5 powerful questions to ask to overcome a sales objection

In his best selling book ‘Unlimited Power’, world-renowned motivational speaker and coach Anthony Robbins shared his experience of often meeting prospects who complained that his course was too expensive. However, rather than getting defensive with the attack, Mr Robbins would confidently respond to his prospect's objection with a question like, "To which course/s are you comparing my course?" When his prospect responded by citing the names of many other seminars they had attended, Mr Robbins would continue with a question like, “Great. How’s the seminar like mine then?” At this juncture, the question would have caught most of his prospects by surprise, as they would not have expected such a question. Finally, Mr Robbins would go on to demonstrate to his prospect how different his course was from the others and added, “What would happen if you felt my seminars were really worth the time and money?”

Questions are the Answers

Indeed, questions are the answers. While most salespeople tend to deal with objections by attempting to evade them or play them down, they fail to recognise the potential of using the objections received as a means to close the deal. For when you learn how to use the right questions to answer your clients' objections, you can turn virtually every objection into an opportunity to ask for the sale.

Known as Meta-Model, it is a set of precision questioning tools you can use to counter any form of objections as it enables you as a sales professional to recognize and recover any information loss your prospects could have experienced in the form of a deletion, distortion and/or generalization. The Meta-Model will assist you to drill down for the details you have to be able to react rapidly and accurately address your prospect's real concerns, objections or levels of interest. For instance, take a closer look now at the earlier example given of the participant raising the price objection during a Tony Robbin's event. Isn't that a form of deletion? Obviously, the prospect wasn't comparing apples to apples. Yet by compelling his prospect to draw a clear comparison between his course and the courses of his competitors, Tony was able to effectively reframe his prospect's buying objection through the recovery of lost information.

Thus here are 5 other examples of how you can use the meta-model tool and questioning skills to turn a sales objection into a buying opportunity:

5 questions to ask and overcome a sales objection

Objection 1: Your product is too expensive. I don’t think my wife would be happy if I were to make the purchase.
Language structure identified: Presupposition

Question and Response: How do you know your wife is not going to be happy when you purchase this product, given that the product brings with it countless benefits?

Objection 2: I have lost lots of money in the stock market over the past few months because I made many wrong decisions.
Language structure identified: Unspecified Verbs
Question and Response: Where did you lose your money in the stock market? How did you make those wrong decisions?

Objection 3: Your products are too expensive.
Language structure identified: Lack of referential index
Question and Response: What products are you specifically referring to as being expensive?

Objection 4: I can’t afford this programme.
Language structure identified: Modal operator of possibility
Question and Response: What happens if you can find a way to afford this programme?

Objection 5: I need to make more money before I can begin investing.
Language structure identified: Modal operator of necessity.
Question and Response: What happens if you start investing what you already have and make more money in the future?

As you can see from these examples, using questions effectively can help us to clarify important information with others in communication by recovering the lost information. It is also useful in helping us to uncover our prospects’ deeper concerns and needs when selling so that the objections that they raise will no longer be perceived as valid. The question is: Are you ready to ask more and argue less?