Point to ponder: Experienced sales professionals usually know where the trouble is likely to come from.
For example, you may know that your prospect already has a long-standing relationship with another provider. Or maybe you know your company doesn’t have a local warehouse. Or that your price may be a bit higher than the competition’s. Or that your implementation process usually takes longer than the industry average.
The point is, you can often see the objection coming long before the prospect raises it. So why wait? A classic Sandler Rule tells us not to. It reads: The best way to get rid of a bomb is to defuse it before it blows up.
In sales, the “bomb” is the issue everyone knows exists... but amateurs don’t particularly want to discuss. Professionals know that, left undiscussed, the issue may eventually become an objection (stated or unstated), a reason to stall, or even the reason the opportunity dies.
The natural temptation is to avoid the issue. That makes emotional sense. We want conversations to move forward. We don’t want to introduce negativity unnecessarily, and we certainly don’t want to give prospects reasons not to buy. But as professionals, we know avoidance usually doesn’t eliminate the problem. It simply postpones the conversation until the issue has more power, and we have less influence.
Imagine you sell insurance. The prospect has worked with the same agent for ten years. You may have better coverage, stronger service, or a more attractive solution. But switching providers may involve something more complicated than economics: loyalty.
You can ignore that relationship and hope your proposal wins on its merits. Or you can say: “Sam, I know you’ve been working with your current insurance agent for a long time. Even if we discover that we can offer you a better solution, it may be difficult to disengage from someone you’ve had that relationship with. Should we talk about that?”
Now the issue is on the table. You haven’t attacked the competitor. You haven’t pressured the prospect. You’ve acknowledged a reality that was already present in the conversation.
The same principle applies when the selling organization has a potential disadvantage. Suppose fast delivery is important to the prospect, but your company has no warehouse nearby. You could avoid mentioning that until the prospect asks about delivery times. Now you’re dealing with the issue on the prospect’s terms rather than your own.
Instead, try raising the issue first:
“Mary, I know quick delivery is important to you. I should tell you that we don’t have a local warehouse, so it makes sense for us to talk about how that could affect our ability to support you.”
That conversation feels very different. Why? Because we are no longer hiding from the problem. Bringing up difficult issues early communicates confidence. It says you’re willing to discuss the entire business relationship, not simply the parts that make your offering look good. It also gives you something extremely valuable: information.
Perhaps the prospect’s relationship with the incumbent isn’t nearly as strong as you imagined. Perhaps the warehouse issue doesn’t matter because the customer rarely needs emergency delivery. Perhaps your higher price becomes irrelevant once the prospect understands the true cost of the problem you’re solving.
You won’t know until you ask.
Great sales conversations aren’t built on avoiding uncomfortable truths. They’re built on surfacing them. When you bring a potential problem into the conversation early, you give both sides the chance to examine it calmly. The prospect doesn’t have to wonder whether you were hiding something, and you don’t have to wait nervously for the objection to emerge later.
Most importantly, you shift from reacting to leading. That’s the difference between trying to “overcome” an objection after it appears and addressing an issue proactively, while it is still simply something two businesspeople can discuss.
Every sales opportunity has potential bombs you can learn to anticipate. The only question is whether you will wait for them to explode, or choose to defuse them first.
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