Concerns, Not Objections

Imagine a personal trainer named Yusuf who meets Mrs. Cavendish in the gym at her house. She trained with the same man for three years, until he moved away. She asks what Yusuf charges. “It’s $200 a session,” he says. “We’d start Tuesday.” Mrs. Cavendish says, “Our last trainer was $90.”

Yusuf hears an objection, and he answers it. “I understand, but a lot of trainers at $90 are counting reps and looking at their phones. I’ve got two certifications and 12 years, and my clients get results. If it helps, I could do $170 for the first three months.” Mrs. Cavendish says she will think about it. She books a trainer from the gym in town at $120.

A month later, Yusuf meets Mr. Ambrose, whose trainer of five years has retired. Mr. Ambrose asks the price and hears $200 and Tuesday. “The last fellow was $90,” he says.

This time Yusuf hears a concern. “That’s fair,” he says. “What did the $90 cover?” Mr. Ambrose says it was an hour, three mornings a week. Nothing was written down, and his shoulder hurt for most of last year. “Mine is the hour, a plan I rewrite every four weeks, and a message the day after each session about the shoulder,” Yusuf says. Then he stops. Mr. Ambrose looks at the calendar on the wall and asks whether Tuesday could be at seven. He books at $200.

Mrs. Cavendish and Mr. Ambrose said the same sentence. What differed was the word Yusuf gave it in his head. The word objection put Mrs. Cavendish across the table from him. So Yusuf built a case, and the case came with “but,” his certificates, and $30 off. The word concern put Mr. Ambrose’s $90 on the table between them, where the two of them could look at it.

So the word you use for a client’s pushback, aloud and in your head, decides what happens next. Here is why one word does so much.

One word for a problem changes what people do about it

In 2011, Paul Thibodeau and Lera Boroditsky published five experiments in the journal PLOS ONE. The experiments were about how a word shapes what people decide. In the first, people read a short report about crime in a city. For half of them, crime was a beast preying on the city. For the other half, it was a virus infecting it. Every number in the two reports was the same.

Then the readers were asked what the city should do. The people who read “virus” were more likely to want the causes looked into. The people who read “beast” were more likely to want criminals caught and jailed, 74% of them against 56% of the virus readers. Afterward, the readers were asked what had shaped their answer, and 3% of them named the word. The rest pointed to the numbers, which were the same in both reports.

Those readers were deciding about a city, and the step to a client in a gym is the course’s own. Here is the step. “Objection” does to you what “beast” did to those readers. It is a word from the courtroom, where one lawyer raises an objection against the other and a judge rules on it. The word brings its room with it. So the moment you call the $90 an objection, you are one side and the client is the other. What you do with an objection is overcome it. “Concern” is a word for something a person has. Two people can hold the same concern and look at it together. What you do with a concern is find out what it is.

Yusuf did not notice the word either. He would have said that he lost Mrs. Cavendish on price.

A sales trainer says teaching people to overcome objections sets them against the buyer

ASLAN Training is a sales training firm in Roswell, Georgia. In a post from May 2026, the firm describes what most objection training hands a salesperson. It is a library of replies, one for each kind of pushback. Pushback on the price gets a case for the value.

The trouble, the post says, starts with the goal. “Teaching reps to overcome objections positions them against the buyer from the start, framing every pushback as something to get past rather than something to understand.” Once that happens, “the buyer closes further, regardless of how well-crafted the response is.” A buyer who has closed is not moved by a better argument. “Once a buyer is emotionally closed, logical arguments don’t persuade them. They entrench them.”

The firm trains people who sell to companies, and Yusuf was selling to a woman in her own gym. What carries over is the direction of the word. “Overcome” is what you do to an opponent. Yusuf’s case was well made, and Mrs. Cavendish closed a little further with each sentence of it.

The post also gives a test for the moment after a client speaks. When you tell a client that you understand the concern, the client should be able to say, “exactly.” The phrase that fails the test is “I hear you, but…” In the post’s words, that phrase “erases the validation the moment it’s given.” Yusuf’s first word to Mrs. Cavendish after “I understand” was “but.”

A writer for designers says the complaint about the price is usually about something else

Kate Bendewald writes for interior designers about running a design business. In one post, she writes to designers who have just been told that they are too expensive. She asks first whether it is about the money. “Sometimes it is. But not usually.” She names three reasons that sit under the no more often than money does. The timing may be wrong. The client may not be sold on the process. The client may not trust that the results will come. Her advice for finding out which one it is comes in three words: “Just get curious.”

