Back to the on-screen lesson ·
An objection is information: explore what it rests on before answering, answer with evidence or an option rather than pressure, and put a price objection into cost per use against the customer's alternative.
Paper packet. Every task here also exists on screen, where it is checked automatically; answers written on paper are not assessed by Nydus. When you are back at a device, enter your answers there.
You will explore an objection with a question before answering it, choose what to find out for each kind of objection, answer with evidence rather than pressure, and turn a price into cost per month of use.
You can run a conversation that understands before it recommends, and listen without adding inferences. An objection arrives in that conversation as a statement, and it is the statement owners are most tempted to talk over.
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Objection | A reason the customer gives for not going ahead. |
| Explore | Ask what the objection rests on before answering it. |
| Pressure | An answer that pushes past the objection: a deadline, guilt, arguing. |
| Cost per use | A price divided over the uses, months or years it covers. |
| Alternative | What the customer would do instead: another business, doing it themselves, nothing. |
| Check | A question after the answer: does that settle it? |
'It's too expensive' can mean at least four things: more than another business charges; more than doing it yourself costs; more than the customer expected; or more than the result is worth to them. Each has a different honest answer. The owner who replies with a discount has answered none of them, and has taught the customer that the first price was not real.
So explore first, with one question: compared with what? A tenant who is comparing Bright Home Cleaning's 180 dollars with doing it herself can be shown her own alternative, time included (lesson 6). One comparing it with another cleaner's 120 dollars can be shown what the difference buys, the inspection record, or told plainly that the cheaper cleaner may suit her. One who simply expected less may need nothing more than the price broken down.
The same holds for other objections. 'Handmade will chip' needs to know what went wrong before. 'I need to ask my partner' needs to know who decides and what they will ask. 'Not in time' needs the date.
Another way: table
Objections and the question that explores each.
| Objection | Ask first |
|---|---|
| Too expensive | Compared with what? |
| It will break | What went wrong before? |
| I need to ask someone | Who decides, and what will they want to know? |
| Not in time | When do you actually need it? |
Another way: steps
Once the objection is understood, answer it with something the customer can check: a figure, a record, a trial, a different option. A price objection often becomes clearer in cost per use. Maya's 360-dollar set of café cups lasts, from her records, about 24 months in daily use: 15 dollars a month. Set against cheap cups replaced every few months, that is a comparison the café owner can make for herself.
Then check: 'Does that settle it, or is there something else?' Sometimes there is something else, and sometimes the honest answer is that the offer does not fit, which is the next lesson. What the answer is never is pressure. 'Only three places left', 'the price goes up tomorrow' and 'don't you care about your home?' push past the objection instead of answering it; they win sales that are regretted, returned and talked about. False urgency can also break the law: the Federal Trade Commission and state consumer protection laws treat invented deadlines and fake scarcity as deceptive.
Acknowledge. 'That's a fair question.' It tells the customer the objection is welcome, which keeps them talking.
Explore with one question. For price, 'compared with what?'; for risk, 'what went wrong before?'; for a decision, 'who else decides?'; for timing, 'when do you need it?'. Then listen and reflect, as in the last lesson.
Answer what you learned. With a figure, a record, a trial or another option. For a price compared with an alternative, put both into the same unit: cost per month, per year or per use.
Be honest when the alternative wins. If the customer's alternative is cheaper and does the job, say so.
Check. 'Does that settle it, or is there something else?' Objections often come in layers, and the second is often the real one.
Check your own answer. Is every figure in it from the business's records or the customer's own numbers? Is the comparison in the same unit on both sides? Would the answer still be fine if the customer said no? If the answer only works by hurrying the customer, it is pressure, not an answer.
Exploring before answering is allowed because the right answer depends on what the objection rests on, and only the customer knows that. Answering the wrong version of 'too expensive' wastes the answer and suggests the owner was not listening.
Putting prices into cost per use is allowed because the customer is really buying a period of use, not an object. A set that lasts eight times as long at three times the price is cheaper for each month it is used, and dividing each price by its months shows that fairly.
Admitting when the alternative wins is needed because an answer that bends the numbers is pressure in disguise. Customers can usually check, and the trust lost when they do costs more than the sale was worth.
