Why Do Salespeople Use Facts and Logic to Combat Objections?

The easy answer to the title question is that they have been trained to do that since they first arrived at sales kindergarten.  Whether talking points, bullet points, inarguable facts, competitive differences, ROI, value proposition, brand promise or cost of ownership, these words and phrases have been reinforced since day 1.

The problem is that while salespeople confidently spout off these return volleys, the only thing accomplished is to make it more difficult to sell anything.  When a prospect states an objection their resistance goes up.  When a salesperson attempts to counter the objection with logic or facts, the prospect hears the hard sell and resistance is raised some more.

Logic does not overcome objections.  So what does?

Agreement.

The first rule of dealing with resistance, even if it appears as an objection, is to lower the resistance even if it means agreeing with the objection.  For example, let’s pretend that your prospect says, “Your company has a bad reputation.”  Instead of arguing the fact, let’s respond with, “Your right.”

Watch the air get sucked out of your prospect’s argument!  They will be speechless.  And their resistance will have dropped too.

Then you can say, “We had a terrible reputation.  That’s why I’m here now and the person who was responsible for our bad rap is long gone and hard to find.”

Don’t expect your customer to ask, “Where do I sign?”  They might say, “That’s good to hear.”

And you should follow up with, “But in your mind, doing business with us is still carries a huge risk.”

Expect them to say, “That’s right” because nothing has changed – yet.

And you can ask, “Can we talk about that?”

They’ll clarify their concerns and you can ask, “What if I could address  each of those concerns and mitigate your risk?”

Assuming that you hear some version of “that would be good” you can proceed to ease their concerns, one at a time, remembering that less is more.  Don’t start selling.  Just make them comfortable enough so that they can buy without you getting their way.

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