“No” to scheduling an appointment…
“No, take me off your call list…”
“No, take me off of your email list…
“No” to revisiting in the future…
“No, no, no, no, no…”
We’ve all heard it from prospects. Even The Queen of prospecting® has heard it from prospects.
It is certainly true that the more skillful one becomes at prospecting the fewer prospects say, “no.” Sometimes, however, prospects do say “no” and there is nothing at all that you can do about it.
Many sales professionals fear hearing the word, “no.” Some feel personally rejected when they hear “no.” Some feel discouraged and demoralized. Some look into the future and predict that their prospects will simply say, “no” so they don’t even reach out. These types of emotional reactions to the word, “no,” keep sales pros from success.
What if there was a different way to think about it?
To me, there is nothing more demoralizing than reaching out to a prospect over and over again by phone, by email or by social media and getting no response at all. Over and over you reach out and over and over again, crickets. What to do? Keep calling? Keep emailing? Texting? Tweeting?
In the above scenario, I would always rather hear, “no.” If someone says, “no” to me, at least I know where I am. If a prospect says they absolutely will not make an appointment; if they ask to be removed from the call list or the email list… They have just given me an enormous gift: The Gift of “No.” The Gift of “No” sets me free from having to endlessly chase noncommunicative prospects. The Gift of “No” allows me instead to reach out to different prospects that might very well say, “yes” to me.
Don’t fear the word, “no.” It sets you free.