Most price objections are comparisons, and the comparison usually leaves something out. The tenant comparing 180 dollars with doing it herself counts the supplies, about 30 dollars, but not the eight hours on her knees, which at what an hour is worth to her may be 120 to 160 dollars. The café owner comparing Maya's set with cheap cups counts the price of one set, not the three or four cheap sets she will buy in the same time.
The owner's job is not to argue but to lay the full comparison out, in the customer's own numbers, and let them decide. Ask for the figures, 'how long would it take you?', 'how often have you replaced cups?', and write the sum where both can see it. A customer who works out that her own clean costs more than the cleaner has persuaded herself, which is far stronger than being persuaded.
Sometimes the customer's comparison is fair and the price really is more than the job is worth to them. A discount is still the wrong answer, because it changes the price without changing the offer, and every customer who hears of it will ask for the same. The better answer is a different option at a different price: a smaller set of cups, a clean of the kitchen and bathroom only, a repair that fixes the urgent fault now and leaves the rest for later.
Each option is a real offer with its own price, so the original price stays honest. And the customer chooses what fits, which is the point of the whole conversation.
Price is the objection owners fear, but many objections are about risk, and they need a different kind of answer. 'Handmade cups will chip' is a fear that the purchase will fail. The answer is evidence that it will not: the wash-test record, a café that has used the cups for two years, a replacement promise for any piece that chips in the first six months. A lower price would make the fear worse, not better.
'I need to ask my partner' is often a real step in the decision, not an excuse. Find out who the partner is and what they will want to know, then give the customer what they need to make the case: the figures in writing, the sample cup, the name of a café to call. Offer to answer the partner's questions directly, and agree on when to talk next.
'Not in time' is about the date, and the only honest answer starts with the date. If the business can meet it, say so with the record behind it. If it cannot, say that too, and if possible offer what can be done by then: part of the order, a loan set, or a name of someone faster. Each kind of objection has its own honest answer, and finding out which kind it is comes first every time. Keep a short list of the objections heard each month and the answers that settled them; within a season it becomes the most useful page the business has for training anyone new who sells for it, or answers its phone.
A small window replacement company in Denver had a habit: when a homeowner said the quote was too high, the salesperson knocked 10 percent off on the spot. Sales closed, but margins were thin, and customers who talked to neighbors found they had paid different prices for the same windows.
The owner changed the rule. Salespeople now ask 'compared with what?' and then work through the answer with the homeowner. Most were comparing with a cheaper installer's quote or with keeping the old windows. For the first, the salesperson lays the two quotes side by side and points to what differs, such as the warranty and the installation crew. For the second, they estimate the heating and cooling saved per year from the homeowner's own utility bills, and spread the price over the years the windows last.
Where the homeowner's budget really could not stretch, the company offered a smaller first phase: the worst windows now, the rest next year, each at the standard price. Within a year the company's average price held steady, the share of quotes that closed barely changed, and complaints about unequal prices stopped.
The Federal Trade Commission's Cooling-Off Rule gives buyers three days to cancel many sales of 25 dollars or more made at their home, and of 130 dollars or more made at temporary locations such as fairs and hotel rooms. It exists because pressure in person can win a yes that a buyer regrets once the salesperson leaves. An objection answered honestly does not need a cooling-off period to survive.
An objection means the customer must be persuaded immediately. It means something is not yet understood, by one side or the other.
Discount first. A discount answers no objection and cheapens the price.
Argue the point. Winning the argument loses the customer.
Create urgency. A deadline pushes past the objection instead of answering it.
Compare price with price. Compare cost per use, with the whole alternative counted.
Acknowledge the objection.
$\text{22 dollars is a fair thing to question}$
The shopper keeps talking.
Explore with one question.
$\text{compared with the supermarket?}$
She says yes.
Lay out her comparison.
$\text{same vegetables: about 21 dollars}$
Priced at the supermarket this week.
Add what the price leaves out.
$\text{a separate trip; ten minutes saved}$
Her time is part of the alternative.
Check whether it settles it.
$\text{does that settle it?}$
There may be another objection.
Acknowledge the objection.
