Sales objections: Put down the tennis racquet
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Sales objections: Put down the tennis racquet

When I first started working in sales, I thought of sales negotiations like a tennis match. I’d serve up my offer fully expecting my prospects to return with an objection. I’d make a concession and hit it back into their court. Objection, counter. Objection counter. Objection, counter.

Back and forth it went until either I ran out of things to say or my prospect got sick of talking to me. Not the best way to win sales.

Eventually, my sales manager set me straight. See, at that point in my career I thought that with enough brute force and endurance, I could withstand every volley until I won the match and hoisted the silver cup. I was wrong.

The truth is sales objections aren’t tennis balls that need to bounce between you and your prospect. Instead of countering every objection, I learned that it’s more effective to embrace a prospect’s objections – to catch the ball and disrupt the normal flow of the game.

Why? Because doing so can be disarming. Prospects expect you to counter and tell them why they need to reconsider their position. When you don’t hit the ball back, they drop their racquet and wonder what happens now. They’re caught off guard. That moment of surprise can create the opportunity to start working toward a solution you both can get behind.

So the next time you find yourself batting back objection after objection, put down the tennis racquet and see what happens if you open yourself up to the buyer’s objections. You might find it becomes easier to move forward with the sale once you’ve stopped trying to fight back so much.

photo credit: Alpha six

1 Comment

  • Ersh says:

    One thing I learned a long while ago was that, after a few volleys (just in case you COULD actually answer their concern and move on,) I could just say something as simple as “Hmm…”  and nothing more.  This would allow them to know that I’m hearing them while also allowing them to continue.  This way, if I did have an answer to their full concern, I could give it later.  Amazing how it works.

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