The Single Most Important Objection to a Meeting

You hear, “Can you try me back next quarter? We’re really busy now.” Of course your contact is busy. Everyone is busier than ever, doing more with less, struggling to keep up with the frenetic pace of business today.

Your dream client asks, “Can you email me some information? I’ll take a look at it and get back to you.” You’ve heard this before. You agreed to send information in the past, and you are still waiting for the prospect to call you back. True?

“We have a partner and aren’t looking to change now.” The statement is always true—until it isn’t. You have no doubt had prospective clients tell you they are happy only to have them disclose to you in a first meeting that they are not pleased with their existing partner.

Prospecting is difficult because of one single, universal factor: Time. You are asking people to give you their time, the only thing they don’t have enough of, and the one thing that, once spent, cannot be recovered. When it comes to time, there are no do-overs.

What You Heard and What Is Being Said

The real concern your dream client has expressed as an objection is that the meeting will be a waste of their time. The words they use may not express the fact that you didn’t offer them enough value in trade for their time, but had you done so, you would have a meeting scheduled. There is a lot of concepts and ideas and talk tracks around objections, but the concern around wasting time is very real.

The way to resolve real concerns is to acknowledge them and let your dream client know that you understand their concern—and that there is no risk of what they are concerned about coming true.

You say, “Listen, I promise this is worth your time, and I won’t waste one minute of the twenty-minutes I am asking you for.”