How to Overcome the Biggest Sales Objections in Your Business

For many small-business owners, sales is one of the toughest areas to master. This is especially true if you sell a high-ticket item that requires a significant time or financial investment on the part of your customers.

That said, I want to share with you some of the most common sales objections and how I teach clients to help overcome them to immediately boost closing rates and sales.

Identify the Most Common Objections

The first thing you want to do is identify your most common objections. Most products or services have a top three to five objections that come up time and time again, so you want to focus on those to have the greatest impact. Here are some of the most common.

Financial (“It’s too expensive … ” or “I don’t have the money … “)
Timing issues (“I’m not quite ready to make this purchase … “)
Credibility issues (“I just don’t know if you’re able to deliver … “)
Lack of urgency (“I just don’t feel like I have to do this now … “)
Another selection (“I’m going to buy/have already bought from someone else … “)
Higher authority (“I need to run this past … “)
Status quo comfortable (“I’m satisfied with what I have right now … “)
Attention challenge (“You simply haven’t captured my attention in a compelling way … “)
Time challenge (“I just don’t have the time to deal with or use your product/service right now … “)
Decision delay (“Let me think about it and get back to you … “)
Poor prior experiences (“I’ve tried this before and it didn’t work … ” or “I bought from you before and didn’t like the experience … “)
Lack of connection (“I just don’t feel like you understand me and besides, I don’t know if I like you … “)
Trust issue (“I’m not sure I can really trust you personally … “)
Delivery issue (“I just can’t wait that long to get it … “)
Quality issue (“I need a higher-quality solution than you offer … “)
Cost of change (“It would just cost too much time and money to switch from our current solution … “)
Feels risky (“I’m just concerned about the risk if this fails … “)
Feels obligated to current vendor (“I just couldn’t tell my current vendor we’re switching … “)
Confusion (“I don’t get what you’re trying to tell me, but I’m too embarrassed to tell you … “)
Fears change (“I hate change, so I’d rather just say no out of hat … “)
Going out to bid (“I’ll need to check on your pricing before I buy to make sure I can’t get it for less elsewhere … “)

Brainstorm Ways to Reframe or Design Out Each Objection

Once you identify the most common objections, you want to brainstorm ways to overcome them. Here are a couple of examples of how you could handle a time objection, for instance.

Prospect: “I think what you have sounds great, but I’m just so busy right now. Why don’t you follow back up with me in three months after I’m done with … “

Your response could include a few possible solutions. The first would be to design the objection out of the process entirely by creating an upfront agreement or having an expiration date on the offer or an immediate one-time price break.

Another option would be to help them feel the decision and the pain that it would cause if they delayed the decision. If they are struggling right now, will it magically get better in three months or will it likely get worse and cost them more money or time? Try reframing the decision to make it more logical and satisfying if they do it right now versus down the road.

And lastly, you can help overcome this objection by asking for the sale and then asking again. Once you go through this process for the top five objections you will find ways to design the process better to increase your sales.