If when you are pitching a book concept, proposal or related idea and the person that you want to persuade begins to express objections (or as I prefer to call them concerns) then this can be very, very good news!

I appreciate that this seems counter intuitive as you would probably prefer that the person sits their in rapt admiration as you eloquently explain your idea, closely followed by their immediate acceptance. Get real! This is very unlikely to ever happen and actually the fact that they are verbalising some objections or concerns could be very good news!

Firstly, they may be genuinely considering your idea and as they are thinking about it some possible hurdles spring to mind. This does not mean they are rejecting the idea, it could mean that there are just some practical considerations to be addressed.

And secondly as you will see in a moment, far too many people give up at the first sign of resistance leaving those of us who are comfortable handling concerns with the business!

There are a number of ways to deal with concerns when they are expressed. The first important point is that you mustn’t panic. It is quite rare for any proposal to go through to completion without the person you are attempting to persuade expressing at least one concern!

The fact that the other person has raised a concern does not mean that they are not going to go ahead. Relax- the proposal is not lost!

Professional persuaders understand that people raising concerns are just part of the persuasion process, and they prepare to handle them with persistence. This puts them into a different league.

A piece of international research into the reaction of salespeople to customer concerns when making proposals revealed that:

• 44% of salespeople gave up after receiving the first customer concern
• 22% of salespeople gave up after receiving the second customer concern
• 16% of salespeople gave up after receiving the third customer concern
• 10% of salespeople gave up after receiving the fourth customer concern

This leaves just 8% of the salespeople still selling after the fourth concern.

The other startling conclusion from the survey is that 73% of the customers voiced five or more concerns before being sure enough to go ahead!

Combine the figures together and the research tells us that just 8% of the salespeople will win 73% of the business that’s available. If we apply this data to authors making proposals then we can see that being able to handle concerns and being persistent will put some clear blue water between yourself and the majority of authors whose proposals will never get off the starting blocks.

It is therefore vital that unless you want to join the ranks of the persuasion no hopers that you need to get really superb at handling people’s concerns. Being able to do this will place you into the top few percent of all of the authors competing against you.

Truly great persuaders enjoy eating concerns for breakfast!

As stated earlier I view people expressing concerns as a good sign. They can mean that they are really starting to think about going ahead and are starting to consider the practicalities involved.

Or they can indicate that there is some aspect of the proposal that the person is seeking more information about. You can reframe all expressed concerns as being requests for further information. The customer is looking to you to answer this request.

Initial Response

How you initially respond to the person’s concern is important. You want to appear calm, professional and unruffled but also grateful and even delighted that they raised the concern. For example, after hearing the person express a concern say,

“That’s a good point. I’m glad you brought that up.”

“That’s an important point and I thought that might be your initial reaction!”

“I’m really glad you raised that point”

Once you have initially responded in this manner you can then move onto handling the concern in a variety of ways.

Drill further into the concern

It is often necessary to drill further down into a concern to understand it more fully.

You can ask, “I’m sure you’ve got a good reason for raising that concern. Can I ask what it is?”

This will result in the person expanding upon what lies behind the expressed concern so that you can deal with it more effectively.

So rather than get concerned about concerns – learn to love them!