The title of her post has the word overcoming in it, and two of her three scripts keep the contest. One reminds the client of what they will miss, and one is called “Call Their Bluff.” Measured against this lesson, the part of her post to keep is the question before any script. A client who says $90 may be saying that the process is unclear. They may be saying that they are not sure the shoulder will get better. Curious is what Yusuf was with Mr. Ambrose, and it took one question.

The old price is a fact, and a fact can be looked at together

Of all the concerns a client brings, the one you will hear most is the number they paid before. A client who paid a trainer $90 measures your $200 against that $90. That is how a client measures any new price, against the one they already know. The $90 is the only number they have, so they bring it out.

A number sounds like a verdict, and that is why the $90 gets called an objection. It is a fact about the last arrangement, and nothing more. The $90 bought an hour, three mornings a week, and nothing written down. Your $200 buys something else. Neither number says anything about the other until the two arrangements are side by side.

That is the course’s own reason for the conversation it suggests, and the conversation has three parts. Say the gap back as a concern, in the client’s words, so they hear that you took it as one. Ask what the old price covered, and listen to the whole answer. Then say what yours covers, in one sentence, which is what sits behind the fee, and stop. The price stays where it is. If the client still pauses, lower the risk instead of the price.

For example, an interior designer whose client paid the last designer $100 an hour can say, “So the question is what changes between $100 an hour and a fee of $18,000. What did the hourly rate cover?” After the answer, she can say, “Mine covers the design, every drawing, and the site visits until the last chair is in.”

Why “I hear your concern, but” goes wrong

Imagine a home organizer named Ingeborg who meets Mrs. Oduya about a house with four closets and a garage. Mrs. Oduya says that the organizer she used in her last house charged $60 an hour, and Ingeborg is $140. Ingeborg has decided that pushback is a concern, and she says it aloud. “I completely hear that concern. But most organizers at $60 are doing it on the side. I’m certified, and I work about twice as fast, so it comes out about the same.”

Mrs. Oduya hears the “but” and everything after it. The word concern was said, and the case followed it anyway, with a credential and a sum she is invited to check. She says she will be in touch, and she calls the organizer from her last house, who drives the 40 minutes.

The word changed and the fight did not. ASLAN’s post warns about this too. It describes better language “over the same underlying pressure,” and it adds that “The motive is what the buyer is actually reading.” A concern named and then argued with is an objection with a politer name. What has to follow the word is a question. “I hear that. What did the $60 cover?” Then Ingeborg finds out that the last organizer did the closets and left the garage. Now the conversation has something to look at.

Calling it a concern is not giving in

Treating pushback as a concern can feel like handing the client the upper hand. If you do not answer the $90 with a case, it seems that the $90 wins.

The price did not move in either of Yusuf’s conversations. The only one who lowered a price was Yusuf himself, in the fight, with $30 off that Mrs. Cavendish did not take. With Mr. Ambrose, the $200 stayed where it was, and so did the client. What you give up when you call it a concern is the contest. The contest was the part that was losing clients.

How to turn a client’s pushback into a conversation

Write down the last three remarks clients made about your price that you treated as objections, word for word. Under each one, write what it was a fact about. “The last trainer was $90” is a fact about the last trainer’s arrangement, and nothing about yours.
When a client names the number they paid before, say it back as a concern, in their words. For example, a travel adviser can say, “So the question is what changes between the $2,000 you paid last time and $6,500.”
Ask what the old price covered, and let the client give the whole answer. For example, an event planner can ask, “What did the $8,000 include, and what did you end up doing yourselves?”
Say what yours covers, in one sentence, and stop. For example, a florist can say, “Mine covers the design, the flowers, the setup on the day, and the clearing after.” Do not add why your price is fair, and do not add a discount.
The concern may turn out to be something other than the price, such as whether the result will come. Answer that with proof the client can check.
Catch the word “but” on its way out. If you hear yourself say “I understand, but,” stop at “I understand” and ask the question from step 3 instead.
After the meeting, write down the concern in the client’s words and what it turned out to be about. Over a few meetings, the notes show you which concerns your clients bring, and the word objection stops coming to mind.

Next: You will see what to say when a client asks why it costs that: one sentence, and then quiet.