Objection Handling В2В. How to defend the terms and save the relationship

What Objection Handling Is Not

Before learning to handle objections, you need to stop calling things objection handling that aren’t. Let’s play a game. I’m the client, you’re the salesperson.

I want to buy a thousand square meters of insulation from you. You’ve held the negotiation with me, clarified the task, and figured out: I need fifty-millimeter board. You calculated: two hundred six packs, a total of five hundred fifty-six thousand rubles. You announced the number. I look at you and say:

— Listen, that’s expensive somehow. Five hundred fifty-six thousand — that’s expensive. I don’t want to buy that.

You think for a second and answer:

— Look, in principle… in principle, forty-millimeter would work for your purposes too. I’ve run the options — even thirty would pass. A thousand square meters in thirty-mil is four hundred fifty-three thousand.

I say:

— Oh, now that’s a different conversation. Fine, I’ll take the thirty for four hundred fifty-three.

Done, I bought it. We shook hands. And now three questions.

Question one: did you close the deal? Yes, you did. The sale happened, the money came in, the shipment went out.

Question two: did you win the negotiation or lose it? You lost.

Question three: how much did your loss cost? One hundred three thousand rubles. That’s exactly how much you just pulled out of your own turnover and laid on the table, because I said one word — “expensive.”

Let’s break down what actually happened. You did not handle an objection. You failed the first deal — the five-hundred-fifty-six-thousand one — opened a new, cheaper one in its place, and closed that one. This is called “changing the commercial offer.” A useful skill? Sometimes, yes. Objection handling? No. The objection “expensive” was left untouched: you didn’t even find out what the client meant. Maybe he has a budget. Maybe a competitor offered less. Maybe he just haggles out of habit. You didn’t find out — you paid right away.

The second way to lose looks even more respectable. The client says “expensive,” and you answer:

— One second, let me call my manager… Hello, boss, I’ve got some great guys here, they want to take a thousand square meters, a promising client, they might take more. Can we give them a discount? Come on, it’s only eighty thousand… We can? Excellent!

And you turn to the client with the radiant face of a man who has just secured a gift for him. In fact — you’ve again paid for the deal out of your own pocket. Note the wording: you weren’t paid for the deal — you paid for it. A discount without a counter-obligation is not a sales tool. It’s the price of your inability to continue the conversation.

And what would objection handling have looked like in this game? Roughly like this: “Hold on. What’s wrong with that amount? Why is it expensive for you? What are you comparing it with? What budget do you need to fit into — and where did it come from?” In other words, a fight for the original deal. For those same five hundred fifty-six thousand, for the fifty-millimeter thickness, for the full price. The deal may change in the end — but after the investigation, not instead of it.

Remember: if after an objection you offered something cheaper, you did not handle the objection. You closed a different, worse deal and paid for it out of your own pocket.

Check Yourself

— How does “changing the commercial offer” differ from “handling the objection” — in actions and in money?

— Why is a discount in response to “expensive” a payment by the salesperson, not a gift to the client?

— Recall a deal where, after an objection, you offered a cheaper option. How much did your loss cost in actual money?

Practice

Pull up your last three deals in which you moved on price or downgraded the configuration after the client’s words. Calculate the total difference between the original offer and the final one. Write down the figure. This is not a reproach — it’s the budget you will reclaim with the help of the following chapters.

Taekwondo or Aikido

Now about how you must not answer — at the level of the very style of the conversation.

I practiced taekwondo for seven years, and as an adult at that, from thirty-six to forty-two. A wonderful sport: the task is to strike faster than your opponent. Strike for strike, speed against speed. There are blocks, but the philosophy is simple: hit first, hit faster, hit more precisely.

Well: you cannot work with objections that way. The client strikes — “expensive!” — the salesperson strikes back — “but it’s quality!” The client winds up harder — “your competitors are cheaper!” — the salesperson counterattacks — “and their quality matches the price!” This is open conflict, an exchange of blows. Even if the salesperson “won” — out-argued the client, crushed him with facts — there will be no deal: people who’ve been knocked out don’t buy.

