4 Reasons To Start Objection Handling With A Question
It’s very rare that a prospect will say “yes” the very first time that you ask for the sale.
Probably less than 20% of the time.
For the other 80% of sales encounters, whether you will close the deal depends largely on how you react in the first five seconds after the prospect gives you their first objection …
“You know, this sounds really good, but I want to take some time to think about it.”
An amateur salesperson will respond to an objection with a statement.
In the worst-case scenario, their statement will begin with this dreaded word …
“But …”
In the second worst-case scenario, they’re going to overtalk about the value of their product:
“My product is great for x, y, and z reasons … blah, blah, blah … me, me, me.”
Answering an objection with a statement creates confrontation. It feels like you’re bumping heads with your prospect. No sales are made this way.
Instead, respond to objections with a question.
And don’t forget to pause for 1-2 seconds and use an empathy statement before you even ask the question.
Here are some examples of empathy statements:
- No worries
- I understand what you’re saying
- I hear you
- I see where you’re coming from
All together, it should sound like this:
“No worries, Bob! Remind me, when were you looking to get your project started?”
We should you already know the answer to this question from qualifying, but we ask again anyway.
Four reasons to start objection handling with a question:
1. It makes the conversation flow.
It gets the prospect talking at a time in the conversation that can otherwise be very awkward.
The prospect is usually emotional when they’re giving an objection:
- They’re scared about spending a lot of money.
- They’re nervous about upsetting the salesperson that has spent a lot of time with them.
- They’re stressed about the pain point that has caused them to be on the call in the first place.
The last thing you want to do as a salesperson is add more emotion to the conversation by creating confrontation with your prospect, which is what happens when you respond to objections with a statement.
2. It keeps the conversation going.
The prospect likely wants to get off the phone at this point.
If that’s the case, hearing the salesperson talk more is not going to inspire them to stay on the phone longer.
But everyone loves to talk, especially when it’s about themselves or their company.
So if you make your question good enough that the prospect is happy and comfortable to continue the conversation, then you buy yourself more time to handle the objection and make the sale.
3. It forces the prospect to remind themselves of their pain point.
If you’ve pitched well, your prospect might even bring up some of the value that you mentioned earlier in the call in response to your question.
They’ll make the sale for you!
4. It gives you another turn in the conversation.
Question, statement, question, statement … this is the natural flow of conversation.
Have you ever watched two self-absorbed people try to have a conversation? One person talks about themselves, then the other person talks about themselves. Two boats passing in the night. It’s painful to watch.
But when you ask someone a question, and then listen respectfully for a while, it feels natural that you can take a turn to talk. The prospect might even ask you a question in return. If so, this is your opportunity to re-sell value and ask for the sale again.
The Objection Pentagon
Asking a question is one of the five steps in the Objection Pentagon—what we believe to be the best, and importantly, most-versatile objection handling strategy. It’s based on our own experience and the commonalities between our favorite objection handling strategies outlined in this post.
We chose the shape of a pentagon because there are five steps in the process and its defense against objections is as rock-solid as the Pentagon itself 
Here are the five steps:
- Objection
- Empathy statement
- Question
- Show value
- Ask for the sale
And here’s what it looks like in a nice diagram:
Remember to start your objection handling with a question!
And then follow the rest of the steps in the Objection Pentagon.