My Weekly Marketing

How to Handle Objections in Sales and Close the Deal

• Janice Hostager • Season 1 • Episode 101

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Handling sales objections can be frustrating, but it’s a skill every business owner needs to master. When a customer hesitates, it’s easy to assume they’re just not interested or that price is the problem. But the truth is, objections are often a sign that someone is still considering your offer. They just need more reassurance before saying yes. In this episode, I’m breaking down what’s really going on when people push back and how to uncover the deeper concerns hiding behind objections.

I’ll share practical strategies to handle price pushback, tackle emotional fears, and address business-specific concerns without feeling pushy. We’ll also talk about how to spot objections early, create content that builds trust, and use storytelling to turn hesitation into confidence. If you’re tired of losing sales at the last minute, this episode will help you turn those tough conversations into opportunities to close more deals.

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Janice Hostager:

I'm Janice Hostager. After three decades in the marketing business and many years of being an entrepreneur, I've learned a thing or two about marketing. Join me as we talk about marketing, small business and life in between. Welcome to My Weekly Marketing.

Janice Hostager:

Hey, hey, and welcome to another episode of My Weekly Marketing. Before I jump in, I just want to tell you that the pollen levels in Austin today are like through the roof. So I'm really hoarse and I'm trying not to lose my voice, so if it sounds a little rough or scratchy or whatever, please forgive me. I'm doing my best. I got my big mug of ginger lemon tea here and I'm just going to dive right in and we'll see how it goes. Okay, here we go.

Janice Hostager:

So when I purchased my first online course about 10 years ago, I was more than a little nervous. It was $1,000 at the time and, based on what I was actually making each month which was about $1,000, it was astronomical. It could have been a million dollars. The course ended up being great and very helpful, but the wrestling match that went on in my head up to the point of where I bought it was quite profound, and I feel like it really prepared me for what every business owner needs to do, and that is counter objections to the sale. So when I say objections, you know what I mean, right, that pro con list that goes through your head when you're faced with a purchase, especially a high ticket purchase. A significant portion of sales from like 30 to 50% are lost due to objections that are not effectively addressed. Okay, so think about that. You've gone through all the trouble to find your people, market to them and get them to the point where they're ready to lay down their credit card, and you lose the sale because you didn't counter objections. Hot dang, that's rough. But the good news is that objection handling is a skill and it's learned. It can be practiced and refined over time, just like anything else in business. Right, your customer may know they need what you're selling, but something is holding them back. Often it's the price, and we'll talk about that in a little bit. But sometimes it goes deeper than that. Sometimes people don't buy because they don't feel what you're charging is worth what they'll be getting.

Janice Hostager:

So in this episode we're going to talk about some common objections you may face when you're selling something identifying what those objections are and what they are not. How to anticipate what the objections will be, when, where and how to address those objections are and what they are not. How to anticipate what the objections will be, when, where and how to address those objections, and some metrics to track the effectiveness of your objection handling content. Okay, so let's jump in. First up.

Janice Hostager:

Let's try to understand some of the common objections you're going to likely face in the sales process. The first one is price concerns. Your product or service is too expensive or I can't afford this right now. That may be what you hear. This one is tricky, but probably the biggest excuse you'll hear. With a higher price point product, they may legitimately not be able to afford it, but that might not be it.

Janice Hostager:

Cost is relative. You might say that $1,000 is a lot of money, but if I told you I was selling a Mercedes convertible for $1,000, you would say that's a heck of a deal. In fact, you probably wonder what's wrong with it. Also, if I was selling a t-shirt for $1,000, you'd probably say that was way overpriced. But if I told you it was signed by, like Elvis, then you might think it was reasonable, depending on your stance on Elvis. See how that same a thousand dollars is relative. Since price is relative, your job is to make sure your offer is worth more than the price you're asking. In a book that I'm actually reading right now, called 10x, is greater than 2x, which I highly recommend, by the way.

Janice Hostager:

The author asks what would you need to do to make what you're selling worth 10 times what they're paying? All right, so if you're selling a product for $200, what can you do to make that product worth $2,000 in your customers' eyes? Along the way to answering that question, you'll also need to answer these questions: what makes your product or service better than the competition? I'm not familiar with your brand, so how do I know you'll deliver as promised? What if it doesn't work for me? I'm not sure your product or service is right for my specific needs. How will I know?