Which martial art works as the metaphor? Aikido. I’ll admit honestly: I’ve never practiced aikido and never once sparred with those guys. But word has it they know how to turn an opponent’s energy against him — and looking at Steven Seagal, I’m inclined to believe it. What matters for us is the idea itself: not a blow meeting a blow, but joint movement, a dance with your opponent, in which you use his energy and look for the point where you can gently apply your own effort.

What does that sound like in words? Let’s run an experiment. I throw an objection at you: “Guys, I get it all, but for me it’s expensive. I don’t want to buy.” Salespeople usually answer with the first phrase from this set — find the strikes among them:

— That insulation thickness isn’t enough for your structural design anyway.

— Yes, it’s expensive. But with us, it pays off.

— Expensive compared to what?

— Why do you consider it expensive?

The first phrase is pure taekwondo. Translated into plain language, it means: “You’re incompetent, you calculated it wrong.” The client may well be incompetent — but telling him that point-blank is the equivalent of a kick to the head. The second phrase is more interesting: the idea itself is right, a monetizer’s idea — “with me, it pays off.” But the delivery is a strike: you are objecting to the objection, negating his negation. The same idea has to be delivered differently, and we will learn how. Now the third and fourth phrases — that’s aikido. You don’t resist the client’s energy, you move together with it: he said “expensive” — you asked him to continue.

The difference can be stated in a few words: talking is wrong — asking is right.

Remember: you don’t answer an objection. You question an objection first. A question is the only way to find out what you are even dealing with.

The Six Faces of “Expensive”

Why can’t you answer right away, even with the right arguments? Because you don’t yet know whom you’re answering. For many years I analyzed negotiations — my own and other people’s — and came to a conclusion that saves an enormous amount of effort: behind the word “expensive” hide six absolutely different, non-overlapping reasons. Six different people say the same word — and each needs their own conversation.

Face one: the budget-holder. The person has hit a number. There’s four hundred — there’s no five hundred. And note, the budget can be real — the money physically isn’t there — or invented: “that’s how much we planned to spend.” Telling them apart is critically important, and we’re about to learn how.

Face two: the comparer. He’s running a tender — a real one or one in his head. He’s not poor and not stingy: he simply doesn’t want to feel like a fool who paid you more than he could have paid someone else. He has a specific “it’s cheaper somewhere.”

Face three: the haggler. A professional buyer. His budget is fine, he isn’t comparing you with anyone — he simply knows that haggling pays. Do you know which five words are the highest-paid in business? No consultant, no expert earns as much per phrase as a haggler does. Look: we’re negotiating a five-hundred-thousand deal. The haggler says: “How about a little ten percent discount?” A few words, two seconds. And if you answer “sure” — he has just earned fifty thousand rubles. Twenty-five thousand per second. That’s why hagglers will never stop haggling: it’s the best job in the world.

Face four: didn’t expect it. The person has encountered this product and its prices for the first time. He isn’t comparing with anyone, the budget is fine, he isn’t haggling. He simply wasn’t prepared: “How much?! On what grounds?” The most harmless character: he needs to be shown the reality of the market in the moment, and he’ll say: “Ah, got it. I thought everything was cheaper. Well, it happens.”

Face five: didn’t understand the value. He sat through the presentation and something didn’t land: “I don’t understand where that price comes from.” This is not an objection — it’s a request for a repeat presentation. The entire second book of the series was about what to do with him.

Face six: not used to spending on himself. A rare beast, almost never found in corporate sales, but worth knowing about. The money is there, he isn’t comparing with anyone — he simply isn’t in the habit of buying himself expensive things. “What for? This’ll do.” If your client is a private individual, you will meet this one.

Notice: this list contains no manipulators and no kickback-seekers. Those are separate stories, not about “expensive.” Here are six honest reasons, six ways of genuinely thinking this way.

Now the main thing. The first question at the word “expensive” is always the same, and I recommend writing it down verbatim: “Let’s clarify. I didn’t fully understand: why is this expensive for you?” The client himself will tell you who’s in front of you: “well, I know where it’s cheaper” — the comparer; “we have a budget” — the budget-holder; “I didn’t quite get what makes up the price” — didn’t understand the value. And only after that does the work begin — different for each face.

