Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz of Go For No

The word ‘YES’ is so positive, encouraging… and it means we’re succeeding. ‘NO’ on the other hand, is bad, depressing… and it means we failed.  What if, starting today, the word ‘no’ didn’t stop you? What if every time you heard the word no, you became stronger, more powerful, and more resilient?  Well you can.

For most of us, we don’t like to hear the word “no” when it comes to selling our products and services. We fight our way through it every step of the way.  If you are working your business and when you get a “yes” you feel wonderful and when you get a ”no” you feel bad, then you are going to feel bad pretty often.  Because when you are in business, when you sell anything – especially today – the No’s are out there!  And if you are feeling bad about the “no’s” you get, you might slow down, get discouraged, avoid business building… you might even quit altogether.

Yet there is an irony about Yes and No (Failure and Success) and it is this: when you go out of your way to increase the number of “no’s” you get, the yeses will show up at your door in greater quantities than you ever could have imagined! This is the essence of the “Go for No!” philosophy.

In part it is a “numbers game.” However, in addition to getting more NO’s we want you to start feeling differently about the process. Stop fighting and battling through the NO’s!  So, the question is, how do you start feeling good about hearing “no” in your business?  You can do it by reprogramming the way you think about it.  You must think differently about the no’s that you are hearing. The truth is that when you hear “no” you are taking action in your business and that is a very good thing! Take pride in the NO’s that you are getting. Start rewarding yourself for your the NO’s rather than punishing. After a “no” you must celebrate and at all costs avoid your negative self talk: (“He said ‘no’ – what am I doing? I can’t do this. I’m a total failure”…on and on.)

In fact, we would like to challenge you to get 10 no’s this week. And if you get those 10 no’s we would like you to go out and treat yourself to your favorite thing. Because you are engaging in the success behaviors that are going to take you to where you want to go. And who knows, when you go for those ten no’s there might be some yeses hiding in there!

So we’ve finally arrived at Step 5 in our Getting to “NO” series, and I hope you’re prepared; this is going to be the most difficult step of all.  This is where you learn to exercise your power to say “No” to the prospect.  Yes, you read that right.  Sometimes, when all other measures to get a “No” have failed, you have to take it upon yourself to say it.  Why would you ever need to tell a prospect “No”, though?

Sometimes you have to say “No” because the prospect refuses to do it for you.  You did everything right: you got agreement from the prospect that they would tell you “No” if it didn’t seem like a good fit.  You asked all the right questions.  It’s abvious to you that your offering doesn’t align with the values and goals your prospect identified as important to them.  And yet here the prospect is, asking you for a formal proposal so she can look it over and get back to you.

You know in your heart that it’s just a stall tactic, and that she’s just trying to dodge a sale that you aren’t even trying to make.  And yet you still feel that tug of excitement because it sounds like a “Maybe”, and “Maybe”, despite my best warnings, is still pretty tempting.  After all, sometimes “Maybe” becomes “Yes”.

Remember, though, that “Maybe” is the siren song of the salesperson.  It’s calling you to shipwreck on its rocky shores.  Don’t take the bait.  Resist the temptation to play the “Maybe” game.  As difficult as it may be, it’s time for you to walk away.

How do you extract yourself from the situation, though, without causing offense?  Once again, our good friend honesty comes to the rescue.  Simply tell the prospect what you’re thinking.  Make it clear that you believe your offering isn’t a good match for them, and be prepared to offer a detailed explanation for your assessment of the situation.  It’s likely that won’t be necessary, but some prospects like to play the game all the way out to the end.

Still sound like a crazy idea, this saying “No” to a prospect?  Consider this, then: giving in to the urge to prepare that proposal on the promise of a “Maybe” is going to cost you precious time, time that could be better spent pursuing real opportunities.  As a selling professional, you only have so many hours available to you, and you need to make the best use of them.  Sinking a bunch of time into chasing “Maybe”s is a sure-fire way to missing your quota, at the very least.  You’d be much better served, and frankly so would your prospect, if you’d just say “No thank you” to the request for proposal.

Look, I’m not saying that every “Maybe” is a dead end; it’s true that they sometimes do turn into “Yes”.  What I’m saying is that there are many other opportunities out there in your market, too many, in fact, for you to worry about whether this particular “Maybe” will end up in a “Yes”.  You have an obligation, to yourself, your employer and your prospects, to spend your time working the leads that will eventually become clients, and sometimes that means you have to be the one to say ”No”.

Like it or not, that’s your job.  Do we need to have the “delicate flower” conversation again?  Your ability to get to “No” faster and more often, even if that means saying it yourself, is why you get paid the big bucks.

