[Sidenote:  Keep Ears Alert]

The mental tone, as we recall from previous study, is pitched higher than either the tone of feeling or the tone of power.  The medium, heart tone is vibrant.  It rings with sincerity.  The power tone is deep, and most sonorous of the three. Keep your ears alert for these indications your prospect will give you unconsciously when he opposes your purpose.  The discriminative reading of the tones of objections will greatly reduce the danger of “getting your wires crossed” when you reply.

[Sidenote:  Suggest Strength Without Antagonism]

If you have to deal with opposition expressed in the tone of power or with gestures of force, you will be safe in concluding that considerable feeling is behind the objection.  Therefore it will be necessary for you to put both feeling and power into your answer.  You should be careful, however, when you meet such resistance, not to make the impression that you are engaged in a contest of power with your prospect. Throughout the selling process avoid any suggestion that you are fighting back. Use the tone of force, not to indicate that your strength of purpose is greater than the strength of the resistance, but just to emphasize the basic soundness of your proposition.  Thus you can suggest that you are sure of your ground, while you do not dispute the force and sincerity of the other man in making his objection.

Suppose, for example, you apply for a situation in a wealthy firm, and one of the partners turns you down most emphatically by saying that they can’t afford to engage any new men at present.  You realize the firm may be losing money temporarily, but you believe that your services in the capacity you have outlined will be valuable to the partners.  You can come back firmly and not retreat an inch from your position.  You need not antagonize by manifesting your determination to have the merits of your proposal given due consideration.  You know your prospect feels pretty strongly on the matter of increasing his payroll while business is unprofitable, but you should make him recognize that you believe so thoroughly in your earning capacity that you feel you would justify him in disregarding the temporary depression, while he considers your service worth.

[Sidenote:  Units of Tone]

As we have noted previously, it is important to know, at the time an objection is put in your way, whether or not it is really meant.  When deciding in your mind on the right answer to this problem, you will be helped very much if you size up not only the tone pitch of the objection, but also the units of tone employed by the prospect in his expression of opposition.  If he refuses your application, but uses just one tone, you may be sure his negative is not strong.  If you do not strengthen it to stubbornness by antagonizing him, but use tact to get rid of his resistance, you will not find it difficult to melt away the obstruction.