"I object!" -- and what YOU should do about it,

Research show that, in any marketing encounter, prospective clients will say 'no' an average of five times before they finally say 'yes.' So objections are really a fact of business life. Objections are generally arise from two sources: not enough information, or the wrong information. So you must quickly determine which one of these you're dealing with. This involves finding out everything that you can about the objection, demonstrating solution, and gaining agreement that the solution solves the problem.

Any business agreement is a balance between value and its cost. The client determines the relative importance of the items hanging in the balance. Your job is to influence the prospect's perception so that value is equal to or greater than cost.

For instance, if a buyer says, "Your price is too high", you can either demonstrate that the product is worth the price or lower the cost. If a prospect says, "Your product doesn't have the feature I want", you can reduce the importance given to the missing feature, increase the importance given to other features, or some combination of the two. 

Notice that all these options are focused on the nature of the product or service itself. There is nothing personal about this negotiation. That’s very important – yet it's difficult for many people to understand and act upon.

However, there is also such a thing as an insurmountable obstacle. We all like to think positive, but some objections really can’t be answered within your real world situation. If the buyer needs a hydraulic lift to raise a fifty ton object and the largest lift that your company is capable of providing is rated at ten tons, no amount of sales expertise is going to move those extra forty tons. The best that you can do is to create a relationship and move on to a more promising prospect. 

As a professional in any area of business, you should view overcoming objections as the most interesting and profitable part of you work. It requires experience, thoughtful interaction with your client, and the ability to think quickly and accurately. Those are skills worth developing.