No Opportunity
When people say they aren’t interested in your idea, the natural reaction is to get discouraged or angry. After all, you’ve worked really hard and you feel it is a great idea, regardless of anyone else’s opinion. Pride in authorship is a really tough pill to swallow for most people. Hearing “no” is a good thing. You can learn a lot from a simple “no,” and conversely, very little from people saying “yes.” With a “yes,” you feel reassured that your idea is good and it will work; you spend little time analyzing why they agreed, and you are just happy with the act. You believe that you were right. When people say “no,” you spend more thinking about where you went wrong, and hopefully how to improve it. Getting it wrong lets you learn, while getting it right makes you feel good. But feeling good is fleeting. Receiving a “no” means you haven’t done a good enough job of convincing them of your endeavor. It is not that your idea lacks merit, but you’ve failed to convey why it is the right solution for them. If you create ideas, you have to be able to sell those ideas with passion. Next time someone tells you “no,” instead of accepting it and feeling upset, ask them — “Why not?”
“Why not?” allows people to agreeably communicate why they think it won’t work, why it isn’t right, and explore the ways it might fail. It gets them to think about it as a viable option, and extracts what they perceive as faults — all valuable information. In my business, I have seen many people frustrated when someone didn’t like the work they produced. They are often written off as crazy as a way to deal with any emotions they feel.
Selling is the art of convincing people you have the solution to their problem. When you finally hold a solution that people want to buy, selling becomes easy and inexpensive. Very little convincing is required for those who are ready to buy. If your product or service is expensive or difficult to sell, or you need to resort to trickery or games, then you need to step back and ask yourself — “Why do so many people say no?”
People refrain from buying for a myriad of reasons: media portrayal as a scam, poor reviews, too expensive, detractors, crappy customer service, product quality, etc. Instead of trying to sell or market your way out of these problems, you’re better off to redirect your resources into improving and preventing why people say “no” in the first place; systematically remove each and every barrier. I believe the people who don’t buy are just as important, or maybe more so, than the ones who do. Not only should you find a way to ask “why not?” to these potential customers, but you should embrace their “no” as a sign of more improvements that need to be made.
So, rejoice when people say “no.” Smile and ask them why. Respect the naysayers, haters, and detractors; their feedback can be some of the most valuable available. Isn’t it sweet revenge when someone who was an initial skeptic later becomes an advocate of what you sell? Consider that the next time someone says they aren’t interested in what you have to sell. I guarantee if you apply their feedback, it will get increasingly easier to convince others to say “yes” in the future.
Posted on Feb 05, 2009 by Kevin Milden
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