SKILL
The Word “NO” Can Start a Sale SEAN PERSHA
Salespeople are always looking to close the deal. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t be in sales very long. We judge our effectiveness and calculate our value by the number of times we hear yes in a week, month, or year.
So why should we consider no to be a positive response?
1. IT’S BETTER THAN “MAYBE” If a prospect does respond to your pitch or proposal, there are three po- tential outcomes: yes, no, and maybe. Of these three, “maybe” is the absolute worst.
“Maybe” has the power to string you along because it’s open ended; it leaves a glimmer of hope on the table. The prospect may make offers
like, “Try me again in a few months,” or, “I’ll look at what you have; just leave it with me.”
It keeps them on your call list, so
you create a follow-up task and re- peatedly check on them, yearning for a chance to flip their answer in your favor. But think about it for a minute – how often do you successfully close one of these maybes? The problem is, while you don’t have a rejection, you also don’t have a deal. It’s easy to get lost in this hope and spend much
more time on a sale than you should. In many cases, the prospect really meant (but just didn’t want to say) no. That may have been to avoid hurt- ing your feelings or because they felt uncomfortable rejecting your offer for some reason. If you keep unintention- ally putting them in that uncomfort- able situation, however, over time they will start to see you as pushy or intolerable – and become even less likely to close. To me, it’s always better to push for a definitive answer – whether yes or no – as quickly as possible. If you continue to receive maybes from your prospects, stop accepting them or you’ll risk extending your sales cycle in exchange for negligible results.
2. IT’S A CLUE TO THE ACTUAL OBJECTION “No” is also a great response be- cause it provides some insight into a real objection. The more you know, the more effective you’ll be the next time. Think about the last time you
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