to overcome an objection is by being prepared.

You must know how you plan to turn around each objection you face and
since objections are simply the manner in which prospects communicate their
status in the buying process they’re crucial to understand.

4. What Types of Objections are there?

Objections have three forms: conditions, stalls, and true objections.

Let’s look at them in turn.

Conditions

A Condition is: A valid and legitimate reasons for not going ahead with a sale,
a reality condition that prevents the person from buying: can't afford it, doesn't
need it, etc.

Sometimes a customer does not have the authority to make a decision.

Perhaps the company needs to get permission from their overseas parent
company to spend that amount of money. Or a decree from the CEO prevents
the Purchasing Manager from making a purchase at that time without referring
to the CEO. These are conditions.

Often, nothing you do in these situations will result in a signed contract. The
key is to ask questions that determine the nature of the condition, then
schedule the appointment for a time when the condition requirements have
been met.

We simply need to identify true conditions, face the reality, swallow hard and
both quickly and courteously disconnect from trying to force a sale. If we
become too emotionally involved we will lose the objectivity to detect this. By
becoming an expert qualifier, we don't dampen our enthusiasm by trying to
overcome a condition that can't be overcome.

The real secret to handling conditions is to find out about them as soon as you
can. It's better to discover that Dad wants to approve the house before you
put the buyers in the car. That way, Dad can come along and see that the
house they choose is really the best one.

The benefit of handling a condition up front is that you don't waste time
working with people who aren't in a position—or don't have the authority—to
make the decision.

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 Overcoming Sales Objections

Stalls

You'll recognize the most common form of a stall with these words:

"We want to think it over." Or

“I’m too busy to make a decision right now.”

There are many variations. The key to dealing with these objections is to
recognize the customer's statement is a stall, so you know what to say.

This is perhaps the most common objection. It stands to reason, then, that the
strategy you develop to counter The Stall is going to be a major factor in your
success as a salesperson.

Whatever the cause for the stall, handling it isn't a science, it's an art.

The art is in helping the customer see that you truly accept and understand
their hesitation.

Acknowledge that you heard them.

Ask questions, start a conversation, draw them out.
“I understand why you might want to think it over since it is a big
commitment.”

Probe.
Ask questions that might reveal what is really stopping them.

For example,
"Are you concerned with the terms?"
Maybe there is something that I was not clear about when I described what
the job would entail. Maybe I can help by answering the question now. What
was it about my estimate that you wanted to think over?”

Your goal is to determine the underlying objection. Often, you'll get a reply
that helps you uncover the real objection so that you can handle it.

It is always easier to try and answer the question now and overcome the
objection now rather than later because usually there is no later. This type of
approach should enable you to start up the conversation again and help make
the prospect feel more comfortable about giving you an affirmative answer
now.

When you listen beyond the prospect's words, you'll often realize they are
trying to camouflage their real concern. Perhaps a buyer or seller is afraid that
if they tell you the real reason they don't feel they should make a decision,
you'll handle it. Or maybe they are trying to avoid confrontation. By telling you
the truth, they take a risk.
It's much easier than saying, "We're not sure we trust you."

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 Overcoming Sales Objections

A couple of special types of the Stall are:

The Doubter's Manoeuvre

When your prospect won't (or can't) answer the questions you put to them and
is unwilling to suggest someone else who can.

It's a toughie, because a variety of factors can lie beneath this objection, from
low self-esteem on the part of your prospect, to bad organization within the
company.

What if you're dealing with a small business that really has no "purchasing
agent" or "office manager"?

Let's face it, overstepping one's authority is not a key to success in business.
If you're speaking with someone who traditionally has never made a decision,
it will be very difficult to convince him to adopt an aggressive approach to his
business problems.

The Reassurance Request

The Reassurance Request is where the prospect asks for a sign of credibility
from your side.

It's still an objection, but it requires that you listen carefully to what the
prospect is really saying, so that you can offer him the information he needs to
proceed with confidence.

5. Now let’s look at True Objections.

There Are Only Six Real Objections:

"I don't have enough time,"

This objection can be turned around on itself.

Often you can say that your product or system will save them time.

"I don't have enough money,"

This can be handled by using the Contrast frame and re-establishing Value.

"It won't work for me (it works for everyone else but it won't work for me),"

"I don't believe you."

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 Overcoming Sales Objections

“I have no need for your product”

These objections can best be handled by bringing on your witnesses.

Linguistically you can use the “ feel-felt-found” approach.

If the client doesn’t believe you it could also be a good idea to concentrate on
rebuilding rapport.

“I have no need for your product at the moment”

This means there is no urgency.
The client does see some utility in your offer but has other more pressing
priorities. In this instance you may need to go back and build the value of your
offer while accentuating the negative side of not acting now.

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 Overcoming Sales Objections

Part Two: Objection Handling Basics.

1. Things not to do when overcoming sales objections

1) Never but never argue.

Arguing elicits a sense of embattlement in the other person and will only
evoke defensiveness. Often you will be right, however, by winning the
argument (and embarrassing the prospect) you'll probably lose the sale.

2) Never, but never attack the person.

Separate the person from the objection and deal with it as apart from them.
This necessitates developing sensitivity for how the person feels when voicing
the objection. How attached are they to it? How identified are they with it? If
you strike out at the objection too bluntly, the person may feel that you've
attacked his or her intelligence, rationality, self-esteem, personhood, etc.

If you fight a person's feelings, more negative emotions will emerge and you
will lose!

3) Never assume you understand an unspecified word

If a prospect uses a word that is a nominalisation (see YSS issue #5 ) don’t

start answering until you first understand their meaning. (Briefly, a
nominalisation is a word you cannot place in a wheelbarrow; it’s a concept not
a tangible thing.)

For example, if a prospect says: “I need versatility.” Don’t start talking about
flexibility or the range of products you have or your payment options because
that may not be what your client is talking about.

Better to ask:

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 Overcoming Sales Objections

'Could you explain to me what you mean by versatility?' or

How will they know when they are getting “versatility”? or

What will they see, hear & feel when they have versatility? or

If we were providing you with “versatility” what would we be doing differently

to the other potential suppliers out there? or

What will happen if you have “versatility”?

4) Never Insult the Prospect

Let’s look at an example.

Prospect: 'Your prices are too high.'

It would not be very smart to reply with,

“Aren’t you interested in quality?”

You could reply with:

“High prices compared to what?” or you could soften that with,
“I understand your concern about pricing, we all need to ensure we’re
competitive in this modern world, and could you tell me who or what you are
comparing us to in making that comparison? ”

You can even say,

“Too high (sounding surprised), how do you know that?”

Or even,
“How would you know if our prices are not too high?”

5) Never Avoid the Issue

'Quite frankly, your service is useless.'

It would not be right to change the subject or talk in theory about what is good
service because you are dealing with an emotion here. The client is obviously
angry or frustrated when the use a word like “useless”. You need to help them
vent their emotion.

Much better to stick with the issue,

“Obviously something has happened to make you feel that way. Can you tell
me about it?”

Finding the cause of the dissatisfaction gives you an opportunity to correct the
problem or future problems, it also makes you look interested and responsive.

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 Overcoming Sales Objections

6) Don’t Shift Responsibility

When there is a problem don’t try to blame it on your office staff or your
delivery people. Think about how that is perceived by your customer. Your
customer will only understand that you are dodging the blame. What your
customer wants is for someone to accept responsibility and fix the problem.

You need to be responding with,

“We….”, to show that you stand with your company then with,
“I’ll fix it.”
The “I” bit is important as you are the company in the eyes of your customer
and if you have any sort of relationship with him / her they will feel more
comfortable knowing the person who is looking into it for them.

In the case where you have not started doing business with the person yet
you need to have the courage to dig further into the issue.

If your client says,

“I can’t do business with you because your product comes from intestate and
it will take too long to get to us when we need it.”

The easy reply (and the wrong one) is to say

“I’m sorry it’s our company policy to supply from a central warehouse.”

Start asking why they need immediate delivery; what is immediate etc. You
may find out that they’ve always had next day delivery and it’s just an
unneeded expectation. You may find out your competitor can only order a
small quantity per delivery whereas you have no such restriction. The point is
you’ll never know until you ask the questions.

7) Never, but never make the person wrong.

Make a person wrong, and you will create an enemy.

8) Never Contradict the Prospect

Prospect: “You guys always seem to be having production problems.”

Mistake: 'No, that's not correct. We had some problems when we upgraded
the plant two years ago. Did you know we have not had any downtime in the
last 18 months?'

A better reply would be:

“Yes, we had some production problems when we upgraded the plant and
currently the plant is running flawlessly, in fact, it’s been running like that for
the past 18 months. Can you tell me if you have experienced any delays so
that I can investigate further?”

