When something on a call does not add up, say "I have a concern", say what it is, and ask the buyer what they think should happen next. Have your own recommendation ready in case they ask you back.
Something on the call does not add up. The answer is vague, the date slides, the person you asked for does not turn up, the voice goes flat.
Say what you noticed, out loud, in the meeting, instead of carrying on and hoping. Then ask the buyer what they think should happen about it, instead of answering it for them. The second half is harder, because it means giving up the explanation you had already built in your head. Mahan Khalsa and Randy Illig, who ran FranklinCovey's sales practice, call the signal a yellow light.
Khalsa and Illig's three steps. Their book, Let's Get Real or Let's Not Play, is not online. Jeremy Donovan's summary quotes the rule, "If you see it, hear it, or feel it, find a way to say it", tactfully, and defines a yellow light as "doubts, stalls, concerns, fears, objections, or tough questions", raised by either side. The response has three parts: say "I have a concern"; state the concern, the confusion or the possible problem; and ask what they think should happen next. If the concern is about something you cannot do, the follow-up is "What would have to happen…?", not "What would I have to do…?" FranklinCovey's announcement of the book adds the authors' rule that sellers should not guess what problem the client is trying to solve.
The spoken version. On episode 1159 of the Daily Sales Tips podcast in March 2022, Jennifer Colosimo, then president of FranklinCovey's enterprise division, gives three steps for a concern the buyer has raised: acknowledge, understand, then resolve if possible. Her acknowledgement opens with "a genuine thank you for raising that concern", suggests slowing down to talk about it, thanks the buyer for being upfront, and asks permission to ask a few questions to understand it. Acknowledging, she adds, is not agreeing.
Nobody has measured the move. No study compares sellers who name a hesitation and hand the decision back with sellers who press on and guess. What good sellers do once an objection is on the table, pause longer and ask rather than launch into a monologue, is Gong's finding under When the buyer keeps asking for more, ask what it is for.
The biggest sales dataset cuts against the second half. Matthew Dixon and Ted McKenna report on their book site, from more than 2.5 million recorded calls analysed on the platform of Tethr, which sells the analysis software, that 56% of deals lost to indecision were lost to the buyer's fear of getting it wrong. Their answer for a hesitant buyer is to offer your own recommendation rather than more questions and choices. They sell the training built on it and never tested Khalsa's question, but it means some buyers will answer "what do you think should happen?" with "what would you do?", and you need that answer ready.
Every piece of evidence behind this move lives in another entry, because each supports several moves. The wording that gets unspoken concerns said, "something" rather than "anything", is under Schedule the concerns conversation before the close. The experiments on raising the damaging fact yourself, before the other side does, are under Volunteer the bad news yourself. The evidence on telling people they are free to refuse, and how weak it is in the best-run studies, is under Agree how the meeting will end before it starts. And the finding that asking for someone's view makes you look more competent, not less, is under Ask for their advice.
The published versions handle a concern the buyer has already voiced; nobody has measured a seller naming something the buyer has not said. The supporting evidence comes from patients, mock jurors and students, and the one large sales dataset on hesitant buyers says to recommend a path rather than ask them to choose one.
When something does not add up, say "I have a concern", say what it is, and ask what they think should happen next. Expect a hesitant buyer to hand the question back, and have your own recommendation ready when they do. The naming half rests on better ground than the handing-back half.