1 The Most Common Objections Master LIST – GENERAL OBJECTIONS 1. AGE -- How old are you / you look young? 2. WRONG DAY -- Are we meeting today? I thought the meeting was next week? 3. LATE -- You’re late! I don’t make mistakes on my schedule – you were supposed to be here an hour ago! 4. OBJECT TO THE AGENDA (i) – “…let’s just cut to the chase, … how much is this going to cost?” 5. OBJECT TO THE AGENDA (ii) – “OK … hold on here … let’s forget about your agenda and talk about mine … why do I need your product?” 6. BUYER SWITCHEROO – “hi … hey listen, _____ (buyer name in student scenario) had a crisis down in the plant / in the warehouse etc. I’m ________, and ______ (buyer name in student scenario) told me to meet with you. You have ___ minutes…” 7. NEVER BUY ANYTHING IN a 1st MEETING … “you know, I have to be honest, I have a standard policy of never buying anything in a first meeting. So I need to be absolutely clear here, I’m not buying anything today … understand?” 8. FAT MARGINS / NICE STUFF{after student starts to set rapport} … “say, you know, when I look at those nice clothes you have on, and that spiffy sports car you pulled up in today, kinda leaves a person wondering … how fat are your profit margins over there / are you exploiting your customers with high prices?” 9. BLOWN THE BUDGET -- “You know … what you propose sounds fabulous. But I have to be honest, we’ve been spending like crazy around here, and I don’t have any budget left (this year / quarter / month etc.)… 10. LATE TO THE PARTY -- You know … I really need what you are selling. The problem is, I started looking at (insert competitor name here Salesforce, ACT, etc.) several weeks / months ago. I just think you’re arriving to the party too late (i.e., they’ve been evaluating your product category – CRM – without considering you for some time). Where were you before? 11. ACCESSIBILITY / ” – you know, I just don’t like the idea of my sales people. seeing each others’ sales data, promotional campaigns, etc. It could foster too much internal strife and competition… 2 12. “OFF-LOADING” of WORK MISPERCEPTION – my employees are going to see this for what it really is … me creating more work for them and breathing down their necks! 13. SALES PEOPLE WON’T USE IT – Every time I talk to my sales people about CRM they ask the same question, “Do you want me out selling or doing all this data entry work?” 14. BUSY SEASON – “this all sounds great … but business is just to busy right now … I can’t look at this for at least 6 months…” 15. LAST REP. SUCKED – “you know, I had one of your reps call on me ____ years ago, and I really was totally unimpressed”. (a probe should indicate that the rep. at that time did a total ‘feature dump’ / didn’t match needs to features….) 16. WHO ARE YOUR COMPETITOR’s – you know, I gotta tell you, I’m getting excited about this … I ca ...

1. 1
The Most Common Objections
Master LIST –
GENERAL OBJECTIONS
1. AGE -- How old are you / you look young?
2. WRONG DAY -- Are we meeting today? I thought the
meeting was next week?
3. LATE -- You’re late! I don’t make mistakes on my schedule
– you were supposed to be
here an hour ago!
4. OBJECT TO THE AGENDA (i) – “…let’s just cut to the
chase, … how much is this
going to cost?”
5. OBJECT TO THE AGENDA (ii) – “OK … hold on here …
let’s forget about your
agenda and talk about mine … why do I need your product?”

2. 6. BUYER SWITCHEROO – “hi … hey listen, _____ (buyer
name in student scenario) had
a crisis down in the plant / in the warehouse etc. I’m ________,
and ______ (buyer name
in student scenario) told me to meet with you. You have ___
minutes…”
7. NEVER BUY ANYTHING IN a 1st MEETING … “you know,
I have to be honest, I
have a standard policy of never buying anything in a first
meeting. So I need to be
absolutely clear here, I’m not buying anything today …
understand?”
8. FAT MARGINS / NICE STUFF{after student starts to set
rapport} … “say, you know,
when I look at those nice clothes you have on, and that spiffy
sports car you pulled up in
today, kinda leaves a person wondering … how fat are your
profit margins over there /
are you exploiting your customers with high prices?”
9. BLOWN THE BUDGET -- “You know … what you propose
sounds fabulous. But I
have to be honest, we’ve been spending like crazy around here,
and I don’t have any
budget left (this year / quarter / month etc.)…

3. 10. LATE TO THE PARTY -- You know … I really need what
you are selling. The problem
is, I started looking at (insert competitor name here Salesforce,
ACT, etc.) several weeks /
months ago. I just think you’re arriving to the party too late
(i.e., they’ve been
evaluating your product category – CRM – without considering
you for some time).
Where were you before?
11. ACCESSIBILITY / ” – you know, I just don’t like the idea
of my sales people. seeing
each others’ sales data, promotional campaigns, etc. It could
foster too much internal
strife and competition…
2
12. “OFF-LOADING” of WORK MISPERCEPTION – my
employees are going to see this
for what it really is … me creating more work for them and
breathing down their necks!
13. SALES PEOPLE WON’T USE IT – Every time I talk to my
sales people about CRM
they ask the same question, “Do you want me out selling or

