Objection handling training: the five objections to practise first

Start practising with five objections: "it is too expensive", "not now", "we already use someone", "send me the details" and "I need to ask my partner". Run them as short rounds in one sitting. A colleague who has heard the real thing plays the buyer. Teach the move, not the line: acknowledge in a sentence, ask one question, and agree the next step before the call ends. The wider list is in common sales objections and how to handle them; this post is the drill.

A forty-five minute session

Pair people up. One plays the buyer, one the salesperson, and a third watches the clock. Each round lasts six minutes with the notes. The buyer opens with the objection in the words real buyers use. The salesperson answers, and the buyer pushes back once. The watcher notes one thing that worked and one moment where the salesperson began to defend. Swap roles every round. The person playing the buyer often learns the most, because they find out how little it takes to satisfy or put off a caller.

Take your scenarios from lost orders, not a textbook. A round built on last Tuesday's call is harder to fake.

Five rounds fill most of the time. Keep the last ten minutes for the one objection the group found hardest, and run it again with the roles reversed. People who stumbled in the first round often handle it well in the second, and they see why.

Hand out this card, and nothing else:

Objection        Ask this first                      Listen for            End the call with
Too expensive    Compared with what                 A scope difference    The two quotes, side by side
Not now          What must be true by then          A real event          A dated call
Use someone      What would you want from a second  Lead time, a gap      A small trial
Send details     What will you decide from it       The real question     A day and time to check back
Ask my partner   What will they ask first          The partner's doubt   A note to forward, or a joint call

Rule: one question, then stop.

"It is too expensive"

The buyer opens: "Your quote is higher than the other one I have." The move is to ask what the other quote includes, and then listen for a gap in scope, delivery or payment. If the salesperson names a lower number inside thirty seconds, stop the round and run it again. Giving ground before asking anything is the habit to break.

"Not now"

"We will look at this next quarter." Practise one question: what would need to be true by then? If the buyer names a budget approval or a shop opening, set a call date tied to that event. If the buyer cannot name anything, the "later" was a polite exit. Say so kindly and leave the door open.

Ask the salesperson to say, out loud, what they will do if the date passes with no word. The answer tells you whether the follow-up is a plan or a hope. A lead filed under "next quarter" on a list nobody opens tends to be forgotten.

"We already use someone"

Never attack the current supplier. The salesperson says, "Good to know someone looks after you. Is there anything you would want from a second source if the first was busy or late?" Plenty of buyers keep a second supplier for exactly that. The round is won if the buyer names one real thing, such as lead time or a product the first supplier lacks. A speech on why your firm is better is more likely to lose the second slot.

"Send me the details"

This is a polite way for an enquiry to die. The buyer says, "Just send it on WhatsApp." The salesperson answers, "Happy to. So I send the right thing, what are you hoping to decide from it?" and then, "I will send it today. May I check back on Thursday at four?" The drill ends only when a day and time are agreed.

"I need to ask my partner"

Do not treat the partner as an obstacle, and do not ask whether the buyer "has the authority". Ask, "What do you think their first question will be?" Then offer a short note the buyer can forward, or a quick call with both. The aim is to turn a buyer who relays a decision into one who holds the answers.

Keep a tally so the sixth drill comes from your own buyers

After each drill session, write the real objections heard on calls that week on one sheet: the buyer's words, the stage of the call, and the outcome. A mark per objection is enough. After a month look at which of the five came up most and which came up that is not on the list. A buyer who says "we only buy through our consultant", or "your delivery is too far", belongs in a sixth drill. Use the exact words from the sheet as the buyer's opening line, so the practice matches what the team will meet. Lost-order notes make the best material; wins are useful too, since they show what a good answer sounded like.

A furniture maker in Jodhpur, five sessions

Imagine a Jodhpur maker of wooden furniture who sells to cafes and small hotels and runs one drill per session over five weeks. This case is invented to show the common slip. The first mistake is to correct wording. Two salespeople begin reciting the owner's sample answers and sound stiff on real calls, and a cafe buyer asks one of them whether they are reading from a sheet. That call, for a ₹90,000 order in this invented case, did not come back.

The owner stops handing out sample lines and gives only the question and the order of moves. Each says it in their own Hindi or Marwari. The later sessions sound like conversations and the lost-order sheet starts to show why buyers said no. Two weeks are lost to the stiff phase, and one of the two salespeople never quite warms to role-play at all.

When drills will not help

If your price is out of range for the buyers you are calling, no technique rescues it. The work is in who you call. If objections arrive before the buyer understands what you sell, look at the first half of the call. And if the same objection appears in every lost order, it is telling you about the offer, not the team.

Run one round before the next sales meeting

Choose the objection that cost you the most orders and run it for fifteen minutes. Note which moves felt natural. If you want someone outside to run the sessions, objection handling training is part of how we help teams sell, and tell us what you need turns your own lost orders into a drill set.