"How much is a window?"
This is the trade's signature door objection and most reps handle it badly in one of two ways: they dodge it ("that's exactly what the appointment is for!") which reads as evasive, or they throw out a low per-window number to keep the conversation alive, which guarantees a blown-up kitchen table two weeks later.
Answer it like a professional who knows why the question cannot be answered: "Honest answer — I can't tell you, and anybody who gives you a number standing in your driveway is guessing. It depends on the size of the opening, how many you're doing, and whether we're setting an insert inside your existing frame or tearing back to the studs, which I can't see from here. What I can tell you is nobody does one window for a hundred bucks, and doing the whole house is a real project people usually finance. If you tell me how many you're thinking about, I can tell you whether it's worth having somebody measure."
You have now done three things: refused to lie, given them a real frame for the size of the decision, and turned the objection into your fourth qualifier. If they say "just the three in the back bedroom," you know what kind of appointment this is.
"My husband isn't home"
The one-legger is where windows canvassers quietly destroy their own numbers. A set that goes on the board without both owners is a set that gets cancelled, or worse, a demo that gets run and ends in "I have to talk to my wife" after three hours of a closer's night.
Say it out loud and make it about fairness to them: "Totally fine — honestly I'd rather come back. The reason is the guy who comes out gives you an exact price that day, and if there's financing involved both names are on it. It's not fair to make you sit through the whole thing and then do it again for him on Saturday. What's his name? And what's better for you two — a weeknight after he's home, or Saturday morning?"
Write the spouse's name down. Use it when you confirm. And disposition the door as one-legger rather than set so your set-to-sat number stays honest — a canvasser who cannot see their own no-show rate cannot fix it.
"We already had three companies out here"
Every instinct says this is a dead door. It is the opposite. Somebody who has sat through three multi-hour presentations has already decided they want windows — they just have not found a company that made saying yes feel safe.
So stop pitching and get curious: "Three? Okay — what were they coming in at? ... And what made you not pull the trigger?" Then be quiet. You will hear one of four things almost every time: the number was way past what they expected, the rep would not leave, the quotes were not comparable, or one company quoted a full tear-out and another quoted inserts and nobody explained why the price doubled. Each of those has a clean answer, and none of them requires you to trash a competitor by name.
Close on the difference: "Then let me do the opposite of what those guys did. One hour, real number in writing, and if it's not for you I leave. Tuesday at six or Saturday at ten?"
"Our windows are fine"
Nobody is lying to you here. Windows fail slowly and invisibly, and people adapt — they stop using the drafty room, they put a towel on the sill, they run the heat higher. Your job is not to argue; it is to point at one specific thing and let them look at it themselves.
"Yeah, they mostly work — most people's do. Do me one favor though: look at that upstairs one on the left. See the haze between the two panes that doesn't wipe off? That's the seal, and that one's already done — it's basically a single-pane now. That's the kind of thing people don't notice until somebody points at it."
Then stop. If they walk over and look at the window, you have an appointment to ask for. If they do not, they were never a window buyer today, and that is a go-back, not a fight.
