Lesson 3 of 4
Discovery, pitching and handling objections
2 min read
Discovery: the most important skill
Selling is diagnosing before prescribing. Ask open questions, listen far more than you talk (aim for the customer speaking 60–70% of the time), and dig deeper.
SPIN questions:
- Situation: "How do you hire freshers today?"
- Problem: "What's the hardest part of that?"
- Implication: "What happens when screening takes a week? Do you lose good candidates?"
- Need-payoff: "If you could shortlist in a day, what would that mean for your team?"
Qualification frameworks: BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timeline) for simpler sales; MEDDIC (Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify pain, Champion) for complex B2B deals.
Pitching value
- Tailor the pitch to what you learned in discovery. Nobody wants your generic 30-slide deck.
- Features → advantages → benefits in the customer's language and numbers: "Screening drops from 6 days to 1, which saves about 40 hours of HR time per role."
- Use proof: case studies from similar customers, testimonials, data, a live demo of their use case.
- Tell stories: "A company like yours had the same problem; here's what changed."
- Check in during the pitch: "How does that compare with how you do it now?"
Handling objections
Objections are usually requests for more information or reassurance. A reliable method:
- Listen fully without interrupting.
- Acknowledge / empathise: "That's a fair concern."
- Clarify the real issue: "When you say it's expensive, compared to what?"
- Respond with value, proof or options.
- Confirm: "Does that address your concern?"
Common objections:
| Objection | Possible approach |
|---|---|
| "It's too expensive." | Clarify the comparison; quantify ROI; offer a smaller starting plan; focus on the cost of not solving the problem. |
| "Send me an email." | "Happy to. So I send what's actually useful, what's the main challenge you'd want it to address?" |
| "We already use X." | "What do you like about it? Is there anything you wish it did better?" Find the gap. |
| "Not the right time." | "What would make the timing right?" Agree on a follow-up date tied to a trigger. |
| "I need to talk to my boss." | "Of course. What will they want to know? Could we include them in a short call?" |
Check yourself
- Write two SPIN questions for selling a CRM to a real estate agency.
- Turn "auto-scheduling of interviews" into a quantified benefit.
- Respond to "Your competitor is cheaper."
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