Janice Hostager:

Clearly, objections can act as significant barriers to closing sales because they represent the concerns, the doubts or uncertainties that potential customers have about making a purchase. If you don't address them, unresolved objections can lead to a loss of interest in the product or service altogether. Thinking that you don't really have the answers for them. People who are initially interested may drop out of the sales funnel altogether. Number two objections can also shift the customer's focus away from the benefits of the product or service to the perceived risks or drawbacks again getting in the way of closing the sale. To overcome these barriers, it's important to proactively address objections throughout the entire trail to the sale, that is, from the awareness stage through the consider, compare, evaluate, sell, supersize, serve and send phases. By understanding and emphasizing what the customer is concerned about, providing transparent information and offering solutions, you can build trust, alleviate doubts and increase the likelihood of making the sale.

Janice Hostager:

But not everything is an objection. So here's what objections are. Objections are genuine concerns or reservations that potential customers have about your product or service. These concerns may relate to pricing, value, compatibility, trust or other factors that will influence their decision. There are also opportunities for you to clarify. They provide ways to talk with your customer and provide additional information or offer assurance that they can alleviate their concerns. They're also a natural part of the sales process.

Janice Hostager:

It's common for objections to arise during the sales process as customers weigh the pros and cons of what you're selling. So they're nothing to panic about, but they do need to be addressed and you need to prepare for them. So here's what objections are not. Objections are not outright rejections or refusals of the product or service what they are hesitations or uncertainties that can often be addressed and resolved through your messaging. They're also not personal criticism and they shouldn't be taken personally. They're just a reflection of what's going on in the customer's brain. They're also not the end of the conversation. Instead, it's an opportunity to talk further with the customer, understand their concerns and guide them toward a solution that will meet their needs.

Janice Hostager:

While objections can pose challenges for sure, they're not inherently negative. Addressing objections effectively can strengthen your relationship with the customer, build trust with them and ultimately lead to more successful sales. So how do you anticipate what the objections will be? Some objections are probably standard. Pricing comes up a lot, but remember our example of how pricing is relative. Keep in mind that if most of the time, if people really want something, they're gonna find the money to get it. Remember what I said about 10Xing the value of your offer. But to anticipate what the objections will be, here are a few tips.

Janice Hostager:

Number one ask your customers or your potential customers when you're setting up your offer. We all think people would love to buy it, but ask your existing customers what they think what would stop them from buying. Or, if your promotion already happened. Follow up with a simple one-question email survey to ask why they didn't buy. I've done this and I've had some great feedback; things I never would have thought or would have known had I not asked. Once I learned what those sticking points were, I was able to address them in my future messaging and in my offer. Entrepreneur Ryan Levesque wrote an excellent book called Ask. If you want to take a deeper dive into this process and I'll put the link in the show notes.

Janice Hostager:

Number two if you have a sales team, then get their feedback. Sales reps are on the front lines and they talk to customers day in and day out, and they can provide really good insights into the specific concerns potential customers raise. Number three study your competitors. If you study your competitors, you can identify objections they address in their marketing materials. You can look at customer reviews on Google and Yelp, social media, sales pitches. These are all goldmine. When I was growing up as the youngest of four children, one thing I learned is that I could learn from the mistakes of my older siblings and avoid getting into trouble. This is true of our competitors too. They have already done the groundwork for us, so it's okay to take a look at what they're pointing out and making sure that you're addressing that as well.

Janice Hostager:

Number four, website analytics and search queries. Review search queries and keywords used by visitors to identify specific concerns or topics that they're researching related to your product or service. The website Answer The Public looks at questions people are asking about topics in search engines and that can really be enlightening when you're addressing concerns on your website or in your blog posts. And number five, feedback from your existing marketing campaigns. As I said earlier, you could ask them after a campaign or you can evaluate the performance of your marketing campaigns including email ads, promotions and see what questions they ask, especially during the product promotion or launch, if you've got a chatbot on your website or if you're fielding sales calls. Those are great ways to get insight as to the questions that people have.

Janice Hostager:

So it's fine and great if you're looking for objections, but sometimes they're disguised as fears. There's a difference between fears and business-related objections and here's how to address them both. So fears are a universal concern that are common among most people, regardless of the industry or the situations. For example, fear of wasting money, fear of missing out, fear of making the wrong decision and so on. To address them, you want to approach them with empathy and understanding and show that you really get these emotional challenges that they're facing, and you want to provide reassurances, and you can do that through testimonials, case studies or guarantees that show how others have overcome similar fears. You can also offer educational content that helps alleviate fears by providing clarity and understanding. For example, guides, faqs, how-to articles and so on that can kind of really demystify complex processes and reduce the anxiety for your buyers.

