5 Success Strategies for Helping Your Prospects Eliminate Objections

No. Not Now. You’re fees are too high. I can find someone just as good and less expensive. It’s not the right time. You don’t have any experience in my industry.

If you’re a professional – lawyer, accountant, or other service provider   chances are you’ve heard one or several or even all these “reasons” for why potential clients haven’t hired you.

Hearing a version of “no” is the number one reason so many professionals shy away from business development or rainmaking activities. People have a natural aversion to hearing ‘no.’ Because we have little training or experience with transforming ‘no’ into any version of yes, we just back away and give up.

A number of years ago, I met a very successful prospect who seemed interested in coaching with me. However, after several conversations, he still seemed uncertain about hiring me. I certainly had explained all about what I do, what my style of working with professionals was like, the benefits of coaching, shared the success stories, etc. While the conversations continued, I knew I hadn’t found the key to what was really important enough for him to take action.

Finally, during one of our conversations, we started discussing the importance of really leveraging the right contacts within one’s network. My prospect took a deep breath and said, “Now if someone could help me with THAT, I would go to work on that immediately.” So began our working relationship. Until that moment, I hadn’t found what was truly important enough to him for him to say, “yes.”

Most people would have given up after the second conversation. Believe me, I wanted to. It’s hard work finding out what’s really driving or repelling people. When I ask my professional colleagues and clients why they don’t win an engagement, 90% of the time they will tell me it’s the fee. I ask them if they asked the prospect what the reason was. Almost all of the time, when I dig deep enough, they admit they didn’t ask directly. 

They assume the reason. Why? Because they’re afraid to find out the real reason. After coaching and surveying hundreds of clients and business colleagues, the real reason people don’t choose a service provider is they don’t feel comfortable or confident about the person. 

They may say it’s money (but they often hire someone just as expensive or similar in fee range) or timing or lack of industry knowledge. But the real reason, just as my client didn’t act until I had found the real key to what he was looking for, is often undisclosed. Prospective clients may not even realize what the real reason is. They will say, “I just had a funny feeling that the guy, or gal, wasn’t right for me or my company.”

To find out the real reason you aren’t finding success with prospects, you need to ask the right questions, and really listen to what your prospects want, not what you think they need. As soon as a prospect raises an objection, most professionals begin the “Convincing Game.” Let’s see how many rebuttals I can throw at the prospect to show him or her how wrong they are about their thinking. That will convince him or her to work with me. Not.

Here are five success strategies for helping you not get thrown by objections and help your prospects eliminate their own objections:

1. Recognize that objections are just a request for more information. Prospects are helping you understand their concerns and fears. Usually their biggest fear is that they will make a regrettable error in hiring you. Don’t resist the objection. Acknowledge it and mirror it back to your prospect so they know you’ve heard it. When an objection arises, it’s a request for more information before they can say yes or no.

2. Stop convincing, start serving. Let your prospects know you understand their concerns, and ask them how they would like to be serviced.

3. Learn what the real objection(s) is/are. Once an objection is put out on the table, acknowledge that you’ve heard it and ask if there are any others. Keep asking until there aren’t any more. Eventually you’ll hear the objection underneath the objection. 

4. Avoid telling the prospect they’re making the wrong choice. If they hire someone else, there is a solid chance that at some point, the relationship won’t work. You want your prospect to know the door is open for them to contact you without making them feel foolish for their previous choice. Make them feel right rather than wrong. It’s much more inviting and comfortable for your prospective client.

5. Ask open-ended questions. If they have objections keep asking open-ended questions about their concerns and what they are truly wanting from the business relationship. Ask them if the objection were taken out of the equation, would they feel comfortable hiring you. If the answer is yes, you have a green light to work on eliminating the roadblock. If fees are an issue, consider adding value or added service vs. lowering your fees as a first approach. Once you are in a price discounting process, you are now devaluing your service and it is very difficult to increase your fees later. You have trained your client into a discount mentality.

Learning how to embrace and face objections is a freeing experience. It gives you a more solid footing with your clients and builds your own self-confidence. After all, that’s what your clients want from you: they want to feel confident about working with you, and want you to feel confident that you can help them. 

Take some time to script out the way you will converse around objections (notice I didn’t say refute or overcome objections) and engage in open-ended questions so prospects actually release their objections and actually sell themselves on you as their trusted advisor. 

Practice makes the truly entrepreneurial professional.