Objection-First Intro
Open by naming the pain and killing limiting beliefs before you ever teach.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 85%
Fladlien opens webinars by immediately hitting objections and going into the pain rather than saving them for the close. A signature device is a rapid-fire true/false pop quiz whose questions each target a limiting belief — 'true or false, you need to be an expert to create an information product' — which he answers false, killing the baggage on the spot. In another webinar he names the whole hard path (need great products, need to drive traffic, need to convert, need trust) and voices the audience's own fears about each, then promises the answers by the end rather than giving them away. Done in the first 10-15 minutes, this sets up an aha moment and pre-empts every excuse before the pitch.
Origin
Fladlien describes this as an evolution in his webinars — hitting objections right away — demonstrated in his Product E-Class webinar (which closed ~1-in-3 with 1,000+ attendees) and his $3,000 Amazon webinar (converting ~15%).
Core principles
- 01Hit the objections right away and go straight into the pain.
- 02Kill the limiting beliefs people bring in as baggage before you teach anything.
- 03Set up their future excuses in the intro so you've pre-answered them by pitch time.
- 04Don't hand over the answers yet — promise they'll have them by the end.
- 05Create an aha moment in the first 10-15 minutes that reframes everything.
How to run it
- 1
Go into the pain immediately
Rather than saving objections for the close, open by hitting them and moving straight into the audience's pain.
- 2
Kill limiting beliefs with a pop quiz
Fire off rapid true/false questions, each tied to a limiting belief, and answer them to dismantle the baggage attendees carry in.
Pro tip 'True or false: you need to be an expert to create an information product' — answer: false.
- 3
Name their future excuses
Voice the whole hard path and the fears attached to each part (product, traffic, conversion, trust) so you've addressed the pitch-time objections up front.
- 4
Promise the answers, don't give them
Let them know they'll have the answers by the end of the webinar rather than resolving everything now, sustaining the reason to stay.
Pro tip Frame it around the hopeless-seeming person: 'stay tuned, I'm going to show you how that person succeeds.'
In the wild
On a $3,000 Amazon webinar, Fladlien opens by stating you'll need multiple high-quality products, you'll need to drive traffic (the number-one thing customers struggle with), you'll need to convert that traffic through persuasion, and all of it requires trust — voicing each fear the audience holds.
→ Sets up every excuse in advance and still converts at roughly 15% on a $3,000 price point.
Common mistakes
Saving objections for the pitch
If limiting beliefs and excuses aren't surfaced early, the audience carries them as baggage through the whole webinar and raises them exactly when you're trying to close.
Is it for you?
Best for
Webinar and presentation sellers who want to disarm objections before the teaching and pitch.
Not ideal for
Low-resistance audiences already sold, where surfacing objections would manufacture doubt.
From the transcript
“we hit the objections right away we immediately go into the pain”
“I'm killing these limiting beliefs immediately that people are bringing in like baggage into the webinars”
From the episode
Jason Fladlien: The Quarter-Billion-Dollar Webinar Man Reveals His Best Marketing and Sales Secrets
Jason Fladlien