Janice Hostager:

Now, business-specific fears are a different animal. These fears are specific to your product or service that you're offering. They could include concerns about return on investment, maybe the technical complexity of it, maybe integration issues if you have something that's software or SAAS. So you want to address these by providing detailed information about your product or your features and you want to talk about the benefits. You want to address the concerns directly and transparently. You can use case studies and use cases, or you can include an FAQ section on your sales page or your website. You want to highlight how your offering has successfully addressed similar challenges with other people. You can also use free trials, demonstrations or maybe a webinar to allow potential customers to experience your product firsthand and see how you address those specific concerns. And here's a pro tip, if you share FAQs in an email, pay attention to their clicks on those emails and segment them based on the concerns that they want answered.

Janice Hostager:

For example, you can create an email that says click to learn more about how you'll triple your ROI and if they click on that, you can guess that there's probably a safe chance that they're concerned about the money or the investment. This allows you to put that person into a segment that is interested and needs to learn more about their investment. So you can tailor your messaging and your solutions to address those questions in upcoming emails. Or maybe you're offering a training program about creating video and they click on a link that says what to do if you're not techie. Again, with this basic information, you can address their upcoming concerns just based on their click behavior.

Janice Hostager:

But sometimes fears and objections can look similar. For example, a fear may be what if this product doesn't work for me? But the objection or the thing they say is I'm not sure that this is worth the money. In this case, the fear is rooted in uncertainty about the product's effectiveness, while the objection shows up as hesitation to buy, like I just talked about. Overcoming this requires reassurance through testimonials, guarantees, case studies or a risk-free trial to build trust and confidence in your offer. So you'll need to reframe fears and objections to better address them sometimes. If you're selling your offer through a webpage, webinar, a sales call or an email.

Janice Hostager:

Here are some steps to take. First of all, identify the fear. Pinpoint what specific fear your ideal customer might have. For example, it could be a fear of wasting money on a social media program when they are not sure social media will even work for them. Number two translate that into an objection. So convert this fear into a more tangible objection. So it might be something like I'm concerned about investing in a social media course that won't deliver measurable results.

Janice Hostager:

Number three provide the solutions. Once you have the objection framed, offer solutions or reassurances for them. For example, you could highlight case studies or testimonials that demonstrate that your program's success in delivering a return on their investment. Number four empathize and educate. Acknowledge the fear or the objection empathetically. Let them know that you totally understand their concern and then educate them on how your approach mitigates those risks. And number five a call to action. Finally, guide them toward the call to action that addresses their objection directly. This could be scheduling a consultation, downloading a case study or signing up for a free trial. By reframing the fears into objections, you make them so much easier to address head-on, with specific solutions and information that builds confidence in your product and service.

Janice Hostager:

Okay so when, where and how to address objections. As I mentioned earlier, you should address objections throughout your entire trail to the sale, so from the moment they become aware of your product or service, all the way through the sales process. But you'll get the most feedback before people click to purchase. So I recommend using all or some of the following techniques to address some of these. Number one is FAQ style content. This can be on your website, your sales page, in an email, in a webinar, anywhere that you can address questions that people commonly have. Number two, a chatbot. If you have a chatbot on your site, program it to address common questions and offer live chat if you can, or get back to them with answers that your chatbot doesn't address ASAP, then you want to keep a record of those questions so that you can make sure to address them in your future marketing.

Janice Hostager:

Number three, share stories of how your product or service has solved a specific problem for your customers through a testimonial or case study. When you're asking for testimonials from your prior customers, ask them if anything helped them back or if they hesitated to buy from you, and why they did. Hearing how their real-life experience overcame their hesitation is golden. And number four, create a comparison chart or some kind of content that positions your product against the competitors. Address common objections by showing why your solution is superior or better suited to certain needs. This can be really powerful, especially if you're comparing your product or service to a big brand. Number five, address price concerns directly. If pricing is a common objection, consider creating content that explains the value of your offer. Break down your pricing structure and justify the cost with the benefits that they're going to be receiving. Go above and beyond to show how your product or service can bypass what they think it's worth. And number six, you can host a live Q&A session on social media or do a webinar where you invite potential customers to ask questions.

