Ep. 248: Truth #13 The Best Way to Respond To Objections is with Truth

Why the Best Objection Response Starts Before You Answer

When sellers ask how to overcome sales objections, they often want language.

What should I say when the buyer says we are too expensive? What is the response when they want to handle it internally? What do I say when they prefer a competitor?

Scripts can be useful, but they cannot determine whether the response itself is true.

Tab remembers being trained early in his career to match specific objections with specific responses. Hear objection A, deliver response A. The problem was that the response did not necessarily reflect what was happening with that particular customer. It reflected what the seller had been told to say.

That distinction matters.

A seller who knows the company line can defend a solution. A seller who knows the truth can advise the customer.

“You’re not just giving a response. You’re sharing the truth. Whether they like it or don’t like it, it is still the truth.”
Tab Norris

Consider a customer who says, “We can build the training ourselves.”

The reflexive response is to defend outsourced training: explain why internal programs fail, describe your expertise, or prove that your methodology is better.

But what if the customer actually can build it themselves?

The useful question is not, “How do I overcome this objection?”

It is, “Under what conditions is the customer right?”

Maybe they have the expertise, infrastructure, and resources to build exactly what they need. If so, the truth may be that they should do it internally. In another organization, the internal team may be capable of building product training but lack the experience to develop a sophisticated behavior-change initiative.

The seller's job is to understand that difference.

That requires knowing the customer's needs, but it also requires understanding every legitimate path available to solve them. The seller needs enough expertise to explain when each option makes sense, including options that do not generate a commission.

That is what separates representing a product from becoming a Trusted Partner.

Validate the Customer Before You Try to Change Their Mind

Knowing the truth does not mean the buyer is ready to hear it.

This is where otherwise capable sellers can get themselves into trouble.

An objection means the buyer currently believes something that conflicts with the seller’s recommendation. If the seller immediately tries to change that belief, the buyer can hear a very different message:

You’re wrong. I’m right. Let me prove it.

At that point, the conversation is no longer about evaluating information. It can quickly become about defending positions.

There is good outside research behind this dynamic. Psychological reactance research has consistently found that when people perceive their freedom or autonomy is being threatened, they can become motivated to resist the attempt at influence. A major review of reactance research describes this response as resistance that emerges when people sense that their freedom is being limited or eliminated.

That is why ASLAN teaches sellers to create receptivity before delivering the message.

The first move is validation.

Validation does not mean telling the customer they are correct. It means demonstrating that you genuinely understand how they reached their point of view.

If a customer says your products do not match what their buyers want, the response might begin:

“If that’s what your customers are consistently asking for and we don’t offer it, I understand why you wouldn’t want to use us.”

That statement lowers the temperature because the seller is no longer fighting the customer's reality. For a seller, that creates the opening the objection response actually needs.

The buyer feels understood first. Then the seller can explore whether the buyer's conclusion still holds.

Isolate the Real Sales Objection Before Solving It

One of the easiest mistakes in objection handling is responding to what you think the customer means.

A buyer says, “Your price is too high.”

The seller starts defending value.

But “too high” could mean several completely different things:

The buyer may not believe the solution is worth the investment. They may believe it is worth the investment but lack the approved budget. Their budget may be controlled by someone else. They may simply be comparing your number with a lower-cost alternative and trying to understand the difference.

Those are not variations of the same objection. They are different problems requiring different responses.

Tab shares an example in the episode where a proposed project came in roughly $15,000 above the customer's budget. His first assumption could easily have been that the buyer did not see enough value to justify the additional investment.

Instead, he kept digging.

The customer confirmed that he believed in the value completely. The issue was that he needed to justify the additional budget to someone else inside the organization.

That changed the next move entirely.

Instead of discounting or defending the price, Tab asked whether it would help to meet with that stakeholder. Once they did, the conversation expanded and the eventual project actually grew rather than shrinking.

The lesson is not that every price objection hides a larger opportunity.

It is that you cannot respond effectively until you know which problem you are actually solving.

