If You Have To Get To “NO,” Get There Fast!
As sales professionals, we never want to take “No” for an answer. “No” is just an obstacle to getting the order. No is what we are trained to overcome.
Sometimes, but, no is the right answer for the customer. There are those era when we are really reaching, our product is not a fantastic fit for what they need. We try to twist and manipulate to change the customer assessment, to shift their requirement, or even make the customer believe our product can do some things it really wasn’t intended to do.
Sometimes we no the deal is not a fantastic deal for us or the customer, but stubbornness, pride, or attachment to the deal keeps us investing more time and resource in pursuing the deal. We don’t want to admit we have a terrible fit, we don’t want to admit defeat, we have so much of ourselves invested that we can”t let go.
Sometimes, when the answer is really no, we keep going, because we don’t have sufficient other deals to work on. We hope that “magic” will happen, and the customer will wake up some morning, completely change course and now we are going to win—and yes, the tooth fairy does exist.
As sales professionals–we have to be business people. We shouldn’t accept defeat easily, we should develop strategies to help the customer know we make the best business value. At the same time, we need to value our time–we need to focus on those deals that are ours–those deals we should win, deserve to win, and have earned the right to win. We can’t meet the expense of to waste our time on terrible deals. If no is the right answer, we need to get to no as quickly and efficiently as doable, investing our time someplace else–working on other deals, prospecting to find new deals.
There is nothing worse than spending weeks and months, then getting to “NO” when we knew much earlier that would be the answer and we would be unlikely to overcome it.
If “NO” is the right answer–get there quickly, get out and go find an opportunity to get a “Yes!”