Objection Handling: How to Answer Pushback Without a Fight

By Amanuel Bekele ·

By Amanuel Bekele · Under Pressure

How do you handle an objection? Let the person finish, then ask one question to find the real objection behind the stated one. Grant the part that is true, answer it with something specific, and check whether that settled it. An objection you raise and answer persuades more than one you ignore; one you raise and leave standing persuades less.

An objection is the most useful thing a listener can give you. It tells you exactly where your argument stopped working for them, which you would otherwise have to guess. Most people waste it by answering too fast: they hear the first few words, recognise a familiar complaint, and start the rebuttal they have given a hundred times. The other person stops listening at that moment, because nothing in the answer shows that their version of the objection was heard.

This holds whether the "no" comes from a customer, a manager, a committee or a colleague across the table. The moves are the same.

Let them finish

Hold your answer until the objection is complete. People often say the polite version of their concern first and the real one second: "It's a lot of money... and honestly, I'm not sure we'd use it." The second half is the one you need.

Listening well is more than politeness here. In studies by Guy Itzchakov and colleagues, people who were listened to attentively reported less social anxiety, noticed more of the contradictions in their own views, and held those views less extremely.1 Someone who feels heard is less defensive about the position they have just taken, which is the state you want them in before you answer.

What does not do the job is a scripted signal of listening. In experiments on active listening, a stock paraphrase made the listener seem more socially attractive but did not make people feel more understood.2 Show that you heard the objection by answering the specific thing that was said, in the words it was said in.

Find the objection behind the objection

The stated objection and the real one are often different. "It's too expensive" can mean that the budget is genuinely gone, that the value has not been made clear, that somebody else has to approve it, or that the person is not convinced it will work at all. Each of those needs a different answer, and the right answer to the wrong objection still loses.

So before you answer, ask one question:

  • "Too expensive compared with what?"
  • "When you say the timing is wrong, what would make it right?"
  • "Is that your concern, or the one you'd expect from your team?"

A question here is not a stalling tactic. In experiments by Karen Huang and colleagues, people who asked more questions in a conversation were liked more by the person they were talking to, and follow-up questions, the kind that build on what the other person has just said, did most of the work.3 A question about their objection is the most direct follow-up there is.

Grant what is true, then answer it

Most objections contain something true. The price is higher than the alternative. The project did slip last time. The new process will cost a week of learning. Pretending otherwise spends credibility you will need for the rest of your answer.

The persuasion research is unusually clear about what to do next. Mike Allen's 1991 meta-analysis compared one-sided messages with two-sided ones, which also mention the case against.4 Two-sided messages that raised the opposing argument and then answered it were more persuasive than one-sided ones. Two-sided messages that raised it and left it standing were less persuasive than one-sided ones. Daniel O'Keefe's larger review in 1999 found the same split.5

That gives an answer a simple shape:

  1. Grant the true part, in one sentence. "Yes, it costs more than doing it in spreadsheets."
  2. Answer it with the reason it does not decide the question. "The spreadsheets cost your team about a day a week in reconciliation, which is more than the difference."
  3. Check. "Does that change how it looks, or is there something else behind it?"

A concession with no answer sounds like retreat. An answer with no concession sounds defensive. The two together sound like someone who has already thought about the objection, which is the most reassuring thing a listener can hear.

Answer with something specific

General reassurance moves nobody: "it's worth it", "trust me", "our customers love it". An objection is answered by one of a small set of specific things:

  • A number the listener can check: the cost of the current problem, the time saved, the risk removed.
  • An example of someone in their position, and what happened, in two sentences.
  • A smaller step: a pilot, a trial period, a reversible first stage that lowers the cost of being wrong.
  • A change of scope: dropping the part they object to, if it is not essential.

Pick one. Three reasons in a row read as pressure, and the listener remembers the weakest.

The four objections you will meet most

"It costs too much." Find out whether that means "more than I have" or "more than it's worth". The first needs a different structure: a phased start, a smaller version. The second needs the value made concrete, in their numbers rather than yours.

"Not now." Ask what would make it the right time. Sometimes there is a real constraint and the answer is a date in the diary. Sometimes "not now" means "not convinced", and you are back to finding the real objection.

"We tried something like this and it failed." Take it seriously: it is the best evidence they have. Ask what went wrong, then show specifically what is different this time. If nothing is different, they are right, and you should say so.

"We already do this." The status quo is the strongest competitor in any room, because keeping it requires no decision. Name what it costs to keep it, and compare against what they actually do now, not a weaker version of it.

What not to do

  • Do not answer the tone. If the objection arrives with an edge, answer its content and leave the edge alone. The hostile question is usually a gift has the full set of moves for that.
  • Do not discount at once. Cutting the price in reply to "it's expensive" tells the listener the first number was never serious, and invites the next objection.
  • Do not answer an objection nobody raised. Pre-empting a weak objection plants it.
  • Do not win the argument and lose the person. If they are still not convinced after a good answer, ask what would convince them, and accept that sometimes the honest answer is that this is not for them.

Practise the answers out loud

Write down the five objections you hear most, in the words people actually use. For each, write the true part you would grant, the one specific answer, and the checking question. Then say them out loud, because an answer that reads well on paper often runs three sentences too long when spoken. How to practise a presentation alone covers rehearsing on your own, and every good talk is secretly an argument explains why raising the other side inside your own talk works the same way.

References

  1. Itzchakov, G., Kluger, A. N., & Castro, D. R. (2017). I Am Aware of My Inconsistencies but Can Tolerate Them: The Effect of High Quality Listening on Speakers’ Attitude Ambivalence. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43(1), 105–120. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167216675339
  2. Weger, H., Castle, G. R., & Emmett, M. C. (2010). Active Listening in Peer Interviews: The Influence of Message Paraphrasing on Perceptions of Listening Skill. International Journal of Listening, 24(1), 34–49. https://doi.org/10.1080/10904010903466311
  3. Huang, K., Yeomans, M., Brooks, A. W., Minson, J., & Gino, F. (2017). It doesn’t hurt to ask: question-asking increases liking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 113(3), 430–452. https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000097
  4. Allen, M. (1991). Meta‐analysis comparing the persuasiveness of one‐sided and two‐sided messages. Western Journal of Speech Communication, 55(4), 390–404. https://doi.org/10.1080/10570319109374395
  5. O’Keefe, D. J. (1999). How to Handle Opposing Arguments in Persuasive Messages: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Effects of One-Sided and Two-Sided Messages. Annals of the International Communication Association, 22(1), 209–249. https://doi.org/10.1080/23808985.1999.11678963