You diagnose before you respond. The framework's middle steps exist for exactly this: ask them to elaborate, run the feedback questions, and listen for what the stated objection is standing in front of — because the real one is usually about the investment's meaning, the risk, the trust, or the timing, wearing the first objection as its coat.
The short answer
The framework names the step diagnose: determine whether the objection in front of you is the real concern or the surface one. The tools are questions, not instincts — elaborate (“tell me more about that”), feedback questions that invite them to rank and specify, and the listening inventory running underneath: repetition, emotion, the questions they ask back. Two disciplines keep the diagnosis honest. Don't assume — their words carry their meanings, and your guess is not data. And don't assume the objection is fake: the same training that teaches surface objections warns that treating a real one as a smokescreen is its own failure. The goal is clarity, in either direction.
How it runs
“Too expensive” is the most misdiagnosed sentence in the industry: it can be total, monthly, value, comparison, or fear of being taken — five different objections sharing two words. The diagnostic questions exist because the cures don't interchange. Diagnosis is also where the earlier appointment pays off: concerns surfaced in discovery, criteria stated in their words, the repeated phrase in your notebook — the real objection usually matches something already in your notes, if the notes exist.
Choosing and running the right close is drilled across Spar's twelve closing drills. Round 1 is free. Spar before you knock.