The opening eBook of the Sales and Leads category. It is written for owners who feel uneasy about the word selling, and it shows you how to turn interested strangers into paying customers using calm, structured conversations rather than scripts, pressure or charm.
Members ebook·7 chapters· 30 minute read
Chapter 5
Handling Objections
The four objections you will hear again and again, and a calm, honest response for each that respects the customer and protects your pricing.
An objection is not the customer saying no. It is the customer saying I am not quite ready yet, here is what is in the way. That is a gift. It tells you exactly what you need to address. The owners who treat objections as attacks lose those conversations. The owners who treat them as questions worth answering carefully win them.
The other thing to know about objections is that there are not very many of them. Across thousands of small business sales conversations the same four come up over and over: it costs more than I expected, I need to think about it, I need to talk to someone else, can you do it cheaper. Each one has a calm, honest response that does not require any clever technique. You just have to know what to say and be willing to say it without flinching.
This chapter gives you those responses. By the end you will have a default answer for each of the four common objections, a short script for the rare fifth and a clear rule for when an objection is the customer telling you the answer is genuinely no.
The full chapter walks through each objection with the response, the reasoning behind it, the worked phrasing for two different industries and the warning sign that tells you to stop trying to handle and start respecting the no.
Objection one - it costs more than I expected
Do not discount. Do not justify. Ask what they were expecting and find out where the gap is. The honest answer is one of three things - they were expecting a different scope of work and you can clarify, they were expecting a different quality level and they need to choose, or they had a rough number from a different kind of provider and the comparison was never right. In each case the response is calm: that is fair, can I ask what you were expecting it to come in at, and we can talk about what would fit that or whether it makes sense to go ahead at this scope.
Objection two - I need to think about it
This is the most common, and the easiest to handle badly. The wrong response is to push for a decision now. The right response is to find out what they need to think about, because the answer is almost always either an unspoken concern or a missing piece of information. Try: of course, can I ask what is the main thing on your mind. Then go quiet. The customer will tell you. If it is a real concern, you can address it. If it is genuinely about timing, you agree a specific follow-up date and they go away to think with a clear next step in the diary.
Objection three - I need to talk to someone else
This is information, not a refusal. The right response is to make the next conversation easier for them. Ask who they need to talk to and what that person will want to know. Offer to send a one-page summary they can share. Agree a specific next call. The customers who take a quote home and never call back almost always do so because the second conversation at home was confused, not because the answer was no.
Objection four - can you do it cheaper
The answer to this question is almost always no. Discounting on demand teaches the customer that your pricing is soft, undermines every customer who paid your full rate and signals that you do not believe in the value of your own work. The honest response is: that is the price for this scope, what we could do is reduce the scope to fit your budget, here is what that would look like. You give the customer a real choice instead of a fight.
The objection cheat sheet
Cost - ask what they were expecting, talk about scope.
Think about it - ask what is on their mind, agree a specific follow-up.
Speak to someone - make the next conversation easy for them.
Cheaper - reduce scope, not price.
When the answer is genuinely no, accept it kindly and ask if you can stay in touch.
When the objection is a real no
Sometimes the objection is the customer telling you, politely, that the answer is no. Listen for it. If the budget gap is enormous, if the scope they want is a different business from the one you run, if the relationship has been awkward from the start, the no is real. Accept it warmly, thank them for the conversation, and ask if you can stay in touch in case things change. A good no, handled well, often turns into a referral six months later. A no you fought against rarely does.
What to do this week
Write down the last three objections you got. For each, write the response you gave and the response you would give now after reading this chapter. The next time the same objection comes up, use the new response and notice what happens.
In the next chapter we get to the close - the sentence to use, the timing and the silence afterwards.
The rest of this chapter walks through the practical steps, the templates and the checklists you need to put it into action. It includes worked examples, copy frameworks and the small decisions that make the difference between a plan that sits in a drive and one that gets used.
Inside you'll find a step-by-step playbook, a downloadable template, a checklist you can run this week and a short list of common mistakes to avoid before you start.
The full action plan, broken into weekly steps.
Ready-to-use scripts, templates and checklists.
Worked examples for different sized businesses.
Common mistakes and how to avoid them.
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