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So now that we’ve had a look at the 5 steps to get to “No” faster and more often during your prospecting and qualifying efforts, I guess we should shift gears and spend some time discussing those prospects who make it past the “No” test and, by all indications, really could be great clients.  Once you’ve moved past the prospecting and qualifying phase, how do you get those prospects you want as clients to say “Yes”?  I’ll devote the rest of the week to the “4 Steps to Hearing Your Favorite Answer in Sales”, starting tomorrow with an in-depth NEADS analysis (I know it’s misspelled…tune in tomorrow to find out why).

Cheers!

What a great day!  I was spending some time on TweetDeck when one of the Tweets in the stream caught my eye.  It said, “I take pride in the ‘No’s’ that I get (means I am taking action!)”

What was this?  Another crusader for “No”?  I checked the Twitter profile and found not one but two advocates for our two-lettered friend.  What a great connection.  This is why I love social media!  So keep up the “No” campaign Andrea and Richard, and I’ll be cheering you along the way.

On with the series, then.  Today’s step offers you the keys to the kingdom when it comes to getting to “No”.  Asking better questions really is the best, fastest, most efficient way to get to the “No” you need to hear and avoid that “Maybe” trap.

Let’s start with the reason you’re asking questions to begin with.  First of all, lose the illusion that qualifying questions are supposed to help you close sales.  Not so, my friend.  Qualifying questions are meant to help you sift the wheat (potential buyers) from the chaff (friendly people who have trouble saying “No” and want to keep you in the “Maybe”-loop).  Great questions help prospects self-select so that you can find the ones who really want to work with you.

What kind of questions do you need to ask?  IT sales and marketing expert Robin Robins recommends a simple, three-step series of questions that will help you and your prospect determine if it makes sense to continue the conversation.  The first question is “What’s most important to you when it comes to…”  The purpose of the question is to start to get an idea of the values of the prospect you’re talking to.  If the answer is something like “Getting the lowest price and the best service possible”, you’re probably in for trouble, especially if your great service comes with a heftier price tag than your competitors’.

Of course, you’ll need to dig a little deeper than that.  Pursuing the intent of identifying the the values of the prospect, you might try asking “What else is important?” a couple of times until you feel you’ve got a complete list of concerns, ranked in order of relative importance.  Now it’s time to move on to the next question.

Ask, “Why is that important to you?”  This allows the prospect to clarify, both to you and to themselves, whether there is a real opportunity for partnership.  If a prospect says that getting the lowest price is the most important thing and you feel like you can provide the lowest price, yet they follow up by saying that the reason they need low prices is that they’re having cash flow problems and “by the way do you offer 60-day terms?”, you know the opportunity is a risky one, right?  And when you explain your COD terms, you’ll probably get that “No” you were looking for.

Next question: “How will you know when you’ve acheived [whatever they said was most important to them]?”  This part of the discussion is really going to help you make sure there’s no confusion when it comes time to present possible solutions.  If the prospect tells you at this point that they’ll know they’re getting the lowest price if their current vendor isn’t willing to match or beat it, again, it’s time to start packing your things and thinking of an exit strategy (more on that tomorrow); this situation is clearly headed for a “No”!

But let’s say that these three questions uncover a real oppportunity to move the sale forward.  What then?  It’s time for the most important question of all.  You say, “So I have a question for you: keeping in mind the agreement we made at the beginning of this conversation about telling me “No”, if I could show you something that would give you [most important thing] that covered [why it's important] and gave you [how they'll know it when it's right], would it be worth it to you to meet again and learn about that solution with an eye toward partnering on such a project?”

This is it: their opportunity to deliver a big fat “No” and let you off the “Maybe” hook.  And if you’ve followed these first four steps correctly, chances are pretty good that that’s exactly what you’ll get.  At the same time, you’ll also have improved your chances at getting a “Yes”.  And if you do, congratulations!  You now have the green light to switch gears from getting a quick “No” to looking for the “Yes” at the end of the funnel!

But before you start writing up that presentation, there’s one more step we need to consider, and it’s going to be the hardest one to do: developing the ability to know when you should say “No” to the prospect.  Be sure to tune in for this last step tomorrow!

I’d like to make a couple of clarifications before proceeding with the Getting to “No” series.  First, when I’m addressing salespeople, I’m including you business owners and entrepreneurs in the conversation.  If you’re not doing all the selling in your organization yourself, you’re likely the one managing the salespeople.  You need to pay attention to this stuff.

