Seven Top Strategies for Handling Objections
In Sales (and In Life!)

by www.Sedona.com

For those of you who make your living in sales -- real estate, insurance, commodities, text books, or perhaps selling yourself as the best person for a job -- you know that handling objections in sales is one of the most challenging aspects of your career.

In fact, it is THE challenge you must overcome to be successful and possibly financially secure as well. Because once you figure out how to overcome someone’s objections, they’ll have no reason to turn down whatever it is you are selling and you will rise to join the cream of the salesperson crop.

The following strategies can help you get to that point in your career so that you will be able to address your clients’ or customers’ concerns and make sure the conversation works in your favor. These tips are especially useful for salespeople, but can also be applied to other situations in your life from the dating scene to raising your children.

1. Listen
   It is absolutely essential that you listen effectively to the person’s objection, in its entirety. Ideally, you will ask for even more information as you listen in order to understand all of the reasoning behind their concerns. Not only will this give you insights into how best to handle the objection, it will also make the person more likely to hear you out in return
   
   
2. Acknowledge the Objection
   By responding to the objection and showing you understand, you become less threatening and less of an opponent. The person will also feel their objection is justified. It’s then your job to explain the value of your product that they’re not able to see yet.
   
   
3. Share Different Perspectives
   Share experiences other customers have had with the product, including those who were objecting at first, so the person may be become open to changing their mind.
   
   
4. Use Humor
   If the situation is getting tense, lighten up the mood with some humor. This will take pressure off you and also make the situation more relaxed and amicable, even enjoyable.
   
   
5. Attempt to Resolve the Objection
   After you understand the person’s concerns, offer to work together to resolve them. By doing what you can to make the customer happy, as though you are a partner trying to work out what’s best for them, you will gain credibility and likeability at the same time.
   
   
6. Avoid Confrontation
   At no point should you make the customer feel uneasy for voicing objections. You want to build an environment of cooperation, not confrontation.
   
   
7. Release Your Need for Approval
   At the heart of every sales transaction is often a desire to be approved of. You want the person to approve of you, your sales pitch and ultimately purchase your product. However, one of the keys to closing the deal lies in letting go of this desire for approval, a process that’s simple to learn when you use The Sedona Method.
   
   “Releasing is the salesperson’s secret weapon for success,” says Hale Dwoskin, CEO and director of training of Sedona Training Associates. “Being rejected and handling objections is often a salesperson's nemesis. But when you release the wanting approval and all the other feelings that come from being rejected or handling people’s objections, you’ll find you can stay on track and make the sale.”
   
   “Simply welcome whatever feelings are stirring up inside of you and let them go as best you can,” he continues. “The more released you are as you go through the sales process the more likely you are to get a ‘yes.’ Plus, in my personal experience when you're selling from a place of love that comes naturally to releasing, people want to do business with you.”
   
   Ultimately, releasing can be your secret weapon to sales success, because as you let go of your need for approval, along with your feelings of anxiety or uncertainty, you will be speaking and acting from a place of confidence and openness. This will naturally draw people to you and make them much more open to your sales pitches in return.

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