by Stephan Schiffman

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. But objections are really your opportunity to sell. They give you a chance to focus on the major issues that concern your prospect, and turn them to your advantage in order to make the appointment and, later, the sale.

An objection has to be treated as a hurdle. Nothing less. Nothing more. You must know how you plan to turn around each objection you face.

In hundreds of seminars that I've conducted for salespeople, I've encountered six kinds of objections that come up again and again. We'll be discussing them here; if you've been selling for a while, many may be quite familiar. Look closely at these, and at the ways you can "jump" each of these hurdles.

At the outset, let's agree that our purpose in cold calling is to get an appointment. It is not to sell. If we fail to get the appointment, then we are not successful. You can argue that there are ways in which you can turn around an objection on the phone and make a sale. That may be true in telemarketing, but our concern here is something very different. We want to find out how to take the objection, no matter what it is, and turn it into an appointment.

As I've pointed out already, there are six major kinds of objections. Here they are, in order of popularity:

1. The Stall
2. The Hard One
3. The Easy One
4. The Doubter's Maneuver
5. The Reassurance Request
6. The Hidden One

Let's look at each one individually.

The Stall

When you're faced with The Stall, the prospect will say that he or she is too busy to make a decision right now. 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.

The Stall's variations include:

"Gee, y'know, I'd love to talk with you about this, but things are really going crazy around here just now. Could you call back sometime?"

"I have to have some time to think it over."

"Listen, I've just been told that I've got an important long-distance call on another line. Why don't you just give your number to my secretary?"

The Hard One

The second most common objection is The Hard One. This is when the prospect has more information than you do, and uses that information to put a roadblock in your way. This objection is the one that will require the most work on your part; to beat it, you need to know your stuff.

Some examples:

"I already have a broker. I'm doing just fine with him."

"We had a meeting with the CEO and decided not to continue in that area."

"Well, I would be the one to handle that, yes, but I'm holding all decisions on it until I work out a written policy."

The Easy One

The Easy One occurs when the prospect makes a conscious choice to cut the conversation off quickly, but reveals a need for your product or service. If you get stopped by The Easy One regularly--in other words, if you hang up knowing you've uncovered a need for your product but are unable to convert that need into an appointment--you've got a problem.

The Easy One sounds like this:

"I really don't want to get into this with you. Anyway, we'd need a three-day turnaround."

"I thought about that a couple of months ago, but I've been so busy, I just haven't been able to sit down and work a budget out. Sorry."

"The guys next door have been doing that for us, and I really don't think you could beat their prices."

The Doubter's Maneuver

The Doubter's Maneuver arises when your prospect won't (or can't) decide 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"?) and 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.

Here are some classics:

"I'm really not sure whether I'd make that decision, to tell you the truth."

"Actually, there are other people involved in this, but I'd rather you didn't call them."

"It's really not my area, but I'm sure they're not interested."

The Reassurance Request

The fifth objection is known as The Reassurance Request. Here, 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.

For example:

"We can't do business until I see a written estimate."

"The last people we dealt with were real jerks. We haven't done anything in that area since we cancelled their service."

"It's just not in our budget, I'm sorry. But listen, out of curiosity, who else have you done this for?"

The Hidden One

The most difficult objection of all is The Hidden One. Why? Because it's a camouflaged version of the real objection, and can lead you down numerous blind alleys. It takes place when the individual on the line gives you a reason not to schedule the appointment--but isn't telling the truth. This one takes real work (and a little intuition) to overcome, because you must somehow size up a situation that your contact does not want you to know about.

Here are some specimens of The Hidden One, with what the contact doesn't want you to know set in parentheses.

"Yeah, I'd love to talk to you about it sometime, but I really don't have time right now." ("I'm not the decision-maker, but would rather not put my boss on the phone now because I'm just about to step into a meeting with her.")

"It's been a tough year. We're not budgeted for that." ("We're doing great. We're budgeted for anything we want. But I'm screening the boss's calls.")

"Mr. Jones would handle that, yes, but he's on vacation." ("Unbeknownst to you, I am Mr. Jones. I just had a fight with a coworker and don't want to think about anything but getting into my car and going home.")

When making telephone calls, you encounter these objections often; but I bet that right now you handle them differently than you would if you were making a face-to-face sales call. My question is: Why?

Suppose you had driven a hundred miles to see a prospect who proceeded to throw The Stall at you. Would you, after driving two hours to get there, simply turn on your heel and walk out if you were told that there was no time to see you that day? Of course not. You'd have to turn the objection around somehow.

During the telephone call, you only have two or three minutes, tops, to make the appointment. In that time, you must be able to respond quickly to objections. The only way to do that is to have a response ready for a given objection ahead of time. And you must be persistent in your efforts, or you'll be wasting almost as much time as you would if you drove around all day from prospect to prospect, smiling as people shut the door in your face time after time.

Here's an exercise I want you to try now. On the next page of your notebook, list your six most common objections. What things do your prospects say to you that stop you cold? Which of the categories I've outlined describes each one best?

On the facing page, try to turn those objections around. What could you say that would change your prospect's objective from getting you off the phone to getting more information about your product or service?

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This resource is (c) Stephan Schiffman, and is excerpted from "Cold Calling Techniques" published by Bob Adams Inc.