My Thoughts
Why Most Objection Handling Training is Absolute Rubbish: A Blunt Take from Someone Who's Done It Wrong for 15 Years
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Your sales team just spent three grand on objection handling training, and they're still getting demolished by customers who ask basic questions about price.
Sound familiar? After seventeen years of watching companies throw money at sales training programs that teach people to "overcome" objections like they're military obstacles, I've got some news for you. The entire industry has got this backwards. Completely, utterly, catastrophically backwards.
Here's what I discovered after bombing spectacularly in my first sales role at a Perth telecommunications company in 2008. I was armed with all the fancy techniques – the "feel, felt, found" method, the "boomerang" response, something called the "LAER" framework that nobody could remember properly. Classic stuff. The kind that makes trainers rich and salespeople stressed.
And I was terrible. Properly terrible.
The Problem with Traditional Objection "Handling"
The fundamental flaw in most objection handling techniques training is right there in the name. "Handling." Like objections are wild animals that need to be controlled rather than understood.
Traditional training treats every objection as a roadblock to be demolished. Got a price concern? Deploy the value statement! Customer worried about timing? Hit them with the urgency close! It's adversarial thinking disguised as sales methodology.
But here's what actually happens in the real world. When someone raises an objection, they're usually telling you something important about their situation. They're not trying to make your life difficult – they're trying to make a decision that won't get them fired, divorced, or financially ruined.
The Brisbane office of a major consulting firm I worked with had this approach down to a science. Their sales team could recite seventeen different responses to the "it's too expensive" objection. Seventeen! Yet their close rate was abysmal because they spent so much time talking, they never learned why the customer was really hesitant.
Most objections aren't actually objections at all. They're requests for more information, expressions of concern, or attempts to slow down a process that feels rushed. When we treat them as barriers to overcome, we miss the opportunity to actually help someone make a good decision.
What Actually Works (And Why Nobody Teaches It)
Real objection handling isn't about having clever responses. It's about having better conversations from the beginning.
The most successful salespeople I know – and I'm talking about the ones pulling in seven figures, not just the ones with the best PowerPoint presentations – they prevent most objections by asking better questions earlier in the process.
Instead of waiting for someone to say "it's too expensive," they explore budget early. Not with some sneaky closing technique, but with genuine curiosity about what they're trying to achieve and what constraints they're working within.
I learned this the hard way during a disastrous presentation to a Melbourne manufacturing company in 2015. I'd prepared for every possible objection except the most obvious one – they didn't actually have decision-making authority. Spent forty-five minutes delivering my perfectly crafted presentation to people who couldn't buy a coffee without approval from head office.
That's when it clicked. The problem wasn't that I needed better objection handling skills. The problem was that I hadn't qualified the opportunity properly in the first place.
The Curiosity Approach
Here's my controversial opinion that'll make traditional sales trainers cringe: most objections should be welcomed, not overcome.
When someone says "I need to think about it," instead of launching into your prepared response about the limited-time offer, try this revolutionary approach. Ask them what specifically they need to think about. What questions do they have? What concerns are they processing?
Sounds obvious, right? Yet 73% of salespeople immediately start presenting more information when they hear any form of hesitation. They think the problem is that they haven't said enough. Usually, the problem is they've said too much.
The best response to most objections is another question. Not a leading question designed to trap them into agreeing with you. A genuine question because you actually want to understand their perspective.
The Melbourne Incident That Changed Everything
Three years ago, I was consulting with a software company whose sales team was struggling with technical objections. They'd invested heavily in training their people to respond to specific concerns about integration, security, data migration – the works.
But when I sat in on actual sales calls, something interesting emerged. The technical objections weren't really technical objections. They were trust objections dressed up in technical language.
Customers weren't worried about whether the software would integrate with their existing systems. They were worried about what would happen if it didn't. They weren't concerned about security features. They were concerned about explaining a data breach to their board if something went wrong.
Once the sales team started addressing the underlying concerns instead of the surface-level objections, their close rate improved by 40%. They stopped being technology experts trying to prove how smart they were, and started being consultants helping people make good decisions.
Why This Matters More Than Ever
The traditional objection handling approach assumes customers are trying to avoid making a purchase. But in today's market, most B2B buyers are desperate to find solutions that actually work. They're not trying to avoid buying – they're trying to avoid buying the wrong thing.
That changes everything about how you approach objections.
When someone raises concerns about your proposal, they're often hoping you can address those concerns. They want to move forward, but they need reassurance that they're making the right choice. Treating their concerns as obstacles to overcome instead of information to address is missing the point entirely.
The Three Questions That Actually Matter
Instead of memorising responses to common objections, train your team to ask these three questions:
"What would need to be true for this to be a great decision for you?"
"What would make this feel risky or concerning?"
"Who else needs to feel confident about this decision?"
These questions get to the heart of what's really driving their hesitation. And once you understand what's really going on, you can have a conversation about whether your solution actually addresses their concerns.
Sometimes the answer is no. Sometimes you're not the right fit. That's useful information, not a failure of your objection handling skills.
The companies that embrace this approach – the ones that see objections as information rather than obstacles – they're the ones building sustainable, profitable relationships. They're also the ones whose salespeople don't burn out trying to convince people who shouldn't be convinced.
What Nobody Wants to Admit
Here's the uncomfortable truth about objection handling training: most of it exists because we're trying to sell to people who shouldn't be buying.
When you've properly qualified an opportunity, when you've understood their situation and confirmed that your solution addresses their actual needs, when you've built genuine rapport and trust – objections become rare. Not because you've overcome them, but because you've prevented them.
The goal isn't to become better at handling objections. The goal is to become better at having conversations that make objections unnecessary.
But that's harder to package into a two-day training program. It requires developing actual listening skills, learning to ask better questions, and building the discipline to walk away from opportunities that aren't a good fit.
It also requires accepting that sales is a consultative process, not a persuasion contest. And frankly, a lot of salespeople aren't ready for that conversation.
The Bottom Line
Stop training your team to overcome objections. Start training them to understand objections. The difference will transform not just your close rates, but the quality of relationships you build with customers.
And if your current sales training provider disagrees with this approach, maybe it's time to find a new training provider.
The customers who feel heard and understood don't just buy more often. They stay longer, refer more business, and actually enjoy working with you. Novel concept, I know.
But after seventeen years of doing this wrong before accidentally stumbling onto doing it right, I can tell you the difference is remarkable. Both for your results and your stress levels.
Now if only more sales trainers would admit that most of what they've been teaching is complete rubbish.
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