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Recently I was finishing Trust Agents by Chris Brogan and Julien Smith, and on p.244 – p.246 they began to discuss how the word “Yes” applied to becoming a trust agent, and how important it was to embracing this thought process–yet, so few do as “No” continues to be the knee-jerk reaction in so many aspects of our lives.  Bravo to Chris and Julien to highlight this, as yes, we are inundated with marketing and spam from all side, but sometimes, “Yes” can offer change for the better!

From a business perspective, if you are marketing or selling a product, no matter how super-wonderful-incredible-awesome it is, be prepared to hear the word no–or, not even to hear back.

Here are 5 specific ideas to what you can do when you hear “No,” and how you can use it to work closer with your prospective customer, as well as learn from business rejection.

1.  “No” gives you the opportunity to drill-down and understand why your prospective customer is rejecting you and your product/service.  If they spent the time to look at what you are proposing, and ultimately said “no” it is your chance to get closer to them by understanding why.  According to Tom Hopkins in How to Master the Art of Selling, you can say something like, “just to clarify my thinking, is it the the integrity of my company or my integrity that led you to no?”  They will almost always say that is absolutely not the case,  and you can work through various aspects of your offering, eventually getting to the chance inject “is is the investment that’s involved?”  This will almost always be the case–but that leads you to the opportunity to understand how much they ARE ready to invest/spend, and that’s where a professional must quantify the VALUE of your offering.  If you cannot ,then you are not prepared, and game over man!  Be ready to quantify that differential.

2.  Numbers, numbers, numbers.  Business is a game of numbers, plain and simple.  If someone says no, and means no, be prepared to move on quickly.  Don’t agonize over the loss of a prospective customer, just have another prospect in your pipeline.  If you have a quality product or service, there will be customers for you–always.  So understand that generating prospects through all aspects of your marketing campaign is critical.  Someone will always reject you.

3.  How many “No’s” does it take for you to get to a “Yes.”  Understand this formula and your business will thrive.  If you know over a period of time that you must cultivate nine opportunities to achieve a yes, then all your business becomes in a mathematical equation.  Plug that equation into your business model and see how well you can do!  If you can, through your marketing efforts, find ten prospects per week, you should be creating four new customers per month.  So, you must understand your pipeline and what it will take for you to create the new customer stream you need.

Tomorrow, yes, the day before Thanksgiving, I’ll post ideas 4 and 5.  If in the meantime you have any thoughts or ideas for dealing with “No” and rejection, please share them with us!

Preston Ehrler, Webvantx

• Overcoming Objections in 5 Easy Steps Part 2
  Yesterday we discussed the first 3 ways to work to overcome a prospective c...

TAGS: Chris Brogan, Julien Smith, Overcoming rejection, Tom Hopkins, Trust Agents