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 Overcoming Sales Objections

In the second reply, the sales rep acknowledges the prospect's perception of
a problem. Remember, first you meet them where they are and then move
them to where you want them to be. Notice also the use of the verbs in that
reply (sorry, this sounds like an English lesson). You put the problem in the
past tense “had some production problems…” rather than “were having..”
since “were having” indicates more of an ongoing problem. Then make sure
the improved situation is in the present active tense “is running flawlessly….”
which talks about now and indicates ongoing “running”. Finally, the second
response seeks to investigate any recent issues.

Notice also the use of 'and' instead of 'but' this does not demean the
prospect's evaluation. This is an example of the “Agreement Frame”.

9) Don’t dwell too long on an objection

Dwelling too long on an objection will amplify its importance in the mind of
your customer. Better to answer briefly. Your answer should be just long
enough to satisfy the prospect, and no longer.

10 ) Never guess an answer

Don't guess at an answer. Admit you don't know. Say:

“I'm sorry, I don't have the answer to that question, but I promise to get the
information to you.”

When you actually get back to them with a reply, this will show you have the
courage to admit what you don’t know and that you “walk your talk” and follow
through on your commitments. This can only improve the client’s perception of
you.

2. How do you go about Overcoming Sales Objections?

Now you know what not to do, exactly how do you go about Overcoming
Sales Objections

Remember to have any chance of overcoming sales objections you must first
have established rapport, mutual trust and confidence and let the prospect
know that you are there to be both an advocate and a consultant. If you can
establish the rapport to build a friendship, that’s certainly valuable, but not
essential.

1) Hear the person out - Listen fully!

Don't interrupt listen patiently and intently. Interrupting a prospect will intensify
the objection and cause prospects to become preoccupied with it.

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 Overcoming Sales Objections

You must completely focus on the prospect to determine the real significance
of this objection. Let your genuine concern and sincere interest show on your
face. Nod your head. The client must not feel you're going to argue with them
but that you truly understand their position. Prospects are weary of
salespeople who only pretend to listen, and are angered by salespeople who
interrupt their objections to refute them. These behaviours are disrespectful
and demonstrate weakness. Be confident, and show your concern for their
feelings.

Don't anticipate what he/she is saying and finish the sentence for him/her, just
because you've heard every objection under the sun doesn’t mean that you
needn't listen fully to your prospect's objection. He/she may have a unique
twist.

If appropriate, close your order book to take the tension off him/her.

Avoid leaping on the objection before the person finishes - that will only elicit
irritation and a sense of being discounted. Especially when you know how you
plan to proceed, you may feel a tendency to say, “Yeah, but... .”
Resist this temptation.
Your prospect must understand that you accept his/her position.

Listen carefully to the objection being raised. Is it an objection or just a

delaying tactic? A prospect often will repeat an objection if it's real. To
uncover the truth, try asking,
”Don't you really mean . . .” or
”You're telling me. . . but I think you mean something else.”

As you listen, prospects will often expose the real reasons for not buying.

Prospects continually volunteer new information that will help you better
understand their needs and desires. Allow yourself to hear the complete
objection. Sometimes, after prospects hear themselves voicing the objection,
they realize themselves there is no substance to it!

2) Feed the Objection back for confirmation.

By restating the objection, you show your concern for the prospect and get
clarification in case you misunderstood his/her point. (Avoid paraphrasing the
objection at this time, build rapport by repeating the exact words your
prospect used. This is called Parrot Phrasing). Some prospects even
withdraw their objections once they hear them spoken aloud.

While restating the objection you can begin to consider your initial strategy to
minimize, ignore or handle the objection. There are times, especially when
hearing knee-jerk objections, you will want to ignore the objections and keep
on selling. There are times when you will know that you cannot overcome the
objection, but can minimize its importance in the overall picture.

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 Overcoming Sales Objections

Hint : As you feed the objection back act a little bit surprised. If you've
established value, you are surprised that he/she would have an objection.

For example:

Your prospect might say something like,

”well, gee, I don't have the time.”

“You don't have the time?” (Surprised tone)

Just like that. You feed the objection right back to him/her.

Remember, if you listen, totally, then you will hear things that are not
verbalized.

3) Qualify it as the only true objection.

There are different ways you can proceed from here.

You may choose to say,

”You mean that's the only reason you're not buying?”

Now your prospect can either say yes or no.

This smokes out the real objection.
If it’s a fake objection the prospect will say “No.”, then you can ask what are
his or her other concerns.
If he says, “yes, that's the only reason why I'm not buying” you now know the
real objection and you can start to answer it.

Alternatively, you may like to try a method employed by Lee DuBois.

Lee would start closing with a trial close.

Something like,
“How do you feel about our offer?”

Whenever, Lee encountered any objections he would say,

”Obviously you…” followed by “just suppose”.

I’ll give you an example.

You start your close via a trial close.

Customer raises objection.
You respond with.
”Obviously you have a good reason for saying that. Do you mind if I ask what
it is?”
Then the customer gives his/her reasoning.
Then you meet the prospect’s condition exactly with:

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 Overcoming Sales Objections

”Just suppose ..( meet condition )… then in your opinion do you feel you could
proceed… etc”.
If the customer says “No.”, then you repeat the process.
(i.e. you say “Obviously you” again.)

4) Gently question and explore the Objection.

Once you have the real objection. Invite the person to elaborate fully, ask
questions to specify their objection. Is it comprised of fluff, non-specific and
overgeneralized statements?

Your questioning should allow you to fully understand the objection. If you are
lucky you may even hear the answer to the problem or, better still, the
elaboration may enable the person to see through it himself or herself.

Nod to accept their answers (even if unreasonable) and continue with

questions. Frequently, it will take three to seven questions to truly explore the
obstacle you face. Be careful that your questions are not accusatory, like,
“What do you mean it's too expensive?”
Instead, express your need to really understand what they mean. Often you’ll
find that the prospect did not understand a specific point, or that you did not
communicate it properly.

Explain the objection, as you understand it, for clarity.

“I can appreciate that, so what you are saying is (objection).”
Or
“Do I understand you to mean that...”
Isolate the objection and lock it down. You may be able to rephrase your
question in a way that incorporates the solution.
“So if I were able to get you a longer warrantee, would that be enough for you
to make a decision?”
That also smokes it out if it is a false objection.

Restating ensures that the prospect will know that you have taken an interest
in, and understand, the objection. It also gives you an opportunity to restate
the objection in a more favourable way. Prospects will be more inclined to
listen to you when they know you have listened to them.

5) Answer the objection:

Having completed the following 4 steps you are in a good position to answer
the objection.

Actually you can just choose to ignore some objections and go back to
establishing value. (See Step 7).

There are many ways to answer an objection:

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You can answer by admitting the shortcoming of your product and shifting
quickly to a strong advantage.
e.g. “Yes our matrix platform adjusts only forty degrees horizontally, but it
provides 50% more vertical adjustment than any other machine”.

You can submit a testimonial letter, a competitive comparison chart, or a

special time-sensitive or price-related offer.

Rather than frame “objections” as a disagreement you can reframe every

“objection” into a question that you welcome. Perhaps even reframe an
objection so that it becomes an advantage or seems trivial in the eyes of the
prospect. (See Reframing & S.O.M.)

You can lead a person to answer his or her own objection by asking
appropriate questions.

The most advanced methods for overcoming sales objections can be found in
the process of reframing.

This technique is based on the fact that all meaning is context dependent.

So, a cloudy, 70 degree day is great summer weather for Anchorage, Alaska
(actually they celebrate that kind of weather in Anchorage) but in Hawaii ..?
Not so good!

Consider that almost any meaning can be reframed by either a change in

content or context. (See Reframing & S.O.M.)

6) Check / test for satisfaction that the objection has been dealt with.

You need to confirm the answer has been received and understood. Don’t
reply to the objection and leave it hanging in the air.

Now that solves the problem, doesn’t it?

"When you think of it that way, how do you feel about this product satisfying
your needs?"

“I guess we’ve made that clear?”

“Does that make sense now?”

“I'm glad you brought up that point, because our most informed customers
always become our most satisfied customers. Are you comfortable that we
have addressed that 100% to your satisfaction?”

"That clarifies the point, doesn't it?"

"With that question solved, we can go ahead, can’t we?"

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If the client says yes, you can lead to a close. If the prospect doesn't feel that
his objection has been dispelled, you have some choices.

Now you must prove what you suggested to the prospect. This is the time to
demonstrate value, list comparisons, and prove benefits. If you cannot answer
the prospect in a way that's different or sets you apart from others, you'll
never close this (or any) sale.

No one can predict the future but history often repeats itself, so statistics and
facts are valuable tools for changing minds. Bring them along. The proof you
show is limited only by your imagination and the ability to back it up. When
you believe it, they'll believe it. They can see it in your face and hear it in your
voice. Then selling is easy.

Your other choice is to point out to the client that even given his objection, the
other benefits of exhibiting in the show outweigh it.

7) Reorient the person to their criteria / values and lead into a close.

