If you are new to sales you are probably scared to death your prospect will give you an objection you cannot answer.

Here’s what you do.

Play the objection back in the form of a question. It clarifies the objection, lets the prospect know you heard the objection and forces the prospect to give you more information.

The following is a true story about how using this technique helped an agent make a sale she might have otherwise lost.

The listing agent was touring a prospect through a small waterfront condominium. The prospect fell in love with the condominium. She told the agent that she loved the condo and would purchase it, but the kitchen was too small.

If you are new, you would tend to agree with the prospect and not have the slightest idea what to say next.

Just for practice, before you read any further, what would you say in response to an objection like this? I’ve heard “It is easy to keep clean” and “It’s a step-saver kitchen.” What would you say?

The agent used the simplest response in sales to clarify the objection, to let the prospect know she heard the objection, and to find out why the prospect felt that the kitchen was too small. She stated the objection as a question.

Agent (smiling): “The kitchen is too small?”

Prospect: “Yes, I have a plastic rooster my family has handed down through the years for good luck, and I don’t see any place to hang the rooster.”

What if the agent had said something about how easy the kitchen is to keep clean? Think she would have gotten the sale? Or do you think the prospect may think the agent is more interested in the commission than the prospect’s needs? Obviously, there was nothing else to discuss until the rooster issue was addressed and resolved.

Here is what the agent said: “Great. Let’s see if we can find a place to hang the rooster.“

The prospect decided that the wall just outside the galley kitchen would work, and she bought the condo.

Keep it simple. Learn to play objections back to the prospect in the form of a question and the odds are that you will make more sales.

Published: September 12, 2003

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David Fletcher has been a Florida real estate condominium and new homes broker for 30 years with more than $3 billion in new construction sales. In 2008, Keller Williams Realty International named him a "Lifetime Achiever." Along the way he has chaired the Florida Homebuilders Associaiton Sales and Marketing Council, trained thousands of general agents and on-site agents to work together, and was a featured speaker at the National Association of Realtors. Recently he founded New Homes Niche, a builder-certified co-broker training system "to meet the growing trend we see in short sale buyers moving to new homes for a lot of reasons." Call David at 407 234 2349, , and visit his website.