Rule #25 Objection Handling— Hurdles, Not Obstacles

I want you to do yourself a favor: Fire up YouTube and watch an Olympic hurdler run a race. I want that image to reset your perception of what objection handling should be. I ran hurdles in high school, both the 110meter high hurdles and 300-meter low hurdles. They are very different races. The shorter race is all about timing and skill; the longer race is less so). In the 300-meter race, someone who was gifted in running a long distance fast could easily navigate the lower hurdles at the longer intervals (the hurdles are set quite far apart) and beat just about everybody. 

But the high hurdles were different. It took more than just being fast; the high hurdles required timing and a specific number of steps in between each hurdle, which took considerable practice to master and had a considerable risk of injury if done incorrectly at full speed. 

I have always been fascinated by good high hurdlers. There is an element of danger that most other track events lack. I ran when some tracks were still composed of cinder chips, which would get imbedded in your legs when you fell. And I saw several hurdlers get injured hitting hurdles or failing to get completely over them. Beginners would often lose their nerve and pull up short or suffer a devastating crash. I broke many hurdles myself. 

Every beginner learns that high hurdles demand conviction to get over. There is a point of no return where you either go over or get hurt. There is also an element of synchronicity, timing, and agility that is missing from other sprint events. And when there is a flight of six to eight hurdlers in a race, the vision of their incredible feat being performed in unison is always a breathtaking spectacle.

98 | J ASON E LMOR

Too many of us have thought about objections from customers as an obstacle course to go around or a gauntlet to get through. Twists and turns and the unexpected are all just around the next corner, and danger is lurking everywhere, waiting to thwart our efforts. Why do we think this way? Are you surprised by the objections your customers are raising? You should not be. Your sales organization and sales leadership team should be compiling a list of objections that is current at all times. And someone should have the best answers in the most concise, precise, and effective language attached to each of those objections. If that is the case, and all the objections are known, and you are an expert on your product or service value proposition, then objection handling should be as straightforward as the lines on the track, the starter holding the gun, and the hurdles lined up neatly at precise intervals with enough space to gain speed out of the blocks, anticipate the leap, cleanly vault every hurdle, and then sprint to the finish line. 

Do you know the approximate order of objections? Which one typically comes up first? After you make several key points, what objections come up next? Can you predict what your customer’s response will be to various assertions you make? You should be able to! And in doing so, your efforts should become as well framed as the hurdles on the track.

Think about the hurdlers you watched on the video. Notice that great hurdlers don’t glide over the hurdle or become suspended in the air for a considerable period of time. No, the idea is to lift your hips and step over the hurdle, then get back on the ground as fast as possible. 

When it comes to hurdles, flying is not fast. Speed is lost in the air. Powering through means your feet have to be on the ground, running. Second, your head should not move up and down. A video taken from the side should reveal a pretty steady head that is looking down the track, not bobbing up and down as though it were going up peaks and down into valleys. 

Again, as much as possible, the hurdler needs to be sprinting on the ground and jumping the least amount possible in order to win. Please understand that the hurdles also need to be minimized as obstacles as much as possible. 

Now substitute the word “hurdle” for the word “objection” in your mind as the correct analogy for handling objections from your customers. Work

E LITE E XECUTION | 9

to make all of the customer’s objections predictable, then minimize them in order to stay on track in the call and get to the close (and win the prize). Obstacle courses are a great analogy if you intend to let your customers surprise you with objections, which you might be attempting to go around, in which case you are going to greatly alter course in the conversation with customers and possibly never find the finish line. At the very least, evasive action is going to take you off course on a tangent that will cost you time in the sales process. You don’t have that time to lose.

Pre-handle objections as much as possible with a great presentation that is provocative, enthusiastic, and compelling. Your presentation should be moving fast and answering the questions in your customer’s mind in logical sequence based on your experience with other customers. If they ask you a question that your next slide, next page, or next thirty seconds of video was going to answer, you are not going fast enough. Your presentation is not concise enough. Your presentation is out of order, or you need to close! The customer may be indicating that they are a couple of steps ahead of you in their thought process and very ready to buy.

Now let me turn the tables on you and flip this around in your mind. You are not the hurdler in the race; your customer is. You don’t have any objections to your product or service; your customer does. You don’t have to get over the idea that this is objectionable; your customer does. 

When you are new and just starting out, you are the one getting over the objections. But then you become a professional and an expert on your device or solution. You become the coach helping your customer overcome the objection. Rightly understood, your job is to help your customer think right thoughts about the value proposition and how they (and their

customers) stand to benefit from your service. You are not the hurdler; you are the coach. You didn’t set up the hurdles, and neither did your customer. But you do have to teach them to get over them. To that end, you need to know that hurdle coaches start to teach hurdling with short hurdles. They start with just one. Then they add another and another until there are ten. Finally, they gradually raise the hurdles to full height. 

Find ways to do that for your customers. How can you make this decision process easier for them? Can you have them start with easy examples and applications? Can you help them select “beginner” applications? Can you articulate your process, which has enabled so many others to grow and expand and excel? Is there a learning curve to your application? Do you need to set expectations? How many hurdles are there in this race? How far is the finish line? Is it true that execution will look very different in twelve months? Better? More efficient? More productive? If so, paint that picture. Coach your customers by rightly understanding that the objection is in their head, not yours. The hurdle is for them to get over. 

You are the expert. None of these objections or hurdles is a surprise to you. You are going to help them. 

Elite execution demands that you think properly about objections and make them as predictable as possible. 

Finally, a word on notes. You probably took lots of notes when you were new to sales. But as you increased your skills, you fell into the trap of thinking you didn’t need to take notes. Sharpen your sword—take notes. At the very least, write down the objections you uncover, then return to them later in the discussion to ensure you have addressed the customer’s concerns. Then cross the item off the list, but keep the item for later analysis and be sure to add it to your list of common objections (you are keeping a list of common objections, right?).

My experience has been that when I take notes, my customers are intrigued. They are curious to know what I am writing or what they have said that prompted me to jot something down. “What are you writing? Why is what I just said so important that you are writing it down?” People love to know you are listening, and nothing says that better than taking notes. Ask any teacher. Besides, inquiries about my note-taking always gives me an opportunity to highlight something a customer said as either insightful, contradictory, or oxymoronic in light of my argument. Join the ranks of the elite salespeople by practicing the discipline of notetaking.