Tips For Overcoming Sales Objections

Are you fed up with getting sales objections like “I can’t afford it” “I’ve got no time” “I need to talk to my partner”? All these bits of fluff and all these objections that we get every single day?

In the beginning of my career I was exactly the same, so I get it. It was the bane of my life. I had no idea how to even start overcoming objections in sales and it nearly derailed my sales and business careers before they even started. I have to admit, I’m not a natural salesperson. I’m from an engineering background I was an engineer for eight years – I’d never sold a thing before in my life and it wasn’t until I understood that sales is a process, is a formula, it’s almost a science if you will, that my sales career really kicked into gear.

So you want to reduce the amount of objections that you’re getting. Now, there’s four quick letters that are going to save and make your sales career. This method is called ARIO; which stands for Appreciate, Relate, Isolate and Overcome. When it comes to overcoming objections in sales, and this can mean any objection, query, concern, stall, or whatever you want to call it, this skill will almost become your default.

We instantly have to appreciate their concern, and then you have to relate to that concern. So, you might say something like “I appreciate you’re a little bit time poor. A lot of people I speak to every single day are in a similar position. Apart from the fact – here’s where you isolate – that you’re time poor, is there anything else holding you back from getting started with this today? Apart from the fact that you’ve told me it’s too expensive, is there anything else holding you back from getting started today?”

One important thing to recognise is that there’s two reasons why people will not buy: the reason that sounds good and the real reason. They will, 99% of the time, give you the reason that sounds good first.

People are not going to say by default that they cannot afford something. They’re embarrassed to say that, as you probably would be as well. They would much rather say “I’ve got to talk to my partner, we need a little bit of time to think about it”, or “I’m unsure”, because that’s the reason that sounds good. Business owners, as well as poor and average sales people, will deal with that objection as though it’s the real one. If you do that, then you’re just going to waste your customers time and you’re going to waste your own time. You can go back and forth with phone calls and emails and you’re never going to get to a win-win situation – especially not for your client which should always be your objective.

So firstly, you have to appreciate what they’re saying. Say “listen, I appreciate your situation. A lot of people are going to say that to me at this stage, so apart from (whatever the objection is), is there anything else holding you back from getting started?”

Once you have the real objection you can overcome it. How do you overcome it? You just ask them the question: “okay so based around the fact that you’re saying you’re a little bit time poor, you have to talk to your partner and this is a little bit expensive, if we could solve those problems for you would there be anything else holding you back? No? Perfect.”

Now you can put a plan in place to overcome all of those. For me as a sales and business coach for the last eight years this has transformed not only my business but also the people that I’ve coached.

By utilising just one tool when overcoming objections in sales, you will transform your sales results and ultimately grow your business in turn as well. To learn more about overcoming objections and how to deal with them when they arise, read about our sales training, sales coaching, and sales courses. No matter if you are located in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast or anywhere in Australia we are able to assist in providing the most innovative ethical sales training.