Last Updated on February 5, 2020

Several years ago, Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz wrote a book and produced a video called “Go for No.”

The basic premise of the book was that you should make it a goal to hear no and to meet with resistance and rejection, as opposed to making it a goal to succeed and hear your prospect say “Yes.”

This sounds counter-intuitive. But in the words of Earl Nightengale, sometimes the smartest thing you can do is to look at what everyone else is doing and do the exact opposite.

So how can this “go for no” attitude increase your sales results?

#1: “Going for No” Gets You to “Yes”

The single biggest difference between sales people who achieve mediocre success and sales people who achieve great success is that great sales people have a different attitude about rejection.

They don’t see it as something to be feared or avoided. They don’t have to convince themselves not to take rejection personally. They see rejection and resistance as something positive, not something negative. They know that for every “yes” they get, they’re guaranteed to hear at least one “no.”

In many cases, they’ll hear no ten times for every time they hear yes. But they also know that “no” is the path to yes. They know that every “no” leads them closer to the sale. Most important, they know that the value of one yes is greater than the cost of 100 “no’s.”

“Going for No” Erases Fear of Rejection

Did you know that your sales people could increase their close rate by 25% to 50% in the next few days, just by doing ONE THING?

Asking.

That’s it.

The majority of sales people give up after hearing no one time. Out of those who ask a second time, almost NONE of them ask for the sale after the customer has said no twice.

Yet, top sales people make most of their deals after the customer has said no 4 to 6 times. Most important, they create those extra rejections so that they can get to the sale. But they have the power to do this because they either don’t hear “no” or they see it as something positive and necessary.

It’s impossible to move towards something if you see it as being negative. But if you form a positive attitude about hearing no, about facing rejection and about the value of “going for no,” you build the persistence and the thick skin which you need in order to get to the “yes’s.”

Last Updated on February 5, 2020