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There is a word that shows up in almost every piece of conventional sales training, and it is worth examining carefully because of what it communicates before any technique is applied.
The word is overcome.
To overcome something is to defeat it. To push past it. To win against it.
When that frame is applied to a prospect's concern, something happens before the first word of a response is spoken. The concern has been categorized as an obstacle. The person who raised it has, in the logic of that frame, become something to be moved past.
That shift in orientation is felt immediately. Not as a conscious recognition, but as a quality in the conversation that the prospect detects without being able to name it.
The conversation tightens. The energy changes. The prospect, who raised a concern they expected to be engaged with honestly, senses instead that their concern is being managed.
And the instinct when someone senses they are being managed is not to relax. It is to protect.
So the original concern hardens. New concerns appear. The conversation that was supposed to be moving toward resolution is now moving in the opposite direction, not because the prospect is being difficult but because the frame of overcoming produced the very resistance it was designed to address.
There is a completely different way to receive a concern when it surfaces in a first sales conversation.
It begins with the recognition that a concern is not an obstacle. It is information. It is the prospect telling something honest about how the conversation feels to them at that moment. And honest information is the most valuable thing a sales conversation can produce.
When a concern is received with genuine curiosity rather than a prepared counter, something changes in the room.
The prospect stops protecting their position because there is nothing to protect it against. The conversation is no longer organised as a contest. It has become a genuine inquiry into what is actually true.
And in that space, what is actually true tends to surface.
Sometimes what surfaces is that the concern was never that serious and dissolves on its own when given enough room. Sometimes what surfaces is something more significant, a real issue that the surface objection was standing in for, that the conversation needed to reach in order to produce any kind of genuine outcome.
Either way, the conversation has moved somewhere real.
The frame of overcoming produces battles. The frame of genuine curiosity produces conversations.
Battles are exhausting and leave everyone depleted regardless of who wins. Conversations build trust, and trust is the only foundation on which a durable client relationship can be built.
The question worth sitting with before the next first sales conversation is not: how will objections be handled?
It is: what does it mean to be genuinely curious about whatever the prospect says, even when what they say is a concern?
That question, honestly held, changes the conversation before it starts.
Related: The Language That Creates Safety
Ari Galper is the world’s number one authority on trust-based selling and is the most sought-after high-net worth/lead generation expert for financial advisors. His newest book, “Trust In A Split Second” has become an instant best-seller among financial advisors worldwide – you can get a Free copy of Ari’s book here and, when you click the “YES” button in the order form, you’ll also receive a complimentary “plug up the holes” lead generation consultation. Ari has been featured in CEO Magazine, Forbes, INC Magazine and the Financial Review. He is considered a contrarian in the financial services industry and in his book, everything you learned about selling will be turned upside down. No more chasing, no pressure, no closing.