I began my career as a door-to-door salesman. It was hard. I would barely get my first sentence out, and their response would be, "Not interested!"-followed by a slammed door.

These days, I'm a little disappointed when I don't get any pushback. I'll think, Wait a minute, come on, hit me with something! Why? Because after a successful career in sales, and now running a training agency for salespeople called The D2D Experts, I know something now that I didn't when I started: Nine times out of 10, if a prospect doesn't raise a single objection, they aren't really listening. They've checked out, and when you get to the end, they'll say something like, "Can you leave me some information? I'll call you if I'm interested."

All of which is to say: When people object, they're engaged. You should like objections. If you can't deal with objections, you can't sell.

Instead, when you hear an objection from a customer, you need to assess what kind of objection it is. This is the key to everything that happens next. That's because there are three kinds of objections:

1/ A deal-breaker condition

2/ A smoke screen

3/ A true objection

If you misdiagnose the pushback, you'll end up responding with the wrong tactics, and they probably won't work. It's like trying to use a screwdriver on a flathead nail. So let's break them down.