Janice Hostager:

And, last but not least, you can also use stories to overcome objections. I recently heard someone say that when we tell a story, it's not really about us. As we're telling it, the listener is inserting themselves into the story. Storytelling is a powerful tool that can effectively overcome objections on an emotional level and show the solutions through the narrative. Here's how you can use storytelling to address objections. First of all, share stories that resonate with your audience experiences or challenges. That helps create an immediate connection between you and them and shows that you understand their concerns. When potential customers feel emotionally invested in a story, they're more likely to be persuaded by its message and the solution it presents. And finally, stories are more memorable than facts or figures alone. By framing your value proposition within a story, you increase the chance that the potential customers will remember and recall your solution when making their decision. As the old saying goes, facts tell, but stories sell. Integrating techniques like these into your content strategy can help build trust, reduce hesitation and ultimately drive conversions by preemptively addressing these objections.

Janice Hostager:

So I thought it'd be helpful to share some examples of effective objection handling content. My first example is from Patagonia, the sportswear company. They have something called the Worn Wear campaign, they wanted to address objections related to the environmental impact and how durable their products were. They know their customers are very focused on caring for the planet, so they launched the Worn Wear campaign, promoting the longevity and sustainability of their products by encouraging customers to repair and reuse their clothing rather than buying new products. As a result, this campaign not only aligned with Patagonia's brand values, but they also addressed objections about product durability and environmental responsibility, and that was a win-win with their environmentally conscious audience.

Janice Hostager:

Number two, Casper, which is an online mattress company, started their 100-night trial guarantee. So they wanted to address concerns about the quality and the comfort of their mattresses and when you buy it online, you just don't know right. So they offered a risk-free 100-night trial period for their mattress, allowing customers to try it out and return them for a full refund if they weren't happy. This approach reassured their potential customers who might hesitate to buy a mattress without trying it out first. It effectively addressed the objections related to comfort, quality and the online buying process. And number three Zendesk, which is a customer service software, created an ROI calculator tool on their site. Their goal was to address the cost concerns and the potential ROI for their software. So they developed an interactive ROI calculator tool that allows potential customers to input their specific data, like the number of support tickets they have, the agent salaries and so on, to estimate the potential savings and ROI from using Zendesk. By doing this, they demonstrated the value early on in the buyer's journey.

Janice Hostager:

Okay, next we want to talk about measuring success. You always want to measure the metrics to make sure that what you're doing is working. So tracking the effectiveness of objection handling content is really key to understanding how well your strategies are working and make the necessary adjustments. Here are some metrics that you can track. First of all, engagement metrics. You can measure the time on the page, how long visitors spend on objection handling content, and you can find out that information on Google Analytics. You can also track how far down the page a visitor scroll if you have a sales page set up setup Deeper scrolls on the page suggest that they are probably more interested in the content, and again, you can use Google Analytics to find that information.

Janice Hostager:

Number two conversion metrics. You can calculate the percentage of visitors who take actions after engaging with objection handling content, such as signing up for a free trial or reading one of your emails that counter the objections. You can also look at your sales page's bounce rate and monitor the percentage of visitors who leave the page without interacting further. A high bounce rate can indicate that the content is not really effectively addressing all those objections. Also, monitor comments and reviews and see what they have to say. Do they present objections still or do they give you feedback that some of their objections have been countered? And, last but not least, monitor your sales metrics. Track how many leads generated from objection handling content ultimately converted into pan customers. By tracking metrics like this over time, you can evaluate how effective your objection handling strategy is and you can identify areas for improvement and, of course, optimize your content to better meet the needs and concerns of your audience in the future.

Janice Hostager:

So, wrapping up, I want you to think about objections in every bit of copy you write in every sales page and make sure that you include it for every promotion, in emails and other places on your website when you're selling your offer. So that doesn't mean that it's just at the point in which they're ready to lay down their credit card. It also means in the awareness stage, when they're just getting familiar with you, the consideration stage, when they're willing to learn more about you. The comparison stage, when they're comparing you to others. The evaluation stage, when they're just ready to try you out. The sell stage, when they are ready to buy. And even after the sale, to give them reassurance that they made a good decision by buying from you, so they tell others too.

Janice Hostager:

Okay, so that's a wrap. If you have any questions about this episode or anything related to it, dm me on Instagram at Janice Hostager Marketing. I'd love to hear from you and remember to subscribe for more good marketing information. You can also find links to anything we talked about today in our show notes at myweeklymarketingcom. Forward slash 101. Thank you for joining me today. Until next time, keep on marketing. Bye for now.

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