What’s blocking your deals? It’s one of these 7 culprits.

Today’s Skill: Uncovering Objections

In a recent newsletter, we covered the importance of asking a direct question like “What concerns do you have about moving forward with the partnership?”.

It opens up the dialogue to get past any blockers that might be stalling the deal.

This week, my goal is to help you remove those blockers earlier.

It’s one thing to be able to handle objections when they come about. But, what if we were able to “pull back the curtain” on them before they surfaced?

To do that, you need to know how objections come about.

→ So, that’s the goal today.

1. I want to help you understand the most common sources of objections

2. I want to give you some actionable questions you can ask earlier in the sales process.

Let’s get after it.

Common Objections

If everyone shared their most popular objections, we’d have hundreds of them. They’d all sound different and be unique to your specific business. (hit “reply” and share your most common one. I’ll provide additional advice on how to help overcome it.)

But, when we zoom out, we see something interesting…objections are all similar branches of the same tree.

If I had to categorize all objections, they’d fall into 7 buckets. To make it even easier to remember them, I’ve created a simple acronym. It spells CURTAIN. (cute, right?) It stands for….

• Cost

• Urgency

• Risk

• Trust

• Authority

• Indecision

• Need

Because, well, if we can expose what’s behind these earlier, we can get out in front of them.

Good news? You don’t have to remember an encyclopedia-sized book on every potential objection. You just have to categorize the ones you hear into the right bucket and that will help you understand how to get around them.

Now, let’s go deeper to understand each objection more.

7 Types of Objections

☑ Cost

Definition: Your prospect is worried the solution costs more than expected or they don’t clearly see that what you are providing justifies the cost they would be paying. This is mainly costs in dollars but could be time to implement or opportunity costs that prevent them from doing other things.

This is probably the most common objection because at the end of the day there has to be a transaction. The more open you’ve been pricing and the better you’ve tied their problem to your solution, will help minimize hearing this.

So, if you do hear it, you likely haven’t proved the value of what you offer and/or surfaced budget-type conversations too late.

Things to consider:

• Provide general ballpark pricing on your first call. You don’t need a detailed proposal, you just need to know if you’re somewhere on the same planet. If they already balk at that, that’s a big red flag from the jump.

• Have a clear idea on what success looks like for them. When you know where they want to go, you can speak their language.

Questions to help get ahead of this:

• “Do you have a budget you’re trying to stay within for this project?”

• “Do you have an idea of what solutions to this problem typically cost?”

• “What have you budgeted for this project?

• “What does success look like for this project?”

☑ Urgency

Definition: The solution might be valuable, but other initiatives, budget cycles, or priorities are taking their attention.

People search for solutions to problems all of the time. Think about how many half-done projects you might have around the house. It doesn’t mean they will end completing it and buying. Understanding what else they are dealing with is important to not having this become an issue down the road.

Things to consider:

• Is this a “nice-to-have” or a “must-have”?

• Why do they have to do this now?

Questions to get ahead of this:

• “What other priorities are competing for attention right now?”

• “When would you ideally want a solution like this in place?”

• “Is there a specific event or deadline driving this timeline?”

• “How would you rank this initiative on your overall priorities list?”

• “What happens if you don’t do anything?”

☑ Risk

Definition: Even if everything looks good on paper, the buyer fears being blamed or looking bad if the solution fails. This is about risk aversion more than logic. And, we don’t know their history on these types of projects in the past. Have they tried to solve this before and failed? Did they make the wrong choice? All of these could end up creating situations where the prospect is risk adverse.

Things to consider:

• Is this the first time they are looking to solve this type of problem?

• Does their language skew negative? Often, risk adverse people take the glass half empty approach and are always looking for a way out.

Questions to get ahead of this:

• “What risks are you most concerned about with this decision?”

• “What concerns you the most with this type of project?”

• “If this didn’t work out, what would the impact be for you or your team?”

• “What do you need to know to feel confident moving forward?”

