This is the last part in our four-week tactical series. I hope you enjoyed it and that it helped crack open some chinks in your sales process.

If you have any questions or comments, I’d love to hear your feedback.

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“I’m not interested.”

“Sorry, I don’t have time right now.”

“I’m hopping into a meeting, can you just send me an email?”

Objections: we’re all familiar with them. But how often are they hanging you up in your sales process and what’s your method for combating them?

Whether you’re cold calling, running a demo or pitching to prospective clients for your own consulting business, you’ll come across client’s being uncertain about your services or making excuses not to move forward one way or another.

There are more companies cold calling and reaching out to prospects more than ever before so getting an objection might not be a true form of disinterest or lack of need; it’s simply a way to be their own gatekeeper.

In order to not get stumped or tripped up when they come your way, you need to get comfortable with how uncomfortable they make you.

You may not always know what the other person’s going to say but being prepared for any question regardless is the answer to being confident.

When we’re uncomfortable, we tend to over-speak but you lose power in that situation when the opposite needs to happen: be brief, be brilliant and be gone. Acknowledge what they’re saying while simultaneously standing your ground.

The best thing you can do is prepare all of the possible objections you could get then build your own answers to all of them. That way, when they come up they won’t catch you off guard so much.

Get better at controlling the conversation and pivot their objections to talk about what you want to talk about. Get better at deciphering when to let go of a prospect that genuinely isn’t interested or able to make changes to their business currently versus someone that just is pushing you off.

If you get comfortable settling for the first objection someone gives you as fact then you’ll rarely flex the muscle that it takes to know when to push the envelope. Don’t just be calling to chit chat and waste time — always be providing value. This goes back to the ‘be brief, be brilliant, be gone’ tactic.

Be brief: don’t waste their time.

Be brilliant: hit the bullseye with relevant value.

Be gone: hang up the phone.

This doesn’t mean give up — it just means try again and keep your finger on the pulse. The more you build up the rapport and the relationship, the greater potential to get them on the line next time.

Another key element to objection handling is validating their concerns. A major pattern interrupt during an objection is also meeting them with the answer they aren’t anticipating. This can look like:

Prospect: “this is way more expensive than [XYZ competitor]. I’m not interested.”

You: “I hear you. We’re definitely not the cheapest option and there are reasons for that.”

A small example of validation, meeting with a pattern interrupt, building rapport through honesty, providing value then being gone.

How else are you handling objections? Everyone has their own take and style to this and we can all get better from learning from each other.

So fight those objections, don’t let them rule you.