It's easy to let an objection disorient and confuse. Use questions that invite
the person to reorient to what's really important; to the major benefits of the
product and what is important to his/her specific situation. These should make
the objection look small. Now that you have uncovered the prospect's needs
and reinforced the value of your offering you can bridge to a close. By this
time closing the sale should be “fait accompli”, the natural outcome of all that
has come before.

At this point you can just ask for the order simply and directly or employ any
number of trail closes or closing methods. It’s often good to describe similar
situations when you close; people like to know about others in the same
situation as themselves.

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Part Three: Overcoming Objections

1. Specific Tactics and Patterns – “yes…but”

Early in my sales career I was told,
“Don't use “yes……but”!”

No-one ever told me why.

Later I learned it really is not a very good way to be talking to your customer
because “but” negates everything that has been said before it. It works like a
mental eraser.

Imagine saying to your spouse,

“You look beautiful in that but …”
(look out !! Be very careful what your next words are!! )

How would you feel if your boss came up to you and said?
“You have done a great job on that proposal but …”
Perhaps, like the next words would be,
“ ... I want you to do it all again ”.

So, if I can't use "yes ...but" what do I use?

Well, I was taught to use The Agreement Frame.

OK, we're going to be the good guys and not use "yes ...but", but what do I do
when my customer says "yes... but" to me?

You can turn "but" around when it's used on you.

Remember "but" rubs out all that's come before it in an utterance.
And one of the best ways to make sales is to keep YOUR product in the mind
of your customer.

Here's a good example of how to do a “but flip” in a home situation.

“Darling, would you like to go out to dinner?”

“I'd love to go out for dinner but I'm very tired “,

(now if you want to go out, you say)

“Oh, you're very tired but you'd love to go out to dinner”

(and say the "love to go out for dinner" with feeling).

This leaves your spouse with going out as the last thing in their head.
This gives you a much better chance of getting out to dinner.

How about a real live sales example?

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Customer says,
”I’d love to use your service but it’s too expensive”

You reply,
”Oh I see, our product is expensive but you’d really love to use it.”

To make it even better you could add a “tag question”

”Oh I see, our product is expensive but you’d really love to use it, wouldn’t
you?”

2. Specific Tactics and Patterns – Agreement Frame

How to avoid using yes...but

When someone says “yes, but”, the “but” has the effect of negating all that
precedes it

“You look beautiful in that but …”

“You have done a great job on that proposal but …”

If you change the “but” to an “and”, the sentence will sound less
confrontational, and you are more likely to get your outcome.

So, in responding to people as a salesperson replace “but” with “and”.

Precede the “and” with a softener.
See the examples below.

· I understand … and

· I appreciate … and

· I agree …. and

· I respect …. and

· I recognise…..and

Then use the following softeners after the “and”

· ….I was just wondering

· ….I am curious to know

· ….I am interested to know

· ….I am fascinated to know

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· ….I was thinking

· ….I was (found myself) asking myself

· ….you know I am interested in

· ….I’m just interested to know

How about some examples of this Agreement Frame in action.

Prospect says,
”The car you are offering us in not roomy enough.”

Possible responses:
”I appreciate that you think the car is not roomy enough AND I was just
wondering how you determine what is roomy enough?”

“I understand that you think you need a lot of room for your family and I am
curious to know how will you know if a car is roomy enough?”

“I agree that a car has to have enough room for you and I am interested to
know how much room you actually need?”

3. Specific Tactics and Patterns – “or, not?”

Sooner or later in your sales career you’ll run across someone who always
takes a contrary point of view.

In psychological circles they call these people “polarity responders”.

If you say to one of these people,

”It’s a nice day today.”
They respond with,
”It was nicer yesterday.”

How do you handle someone like that?

You use the “or not “ frame.

So, you would make comments like,

“I’m not sure whether you’ll be interested in our service, or not”
or
“This product has outstanding durability, or not.”

Often they cannot offer a counter response or they say something like,
“I’ll decide how much interest I have in your service.”
(Notice where their attention is fixed in the last comment, interest in your
service.)

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4. Specific Tactics and Patterns – “Feel, felt, found.”

I’m sure that any of you that have been involved in sales for some time would
have heard of the “Feel-Felt-Found” approach to dealing with an objection.

This is quite an effective tack for dealing with many objections.

You should consider practicing the use of it because you could use it in a
number of situations.

Just for a review let’s go through an example.

Your prospect says something like,

“I’d love to use your service but we just can’t afford it.” (Sound familiar?)

An example of your response, using “feel-felt-found”, would be something like

the following.

“Strange you should say that. I can certainly understand how you could feel
that way. Mr Jones over at Allied Inc felt the same way for a long time. Then
after he started using our service he found that the added cost was minimal
and was far outweighed by the benefits of our premium service.”

Another example.

Prospect says,
”We’ve been with our current supplier for many years, I’m just not sure about
moving my business to your company.”

You reply,
“ I appreciate you feel that way. I would hope you would feel the same way if
you’d been doing business with us for many years. In fact, a number of other
companies that have switched to us in the last 18 months have felt the same
way. That’s why it’s so gratifying that all of them have found the move to be
such a good one for their company.”

I repeat, this “feel, felt, found” pattern can be used in MANY situations and
should be part of your sales kit.

For an explanation of how it works and how to modify it so it won’t be “picked”

by savvy buyers see Appendix 1.

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5. Specific Tactics and Patterns – “Sure enough to have

doubts”

This is not a pattern that you can use every day.

This is a pattern reserved for those occasions for when you have a prospect
entrenched in a belief that they will not let go of.

It is a form of “double bind”

Basically, you build up the intensity of your prospect’s opposing belief and
then drop the double bind on them.

It goes something like this.

Prospect,
“The product I’m using is the best there is.”

You,
“Are you sure of that?”

“Yes!”

You, “Very sure?” “I mean absolutely sure!”

Prospect, “Yes!”

You,
“Are you sure enough to have doubts?”

Now watch their eyes spin.

If they say they’re not sure enough to have doubts.

You can say, “So you’re not that sure.”

If they ay they are sure enough to have doubts.

You can ask, “What are your doubts?”

Either way, you have shaken their belief in the product they currently use. Or
the deal they currently have. Or the service they currently use.

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6. Specific Tactics and Patterns – “The one question.”

This is a wonderful last-ditch retort.

You’ve been consulting with your prospect or client for some time. No
resolution, no sale. You’ve run out of things to say.

Then you say,

“What’s the one question you could ask to be totally convinced that this is the
product for you?”

This is a beautiful question because of the presupposition that is inherent in

the question.

A presupposition is something, often not specifically stated in a sentence, that

has to be true in order to make sense of the sentence.

For example if your partner asks you to pick up the laundry on the way home.
Certain things have to be true. There has to be laundry, there has to be a
place to pick it up from (laundromat) and you have to have a home to go to.

Now the presupposition in the question above is that there is a question that
will cause your prospect to be totally sold on your offer.
You don’t even have to answer the question!

Once your prospect asks a question his/her unconscious mind believes that
this is the product for them.

It doesn’t make the sale but it’s a rung on the ladder because it starts them
thinking about using your product.

Another example.

Prospect says.
“I can’t see your service working here.”

You reply,
“That’s right you can’t see our service working here….yet… because you
haven’t yet asked the one question that allow you to realise all the benefits
you will have by using our service.”

This follows a pattern recommended earlier. That is, you agree with the
objection first and then try and redirect it. As a general rule meet them where
they are and then take them where you want them to go.

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7. Specific Tactics and Patterns – The Contrast Frame

On my website I have some pages relating to Robert Cialdini’s influence
patterns from his book “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion”.
(A great book and a MUST read if you are serious about being a sales
person)

Cialdini discusses the Contrast Principle at some length in his book.

The contrast principle can be used when you are dealing with price objections
to make the cost of your offer look smaller. The idea is to compare your price
to something larger so it doesn’t look so expensive. You may compare your
price to the extra profit the client will make or to your competitors or to the
much larger costs inherent in the client’s business.

Let’s explain the contrast principle and see how it works.

The contrast principle affects the way we see the difference between two
things that are presented one after another.

Simply put, if the second item is fairly different from the first, we will tend to
see it as more different than it actually is.

So if we lift a light object first and then lift a heavy object, we will estimate the
second to be heavier than if we had lifted it without first trying the light

If we talking to a beautiful woman at a cocktail party and are then joined by an

unattractive one, the second woman will strike us as less attractive than she
actually is. .

The point is that the same thing can be made to seem very different,
depending on the nature of the event that precedes it.

Examples of The Contrast Principle in action include:

 Retail clothiers selling the expensive suit so it’s easier to seel you shirt and
tie later.
 Car sales people selling relatively cheap accessories after you’ve agreed
to purchase the much more expensive car.
 Real estate companies using "setup" properties where they take you to a
couple of overpriced houses before they show you the house they think
you will want.
 Warning your customers of an upcoming 10% price increase when you
know the increase will only be 5%.

