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Dealing with Sales Objections: Resistance to Change

Written by: Niall Devitt

Article Overview: When I talk here about the ” Resistance to Change” objection I do not mean a competitor objection. I say this because it can sometimes prove very difficult to tell the difference. The prospect may choose to verbalise both objections by giving the salesperson very similar answers i.e. “I am happy with my current supplier”.

Dealing with Sales Objections: Resistance to Change

When I talk here about the ” Resistance to Change” objection I do not mean a competitor objection. I say this because it can sometimes prove very difficult to tell the difference. The prospect may choose to verbalise both objections by giving the salesperson very similar answers i.e. “I am happy with my current supplier”.


The big difference however is that the prospect’s motivation for saying so is entirely different, so the key skill is to be aware of this during the conversation so that the correct strategy can be employed.

So how can you tell the difference?

Prospect’s who are motivated by value will respond well when a salesperson demonstrates additional benefits.

Prospect’s who fear change won’t because their’s is a very different need. it’s an emotional need.

In fact sometimes they may come across as downright unreasonable when faced with convincing evidence that there are additional values/benefits to your solution.

So continuing to deal with the objection in this way is actually counter productive and it easy for the salesperson to unintentionally make the prospect feel threatened. This needs to be avoided because resistance may then quickly turn to confrontation.

The first step in dealing with this type of objection is understanding where this fear of change is coming from.

Perhaps it’s as simple as a fear of what their boss will say if this new solution works badly. Maybe there is a very close relationship with the competitor and the prospect fears upsetting them. It may just be fear of change itself.

You will need to ask questions to better understand where this fear is coming from. Indirect rather than direct questions will work best, while it’s important to really listen for clues in the prospect’s answers as to where this fear is originating from.

Once you feel that you have identified the route of this fear, you will now need to assist the prospect to overcome it. You do this by taking as much of the fear away as you possibly can.

If for instance it is a fear of what the boss might say if things go wrong, maybe you could have a phone conversation or meeting to reassure their boss.

If it’s a very close relationship with the competitor, Make them see that it is actually because of this relationship not in spite of it, that the competitor will understand that the prospect has to do what’s right for their business.

If they appear to simply fear any change, make them see that their really is no change. The prospect will continue to get everything that they already have, in that the only difference they will see is more not different.

Once you have helped the prospect to overcome the fear. You now can proceed to demonstrating the additional benefits and value as talked about previously in “Dealing with Competitor Objections”.

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Article Tags: boss, competitor, confrontation, convincing evidence, correct strategy, emotional need, fears, motivation, new solution, objection, objections, relationship, resistance, salesperson



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