You’ve just spent 45 minutes with a customer, and you know he’s going to buy. But at the last minute he hands you an excuse, and before you know it, he’s heading for the exit. There’s no need to watch the door click shut behind him—there’s a response to every excuse and a way to make that sale. In fact, says Marlene Cordry, president of retail consultancy The Friedman Group in Lenexa, Kan., most excuses are just that.  “Ninety percent of the time these excuses are not true,” Cordry says. “Customers are stalling and trying to get out of your store, and you don’t know why.” Generally, she says, the first step to any objection should be empathy—letting customers know you understand why they don’t want to buy. However, she adds, always save something to pull out at the end, such as the fact that your store will offer free cleaning for the rest of the customer’