The great advantage of this principle is not only that it works but also that it is
virtually undetectable. Those who employ it can cash in on its influence out
any appearance of having structured the situation in their favour.

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In relation to Objections the principle of contrast is often used when you run
into a price objection.

Client says to you,

“Your premium service would cost me an extra $1000/year.”

Using “contrast” you could reply,

“That’s right for about $2.50 a day you could have all the advantages of the
premium service.”

$2.50 a day seems much less than $1000, doesn’t it?

8. Specific Tactics and Patterns – “Compared to what?”

Often a prospect will say,
“Your product is too…”
Maybe it’s “too big” or “too slow” or “too expensive” or “too old” or “too
complicated”

A good response to this sort of objection is,

“ Compared to what?”

You see whenever we make a decision (like to buy product X or product Y, or

even not to buy anything at all) we have to first make an evaluation and
evaluations are based on comparisons.

For example how much better will my life be with this new appliance versus
how much more complicated will my life be with the addition of this new
appliance.

So, because every comment like “it’s too big” is based on a comparison you
need to understand what the prospect is comparing your offer to so that you
can respond.

Once you understand the prospect’s comparison you can focus on what is
important to them and either reposition your offer to be more like what they
want or point out the flaws in the other product or even the disadvantages of
not buying anything at all.

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9. Specific Tactics and Patterns – “How would you know..?”

Prospect says something like,
“Your service is too restricted.”

You can reply,

“How would you know if it’s not too restrictive?”

This gets your prospect thinking about how your offer is not what they thought
it was. They actually have to try on using your product in their mind. The more
your product is in their mind, the more chance you have of making a sale.

10. Specific Tactics and Patterns – Treated Question

This can be used for almost any objection. The purpose is to turn the
objection into a question in your customers mind so you can answer it. You
often lead into this with the Agreement Frame.

It’s important to bridge into this “question”, use the format that follows the
Agreement Frame wording below.

“I appreciate that our product is imported and you are concerned about
availability of spares and that brings up a question. The question is, “What is
our guaranteed delivery time on spares?” “Is that the question?”
(Note: It’s important that they acknowledge that it is the question)

11. Specific Tactics and Patterns – Future Pacing

Think about, how you make choices, and how your customers make their
choices. When we make choices and decisions we look ahead into the future
and predict the consequences of our decision. As we do this we make
pictures, hear words, and these create feelings about the decision we are
about to make.

The aim of this objection technique is to change the negative consequences

the customer sees internally that cause sales objections. You will be working
with the buyer's internal map of future reality, because that's where the
objection is formed. A prospect can raise a sales objection because they
predict certain consequences of buying. They imagine the future. They see
what they think will happen and how they could feel if they buy your product,
and they don't like it.

They can see something negative. They present this negative view of the
future as an objection. What people see in their imagination can be real. It can
also be completely made up, a fantasy or a nightmare. But in both cases it will
feel real to them.

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The mind struggles to differentiate between real and imagined. A good sales
person, coach, or therapist, makes this Future Pacing feel real.

Put this great selling technique into action

A buyer raises an objection and says, 'It's too expensive.'

You then lead them through the consequences of having that belief. You get
them to see, hear, and feel, what will happen if they buy a cheaper model.
Guide them through the future consequences of trying to save a few pennies.
Then you show them the positive future that will happen when they change
that belief and buy from you. You use benefits and make them feel how much
they will gain. Lead their imagination and show them a future where they have
made a positive choice and bought your high value product. Sell them a
picture of the future, not just the features of your product.

12. Specific Tactics and Patterns – Reopen a Decision

Sometimes you will be confronted with a prospect that has already made a
decision.

At these times selling and overcoming objections turns into an exercise in

reopening the prospects mind to recogniser their original decision, preferably
using different evaluation criteria.

Now, you can often do this via a questioning process and I'd like to offer you a
little linguistic trick to help you along the way.

You see how we are processing things in our mind (and where we store them
in our mind) is reflected in our language.

When a prospect tells you,

"I have decided to use your competitor's product"
That word "decided" is in some form of past tense (Oh, Oh !... primary school
English lesson ?) . What that means is that your prospect has moved the
though out of that part of their brain where they consider things to that part
when the process is over.

If you modify that "decided" verb by adding the "…ing" ending it starts to move
that thought back into the part of the brain where the process of evaluation
takes place and makes it an ongoing action.

And it's simple.

You just ask the prospect,

"How were you deciding that?"

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To answer that question the prospect has to engage that part of the brain
where the "deciding" takes place. It is no longer complete. It's a running
process again.

Now when your prospect starts telling you about their "deciding" your
questions will have more impact because the prospect is actively in the
deciding process again.

13. Specific Tactics and Patterns – Put Objection in the Past

You can move an objection into the past.

Just like people store completed decisions and those that are in process in
different parts of their brain so too they store the past, present and future in
different parts of their brain. (Not really but it’s a good analogy.)

It can be useful to move an objection that the prospect has into the past.

This operates using verb tense in a similar way to the the "..ing" process we
used in the previous section.

Let's say your prospect comments,

"I think your X is too slow"

OK, acknowledge that objections and say you'll get back to it after you discuss
a couple of other items. These other items would be areas where your product
excels and meets the prospect's wants and needs.

Then, when you come back to discuss that objection you would start out with,
"Oh, what was it we were to discuss. Oh that's right, you HAD THOUGHT that
our X was too slow'

Now using HAD THOUGHT pushes that belief back into the past and even
implies that it may have since changed a little.

Once again, this on its own will not get you over an objection but it is one of
those little tools that makes the process a bit easier.

14. Specific Tactics and Patterns – “Just Suppose..”

Part of selling is controlling the thoughts that your prospect has in his or her
mind.

This is why asking questions is an important part of what you do in sales,

because the minute you ask a question that prospect’s mind is focusing on
trying to find an answer.

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So by asking certain questions you get the prospect to create internal

representations about using your product or service.

This is pretty easy to do and is a very powerful form of question, and you will
find it extremely useful in having your clients create positive internal
representations.

Your client might say, "I couldn't do that."

Using the agreement frame first (Tactic #2) , you say,

"I APPRECIATE that you think you couldn't, and JUST SUPPOSE you did,
BECAUSE I know that you want your business to be an even greater
success!"

"JUST SUPPOSE..” is quite innocuous. It just sort of sneaks into your client's
brain, and causes him to make the internal representation that you want.

For example, "JUST SUPPOSE for a moment that you can have our service,
now. How would you use it?"

Master these skills and you’ll have the world at your feet.

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 Overcoming Sales Objections

Part Four: Sleight Of Mouth Reframing

1. Introduction
Sleight of Mouth is a special tactic for dealing with sales objections. It can
help you generate some of the most powerful reframing language you can
imagine.

Let’s take a look at some of the concepts that are behind its effectiveness.

When someone raises an objection they are talking about something that is
meaningful to them. Something they have attached meaning to.

For example, if they say your product is too expensive they have in some way
concluded that fact:

 They are comparing your product or solution to another cheaper product or

solution
 They are comparing your solution to just continuing to put up with their
existing problem.
 They have decided they only want to spend $X on the project. (they have
a budget)
 They may even have an unconscious belief about a “reasonable” amount
to spend.

Notice the last possibility is an unconscious thought. They are not aware of it.
The prospect just hears a magic number and is uncomfortable about spending
that amount.

Meaning is all in the MIND.

Have you ever walked down the street and tripped over a meaning?

Can you put meaning into a wheelbarrow?

We create meaning by the Frames we put around things in our head.

Think of the word “fire”.

If you had great experiences as you grew up roasting marshmallows around a
campfire the word fire will have a certain meaning for you.
If however, a friend of yours was killed in a fire you may have a very different
meaning for the word fire.

Remember the movie, “Gremlins”

The two young characters in the movie were discussing Christmas.
The boy thought Christmas was a wonderful, joyous time of year.
The girl, however, had her father tragically die at Christmas trying to come

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down the chimney like Santa Clause. Christmas meant something totally
different to her because she put a different frame around it.

Since meaning occurs in our heads nothing means anything in and of itself.
Things (events, objects, actions, prices etc) only mean something when we
make a linkage or, putting it another way, when we put a frame around it.

Experiences become references, and references then operate as our frame-

of-references. We then use these to determine how to make meaning of
things.

Whenever we change a frame-of-reference we change the meaning.

Killing thousands of animals sounds like a cruel and inhumane thing to do.
What if we are killing thousands of cows to prevent the spread of mad cows
disease?
What if we are killing thousands of chickens to prevent the spread of bird flu?

Has the meaning changed?

Whenever we influence someone’s meaning by changing the frame they are

looking at we do a Reframe.

Reframing is one of the most valuable skills a persuader can have.

When you start an interaction with a prospect or client (or anybody for that
matter) you have the opportunity to set the frame of the conversation, to Pre-
Frame.

