A simple objection to network marketing can cause a prospect to not return your phone calls. One thing I learned when leading 56,000 people in my own network marketing business was how to teach others to confidently handle objections. This M.L.M training article reveals the basics of how to handle every objection.



To be great at handling objections it's quite helpful to know and understand the individual parts that make up the subject.

What's an objection?

Let's break down exactly what an "objection" is. An objection means that a prospect is "opposed" to something. Opposed means to be in conflict with or be resistant to. A couple of examples are: A person is opposed to war - meaning based on their belief that there shouldn't be war; they are against (in conflict with) war. A person is opposed to divorce - based on their religious beliefs they believe something bad will happen to them later if they get a divorce. A person is opposed to eating sweet potatoes (are resistant to eating them).

An example related to M.L.M is a person being opposed to network marketing - they've heard some false things in the newspaper about network marketing and believe it to be unethical. Another example is a person is opposed to selling (in general) - earlier in her life she was trying to sell Girl Scout cookies and didn't like the feeling of being told "no." So she made up her mind that "she was not good at selling"; therefore now she is opposed to it.

The distinction between being "in conflict with" versus "resistant to" is how strong of a position do they take against that which they are opposed to. If they easily shrug it off - they were resistant to it...but if they're willing to die for it - they are definitely in conflict with it!

Two main types of objections.

There are those objections that are expressed (meaning the prospect tells you exactly what they are opposed to) and there are objections that are unexpressed (meaning the prospect has an objection but won't tell you what it is).

The objection, "I'm not interested" (without any other explanation) is a great example of an unexpressed objection. An unreturned phone call is another example of an unexpressed objection. Unexpressed objections are normally the end of working with that particular prospect.

Examples of expressed objections would be when the prospects says, "That's one of those pyramids." Or, "I don't like sales."

Where do objections come from?

An objection can come because of misunderstandings from things they've read or heard. An objection can also come from an experience - as in they've been in M.L.M before or have looked at M.L.M prior and have decided against it.

Also, an objection can (and most often does) come because the prospect has doubts whether they can succeed at network marketing.

As it relates to M.L.M training, I group questions and objections into one category only because how you handle them is similar. But you should be aware that whether the prospect states something as a question or an objection it's a good idea to measure their degree of opposition. This will tell you how much assertiveness to use in handling the question or objection. (I cover this thoroughly in my M.L.M. training entitled Communication Quality number 4 - Use the Right Amount of Assertiveness in Brilliant Communicator.)

What's the purpose in Handling Objections?

The purpose (and the only purpose) of handling an objection is to help your prospect get past what is currently stopping them from achieving what they need, want or don't want.

The wrong purpose in handling objections is to get the person into your business. What's the difference? EVERYTHING! The moment your prospect gets the idea that your answers ARE FOR YOUR GAIN - they withdraw and very often every objection becomes an unexpressed objection! I visualize a turtle's head withdrawing into its shell - it is very difficult to get them to come back out and when they do they are very skeptical.

Of course you want them in your business...but the entire time you are with your prospect you must be interested in helping them get what they want, not what you want. Getting them into your business is only valuable IF THEY DECIDE that it will serve them to do so. It does you no good to convince them to join you as you'll have to keep convincing them.

So your purpose in handling their objections is simply to help them past what's stopping them - keep this as your purpose and you'll always say the right thing and you will be amazed at how easy it is to handle objections.

Here are the steps of exactly how to handle questions and objections:

1.Listen completely through the question/objection.

2.Confirm understanding.

3.Make the question or objection valid to the prospect.

4.Handle or facilitate handling Questions and/or Objections.

5.Complete the handling and return to the previous step of the Inviting formula.

I hope this M.L.M training discussion on how to handle objections has been helpful to you, so that you are completely comfortable in handling or answering any question or objection a prospect asks (or doesn't) ask you.