$\text{a fair question}$
Welcome, not argued with.
Explore with one question.
$\text{compared with a new bike?}$
Yes.
Answer with the prices.
$140 \text{ against } 450$
Repair against new.
Add the record.
$\text{last four such repairs still running}$
Evidence the repair lasts.
Check whether it settles it.
$\text{I need it Saturday}$
The real objection appears.
Answer it honestly.
$\text{that part takes three days}$
Not a promise the shop cannot keep.
Acknowledge the objection.
$\text{more than budgeted: fair}$
The café owner keeps talking.
Explore with one question.
$\text{compared with what?}$
Cheap cups at 90 dollars a set.
Ask how long the cheap ones lasted.
$3 \text{ months}$
Her own figure.
Work out the cheap set per month.
$90 \div 3 = 30$
Price over months.
Work out Maya's set per month.
$360 \div 24 = 15$
From her records.
Lay out the difference.
$30 - 15 = 15 \text{ dollars a month}$
In the café's own numbers.
Check whether it settles it.
$\text{my partner decides}$
A second objection: offer the figures in writing.
Explore the objection to the 180-dollar price.
$\text{compared with doing it yourself?}$
She says yes.
Lay out her alternative: 8 hours at 15 dollars, 30 of supplies.
$8 \times 15 + 30 = 150$
Her time counted.
Answer her honestly.
A tenant tells Bright Home Cleaning that $216$ dollars for a move-out clean is too expensive. What is the best reply?
Complete the worked solution: a tenant objects that Bright Home Cleaning's move-out clean costs $180$ dollars. She is comparing it with doing it herself, which would take her $10$ hours, each worth $17$ dollars to her, plus $24$ dollars of supplies. Find what her time is worth, what her own clean really costs, and how much more that is than the cleaner.
Find what her time is worth.
$(\text{hours}) \times (\text{worth of an hour}) =$ t
Her own time is part of her alternative.
Find what her own clean really costs.
$(\text{time}) + (\text{supplies}) =$ o
The whole alternative, not just the supplies.
Find how much more it costs than the cleaner.
$(\text{own clean}) - (\text{cleaner's price}) =$ d
The comparison she asked for, made fairly.
Say how to offer the figure.
$\text{as her own numbers, for her to check}$
Evidence, not pressure.
Match each objection Maya hears from café owners to what she should find out before answering it.
| What they are comparing the price with | What went wrong with cups before | Who decides and what they will want to know | The date the cups are really needed by | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| It's more than we budgeted. | ||||
| Handmade cups will chip. | ||||
| I need to ask my business partner. | ||||
| We open in two weeks. |
A customer at Northside Repairs says, 'I'm not sure it's worth fixing.' Put Dev's response in order.
Number the steps in order (write the number in the box):
An office manager tells Neighborhood Kitchen, 'I'm not sure you can do it in time.' The kitchen needs $2$ days' notice. What should the owner do first?
A café owner objects that Maya's set costs $480$ dollars. From her records, a set lasts about $32$ months in daily use. What does the set cost per month of use, in dollars?
Answer:
A homeowner in Milwaukee tells a roofer that a new roof at $9666$ dollars is too expensive; she is comparing it with patching the old one. The new roof should last $27$ years. A patch costs $1605$ dollars and lasts about $3$ years. How many dollars a year cheaper is the new roof?
Answer:
A gym's staff replied to people who said the membership was too much. Mark every reply that explores the objection or answers it with something checkable.
This task has no paper form; do it on a device.
Lesson test: one question per skill, one attempt each, no hints. Your answers are checked when you submit.
A café owner says Maya's set at $195$ dollars is too expensive; she is comparing it with a cheap set at $66$ dollars. Maya's records show her set lasts about $13$ months in daily use; the cheap set has lasted the café about $3$ months. How many dollars a month cheaper is Maya's set?
Answer:
You can treat 'too expensive' as a question to explore rather than a signal to discount. Tell someone why a deadline is not an answer to an objection. Next: recognizing when the honest answer is no.
17. Your turn: Bright Home Cleaning's tenant, step 3
$150 < 180, \text{ but the inspection record}$
Cheaper her way; say what the 30 dollars buys.