Every salesperson wants to make sales. It’s the whole purpose of the job, right? As much as we can separate the “real” us from the “role” us, it can still be disappointing when a prospect says no.
But what if that were a good thing? Getting turned down by a prospect actually has many positive effects, even if they don’t seem as obvious up front. Here are a few thoughts:
First, by not working with a certain prospect, you may have saved yourself from a lot of work with a customer who’s not a good fit. A strong customer (an business or consumer) and seller fit is a crucial part of a successful sales process. It may be that hearing “no” from a prospect at the beginning may save you time you would have had to otherwise spend trying to please and understand that customer.
A secondary effect here is that you can use this time to develop other positive selling relationships. Time is precious, and in order for us to use it most efficiently, we have to be very careful about where we are spending it. A “no” from one customer, while disappointing, may give you more opportunities to eventually get a “yes” from another customer, or three!
Finally, sometimes a good relationship is born even if a sale doesn’t take place. I’ll use my dad for instance. He started his own business and is a landlord with multiple housing units that he rents out. He was looking for a platform on which he could effectively communicate with his tenants, list places for rent, and receive rent payments. He narrowed down to two options, and had extensive calls with sales representatives from each. He ended up choosing option A, but he had built a good business relationship with option B. He has maintained that relationship and has been able to use that relationship for information and guidance in other business decisions.
BoweryJE22
The author of the book I’ve been doing blog posts about also suggests that “no” is one of the best words you can hear. Often salespeople want to hear “yes” so bad that they will sacrifice almost anything in order to get it. It’s great if your client knows that they can say “no”.
I agree that sometimes the best option is ‘no’. This just doesn’t apply in sales but also in life as well. For example job offers, college applications, or on a deeper level, relationships. The world has sort of in a negative way stained the word ‘no’ to leave a bad taste. Yes it can hurt to be rejected but so making a bad choice.
Getting to the “no” is a really important sales concept to understand. Giving the buyer the power to say yes or no leads to a more honest conversation which leads to a more victorious sale.
This is such a good post! All of your points make so much sense and it really gives reassurance to anyone that has gotten an “no” in the sales world. Someone saying “no” can be such a blessing in disguise, and this post does a great job of showing that!
Thank you for the example of your dad! That did a great job of bringing the point you are making to life and showed how it is really applicable to business and sales.