Cold Call Objections

Your prospect is always busy. You are always interrupting them any time you make an unscheduled or cold call. Whatever the prospect was doing before you called is what they chose to do, and therefore deemed most important. So yes, you are interrupting them. Because of this, the client will always be predisposed to object whenever you call them unscheduled. It is important to understand what these types of objections are. They are routine based objections. They are a human’s internal gatekeepers making up a reason to disengage and keep the easily distractible human on track and away from distractions and new activities. This is human nature, but it is important for sellers to understand because it informs how we should deal with them.

The first thing to understand is that these objections are not rooted in anything substantive, so while it is good to have a plan for how to deal with substantive objections, handling routine based objections is much different. There are two key components to dealing with these types of objections, and one has to do with how to avoid them, and other has to do with how to handle them.

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Let’s start with the former. The success of your unscheduled client call, or cold call is highly dependent on the first 20 words that come out of your mouth. If you leave an opening for the buyer to ask you a simple question, like; “Who are you?” “What do you do?” “What's your name?” “What company?”, you will have put yourself in a tough position. You will now be on their agenda, responding to them and following their lead. Down the road it will be important to get your client to ask you questions. However, at the very beginning, you want them listening to you so that you are in control. The person who asks the questions controls the conversation.

This is why it is important to state your full name, your company name and the reason you are calling very clearly and succinctly. Then you want to state their problem better than they can. Since you are likely on a cold call, of course, you want to get buy in that they are experiencing the problem that you are stating, but that only comes after you have been clear about who you are and why you are calling.

It is also very important to realize that you are selling yourself, or your sales partner, if you are an SDR. It is your job to sell yourself so that the prospect decides to spend more time with you. Notice that nowhere above does it talk about your products or solutions or how you solve problems, none of that is part of the equation.

If you clearly state who you are, why you are calling, your understanding of the prospect’s problem, and you focus on selling the next meeting, rather than the product, you will get far fewer routine based objections, and you are likely to retain control of the call. But of course, you are still likely to get some pushback.

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So, let’s talk about the second component of dealing with routine based objections. You will get many types of objections on early stage calls, and they will often come one after another because your prospect may be on autopilot for large portions of your call having not yet committed in their mind to devote any time to listening to you. Let’s go over a few and some thoughts on how to handle them, These are not the only ways to handle them, but they are thought starters for use and incorporation.

“Please call me back in a few months, that will be a better time to discuss this”

Seller’s response: “Why three months? Whats happening then? why will it be a better time?” OR “What is it about your business that is changing that will make 3 months from now different?”

The buyer led the seller to this line of questioning so they will feel compelled to answer the very-on-point follow up question, but answering that question will make the buyer think about if a few months down the road really is better timing, and give the seller the opportunity to gather more information.

“We can’t consider this until after next year’s budget planning”

Seller’s response: “Budget planning can be a task, I just went through that over here. I know things can get lost in the shuffle in those types of scenarios, and I can help you prepare the internal ask well in advance. How about getting started on the conversation so that you can wrap your mind around exactly what you need, and see if we can provide it so that by the time budget planning comes around you are all prepared?”

This is a tricky one, and it is important for the seller to be sure to signal that they will not be putting pressure on the buyer to make a move until after the budgeting process. Alternatively, the seller can remind the buyer that their procurement and process may cause delays, so if they think this could potentially help their business, it would be a good idea to get the process started now, knowing that nothing can get to the final stage until after the budget decisions.

“I have to think about it, just send me an email with some information on your solution”

Seller’s response: “What exactly would you like to see in that email?” OR “I want to make sure to send you only the most relevant information to save you the trouble of looking through things that are not important to you, can you share with me a little bit more about what issues the problem is causing for your business, and what you would like to see change in an ideal outcome?“

This line of conversation can be a bit tricky because it can be seen as pushy, but oftentimes the response will just be something to the effect of, “just send me an overview”. In these cases, you can offer a video call and walk through at a later date to help them process what you send them. Either way, make sure that the tone is different when you make these requests so that they don’t suspect that you are just trying to drag out the meeting and waste their time. Signal to them virtually, or otherwise that you are wrapping up and that you will send them something.

“I’m not interested”

Seller’s response: “Sounds like you already solved X problem. I would be curious to hear how you are approaching it.”

This will either lead the prospect to explain to you how they have solved it, in which case you can probe for additional problems to solve, or more likely, it will prompt them to equivocate and say that they haven’t solved it completely, or they put it on the backburner and are focusing on other issues, or something like that. Either way, it creates an opening to ask one more question, and that is all you need sometimes.

The takeaway is that objections are not rejections, and thinking about how you will respond to objections before they happen allows you to stay calm and often earn the right to ask one more follow up question, and that could make all the difference between a rushed hang up, and a scheduled call with the prospect.

Objections do not mean rejection