One of the best example of pre-framing I know is the letter below.

“Dear Mother and Dad:

Since I left for college I have been remiss in writing and I am sorry
for my thoughtlessness in not having written before.
I will bring you up to date now, but before you read on,
please sit down.

You are not to read any further unless you are sitting down.

Well, then I am getting along pretty well now.

The skull fracture and the concussion I got when I jumped out
the window of my dormitory when it caught on fire shortly after
my arrival here is pretty well healed now. I only spent two weeks
in the hospital and now I can see almost normally and only get
those sick headaches once a day.

Fortunately, the fire in the dormitory and my jump, was witnessed by an

attendant at the gas station near the dorm and he was the one who called the
Fire Department and the ambulance. He also visited me in the

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hospital and since I had nowhere to live because of the burnt out
dormitory, he was kind enough to invite me to share his apartment
with him. It's really a basement room, but it's kind of cute.
He is a very fine boy and we have fallen deeply in love and
are planning to get married. We haven't got the exact date yet,
but it will be before my pregnancy begins to show.

Yes, Mother and Dad, I am pregnant. I know how much you are
looking forward to being grandparents and I know you will
welcome the baby and give it the same love and devotion and
tender care you gave me when I was a child. The reason for the
delay in our marriage is that my boyfriend has a minor infection
that prevents us from passing our premarital blood tests and
I carelessly caught it from him. I know that you will welcome him
into our family with open arms. He is kind, and although not
well educated, he is ambitious. Although he is of a different race
and religion than ours, I know your often-expressed tolerance
will not permit you to be bothered by that.

Now that I have brought you up to date,

I want to tell you that there was no dormitory fire,
I did not have a concussion or skull fracture.
I was not in the hospital, I am not pregnant,
I am not engaged, I am not infected, and there is no boyfriend.
However, I am getting a "D" in American History, and an "F" in Chemistry,
and I want you to see those marks in their proper perspective.

Your loving daughter,”

Isn’t that just a gem?

Do you think the parents would have been relived to hear their daughter was
getting an F in Chemistry after reading that letter?

When most sales trainers talk about reframing they just tell you to get the
prospect to look at the situation from a different angle.

“What angle?”
”How do I do that?”, you might ask.

What if there was a model you could follow that could lead to generate many
different reframes?

How useful would that be?

Well, there is such a model.

Ever heard of the concept of Sleight of Hand?

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In performing a magic trick, the magician's challenge is to redirect the

audience's attention, in order to create an alternative visual experience. This
redirection of attention is Sleight of Hand.

Just as a magician can dazzle you with seemingly impossible feats so too a
master of reframing can use their choice of words in a way that can redirect
your attention or change your perceptions.
What you were once sure of now seems open to doubt.
What was unbelievable now seems possible.

Linguists and modellers studied the world's most powerful

persuaders and uncovered a compelling and impressive
set of reframing patterns. These patterns are called
"Sleight of Mouth."

2. Sleight of Mouth
The name "Sleight of Mouth" builds off the phrase
"Sleight of Hand" which refers to a magician’s skills in
making things happen which appear impossible.

Why are they called "sleight of mouth?"

Because, when done well they work like magic in dissolving objections!

In fact, Sleight of Mouth forms a system that, once mastered, can allow you to
always have a response that will effectively elucidate your position and help
you to persuade rather than be persuaded.

Simply put, it will help you win any argument, handle any objection, be
verbally powerful and powerfully verbal.

In using Sleight of Mouth there is a bit of an art in how to hear the objection
and perhaps even get your prospect to repeat it in that way but once in that
form you’ll have the ability to bend their original objection in many ways that
will transform the way they think about it.

To enable us to bend meaning and change the frames around an event it is

easier if we introduce the model of “The Magic Box”

3. What is “The Magic Box?”

The magic box is the one in which we specify a meaning in a certain way.
We say A=B or more accurately EB = IS.

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That is to say External Behaviour equals or causes an Internal State.

The terminology of this magic box is not nearly as important as how we use
the structure, which is what we will get into next.

Sometimes it is easier and the prospect gives you their objection already in
the A=B format.
For example,
“I can’t buy your product because it costs too much”
So,
A= I can’t buy your product
B= I think it costs too much

Sometimes the customer’s statement is incomplete, and they give you

the facts without their meaning for example,
“ I can’t believe your delivery is late again.”
A statement like the last one only states the A
External Event or Behaviour = Late delivery.

You need to ask a question of your prospect to get the objection into the
best form to utilise SOM patterns.
The question might be,
“What does that mean to you?”
or
“And, that means?”

The customer may come back with,

“It means you don’t care about our business”
or
“It shows you are an inefficient organization”.
Either way you now have the complete statement.
A=B
A(Late delivery) = B(Don’t care about my business.)
or
A(Late delivery) = B(Inefficient organization.)

The sorts of questions to ask, which will fill out the equation, include:

 How does this cause a problem for you?

 What makes it so?
 What does this mean to you?
 What meaning do you attribute to this?

These question all apply when someone gives you the action or thing, the A (
External Behaviour), without the evaluation.

Sometimes the person just gives you the belief (B, or IS) itself and you need
to enquire about the evidence, for example:
“Your company is really inefficient.”
Your response is

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“How do you know that?”

Their response might be,
“Well, your delivery was late again last week.”
Now you have both sides of the A=B equation.
A= you made a late delivery again last week.
B= your company is really inefficient.

Once we have an objection in the A=B form we can do some linguistic magic
by reframing their objection.

How many different directions can we send a meaning?

4. How many different ways can we look at something to

reframe it?

Well there are only six different directions we can take to reframe an
objection:
 Reframe the content, work inside the box, that is question A and B
 We can counter reframe by turning the objection back on itself.
 We can work with time and look at the objection from the past or the future
 Pull the frame apart so they have to construct a new frame around their
objection
 We can look at the objection from higher-level meanings, outframe them
 We can offer an analogy or story to show an alternative meaning.

OK, enough of the theory lets get into some examples.

Just before we start you just need to remember that all the other rules of
dealing with objections still apply.
 No “yes…buts”,
 gain rapport with your prospects,
 soften your responses with “The Agreement Frame”,
 never argue with the customer etc etc.

Sleight of Mouth patterns are powerful but they are not the panacea for
objections.

How about we complete the example I used in my YourSalesSuccess eZine

and in the 7-part mini-series, “Easily Overcoming Sales Objection”.

5. Specific Example
As you go through these examples it will help you if you print out Appendix 2
and Appendix 3 so that you can follow the direction of the moves and become
acquainted with the model.

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“I can’t hire you as a sales coach because I can’t afford it.”

Let’s start with some content reframes

Often your biggest breakthroughs occur in those moments when it’s time to
stretch yourself, stretch yourself beyond your current limitations.
(Redefine on B= their belief they can’t afford it)

It’s not about affording the coaching; it’s about making an investment in your
major means of generating income. (Redefine / reframe on B)

It’s not about hiring me or not, it’s about how you’ll best improve your sales
skills without learning by your costly mistakes (lost sales), and given that 80%
of sales training is forgotten within 8 weeks of training what better way than to
improve than with a sales coach? (Redefine on A)

Now how about some counter reframes

“I can’t hire you as a sales coach because I can’t afford it.”

I might respond as follows:

Using Apply to Self on A.

The way you need to think about using this pattern is to not think about it at
all. Just turn the A of the A=B format back on itself.

“That’s why you need to hire me, so that you can make more sales and be
able to afford anything you want.” (Apply to self on A)

Let me give you another example for clarity:

“Your sales coaching is high priced.”

The hidden pattern is A= high priced, B= I can’t afford to buy it.
More completely,
“Your service is high priced therefore (and that means) I can’t buy it.”
To use the Apply to Self-pattern I merely turn “high priced” back upon itself.
“You may pay a high price for thinking that way?”

See it’s easy. Don’t think about it just use part A of the objection back on
itself.

Then you can apply to self on B

“You can't afford not to hire me, because if you were making plenty of sales
my fees would not be an issue." (Apply to Self on B)

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A very interesting type of turning objections back on themselves is called

Reversing Presuppositions.

It involves thinking along the following lines.

“How is the whole thing actually the opposite of what you thought it was?”

The format for applying this pattern is to ask:

In what way does (can, might, could, would, will) A actually mean or cause the
opposite of B.
Answering this question may well lead to a response like the one below.

“How might the cost of not having my services actually cause you to choose
to believe that you cannot afford not to buy my services?”
(Reversing presuppositions)

Then there’s the good old, offer a counter example.

“Has there ever been something you couldn’t afford to do that was so
important to you that you knew you had to do it anyway? So isn’t it just really
about realising that you’re worth investing in?”
(Counter example)

Now we can play with Time, pre-framing and post-framing.

What was their intention in expressing this objection?

What were they trying to do or trying to avoid?

“I appreciate you want to pay your bills and that’s why you need to hire me, so
you’ll never have to worry about your bills again.”
(Prior Intention)

What had they noticed in the past that caused them to offer this objection?

