Objections Met or Missed

I’ve worked in sales for many years and although it is ‘high end’ sales, it still is guided by the basic principles of salesmanship.  You move along through the sales process, then you have to identify and deal with objections.  It’s good to be proactive but every now and then you are blindsided.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the ‘objections’ to every day living.  We can face objections from family members, friends, people we barely know, and from ourselves.  If you also happen to be in a ‘sales’ field, it’s almost insulting to have to deal with objections from family and friends.  I mean, I know how to answer almost every objection to people moving forward with estate planning, financial planning, or asset allocation.  But why should I have to face objections to daily living issues?

Example:  You plan during the week to meet friends for dinner on Friday evening.  Friday finally comes and there is suddenly an objection to your plans for occupying the children while you are out for a much needed respite and a lovely dinner.  The baby sitter isn’t the one your spouse would have chosen.  Or maybe it was simply that the place chosen for dinner wasn’t the one your friend would have selected.  Or, you all decided on a great place and the table you got wasn’t a good one for seeing the dinner entertainment. 

How we accept and then deal with the objections is a measure of our character and our patience.  It may also be a measure of how stressful our week was or our day or even our drive home from work.  I have times of extreme patience and flexibility and times of pretty irrational crabbiness, as I suppose most people do.  At least, it makes me feel good to think I am in the same boat with most people on these issues.

Would the best recommendation to objections be to take a deep breath and count to 20?  (I find a count to 5 is not quite enough.)  After that short spell of reflection and relaxation, it is good to analyze the objection.  Maybe ask a few questions to further define the objection, then formulate your answer(s).  There may be times the objection can not be met and you need to be honest about that too.  Example:  I wanted x as the babysitter and you didn’t call her/him.  He/she is available.  I guess the best you could do with this would be to apologize for messing up and acknowledge that you already have another person coming and that they should be alright just this one time.  As long as you are appropriately apologetic, you have met the objection, even though you haven’t corrected the situation.  The thing you may learn here is that you can’t always resolve the objection.  Sometimes you just have to acknowledge it and move on.  Apologies, when honest and heartfelt, do a world of good.

Thank goodness there are still some objections in our personal lives that we can conquer.  Example:  I wanted roses planted in the front yard like we discussed, not mums.  This is something you can respond to.  The front soil didn’t test out for the roses and it would take several years to correct the soil before the roses can go in.  For now, the mums will make a nice display.  As soon as the soil tests out better, we can move the mums and plant the roses.  How’s that for meeting an objection without causing too many hard feelings?  Or a dinner issue:  We agreed to eat out tonight.  Objection response:  Well, I was running late and I knew if we went out after I changed, we would have to wait an extra 45 minutes.  I decided to bring home dinner so we could relax and enjoy our time together.  If this is sincere, it can work. 

A more difficult one might be:  The car is old and paying to have it repaired is throwing good money after bad.  Response:  The repairs will hold it another year and, although they are expensive, $4,500, it will help us limp through this rough time.  Next year, if our finances are better, we can trade the car in for a better price, then have the money for a new(er) car.

I see the bartering over objections all the time and it works.  Give and take.  But still someone has to take the bull by the horns and address the objections head on.