Second, this series is focusing on the importance of getting to “No” faster and more often in the early stages of the sales process, specifically when prospecting and qualifying.  In the latter half of the process (presentation and conversion), you’re definitely looking for a “Yes” (look for a follow-up series on getting to “Yes” next week).  And if you apply the principles in this series to get more “No”s, you’ll be more like to succed when it comes time to ask for a “Yes”.

That said, thanks for tuning in to part 3 of our 5-part series, “5 Steps To Get To the 2nd Best Answer In Sales”.  The third step in the process is simple: Clearly State Your Intention.

Like many of the suggestions you read in this blog, this is really just common sense.  The idea here is to get an agreement from the prospect regarding the outcome you’d like to acheive right at the beginning of your conversation.  If you state your intention right at the beginning of the conversation, your chances of getting the outcome you’re looking for go up pretty significantly, right?

And what is that desired outcome?  You guessed it: to avoid “Maybe” at all costs, even if that means you’ll get a “No”.

But how do you get your prospect to agree to that?  After all, these folks have been professionally trained in the art of the 1001 “Maybe”s.  They’re Masters of the Hem, and if that doesn’t work they fall back on their trusty old Haws.  They can evade being pinned down to a definite answer better than a stealthy ninja can avoid detection.  How in the world will you get them to agree to giving you a “Yes” or “No” and not a “Maybe”?

First, understand that the reason prospects have such an affinity for “Maybe” is that they don’t like saying “No” to a nice person like you any more than you like hearing it.  They’ve just been trained by all the lousy salespeople they’ve dealt with before that “Maybe” is the safest answer.  They’re afraid to commit, one way or the other, because they’re afraid of making the wrong decision.  Just like you, they are human beings with fragile, neurotic egos and they want other people to like them.  If they say “No”, they fear that you won’t like them (of course, none of this applies to Gatekeepers; they are a different breed entirely, and they thrive on saying “No” and being disliked by salespeople, and eating small children).  So make it easy for them to say “No”.

Just be honest.  Try something like this: “You know Mr./Ms. Prospect, I really appreciate your taking the time to see me today.  I know you’re a busy person, and so I’d like to make you a deal: if what we talk about today aligns with your values or strikes a chord with you, I’d like to explore our opportunity for partnership a little further.  If it doesn’t, though, I don’t want to waste any more of your or my time.  So if you don’t like what I have to say, I’d like for you to let me know right up front.  I promise you won’t hurt my feelings, and I promise to take you at your word.  If you tell me “No”, I won’t be pestering you with pointless phone calls and emails; I’ll only contact you if and when I come across something in the future that looks like it might be a good fit based on the conversation we have today.  Does that sound like a plan to you?”

Don’t try to back the prospect into a corner, though.  Remember: you’re not trying to get the sale at this point.  You’re merely asking that they be honest and upfront about whether they see a match of their needs to your product, and whether they’re willing to listen to more information.  You’re not asking them to commit to anything other than another specific, well-defined conversation (as opposed to a pointless “follow-up call”).  If you try to get them to commit to anything more at this point in the game, you’ll be hearing “Maybe” all the way to next year.

Tune in tomorrow for Step 4: Ask Better Questions.  In the meantime, please leave a comment to let me know what you think of the series so far.  Ciao for now!

So here we are as promised, Step 2 of the “5 Steps To Get To “No” Faster and More Often”: Talk To More People.

No kidding, right?  In fact, I could literally end this post right now.  After all, you don’t need four or five more paragraphs to explain to you that if you want to hear “No” more often, the easiest way to accomplish it is to see more prospects.  Well, lucky for you I’m in a generous mood and you’re going to get those four or five (possibly six…we’ll see) paragraphs anyway.

It’s become popular lately to discount the idea that sales is a “numbers game”, and to some extent I agree; selling today is far more complex a matter than just who can make the most calls.  But at least during the prospecting and qualifying phases of the sales process, volume does count for something.  Look at a typical sales funnel report, and you can see that it never looks like a cylinder; they call it a “funnel” for a reason.  You have to see a lot of people in the initial stages to get down to those few who could truly become customers in the later stages.

In fact, if you consistenly track your numbers you’ll start to see ratios jumping off the page.  Maybe it’s 100 prospecting calls that lead to 25 qualifying appointments that result in 5 presentations that net you 1 new customer.  And what does that really mean?  It means that for every 1 new customer, you have to hear 99 “No”s.  Are you beginning to see why it’s so critical to get to “No” faster and more often?  Talking to more prospects and getting them to tell you “No” as early in the game as possible actually improves your ability to get to that coveted “Yes”.