Let’s walk through the three main scenarios in person.

Scenario one: the budget-holder. The client says: “Our budget is limited.” What questions do you ask? Salespeople usually suggest: “And what does your budget consist of?” Not bad, but not for this moment. The first question is different: how much is missing?

Here’s how it works. Once I was going over a real case with a salesman: he had quoted a client a volume worth five million. The client: “Expensive!” Now, the question: expensive — how much is that? In the client’s head at that moment, expensive means the entire five million. Finding five million is hard. Are you out of your mind, five million! And in response to that horror, the salesman starts justifying the entire amount.

And now the same conversation with one question:

— I understand. And what budget would be acceptable for you?

— Four million.

Stop. So how much is “expensive,” really? One million. Not five — one. Twenty percent. And the objection has suddenly slimmed down fivefold: finding one million is incomparably easier than finding five. And if your invoices aren’t in the millions — then it’s not “five hundred thousand is expensive,” it’s “a hundred thousand needs to be found.” A completely different conversation.

Then question two: “And is increasing the budget possible — if the solution is worth it?” And a third, if the answer is “in principle, yes”: “Where could you get the missing amount?” Not point-blank, of course — but that is exactly your task: to start the money-finding process inside the client. As long as “expensive” means the whole amount, the client is defending. When “expensive” becomes a specific difference, the client starts thinking about where to get it. You have changed his job: he was a defender — he became a seeker.

Scenario two: the comparer. The client says: “I’m being offered a lower price.” The first question is not “whom are you comparing us with,” as most people answer. Who exactly is over there is a tenth-order concern. The first question: what’s the difference? How much are they offering, in money?

This question is diagnostic. If the client answers “half the price,” it means one of two things: either he’s deceiving you, or he’s being deceived — someone is selling him something from a different category disguised as an equivalent, and he’s comparing the incomparable. The second, by the way, is scarier: the man is being fed nonsense, he’ll buy junk and get problems. If the difference is small — you have a real competitor in front of you, and the real work begins.

Write down the second question: “And what do you know about that supplier’s other terms?” And the person will honestly say: “Nothing. I know the price.” There’s your playing field: delivery, lead times, storage, claims handling, training, consistency of stock. Their product is cheaper — and how about this? And this? Your task is to shift the comparison from price lists to the total cost of working together. And separately, check that the comparison of specifications is even valid: very often people compare materials of different density, thickness, configuration — and the “cheaper” crumbles before your eyes.

Scenario three: the haggler. The most interesting one. The client looks at you with kind eyes and says: “Guys, I love you, I like everything, let’s work together. Just make it a little cheaper.” No competitors, budget’s there. There is only a years-long habit: ask for a discount — earn money.

I state this with full responsibility: salespeople at large have no tools against hagglers. Hagglers always win, always corner you — simply because the salesperson is afraid of losing the deal, and the haggler is afraid of nothing. The combination I’m about to give you I assembled bit by bit over many years — from my own negotiations, sitting and thinking: well, what do you say to them when they haggle yet again?

First — the ranging shots. In boxing this is called “unsettling the opponent”: the punches aren’t on target yet, but the opponent starts getting nervous.

— What do you need a discount for?

A simple question, but the roles have already flipped: a minute ago you were the one proving things, now he is. Try asking it one day and watch the face.

— Why should I give it to you specifically? What’s so special?

— All right, and what do I get from you? What do I receive in exchange for this discount?

You’ve held them in tension — now the combination for the punch. Phrase one:

— Do I understand correctly: you believe my price is unfair and I’m cheating you?

The person will startle: “No, no, of course not, nobody’s talking about cheating, I trust you…” You have just moved the conversation onto moral ground — and haggling is uncomfortable there. Phrase two — it’s not even a question, but a gentle imposition:

— But you do want to get the maximum benefit from our cooperation?

— Well, of course.

And now the punch:

— Then let’s focus not on a small discount, but on the big benefits you’re going to receive. Look at this again…

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