When salespeople share the list of objections they most often receive, very few of them are industry specific and most of them are very popular. When we assign those objections to the base path on which they should have been handled, the majority of the objections take place on the way to first base.

If you’re getting objections like any of the following:

– not interested
– send me something
– we’re happy with who we’re using
– we do that ourselves
– call me next week
– I’m too busy
– I’ll call you back
– can’t afford that

then you’re doing something seriously wrong. Those objections come up when salespeople:

– fail to get their prospect’s attention
– talk about products, services and the company
– talk for too long
– don’t ask the right questions

The phone call for an appointment is a very quick call and there is a very specific sequence of events that must take place:

– intro
– transition
– permission
– positioning statement
– questions to identify issues
– “is it a problem?”
– “do you want to fix it?”

Refer to Baseline Selling, the section on Getting to 1st Base, for the specific verbiage to use in each of the steps in the sequence. In order for the call to end with “is it a problem?” and “do you want to fix it?” you must have the kind of conversation that puts those questions in context.

When you have the right kind of conversation and end the call as specified above, the objections I listed at the top of the page won’t even come up. The best way to handle objections is to eliminate them all together!