“I wonder what has caused you to think about affording things, perhaps
listening to news reports about our climbing level of national debt or perhaps
the well-meaning words of your parents. Yet I know that a business that does
not invest in it’s future doesn’t have a future.”
(Prior causation)

Now let’s looking into the future.

“Where are you going to be a few years from now if you don’t improve you
sales results?”
(Change frame size) (Outcome / Consequence of their objection)

“If you always pass up future opportunities based on current circumstances

you’ll miss out on a lot of good stuff in your life.”
(Consequence)

You can then look even further ahead it time.

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“Passing up opportunities for the lack of current funds seems to be focusing

on past results rather than future possibilities. How many people purchase a
home with cash? And when they invest in that home are they looking at the
past, the present or their future?”
(Outcome of outcome.)

Then even further into the future.

“At the end of your life do you think the pennies you’ve saved will have had
more influence on your success or will the money and time you’ve invested
wisely have had more positive outcomes?”
(Ultimate Outcome.)

Pull the frame apart, deframing

We can pull apart the reasoning of their objection.

“What specifically are you looking to improve in as a sales person which if you
achieved it would cause you to know that my sales coaching is the right thing
to be doing right now”
(Chunk down to get more details from them)

“How would you know if you had the financial resources to afford my sales
coaching?”
(Reality strategy – how do they think their objection is true)

Now we move to higher levels of meaning that will hopefully override the
current frame they are using to formulate their objection, Out-Framing

“ Isn’t it more important to invest in your future rather than save a few pennies
now?”
(Hierarchy of Criteria – what is more important to them than the objection they
have raised?)

“It’s the people who decide they can’t afford to do what they need to do to
change their financial situation that end up remaining stuck where they are
and then there are those who realise you’ve got to be willing to do whatever it
takes and those are the ones who see their income soar.”
(Model of the world – people base their meanings on comparisons and those
comparisons are based on how they see the world. Question the model they
are working from in raising their objection)

Another example.

“ If you continually evaluate everything in your life based on whether you can
afford it aren’t you putting a ceiling on your wealth, growth and experiences?”

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“Do you think we should judge everything based on our ability to afford it?
Whether we buy a house, what car we own, our children’s education or our
health care?”
(Allness Frame – is their objection always true and for everybody.)

“What would happen if you hired me as a sales coach even though you think
you can’t afford it?”
(Necessity)

“Does it always work this way?

Do you have to evaluate whether you can invest in your future based on your
current income?
Just suppose you evaluated this decision based on what your future income
could be rather than what it is now?”
(Necessity – questioning whether they have to evaluate the investment they
way that they have.)

“Who does that make you if you make decisions about your personal
development based on your current income, what do you think you are
worth?”
(Identity – questioning whether the decision is in line with whom they are)

“That kind of thinking works if your outcome is just to get by. If you really want
to start living up to your full potential you’ve got to take a stand at some point
and decide that you’re worth investing in.”
(Another outcome – what if they based their thinking on another outcome?)

“How you do one thing is how you do everything. Where else in your life are
you saying you can’t afford the things you really want. Is that a pattern of
yours?”
(Chunk up - All other abstractions – Do they think this way everywhere?)

“I have a lot of people who come to me and say that because they believe in
lack in the Universe, you can be, do and have anything you want, there’s so
much money out there now.”
(Meta Frame – How is it possible they could believe that?)

Now lets tell them a story or Analogy.

“John Smith thought the same thing in the beginning and now that his sales
have improved 30% he realises that increasing his income is more important
than saving a few pennies.”
(Metaphor or story)

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6. Specific Example

OK how about another example; this time with some aids to help you
generate your own patterns.

Our new objection is:

I can’t buy your product because it’s too expensive.

Let’s start with some content reframes

“Price isn’t the real issue but the quality of what your investment purchases for
you.”
(Redefine on B)

“The initial cost may be expensive but that is small compared to the benefits
you’ll receive over time.”
(Redefine / reframe on B)

“What would really be expensive would be to continue trying to operate

without our product because then you would not have…”.
(Redefine / reframe on B)

“It’s not so much that you’re not buying a product as you’re not investing in a
means to solve this production problem you are having.”
(Redefine on A)

You generate these responses by asking yourself:

What other meanings could this equation have?
What if AB, A=C, and that’s D

Now how about some counter reframes

“Do you really buy that reasoning?”

(Apply to self on A)

“That may be a pretty expensive belief you are holding there.”

(Apply to Self on B)

Remember you generate these patterns by just turning A & B back on

themselves.
Don’t try to think about it just apply A to A, i.e. in this instance apply buy to
buy. In the second case apply expensive to expensive, B to B.

A very interesting type of turning objections back on themselves is called

Reversing Presuppositions. Remember, the format for applying this pattern is
to ask:

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In what way does (can, might, could, would, will) A actually mean or cause the
opposite of B.
Answering this question may well lead to a response like the one below.

“How could the expense of our product actually cause you to choose to
believe that you have to buy it now?”
(Reversing presuppositions)

“How might the expense of not having this product actually cause you to
believe that you cannot not buy it?
(The not …not language pattern is a bit of a mind spin)

Have you ever not bought something when the price was really low?
(Counter example)

You generate a counter example by inverting the belief. Asking yourself

questions like was there ever a time AB.

Now we can play with Time, pre-framing and post-framing.

I appreciate your intention is to keep expenses down and wouldn’t that include
saving money in the long run?
(Prior Intention)

Generate this type or response by asking yourself

“What is their intention in making this comment?”
“Why are they saying it?”
“What are they trying to get?”

“You may have had cause to believe in the past that cheaper products can do
just as good a job, let me show you how our product’s benefits for you justify
it’s premium price.”
(Prior causation)

“You’re just saying that because you don’t yet know all the benefits our
product has to offer you.”
(Prior Causation)
Generate this type or response by asking yourself
“What could be the cause for my prospect’s limiting belief?”

“If you continue to think this way you may not buy anything of quality.”
(Consequence)
Ask yourself, “What will happen if they continue to think this way?”, to
generate these type of responses.

“It does seem expensive now and I wonder if you put off the purchase how
much more you’ll pay in 12 months time?”
(Outcome of outcome)
Ask yourself, “What outcome may arise from this first outcome?”

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“Ten years from now will you remember the product you bought cheaply or
the one that revolutionised your production (or solved your quality issue)?”
(Ultimate Outcome)
Go as far out into the future as you can to generate this response.

Pull the frame apart, deframing

“Exactly how expensive is it?”

(Chunk down)
To ask this question you need to ask yourself:
“How specifically?”
“What specifically?”

“How would you know that our product is priced fairly?”

(Reality strategy)
Generate this pattern by asking,
“How will you know if and when your belief is not true?”

Now we move to higher levels of meaning that will hopefully override the
current frame they are using to formulate their objection, Out-Framing.

“What is quality worth to you?”

(Hierarchy of Criteria)
“What about if we focused on increased value rather than level of spending?”
(Hierarchy of Criteria)
What higher criteria can we apply to their stated objection?

“Up until now has it been your experience that having bought cheaper
products was always totally satisfying?”
(Model of the world)
Is their objection statement true for everybody?

“I guess if everyone thought this way we would not have a product to offer,
would we?”
(Allness Framing)
To generate this question ask
“What has this person not noticed?”
“Suppose we apply their objection as though it came from all customers, what
would happen then?”

“What stops you from going ahead and investing the money to buy our
product, even if you think the initial expense is a little high, so that you could
begin to enjoy it’s benefits now?”
( Necessity)
Ask yourself, “What stops them from not letting their objection operate as a
constraint”

“If you purchase all of your production materials based on which has the
lowest cost, what does that mean about the quality of your finished product

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and your company?”

(Identity)
Ask yourself, “What does it mean about the identity of themselves or their
business if they think this way?”

“Whether the product is expensive is not the issue. The issue is your total
production costs and how our product and stocking policy allows you to save
money.”
(Another outcome)

“Well we do often get what we pay for. And if you really don’t want the best
product available, I can understand how you could let the pricetag control your
decision.”
(All other abstractions)
To generate these responses you need to think about their statement in larger
terms, what global principles apply, does their objection still make sense?

“You’re only saying that because you haven’t yet considered the value you will
add to your finished products if you use our product as one of your raw
materials.”
(Meta frame)
Ask yourself, “How is it possible they could believe that?”, in order to generate
Meta frame responses.

Now lets tell them a story or Analogy.

“Many people thought the way you have. Strangely, we are growing our
customer base for this product by about 10% a year, so people must be
changing their mind. Why just the other day Jim Smith from….”
(Metaphor)

There you have it, two examples on how to use Sleight of Mouth patterns to
handle objections as well as how to generate responses and how to reword
their original objection to make the process easier.

Now it’s up to you.