Do Not Let Experience Turn Into Assumption

Experience is supposed to make sellers better at recognizing patterns.

It can also make them dangerously fast at filling in missing information.

You have heard the objection before. You recognize the wording. You know how the last five customers meant it. Your brain completes the rest of the story before this customer has finished telling it.

That is where expertise can quietly become assumption.

The cure is curiosity.

When a customer says, “Your designs do not work for my customers,” isolate it:

“Are you saying none of your customers are interested in what we offer, or is this primarily an issue with the project you are working on right now?”

Those two realities would lead to completely different recommendations.

The same discipline applies when a long-term customer suddenly raises a service problem, requests a small credit, or says they are considering another vendor. Before assigning motive, determine what actually happened.

The seller should be looking for the narrowest accurate version of the objection.

Only then can they respond to the truth rather than their interpretation of it.

What If You Do Not Know the Answer to an Objection?

Say so.

This is one of the more counterintuitive lessons in the episode because sellers often believe credibility depends on having an immediate answer.

It does not.

Manufacturing an answer you have not earned is far more dangerous.

A customer may raise an industry trend you have not investigated, describe a use case you have never encountered, or make a claim about your solution that you cannot verify in the moment. Instead of reaching for a polished response, a stronger answer may be:

“That’s a good question. I don’t know enough yet to give you a useful answer. Let me look into that and come back with what I find.”

Then do the work.

Talk to internal experts. Look at the customer's market. Study the competitive alternatives. Understand whether the customer's concern is valid. Return with a point of view grounded in what you learned.

“If you don’t know the answer, don’t answer.”
Tom Stanfill

The willingness to investigate instead of immediately defend the product can actually help reposition the seller.

Reps represent products.

Trusted Partners help customers make sense of decisions.

When an Objection Comes Too Early, Do Not Take the Bait

Sometimes the objection appears before the seller has enough information to answer it responsibly.

“How are you going to justify that price?”

“Why should we choose you instead of your competitor?”

“Isn’t your solution much more expensive?”

The seller may feel obligated to answer immediately.

But if discovery has barely started, the truthful answer may be: I don't know yet.

You do not know whether the solution is too expensive because you do not yet understand what the customer needs. You do not know whether the competitor is a better option because you have not established what matters most in the decision.

Rather than entering reactive-response mode, acknowledge the concern and hold it:

“That absolutely may be an issue. Before I answer it, can I understand a little more about what you're trying to accomplish and how you're evaluating the options? Then we can determine together whether the additional investment makes sense.”

That is not dodging the objection.

It is refusing to provide an answer before you have earned one.

A Better Framework for Handling Sales Objections: Validate, Isolate, Communicate the Truth

The episode ultimately reduces effective objection handling to three moves.

1. Validate

Demonstrate that you understand the customer's point of view before you challenge it.

The goal is for the customer to think, Exactly. You understand why I see it this way.

That creates receptivity.

2. Isolate

Determine exactly what the objection means.

Is it really price? Is the buyer worried about value, affordability, budget authority, timing, or something else entirely?

Do not solve five possible objections when the customer only has one.

3. Communicate the Truth

Once you understand the concern and the customer is receptive, share what you genuinely believe is in their best interest.

That may mean defending your recommendation.

It may mean changing the scope.

It may mean recommending a smaller first step.

And occasionally, it may mean telling the customer they should not buy from you.

That freedom is what makes the recommendation credible.

The Goal of Objection Handling Is Not to Win the Argument

A seller can win every point and still lose the customer. The real win is different. The adversarial conversation becomes collaborative. The customer stops defending a position and starts asking:

“What do you think I should do?”

That is the moment the seller has earned influence. Sometimes that influence leads to a larger opportunity. Sometimes it reveals a smaller starting point. Sometimes it proves the customer should choose another solution. All three outcomes are better than forcing a rehearsed response onto an objection you never fully understood.

The best sellers are not trying to become unbeatable debaters. They are trying to become reliable sources of truth. When the customer believes that is what you are there to provide, the objection stops being something to overcome.

It becomes something the two of you can solve together.