And here’s something else to keep in mind: when you’re deciding who to talk to, put a little effort into it.  Don’t just say “Well Jerry said I need to talk to more people, so I’m just going to stand on the busiest street corner in town and talk to all the people that walk by.”  Do your homework, and spend your time talking to more prospects who actually might have a genuine need for your services.  Don’t waste time with folks who aren’t really prospects, or your ratios will start to get bigger (200 prospecting calls to get 25 apointments, etc.). There’s a lot to be said for targeted prospecting.

Maybe this would be a good time to talk about the elephant in the room: the fact that nobody, even the best of the best salespeople, actually likes to hear “No”.  That’s a valid point, and one that needs to be addressed.  And here’s how I’m going to address it: get over it.  I’m sorry, but you’re a salesperson, not a delicate flower.

If you want a job where nobody ever says “No”, sales ain’t it, kid.  Try government work (I hear the benefits are great!), not sales.  If you want to be a successful salesperson, “No” comes with the territory.  To quote the immortal Strother Martin (in “Cool Hand Luke“), “I don’t like it any more than you men (or women),” but that’s the way it is.  The benefit of talking to more prospects and hearing “No” more often is that you start to develop an immunity; it doesn’t hurt nearly as bad the 999th time you’ve heard it as it did the first.

So get out there today and see how many prospects you can get to say “No”.  If you’re on a team, maybe make a little contest out of it…the one with the most “No”s at the end of the day gets to wear a big N pinned to his or her shirt the next day.  Talk about a conversation starter!  And if you’re the entire sales force, set a goal for yourself and beat it. Keeping track of “No”s is way easier (and more fun) than keeping track of “Yes”s anyway!

Thanks for reading, and stay tuned tomorrow for Step 3: Clearly State Your Intention.

I just finished a post over at the Sales Bloggers Union about the importance of getting to “No” faster and more frequently in order to be a successful salesperson.  You can read that post here.

As I was writing that post, though, I started thinking of some ways to help salespeople get better at eliciting those “No”s from their prospects more efficiently.  I decided to write a series here called “5 Steps To Get To the 2nd Best Answer In Sales”.

We’ll start with the most important step: getting your mindset properly aligned.

Step #1: Remember That “No” Really Means “Not Now”

Why do I say that your mindset is the most important step?  To begin with, developing the right mindset will help you handle the inevitable rejection involved in selling for a living.  Have you ever wondered how great salespeople can get rejected all day long and get up the next day to do it all over again?  It’s because they know this little secret: “No” doesn’t really mean “No”…it just means “Not now”.

If the person you’re talking to is really a prospect (and if they’re not, why are you talking to them in the first place?), the fact that they tell you “No” today doesn’t suddenly turn them into a non-prospect, does it?  Of course not.  It just means that either you didn’t do a good job of uncovering their triggers and presenting the right solution, or that they just didn’t connect with you on some level, or that they really just are not going to buy right now.

And that’s OK.  It happens to the best of us.  But it doesn’t change the fact that they’re still a valid prospect and that maybe, if you play your cards right, you’ll get another shot at some point in the future.  In the meantime, move on.  It’s not the end of the world.  Put them back in the queue and check in with them periodically, keeping an eye on any relevant sources of information (their website, news articles, social media) that might indicate a change of circumstance.  And when the time is right, make another run at it.

While you’re at it, how about a sincere “Thank you!” to the prospect who had the guts to tell you “No” instead of dragging you through that Vale of Shadow known as “Maybe”.  Remember: “Maybe” is the natural enemy of the salesperson, to be avoided at all cost!

Salespeople have begun to develop an aversion to hearing “No”, and we sometimes do stupid things to avoid hearing it.  Like not making calls.  Like not asking for the business.  Like playing the “Maybe” game with prospects who wouldn’t buy from you if you promised them all dates with George Clooney.  Sound familiar?  If so, it’s time to get comfortable with “No” again.

And before you think I’m encouraging salespeople to return to the “bad old days” of sticking your foot in the door and not taking “No” for an answer, let me assure you that nothing could be further from my mind.  On the contrary, I’m encouraging you to take “no” for an answer as often as possible so that you can move on more quickly to prospects who want to engage with you.

So what should you do when a customer says “No”?  Shake his hand, say “Thanks very much!” and get your behind back in the saddle as quickly as possible.  Otherwise, this may not be the right profession for you.

So now that your mindset is in order, what next?  Tune in tomorrow for Step #2: Talk to More People!