In one of the upcoming sections I’m going to ask you to list down the most
common objections you get in selling your product(s) or service and generate
Sleight of Mouth responses for each of those objections.

You’ll then need to learn those responses.

Then as you use them you’ll find some are better than others and they are the
ones that will boost your income like you wouldn’t believe.

When you get to these sections do not to try learning this all at once.

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Maybe just pick one Sleight of Mouth pattern and use it to generate a
response to the common objections you get. Then use it for a week or two
and see how appropriate it is. Then try on another pattern. After a while you
may try using the patterns in pairs to generate a compound response pattern,
which are often even more powerful.

Play with the patterns, make more sales and have some fun.

Remember Sleight of Mouth is a Model

I refer you again to Appendix 2 and Appendix 3 so that you can see how the
model is put together.

Obviously, the best way to overcome an objection is by being prepared. You

must know how you plan to turn around each objection you face.

This is where Sleight of Mouth excels because it’s a model not just a script of
learned responses to objections.

If you just rote learn scripted replies to a series of objections the minute
someone raises a new objection (that you haven’t learned a response for) you
are on your own and you’d better be good at thinking quickly on your feet.

With SOM you learn patterns of reframes to handle objections.

So, if someone raises an objection you haven’t heard before you just apply
one of the SOM patterns.

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Literally, you can never be stuck for a response, never!

How confident does that make you feel?

(Strangely, the best way to learn the SOM patterns is by coming up with SOM
responses to all the objections you normally hear. That process helps imbed
the SOM patterns of thinking in your unconscious mind.)

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Part Five: Minimise Objections Occurring

1. “Inoculate against objections”

If you want to avoid getting an illness you can inoculate against it. Examples
include polio, smallpox, tetanus injections and even the flu.

You can do the same with Objections.

You can deal with objections before they arise.

The great advantage of dealing with objections before they arise is they never
arise!

There are two ways you can inoculate against objections.

The first thing you need to do is know in advance of the sales meeting what
objections come up most often. This is an exercise we’ll be doing later in this
book.

The first method of inoculating against an objection is for you to raise the
objection early in the call and then respond to it with one of the tactics for
handling objections I have covered earlier in this e-Book.

The second method it to take the objection and state it in a whiny voice.

"Some people say 'oooohhhh that's so much money' (stated in a whiny voice)
but I know that someone like you can appreciate the value that you're going to
get from this."

It's as simple as that.

Unconsciously, no-one wants to associate themselves with the whiny voice,

so they disassociate themselves from their objection.

Later in this book when you will identify the main objections you get I’m going
to ask you to practice stating them in a whiny / bad tonality voice. Then we’ll
get you to build your intuition by guessing what objections you could get from
an individual and use this approach to inoculate against them.

2. How to Have fewer objections come up.

Of course, I said before that if you had a perfect product (or service) and gave
a perfect presentation then objections would not come up.

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It follows from that, that the better you understand your product/service and
your prospect and the better the job of “selling” you do the fewer objections
you will get.

By “selling” I mean:

 Establishing Rapport with your prospect.

 Establishing credibility with your prospect.
 Uncover your prospect’s wants and what’s important to them about that.
 Understand your prospect as a person and how they think
 Establishing the Value of your offer

If you have done all that you can present your offering so that they will really
listen to it and your presentation will be focused on the specific benefits of
importance to them.

In fact, let me put it this way, the better you have identified your customer’s
needs and established the value of your offer the fewer objections you will
get.

So, in some respects knowing how to handle objections is like an insurance

policy.

We all have insurance policies on our cars and houses and even our life but
we really hope we never have to use them.

So, think of your skill in handling objections as something you can fall back on
even if you have not done a great “selling” job earlier in the sale.

3. Rapport before closing

Remember before you start to close, which is where most objections come
up, make sure you are still in Rapport with your prospect.

Without rapport your chances of closing are much lower.

4. Attitude towards sales & objections

Now that you know the tactics to handle objections that we have covered so
far in this e-Book you can begin to feel more confident.

Next we are going to apply these tactics to the objections you hear most
often.

Then you are going to practice responding to those objections.

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That will mean writing out and reading out loud the responses relating to each
objection while paying attention to how you formulated the response.

This is where this approach is different because it’s not about rote learning
scripted responses but rather learning how to generate responses.

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Part Six: Overcoming Your Objections

1. What are the Objections you hear most often?

Now comes the time where we start to apply the tactics for responding to
objections that you have been reading here.

The only way to learn a skill, and responding to objections is a skill, is to

practice.

Golfing is a skill and the masters practice for hours every day, tennis too and
how many hours to Olympians put in to become
excellent at what they do?

As the saying goes, “When the going gets tough,

you get what you practice.”

The reason that practice is so important is that it

gets certain behaviours to be unconscious. That is
you don’t even have to think about them.

Think back to when you first stated to ride and bike and how at first you
probably fell, then you had to concentrate hard to stay balanced and finally
after a while it was like walking. When riding a bike became something you
could just do without thinking about what you were doing it became fun, didn’t
it.

Let me give you another example.

Driving a manual car (a stick shift as people in the USA call it). Do you
remember “hopping” down the road as you tried to coordinate the clutch, the
gear change and the accelerator? Do you remember how hard that was at
first? Then after a while you could drive your car while you listened to the
radio and talked on your mobile phone (hands-free of course) and drank your
coffee while you looked up the address of the prospect you were going to
meet.

That’s why we are going to practice answering objections next. NOT to learn
rote responses that you can “spit out” when a prospect comes up with a
specific objection BUT to train your unconscious mind to be able to
automatically generate responses to objections.

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So, this practice will be a little bit different.

I’m going to ask you to generate a lot of responses to objections rather than
develop one response and practice it again and again.

On the following page is a form. On that form I’d like you to write out all the
objections to the product you sell. Try and use the exact words your prospects
use. If you sell more than one product or service you’ll need to print out extra
forms. Go ahead, do it now.

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Handling Objections

Work sheet # 1

Item Sold:

Most common objections.

1) …………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………

2) …………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………

3) …………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………

4) …………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………

5) …………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………

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Now, you’ve written down your most common objections, haven’t you?

Now take each objection and apply one of the Sleight of Mouth Patterns to
every objection.

So, if you have five objections listed down. Try to write a response to each of
those objections using only one of the Sleight of Mouth responses.

Now, in some cases a Sleight of Mouth response will not make sense for a
particular objection. That’s OK. Your unconscious mind has just learned how
not to apply that response to certain objections.

Remember to first convert the objection into an A=B format.

Start with something simple like “Apply to Self on A” or “Hierarchy of Criteria”

which often begins with “Isn’t it more important to..”

Maybe a lot of your objections have a “but” in them.

If that is the case you may like to start with “the but flip” instead of a Sleight of
Mouth response.

Maybe you’d like to start with “feel, felt, found”, that’s OK too.

Once you’ve gone through each of your objections with a Sleight of Mouth
response then try a different Sleight of Mouth response and go through all the
objections again. Cycle through all the objection handling responses listed.

The important things are:

To work with specific objections that you get.
To use an objection answering tactic with lots of different objections.

The idea is to train your brain how to use the objection-handling tactic.

I would suggest you spend 30 minutes a night doing this for at least 60 days
but only if you want to become good at handling objections. If you want to
become a master at handling objections you may do this exercise for a year.

2. Formulate responses to your Objections

Now as you go about practicing your objection responses you will come up
with some responses that are absolute classics.

Feel free to list those down and read them again and again.

You could keep that list in a little notebook you carry around in your shirt
pocket and read it every time you get a few spare minutes.

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3. Remember to use “just suppose”

OK. Earlier in this book I mentioned the use of “just suppose”.

Do NOT underestimate the value of this little phrase.

The specific objection handling tactics mentioned earlier in this book are
designed to change the way your prospect is thinking about their objection in
some way. Your sort of weaken their belief as to why they cannot accept your
proposal. Some of the tactics may actually work like a mental eraser and
delete their belief (gently without offending them).

But that is only half the battle.

Now you have created a space in their mind for your offer to reside by
clearing some space in their head. You now need to fill that space with
thoughts of your product.

You do that by focusing their thoughts on USING your product or service.

Hence the importance of “just suppose” or phrases like it. (eg imagine)

It goes like this.

Customer raises objection.
You respond with Agreement Frame & Feel, felt, found.
Then you follow with,
“Just suppose you use our product in your office. What do you see (or feel or
hear) as the main benefits it is giving you?”

It’s about getting your prospect to imagine using your service or product and
reminding them of the value your offer has for them (the value you built up
earlier in the sales meeting).

Remember earlier in this book I said that the best salespeople in the USA
close most of their sales after the fifth “No!”

I mentioned that while writing about attitude. The inference most people take
is not to be afraid of a NO and also to have some resilience (like the best
salespeople).

There is something else behind that 5 No data.