☑ Trust

Definition: The buyer isn’t convinced you or your solution are the right fit. Could be due to credibility, perceived value, or rapport. Trust gets built over time but some people are very skeptical or have been burned in the past. Where risk above is more internal, trust is external facing. Did they have a bad experience with another vendor? Were they sold a bad product? The trust might not always be about you but past experiences.

Things to consider:

• Have they had a bad vendor experience related to this type of project?

• Are they totally open with information or does it feel like they are hiding something?

Questions to get ahead of this:

• “Have you worked with a vendor like us before? How did it go?”

• “What worries you about making the wrong choice here?”

• “What would help you feel most confident that we’re the right fit?”

• “What does a successful partnership look like for you?

☑ Authority

Definition: You’re not talking to the final decision-maker or they don’t fully understand their internal approval process.

They may be knowledgeable about the problem but aren’t knowledgeable about the actions to get it solved. You can sniff these folks out because they won’t bring in other people to calls and/or they can’t answer questions about budget or approvals with depth. This could mean your “Champion” either doesn’t have the influence they said they had or they have to go to others to get an approval.

Things to consider:

• Is your prospect always needing to “talk internally” but never brings those people on calls

• Do they always have to check on the process to move forward or do they know the steps?

• Are there specificity in their answers?

Questions to get ahead of this:

• “Who else would need to be involved in making this decision?”

• “How have similar purchases been approved in the past?”

• “Besides yourself, who will have the biggest influence on this project?”

• “What do you think is going to be the biggest hurdle in getting approval for this project?”

☑ Indecision

Definition: The buyer struggles to make a decision because they lack a clear framework for evaluating options or this isn’t a “must-have” need so there they are trying to justify the purchase. You’ll see this the most when there isn’t a defined big problem needing to be solved or a clear timeline on when it has to be solved.

Things to consider:

• Are they always questioning next steps and being coy with committing to them?

• Do they always need “more time to think” or have to “get back with you in a couple weeks?”

Questions to get ahead of this:

• “What criteria will you use to decide between options?”

• “What would success look like six months from now?”

• “If you had to decide tomorrow, what would you still need to know?”

• “How will you know when it’s the right decision?”

☑ Need

Definition: Need is just another word for value. The prospect doesn’t clearly see how your solution will deliver a return or solve their core problem. They may agree it’s a “nice to have,” but they’re not convinced it’s a “must have.” This could either be because you didn’t help define their main problems so you can tie it to your solution or they actually don’t have a big enough problem to solve.

Things to consider:

• How much friction is this problem creating for their business?

• Can the prospect understand clearly how your offering solves their problem.

Questions to Ask To Get Ahead of This

• “What outcomes are you hoping to achieve by solving this problem?”

• “What would success look like if this problem was solved as you wanted?”

• “What happens if this problem isn’t solved in the next 6–12 months?”

• “How long has this been going on and what impact has it had on you business?

Bottom-Line

Objections aren’t standalone and might mesh between 2 or more of the categories above. But, I don’t want you to think of them as negatives. Think of them as buying signals. It’s good they are bringing questions up, it means they care. At some level, they are asking because they are curious. So, we can either be proactive and get ahead of them or be passive and wait for them to surface.

The problem with waiting is there is a chance the questions never come. The prospect makes up their own answers without asking you. What could’ve been a great client turns into a “closed-lost” deal.

→ Let’s avoid that at all costs.

Be proactive and create a space where you and your prospects can have open dialogue about everything.

It may not remove all objections but it certainly creates an open environment to talk through them when they do arise.

Your Action Item

It’s likely that your business experiences 1-2 of the same “buckets” above.

So, go practice them.

Become great at sniffing these out and building dialogue around it earlier.

For instance, if you always hear pricing objections on call 3, start to surface these conversations earlier. I’d rather you disqualify someone on a first call because your budgets are so far apart than wait 3 calls only to be disappointed that they aren’t going to go with you.

Pipeline hygiene is important to predictable revenue.

Let’s make sure the prospects in there deserve to be in there.