4 steps to pre handle any objection before it happens

If you're waiting till the end of your call to start handling objections, you're doing it wrong. You're leaving sales on the table every single time you do that. I've taken over 6,000 calls and closed $9M+ in sales, B2B and B2C, and most of those closes happened because I pre handled the objection before it ever showed up.

This is the stuff that separates good reps from great reps. So let's get into it.

What pre handling actually means

Pre handling is preventing or addressing an objection before you ever drop the solution. It's not about whether they'll buy your specific program. It's about their commitment to change.

Here's why that distinction matters.

"If they're not committed to make a change, it doesn't matter what you put in front of them, they're not moving forward."

If you're only trying to get buy in on the product and the price at the end, you need way more buy in to close. That's a heavy lift. But if you lock down their commitment to change early, before they even know the price, there's a lot less fear in the room. You only need buy in on one thing: that they need to change. Everything else gets easier after that.

This also taps into something called consistency bias. People want to stay consistent with what they already said out loud. So if you get someone to admit early that they need to make a change, they're going to fight hard against contradicting themselves later. And if they try to backpedal, it's really easy to pull them back on track because you already have their own words to point to.

Why pre handling beats waiting until the end

Tracking this will change how you see your own calls. Start tracking two numbers:

• The objections you're actually getting
• The objection closes you're getting

That ratio tells you exactly how well you're pre handling before the objection even has a chance to surface.

There's also an authority piece nobody talks about. When you challenge somebody's thinking and you actually shift how they see something, and they agree with you, you gain authority for the rest of the call. People open up more. You get real answers instead of surface level ones.

The biggest mistake I see is reps letting limiting beliefs go unchallenged. They ask a good question, get a weak or dodgy answer, and just move on. That's where sales die quietly.

Step 1, identify what needs pre handling

Most reps don't even know what a limiting belief sounds like when it's sitting right in front of them. These are patterns people fall into that either give their power away or shrink the need for change.

Some of the big ones I hear constantly:

• Skepticism: "everything is a scam," "it works for other people, not me"
• Money: "I don't have the money," when really they just won't get resourceful
• Minimizing pain: "things aren't that bad," usually ego protecting itself
• Blaming outside stuff: "the economy is bad," but winners win regardless
• "Things are good": overplaying their situation so they don't have to feel anything
• "It'll happen no matter what": a built in excuse to avoid urgency
• Wishful thinking: "that'd be nice" instead of "I need this"
• "I'll do it, just not now": the same excuse that turns a week into ten years
• Research mode: analysis paralysis dressed up as being responsible

One of my favorite lines on this whole topic:

"There is no I can't, there is only I won't. I can't means something outside of you is stopping you. That's almost never the case."

If someone admits they just won't, that puts the power back in their hands. And if they still won't do the work after that, they weren't going to be a good client anyway. That's fine. At least they have clarity on who's actually in charge of their life.

Step 2, clarify before you touch it

Don't assume you know what somebody means. Same words, different meanings, all the time. If you jump in and start handling a concern that isn't the real concern, you just wasted the moment and probably confused them too.

"We need to have the conversation we're having, not the conversation we want to have."

Slow down. Ask what they mean. This is also where I like to use an intentionally confusing question. My favorite is simple:

"What if it wasn't what you thought it was?"

That line makes their brain go looking for an answer, comes up empty, and they ask you "what do you mean?" Now they're wide open and suggestible to whatever you say next. You earned that opening.

Step 3, reframe the belief

This is where slight of mouth patterns come in, pulled straight from NLP. You don't need to memorize all of them, but these four show up constantly on my calls.

Change the meaning. Someone says the market is down, the economy's bad. I say that's actually good news, because more volatility means more opportunity if you know the patterns. Same fact, new meaning.

Change the cause. Someone got burned before and doesn't want to try again. I tell them the problem was never the decision to change, it was picking the wrong company. Now they're actually more equipped to get it right this time.

Use comparisons. Someone says the economy's bad, nobody's buying. I tell them I've trained people in their exact industry doing five times their numbers right now. Then I put it back on them: what do you think they're doing differently?

Shift logical levels. This is my favorite and probably the one I use most. Take it from a specific excuse up to identity. If someone's using a limiting belief, I ask: does a six or seven figure business owner think that way? When they hit a wall, do they shrink or do they attack it? Now we're not talking logistics anymore, we're talking about who they're choosing to be.

Step 4, close the loop

Once you reframe it, tie it off with a consequence. Get them to say out loud what happens if they hold onto that belief forever.

Real example from a skeptic who'd been "researching" an opportunity for six years:

"What do you feel like you've lost in the past six years having that thought process, that everything out on the internet is a scam?"

That question does the work for you. They answer it, not you. Now it's their words, their admission, their consequence.

Then weave that same hook through the rest of the call. If the objection tries to show back up at the end, you already planted the frame earlier. You just remind them of what they already agreed to.

The bottom line

Pre handling isn't a trick, it's just doing the work earlier instead of later. Identify the belief. Clarify what they actually mean. Reframe it with a real pattern. Tie it off with consequence. Do those four things and objections at the end basically disappear, because you already killed them before the price ever came up.