Would it surprise you to know that most people (i.e. more than 50% of the
population) have to see, hear or feel something at least 3 times before they
are convinced of it? Ever wondered why advertisements on TV often say “but
don’t buy yet …” and that is repeated so many times during the ad? Next time
count the number of times they repeat the offer. I’ll bet it’s 3 – 5 times.

The reason why prospects buy after the 5th NO is because the salesperson
has then got them to think about using his product/service again each time
they raise the objection. After 3-5 times they are convinced.

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4. How will you practice responding to your Objections?

As you go about your 30 minutes practice every night don’t worry about trying
to use the responses you generate on sales calls.

Be patient.

After a while you may notice that certain responses start jumping into your
head during a sales meeting.

That’s great, as it’s a good indication that the information is beginning to be

assimilated by you unconscious mind.

Once again after practicing for some time, say no less than 30 days, you may
want to start consciously using some of these responses. If you want you can
assign yourself a response of the week and try to use a certain response to
objections for a whole week. If it doesn’t make sense to use it on an objection
that comes up use whatever else comes to mind if you’ve been practicing for
a while I’m sure it will be a good response.

5. Common Objections (link to Answers to ASKObjections)

Now, there is a form on my website where people can enter their most
troublesome sales objection.

In the future I will be collating all the objections that have been posted in that
form and creating an e-book with answers to them all.

As a purchaser of this book I’ll let you know when this material becomes
available.

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 Overcoming Sales Objections

Part Seven: Putting It All Together

Putting it all together.

Now you have gained a lot of knowledge in this book about how to handle
objections.

They say knowledge is power, but only if you use it.

Hopefully, you started practicing how to apply that knowledge as I have asked
you to do just a few short pages ago.

Remember, “When the going gets tough, you get what you practice.”

Now, it’s time to put the icing on the cake.

The real power in the tactics I’ve mentioned in this book is when you start to
string them together and combine them.

Let me start with an example from an acquaintance of mine.

Tad James had arrived at an office after the official closing time. The security
guards were instructed not to let anyone into the building after 6pm.

Here is what Tad said to them.

"I appreciate that the rules say that I can't go in the building, and just suppose
you took me inside, because I know that the people I'm supposed to meet are
in their office, and they want to see me, and I'd be willing to stay only 5
minutes, and you can get right back down."

Let’s break that down.

”I appreciate..”, Agreement Frame
”Just suppose”
”because”, power word (see YSS # 2)
”stay only 5 minutes, and you can get right back down”, is a concession

So the pattern is,

“I appreciate (intent of objection) and just suppose (new behaviour), because
(reason), and if you'd do that I'd be willing to (concession).”

I like it.

Here’s another one of Tad’s.

“I want you to become a client of ours, and I appreciate that your company
faces some challenges in the next few months because of market conditions,

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 Overcoming Sales Objections

but imagine when we've overcome the future obstacles, just as we've
overcome difficulties in the past, don't you feel good now?”

You can see what’s he has used, yes?

Agreement Frame, imagine (like just suppose), “but” (yes, you can use it, just
not all the time and soften it first with the Agreement Frame), then reorient
them to past successes and leave them feeling good.

The pattern is.

“(Your objective), and I appreciate (future obstacles). Imagine for a moment
that (together we overcome future obstacles), as we've done in the past, don't
you feel good now?”

Let me put one together for you.

Customer says,
“I’m just not ready to move on your proposal just yet.”

I might respond with,

“I understand the timing is not ideal for you now because of the new
competition in your market. And I was wondering if that’s not the reason you
should be moving on this proposal right now because I know XYZ company
(not a competitor of the prospect you are talking to) hesitated and their
competition seized on this development before them. I can understand you
feel like you want to wait, XYZ’s competitor felt the same way initially and let
me tell you they have found this “whatever” instrumental in them dominating
the market. Just suppose you moved on our proposal now what advantages
would that give you over your competitors and how could you take advantage
of that in your Market?”

What did I use?

Agreement Frame, Apply to Self on A, “because”, negative consequence of
not moving, Agreement Frame, “feel, felt, found”, “just suppose”.

Let’s try another one.

Prospect say,
“I’d love to buy your product but we’ve been with our current supplier for
years”

One of my responses could be,

“OK, you’ve been with your current supplier for years but you’d really like to
buy our product, wouldn’t you? I can understand you wanting to stick with the
familiar. I went through that feeling myself recently. I didn’t feel like I could buy
a new car. I felt my old car had been a faithful servant and was wondering
how a change would work out. Let me tell you though I have found the new
car great and I love driving it. Can I ask you this? As you think about using our
product what’s the one question you need to ask to be totally convinced that
our product is the one to be using?”

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 Overcoming Sales Objections

I used: “but flip”, tag question, Agreement Frame, “feel, felt, found”, orient their
thinking to my product (as you think about using..”) and finally “what’s the one
question”

Now, here’s your assignment.

After you’ve been practicing the individual tactics for a while. When you are
getting good at them. Start stringing together the responses just like I have
done above.

Look at an objection you get.

Write down the tactics you want to use.
String them together into a response.
Don’t worry if you can’t always make them fit.
The important thing is that you are training your mind in how to put them
together.

That’s All there is Folks – It’s up to you now

That’s all there is folks.
The rest is up to you.

I have given you the information.

I have given you the method to practice.

Now the ball is in your court.

If you do nothing things will stay the same.

If you want to become a master at handling objections start practicing tonight.

As they say, the ball is in your court.

(If you need help feel free to contact me via the Sales Coaching page on my website.)

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 Overcoming Sales Objections

Appendix 1
The trouble with any “scripted” approach like “feel, felt, found” is that it
can easily be spotted by a professional buyer who has been around for
a while.

So, the question becomes, why does “feel-felt-found” work and how can we
use something similar to get the same, or better, results?

I believe “feel-felt-found” works for several reasons:

 It uses time distortion language
 It tells a story
 It sells indirectly, via the “quotes” or experience of the other customer.
 It paces the prospect’s current experience and then leads them to
consider the experience from a different point of view

Everybody loves to listen to a story. Children love it. People stand around
at parties telling them. People lean over the fence to tell stories to their
neighbour. The minute you start talking about the experience of another
person who now uses your product or service you get your prospect involved
in the story. So, you have your prospect’s attention.

I love the intricacies of language. Verb tenses are a particularly good

influencing tool. What “feel-felt-found” does is move the prospect’s objection
into the past and offers an alternative belief for them to consider.

Let me explain.
When you first refer to the prospect’s objection using “feel-felt-found” you use
the verb feel, which is present tense and thus mirrors the prospect’s current
thoughts on your offer.
Then when you start talking about Mr Jones it is quite likely that your prospect
will associate with Mr Jones’ experience (especially if they have a similar
business) and then you are using “felt” which is past tense. By using the
verb in past tense you are changing your prospect’s objection from an
objection they are having now to one that they HAD in the past. This
opens up the prospect’s future to consider a new reality.
Finally, when you start talking about what Mr Jones “found” you preface that
verb with the phrase “after he started using our service”. So, you move the
prospect into the future AFTER having used your service and then invite
them to consider the good experience that Mr Jones had. Of course,
when they consider what Mr Jones found they are trying it on themselves,
aren’t they?

Now that you know how “feel-felt-found” uses verb tense and story to counter
an objection you can come up with a general formula to do something similar,
without risking being caught using “feel-felt-found”.

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 Overcoming Sales Objections

That formula would be something like:

 Agree with the prospect’s current objection,
 Move that objection into the past,
 Then take their thoughts into the future and, by implication, invite
your prospect to consider having discovered a different reality.

So, back to our original statement, “I’d love to use your service but we just
can’t afford it.”

I appreciate our service is not cheap. Have you always thought about our
service in that way? Having had that thought it would not have been easy to
consider using our product, would it? You know many of our current clients
used to think that same way until they started using our service. For example,
Mr Jones told me, after he’d been using X for a while that his … far exceeded
his previous…”

This achieves the same results as “feel-felt-found” and is much less likely to
be detected.

It takes some practice but the results could well be worth it. Anyone, you don’t
have to believe me, just give it a try and see what results you get.

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 Overcoming Sales Objections

Appendix 2

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 Overcoming Sales Objections

Appendix 3 – reprinted with permission

Mind-Lines : Lines for Changing Minds (2005)

#19 #20
Meta Frame Metaphor

#14 #15 #16 #17 #18 #13

Model of Criteria Allness Modal Identity Abstrac-
the World Operator tions

#5
Counter
#8 First Outcome
Example
#9 Outcome of Outcome
#10 Future Time Outcome

#6 Positive
Intent
#7 Positive
#3, #4
Cause
Reflexively Apply
to Self/Listener

E.B.= I.S.
#1 #2
The Magic Box Content Ref. Of EB Content ref. Of IS
The Belief / Meaning
Formula
#11 #12
Chunk Down Reality
MD & SbMD Strategy

© L. Michael Hall Ph D Neuro-Semantic Publications, Clifton Co. www.neurosemantics.com

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