Don’t Object to Objections

When you’re face-to-face with a physician who raises an objection, how do you respond? By hemming and hawing, or fumbling over your answer? By changing the subject? Or do you go with an old standard and shout, “Oh no, what’s that behind you?” and hightail it out of the office as soon as the doctor turns around to look?

Even if your approach to handling objections is a little more professional than any of the aforementioned options, you may still not look forward to hearing these frequent obstacles along the path to gaining physicians’ commitment to prescribe your product. But as pharmaceutical sales trainers John Kuchna and Renee de Gennaro point out in a recent Pharmaceutical Representative Magazine article, objections, when handled properly, can actually propel the sales process forward to the positive outcome you seek.

Kuchna and de Gennaro note that objections can, in fact, represent buying signals, since customers will rarely bother to raise objections to products they have no interest in. They also provide insight into customers’ thinking, and where their priorities lie.

From now on, instead of becoming flustered, getting combative, or fleeing the premises whenever you’re confronted with an objection, try Kuchna and de Genarro’s four-step response:

1. Acknowledge
Rather than assuming a defensive posture in response to an objection, reduce the tension by acknowledging the objection and thanking the physician for the opportunity to discuss the matter. Your goal at this point is to remain calm and open up the conversation so that you can delve deeper and get to the heart of what’s concerning the physician.

2. Clarify
Don’t assume you understand precisely why the physician is raising this objection. Instead, clarify just what you’re talking about by saying, “Doctor, with regard to your question, are we talking about…” Get the customer to describe the issue at hand in more detail, and you’ll be better positioned to respond to the core concern.

3. Be prepared
Physicians tend to find hard data most persuasive, so you should have at the ready reprints and package inserts that address the most common concerns you hear. That way, instead of uttering those dreaded six words – “Let me get back to you” – you can say, “Doctor, you’ll find this issue is addressed in table three of this study conducted by…”

4. Get commitment
Having addressed the objection, you should feel comfortable taking the next step to gain agreement on how to proceed. That may be just getting the physician to read a clinical reprint, conduct a product trial, or attend an educational forum. But if you’ve listened, clarified the true nature of the objection, and worked to find an appropriate resolution, it’s time to ask for the business. Say, “Doctor, now that we’ve resolved that issue, would you agree to prescribe Product X for your Y patients?” With the groundwork properly laid, you will likely find that the physician is ready to make that commitment.