**Check out the link below for our upcoming 2 hour “Appointment Masterclass” to discover our simple and repeatable process to fill your weekly calendar with new buyer and seller appointments.

Smart Words: “Seek first to understand, then be understood” – Steven Covey

Smart Tactics: Want to book more appointments and get more contracts signed? Then stop arguing with your prospects when they say “no”. I need you to change your perspective on what objections actually are.  I like to say that a “no” is a “yes” to something else. A “yes” to a different time, or different conditions, or a different person or offering. So if every objection is a “yes” to some thing or some set of conditions…all we have to do is find the thing the prospect or lead is saying yes to, and see if we can either offer it to them or find an acceptable alternative. This sounds simple, right… But HOW do you do that?

Old-school sales training just teaches you to make the prospect wrong or outsmart them and muscle them into saying yes to you. No one enjoys that interaction. The lead definitely doesn’t enjoy being “objection handled,” good salespeople don’t enjoy that adversarial approach of “objection handling,” and let’s be honest…we as consumers are a lot more sophisticated when it comes to sales conversations nowadays. We can IMMEDIATELY sense when a salesperson is doing their “sales” thing and trying to manipulate or influence our decisions. It’s a turn-off and is just uncomfortable for both parties.

I’ve discovered over my 30 years in sales (and 20-odd years of therapy and personal development work) that every person makes decisions to the best of their ability, with all of the available knowledge and experience they have at hand. When a prospect makes a decision that is a “no” to you, or your timing, or your service or offering, they are being authentic with that answer. Our best approach is to acknowledge their decision and get them to teach us how it is that that decision makes the most sense for them in that moment, at that time. Note today’s quote: “Seek first to understand, then be understood.” Once we get to the root of how that prospect has made that decision in their own best interest, we can (sometimes…not always) find a collaborative way to give them the outcome or result they desire, but with a different approach or different conditions, or at a different time. Meaning, to buy or sell NOW or SOONER, with YOU, under these CONDITIONS.

Watch this video to fully understand what I’m talking about.

With all of our new students, we play a game we have expertly dubbed “The Question Game.” We rapid-fire the most common objections all of us agents are hearing, and the students have to ask good, direct questions to understand the decision-making process that leads to that objection.

Everyone LOVES it. No one has ever taught them to handle sales objections in that way. This method feels so comfortable and conversational that even the most passive of agents find they can easily hang in there with the toughest of objections.  So here’s my advice: don’t learn to argue better; first learn to let the prospect teach you why their objection makes the most sense possible… and go from there.

Always get smarter,

-Dale