Analyze this unequivocal admission of the validity of the objection. Such cases can often be handled most effectively by granting the point raised, directly and without any reservations, and then answering the objection in such a way that it is completely removed as an obstruction. This is good salesmanship.
Indirect Admission
Suppose, however, you feel the objection of poor business is unsound. Let us assume that this prospective employer you are interviewing has a dull season every year. Therefore the condition of which he complains is simply normal, and his objection is put forward as an excuse for rejecting your application. In such a case you do not want to make the obstruction more formidable by fully admitting its validity. Yet tact forbids you to deny its soundness. It will be better salesmanship to recognize indirectly the point raised than it would be to give your full agreement with the objection, as in the above example of an unequivocal admission. You might use such an answer as this:
"That is True, But"
"I notice, Mr. Blank, that you are making some extensive repairs on your factory. Though this involves additional expense in your dullest season, you are having the work done now because this is your slackest time. True, your profit showing at present will not be so good as it would be if you did not make the repairs. But the earnings of your business will be improved during your busiest season and you will avoid the extra expense of interrupting your production when it is at the maximum. This, of course, is the time to have your repair work done. It would not be good business to put it off.
"My proposal that you engage me now is directly along the line of your own policies. What I would do in your office might be called repair work. Your dull season is the time to have it done. I can introduce my efficiency ideas now without disorganizing your operations. Then, when you are busiest, the new system will be in perfect working order, for your service."
Adapt Solutions To Your Own Problems
When you study illustrations of the application of basic principles, do not give them merely superficial consideration. Examples are of slight value unless they suggest to you how you should use your imagination to make illustrations of your own in actual practice of the principles. Whatever your need for help in selling your services, and whatever difficulties you may have to overcome or get around, you will find in the pages of these books cues to the methods of certain success. Evidently, however, the scope of the series of chapters must be somewhat limited. None of the answers to the major problems of salesmanship are omitted from the contents, but you must apply and fit the given solutions to your individual necessities.
Two Bases of Objections
Turn your thought now to the different bases of objections. It is of the utmost importance that you know whether the obstruction is raised by the mind or by the heart of your prospect. Mental resistance can be met and overcome by ideas, by points introduced by your mind into the mind of the other man. His heart may not be involved. But if there is "feeling" in his opposition, it is necessary that you displace it with a different feeling toward you and your proposal. The heart of your prospect must be turned from antagonism to friendliness, if it is involved in an objection. Therefore when a point is made against you, decide from the evidence whether the obstacle raised has an emotional or a mental basis. Treat it accordingly. Use your own mind principally in dealing with the purely mental objection of the prospect. But depend on drawing out his heart with yours if his emotions are involved in his opposition.