Why does selling start at "no"?

No... im not buying that at all.

Selling is NOT about the "NO" its the process of finding the "YES".

In your case every call starts with qualifying to a Yes or No basically as fast as you can. In my case.. its not even that... I have time on my side... I can nurture the desired response.. like 60% of the time.

Psychologically, the minute you turn in your head that every call is a Yes... that's when the magic happens.

Yes they are going to buy...

Yes, they were not the right match for you and your services.

Because most are actually creating that "No" by attempting to interact with a prospect using logic and complex reasoning (ie, throwing a bunch of features and benefits at them), while the prospect is just using a portion of their brain that was developed long ago and can only process bite sized bits to make snap judgements.

I think Oren Klaff talks about it and gives the example of walking to your car in the parking lot and suddenly someone screams out really loud, "HEY!". Your immediate reaction is to stop for a split second and duck a little bit, then you make a split second assessment of whether or not you are in danger and need to run away. But after a second you realize it was just Joe calling out to his wife that was parking the car (poorly) and about to hit another parked car.

That split second is your prospect on the other end of the line, ducking their head when they hear, "Hi, Bob. How are you today? I'd love to tell you about our....".

"NO" is the answer to the assessment, and running away is the result.

Because we are all very busy and want more money.

If your product gives me more time or more money, I will listen.

At first, I will assume you are wasting my time and your product will waste my money - so I resist. Time is my most valuable resource and money is my most valuable tool.

The first sale you have to make is to let me give you some of my time. That is arguably the hardest sale to make.

Since my time is more valuable than my money - if you can get me to give you time, getting my money is much easier.

The reason that this is such a popular axiom, is that it's true when you use normal selling techniques.

The AIDA formula (Attention Interest Desire Action) makes overcoming objections and closing..the focus of selling.

But....you can also use qualifying to find the likely buyers. And then position yourself as the Authority.....and that's where the selling is.

In cold calling? If you're working with a limited list, and each name is important....then "The sales starts when the customer says No" is pretty true.

The Jordon Belfort model? It's very true.

The first 20 years I sold in people's homes? Very true. Almost nobody just said "Yes" without a struggle.

For high end salespeople, that truly understand the buying process of customers? The sale starts in the moment you decide to call the prospect.

It's like saying "Football doesn't start until the last Quarter". or "Healthcare doesn't start until you are in Intensive Care"

Think of selling as fishing. Does fishing start after the fish has bitten down on the bait, and you are reeling the fish in? No. It starts when you pick the location, and the time of day to fish. It's all part of the same process. The entire sale, from Contact to Contract...is all part of the same process.

Just opinions.

For numerous reasons and I'll mention a few.

Bad Preparation or None at All

Most times it's because the person selling has not done their homework. Poor preparation always leads to bad results at the end of the day.

Fear of Selling

If the person selling is afraid of selling it'll most likely come through in their presentation as lack of believability.

No Need

The person or business being sold to doesn't have a need.

Need Exists But Wrong Solution

Self explanatory.

Poor Product or Service

Self explanatory.

Marketing Hasn't Served it's Purpose

I've seen from coaching clients of mine, both offline consultants and business owners (primarily service businesses), that their marketing has failed to inform and educate their target audience in advance of the selling part. When that happens and they try to sell, they end up having both marketing AND selling discussions at the same time.

Not only can this confuse the heck out of the prospects, it's more likely to generate a "No" at the end of the interaction.

BAYO.

I was just talking to Doctor E. Vile earlier today about this.

The sale doesn't start when the customr says "No".

How many customers said "No".

In my entire selling career, over 12,000 personal presentations...I have had exactly one person say "No" to me. The rest, that didn't buy, said "Well, right now....." or "If you come back after...." or "This isn't the right time for..." or "I may get laid off..." (I caused more layoffs than anyone else in town).

But I would ask "If we could work this into your budget, would you lie to own one?"
And one day, a lady teacher, after years of selling.... said "No". I asked "Do you mean that you don't think you can afford it?'...

And she said "No. I can afford it. I just don't want it"

I wanted to marry her. She saved me an hour of closing, that would have gone nowhere. If everyone that didn't buy from me...simply said "No"..I would have been so much happier. My selling would have been so much easier.

So, the struggle doesn't start until they say "Right now....." But they almost never say "No".

I beat Ewen to it!

Claude, I know you and I have both done the type of closing where we:

1. create incredibly high value and condition them for an extremely high price

2. give them an incredibly high price, purposefully forcing them to say "no" (so they feel depressed and frustrated they can't ever afford it)

3. get them to admit what they were hoping it would have been and/or what they could have afforded

4. magically found some perfect storm of events to get it to the price they could afford an hour later.

Claude (and other in-home closers) will know this stuff well:

[retail price is $9,000 but pitch is designed to build value to a $15,000 service]

Salesman: "James the total comes to $13,023" and if you think about it and decide to buy within the next 60 days we can take 10% off!

James: "oh wow ugh! we could never afford that ever. I really wish we could have but that's just completely out of our range".

Salesman: "I understand, I'm really sorry James I really wish you could have had it, maybe something will come up in the next month or so right? Then you can call me back and say let's do it!".

James: "haha yeah I wish. we really appreciate your time Mr. Salesman, I really wish we could have done business today, we thought you did an excellent job showing us everything and we really wanted to do this. You're a good salesman, no a great salesman, and we'll tell your boss that too!".

Salesman: "It's OK James, and I'm not really a salesman, I don't care if you buy from me or not I just want you to do whatever's comfortable and maybe down the road you'll be calling me back, maybe even if it's years away, I'll be around." [starts packing up]

Salesman: "Hey before I go James, how far off were we? Was it close to what you could afford or was I really that far off?"

James: "Eh, well me and Cindy had pretty much budgeted no more than $10,000 for this, and that was pushing it, so it was pretty far off".

Salesman: "Yeah, I understand, gosh we're almost thirty percent over what you could do, wow, I'm really sorry I wish so bad there was a way to get this to something you could afford. Hey did you say you were a veteran?"

"oh and wait a second... Cindy you said you were a teacher right?" We actually give 5% discounts to vets and teachers. Oh and you're dog's pregnant... that's another 5 percent, but we can't generally combine the discounts, that's the problem, but crap you probably know a lot people don't you who you could refer?

James: "Oh we know EVERYONE in town... we could tell everyone!, we'd even put a sign on our car!"

Salesman: "holy crap would you? Do you think that if we could somehow get you some kind of crazy discount on this you'd tell all your friends!!!???"

James: "we'd not only tell them, we'd have them over to see everything and you could come too!

Salesman: "James, listen to me... you're getting me really excited here but I don't want to get too excited. You mean to tell me that if I could get you this whole package for no more than $10k, you'd tell all your friends, have them over, and let me even meet them and everything?"

James: "Yeah, we'd do that in a heartbeat, we'd do it!".

Salesman: "wow, I think if just one or two of them bought something it'd be completely worth saving you 30 percent, I think that actually sounds like a really fair trade-off, we'd both win!"

Jams: "This could be great if you could get that done for us...."

I think it's typically the "approach", which tends to come off too assertive!

Most people say NO without even thinking WHY they said it.

Next time you get a NO, ask them; why do you feel that way? .. why do you think you feel that way? ..

Then they would have to take the time to think why they are saying NO.

And most people would actually realize that they are saying NO for no reason.

Some people would be like; "ohh actually I don't know, I guess I have not really thought about it...." ... and then you can make them open up a lot more from there.



I hope this helps!!

Keep up the great work !

I wish you the best of the best! ...

Cheers!