Using NLP to Stop Internal Objections from Sabotaging the Effectiveness of Your Speech

The Power of Spoken and Unspoken Objections to Your Message

Objections to your message can be a sign of lack of rapport or disagreement. The problem for any speaker is that when somebody disagrees with you on principle, they can generally find reasons to tear your arguments apart and dispute every single conclusion. It is even more challenging when somebody disagrees with you personally because there is more emotion in the process.

When you are speaking to an audience they cannot openly express their objections, yet these objections can be so powerful that they prevent people from hearing what you are saying. If you are delivering a webinar and have a chat open, objections can be even more destructive because people can voice their objections to the rest of your audience and disrupt the entire group.

For this reason, it is essential to thoroughly de-fuse the objections before they become an obstacle to the accomplishment of your goals, but how can this be done without sounding argumentative and confrontational?

Will Everyone Agree if I Address the Objections Effectively?

No. There will always be people who disagree with your opinion or have no need for your product. However, if you are convinced of the value of your product, service, or idea it is your moral responsibility to persuade all the people who would benefit from its use to try it.

This Sounds Like Manipulation!

One of the common objections to Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) is that it is manipulative. The same argument can be applied to any other useful tool: A spade can be used to plant a tree, or to knock someone over the head; nuclear technology can be used to heal disease or to destroy a city; the manipulation of your vertebra can relieve the pain of a slipped disk, or cause that pain, The problem is always that of intention, not of technique.

Therefore, if your service, product, or idea is beneficial to a person then it is in their best interests for you to dissolve their objections and incite them to take immediate action. To achieve this outcome, you need to be as persuasive as possible. If I want to learn to play the violin to a certain standard within the next six months and you have a program that will enable me to achieve that goal, I want you to be very persuasive about the benefits of your teaching. I don’t want you to leave me in any doubt that you can help me reach that goal.

Putting your case persuasively, whether you are a politician, a salesperson, a visionary, or a business owner, is your primary responsibility to your clients and customers, to your constituents, to your audience, and to your prospects because if you do not do the best possible job then they are going to miss out. Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) provides you with the tools to do this elegantly and economically in your one to many presentations and this includes addressing their objections.

What Are the Common Objections to Any Sale?

In a group presentation you don’t have the opportunity to do question-and-answer to discover objections, but in even in one-to-one meetings it is usually better to anticipate them than to wait for the other person to voice them. One benefit of speaking to a group is that if someone does raise an objection that you have already addressed other members will be mentally saying something like, “Weren’t they listening?” which increases that person’s sense of ownership and buy-in to your message.

In addition to ensuring that you are communicating effectively to your entire audience by using all four primary representational systems (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, and auditory-digital or self-talk) as we teach at Trainers’ Training you should thoroughly address the 4 main objections. These are: –

Not enough time;
Not enough money;
Not enough trust;
It won’t work for me;

As a presenter, you need to address each of these objections thoroughly before you ask for the sale. You will usually find that any resistance to buying into your ideas disappears as you address these using examples, stories, facts, and diagrams. The primary reason that a presenter fails to reach their goal is that they have not provided adequate answers to all four of these objections.

If you answer all four of these objections convincingly and you are speaking to a person who has to resources and decision-making power to buy, then you will achieve the sale. For example, if your audience wants to execute a particular suite of tasks faster and more accurately, and you have a system which takes only 15 minutes a day to implement, delivers incredible productivity returns, and you show them clearly just how a business or individual just like them implemented the system and achieved even better results, then they will buy.

So, Why Don’t All Salespeople Use this NLP System?

The truth is, anyone can learn to use Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) to disarm objections comprehensively and effectively, but it takes practice to learn to use the appropriate language patterns fluently and naturally. From this perspective, when you are giving a speech, webinar, or other presentation you have a real advantage because you can carefully select the patterns which will work in your favor without needing to wait for a prospect to ask the appropriate question.