4. doing all this data entry
work?”
14. BUSY SEASON – “this all sounds great … but business is
just to busy right now … I
can’t look at this for at least 6 months…”
15. LAST REP. SUCKED – “you know, I had one of your reps
call on me ____ years ago,
and I really was totally unimpressed”. (a probe should indicate
that the rep. at that time
did a total ‘feature dump’ / didn’t match needs to features….)
16. WHO ARE YOUR COMPETITOR’s – you know, I gotta tell
you, I’m getting excited
about this … I can see how it might really help us out here at
_______ (company name)
… I want to get more into this … tell me, who are some of your
competitors?”
17. FOCUS ON CUSTOMERS – “Look, all I care about is my
customers. Forget selling me
something, and tell me how my customers benefit from what
you’re offering.”
18. RAMP-UP PRICES – “If we were to do business together,
how do I know you won’t
ramp-up prices on me after I’m ‘captive’. I had a supplier do

5. that to me not too long
ago.”
19. LANGUAGE – “I have some employees whose first
language is not English. Is that a
problem for working with your firm?”
20. ADVANCES IN TECHNOLOGY / Becoming “OUTDATED”
– “With advances in
technology, a great ‘system’ today can be obsolete junk
tomorrow. How do I know what
you’re proposing will have value and be current – from a
technological perspective –
going forward?”
21. BUSINESS MODEL – “You know, I’ve listened to you, but
I just don’t get or like this
business model at all … it seems I will just be paying for this
software over and over
again. Can’t I just pay you once and own it?
22. CRM FAILURES – I’ve heard about lots of companies
where the sales people just
would not spend the time to enter the data and that made the
investment useless.
23. TRIAL PERIOD - I see you offer a 30 day trial- we will

6. need at least 90 days to evaluate
something this complex.
3
These are TECHNOLOGY-RELATED Objections, largely –
24. COMPLICATED / TRAINING (i) -- This looks complicated
(e.g., a web portal;
inventory control system etc.). how long will my employees
take to learn this?
25. DATA MIGRATION -- We already use ___________ to
manage inventory, do
accounting, etc.. I can’t afford downtime with MIGRATION
issues to your systems…
26. INCUMBENT PLATFORM / LATE to the PARTY -- We
already spent a lot of money
(last year) on ______ (incumbent platform name). I just can’t
justify revisiting this
purchasing category right now. (INCUMBENT PLATFORM
objection)
27. DATA SECURITY (i) -- You know … I just have concerns
about my customer and sales

7. data flying through cyberspace. I like programs like our current
ones, which sit locally
on my hard drive, and computers I control.
28. DATA SECURITY (ii) – Listen, 2 years from now, after all
my customer / inventory /
patient records etc. are in your systems … what the heck do I do
if you guys go bankrupt,
or get bought out or something? What the heck happens to all of
my data!"
29. MY STAFF IS OVERLOADED – “…they’ll quit if I throw
another project /
implementation at them!”
30. FLEXIBILITY – We don’t use names like customer, our
people call them clients so your
software will be confusing to them.
31. WRONG FACTS – I understand you are being sued by
Salesforce for copyright
infringement. … I heard that Netsuite was going out of
business. …Wasn’t your CFO
arrested on insider trading.

8. 4
Ethical Issues
32. ETHICAL ISSUE – SHARING DATA on COMPETITORS
also call on (company name, which will be a competitor of the
buyer’s company). Listen,
would you mind sharing with me … their customer list / how
they are doing financially /
how much they are shipping each month etc. etc.
33. ETHICAL ISSUE – YOU’RE HOT / ATTRACTED to the
REP. – “you know you seem
really nice and quite well ‘put together’. How about we take
this off-line and get to know
each other a litte better / get a drink etc.?
34. ETHICAL ISSUE – INTRODUCTION to “FRIENDS” / THE
AREA – “you know you
seem really nice and quite well ‘put together’. I’m new in
town, and was wondering …
do you think you could hook me up with some of your girl /
boyfriends?”
35. ETHICAL ISSUE – BRIBES – different variants here: (i)
can you get me tickets to a
sporting event / team / concert etc.; (ii) “hey … can we split
your commission on the

9. sale? Nobody needs to know…” (iii) can you help us out by
donating some money to a
worthy cause (fundraising).
36. ETHICAL ISSUE – CLOSENESS TO A COMPETITOR –
“you know, I’m in a real bind
here …. My brother / sister / neighbor / good friend etc. is a
rep. for ___________, and
they have been really after me to sign-up with them… I don’t
know what to do…”
37. ETHICAL ISSUE – WANT A REP. SWITCH … HUSBAND
/ WIFE is in “the
Business”, and is UNTRUSTING – “listen, my husband / wife
______________ works
closely in the business here everyday … they get all bent out of
shape when a young,
attractive rep. like you calls on me … I think it would be best if
you got another sales rep.
call on me …”