The Invisible Objection

Last week, I attended a panel discussion hosted by the Association of Professional Consultants. The panel accepted questions from the audience, and I queried:

How must sellers and marketers adapt to the economic challenges and changes taking place?

The speaker that gave the best answer was Pat McClure of the Connexia Group. Pat is an author, speaker, and consultant. His practice is built around helping clients improve sales performance.

His answer: beware the invisible objection.

Now, I've taken a fair amount of sales training and have a pretty good understanding of objections. Originally, I thought he was talking about "hidden" objections: the ones the prospect won't share with you.

But he wasn't.

Invisible objections, Pat explained, are the objections that we agree with.

We don't see "invisible objections" because the thinking behind them mirrors our own.

Because we don't see them, we don't respond to them.

Because we don't respond to them, we lose the sale.

What's that got to do with adapting to what’s going on? Plenty.

We've been barraged with a steady drumbeat of bad economic news on every media outlet for a very long time. It's only natural that we've come to believe the message.

Layoffs, plant closings, bankruptcies, lost savings – they’re all great reasons to not buy anything right now, aren't they?

But here’s the rub: if we agree that the economy is so bad that people should hold off on buying, then we'll hold our tongues in silent agreement as our prospects talk themselves out of deals.

According to Pat, here’s what we gotta do instead: make sure our prospects understand why they need – and will get value from – our products and services right now.

Thanks, Patrick. An excellent recession fighting tip!