How I pre-handle objections before they ever come up

If objections keep catching you off guard at the end of your calls, it's not bad luck. You missed something earlier. I'm going to show you how I find it and kill it before it ever becomes a problem.

I've done $9M+ in sales. B2B SaaS for a publicly traded company, and closing for some of the biggest coaches online. The one shift that actually accelerated my income faster than anything else was learning how to anticipate objections and handle them before they ever come up. Not react to them. Get ahead of them.

Why waiting until the end costs you the deal

If you don't pre-handle the objection, you're still going to get it. Just later. And later is worse.

By the time you get to the end of the call, they've sat through your whole presentation and heard the price. Once the price hits, people go into fight or flight. That's the worst possible moment to be untangling an objection you could've handled twenty minutes earlier.

"If the price causes them to be more in a fight or flight mode, it's going to be a lot harder to actually overcome those objections because we allowed them to get away with it earlier in the conversation."

Here's the part most closers miss though. This isn't just about avoiding a fight at the end. When you reframe someone early and pre-handle their objection, you gain authority in the conversation. You go deeper. Your answers later on get more thoughtful because you already know exactly what's been holding them back.

Start in solution awareness, not at the close

This all happens in the first half of solution awareness. That's the part of the call where you ask what they've already tried and dig into their decision making process.

The question that opens this whole thing up is simple:

"Before talking today, what have you done about solving X?"

You're going to get one of two answers. They either did something, or they did nothing. Both paths lead somewhere useful. Let's break down both.

If they tried something and got burned

Ask them straight up if other people got results. If they saw testimonials, if they know people who actually succeeded with whatever they tried.

Then ask the real question:

"What do you feel like actually prevented you from getting results like those other people did?"

This forces them to take responsibility instead of blaming the product, the coach, or the market. If they admit it was on them, you've already softened the ground for your own offer.

If it was a flat out scam or a total burn, I go a different direction:

"Do you want them to allow you to burn you twice? Burn you once when you made the decision, but burn you twice when you know you need to change again, but you don't because you think back to that."

Nobody wants to get burned twice. That reframe does a lot of work on its own.

If they tried something and got decent results

Ask what results they actually got. Then ask what was missing.

If someone tells me they already did a different sales training program and got "some good results," I ask what that training was missing. Whatever they tell me becomes the blueprint for how I position my own offer later in the call. I'm not guessing what to emphasize. They told me.

If they've done nothing at all

This is where most people think there's nothing to work with. Wrong. This is actually the easiest path.

If they say they've been "looking on YouTube" or reading books, that's not a real solution and you need to brush it to the side fast.

"Besides the basic YouTube stuff, what have you done about getting any advanced training so you can actually start making more money?"

Get them to admit they've done nothing real. Then ask what's actually prevented them. You'll usually hear one of these:

• Trying to figure it out alone
• Not enough time
• Not enough money
• Not a priority
• Got comfortable

Once you get the real reason, here's the reframe that does the heavy lifting:

"Can you see how just trying to learn on YouTube and not really getting any additional help has led you to stay where you're at right now? Are you okay with me saying that?"

That last line, "are you okay with me saying that," is a small ask for permission that softens the punch. I've never had anyone say no to it. It just gets a nod and an "yeah, I'm okay with you saying that."

From there you push again:

"How are you actually going to overcome that way of thinking so you can actually start making more money?"

And if they get soft or vague, I push one more time with a consequence question:

"What if you keep on letting that get in the way and you stay exactly where you're at? What happens then?"

That consequence question isn't something you fire off every time. Read the room. Sometimes it lands hard, sometimes you back off. But it's in your pocket.

When it's been a long time since they tried anything

If someone did something years ago, a course, a software, whatever, and hasn't touched the problem since, treat it exactly like they've done nothing. Ask what's prevented them for however many years it's been. You'll usually hear "it wasn't a priority" or "I got complacent." Then you run the same reframe.

What this looked like in a real roleplay

In a coaching session I ran, a rep was selling automation software to someone still running everything through Google Docs with a hire named Stanley doing manual work. The prospect said he was losing an hour or two a day. I kept digging instead of letting him off the hook.

"I'm not going to let him off the hook. I'm on the problem, I'm going to keep digging until I get to the point where he's telling me his problem is he wants more time but he hasn't made the time to have more time."

Turned out he'd looked at other software options before, decided the cost wasn't worth it, and just kept sticking with Stanley because "he's a cool guy." That's not a real reason. That's comfort. Once I got him to say it out loud, the reframe landed easy:

"Can you see how never making the time to actually solve this problem has just led us to being in the same spot we're in now? Are you okay with me saying that?"

He agreed immediately. From there the rest of the call got easier because the real objection was already handled in solution awareness, not waiting for me at the end.

The bottom line

Objections at the end of the call aren't random. They're leftovers from things you didn't address earlier. Ask what they've tried, get them to take responsibility, reframe the pattern, and push with a consequence question when it fits. Do this in solution awareness and you'll walk into the price conversation with way less resistance waiting for you.