Go for No! Yes is the Destination, No is How You Get There

by Richard Fenton

“Yes. That and what Harold said next. He said, ‘The salesperson never decides when the sale is over; the customer does.’ Then he looked me in the eye and said, ‘Eric, your fear of hearing the word ‘no’ is the only thing standing between you and greatness.’

“I had always thought my mission was to do everything within my power to move toward success... and to move away from failure. But that moment with Harold opened my eyes. I realized that the correct model looked like this,” he said, attacking the menu once again with the pen: “I realized that failure was the halfway mark on the road to success, not a destination to be avoided but rather a stepping stone to get what I really wanted in life. Most people get to the sign marked ‘failure’ and they figure they’re heading in the wrong direction, turn around and head back home. They think that success must be back the other way, but it’s not! It’s straight ahead!

“After the conversation with Harold I started really looking at what set successful people apart from the masses, and their willingness to fail was at the top of the list. Statistically, only five percent of the population will be able to retire without assistance,” he stated. “Thirty-six percent will have already died, six will continue working, and a staggering fifty-three percent will be dependent on friends, relatives, government or charity for their survival. And who do you think gets to be in the lucky five percent? The people who failed the most during their lifetimes, that’s who!”

“That’s because you still think that failing leads to failure. Failing... and becoming a failure... are two very different things. Successful people fail eagerly while failures avoid failing. The whole point of becoming willing to fail more is to become a success, so that one day you won’t be forced to look back on your life and say to yourself, ‘I’m a failure.’ Do you understand that?”

“Says who?” he shot back. “Where is it written that rejection has to be awful? Why can’t rejection be only slightly annoying or amusing or, for that matter, exciting and energizing? While we have absolutely no control over the actions of others, we do have total and complete control over how we react. What if we decided to make each no we received and every rejection we encountered something that empowers us? Instead of avoiding rejection, what if we made the decision to seek rejection? Instead of avoiding no or perhaps simply tolerating it, what if we went out of our way to actually go for no!”

“Let’s use my friend Paul who is in network marketing, for example. If his goal is to get ten people per week to come to a meeting, and typically about five percent of the people he approaches are willing to attend, then his goal would be to get one hundred and ninety people to say ‘no thanks.’” “Yes. His goal would be to get rejected by one hundred and ninety people. You might call it the get rejected and get rich plan.”

“None whatsoever,” he responded firmly. “If I focused on how well I was doing in terms of results-oriented goals, I’d probably slow down just like you did. But, instead, I’ve focused on the behavior-oriented goal of constantly increasing my rate of failure. I have complete and total faith that if I set my failure goals high enough, and do my best in each and every sales situation, then the successes will come. And they always do.”

“Skill is highly overrated!” Cheryl laughed. “Don’t get me wrong, Edward. When I first started in sales, I attended lots of training programs to polish my skills. The problem was that I didn’t spend enough time applying them! While I was busy getting smarter, many people with far less talent and ability zoomed right by me. Eventually it became clear that a motivated person who was willing to get in front of enough people and simply tell their story would almost always outsell the ‘sales pro’ with the slick closes and fancy techniques. Let me give you an example.

“That reminds me of this telemarketing guru I heard about,” I interjected. “He recommends that phone solicitors ask customers in the first ten seconds if they have interest in hearing about the product they’re selling. If the customer says no, then they politely say thank you and move on rather than going through their entire pitch. As a result they make ten times as many calls, but only invest their time making their complete sales pitch to prospects who have just qualified themselves.”

“It’s the same basic premise,” Cheryl replied. “You know, when you mine for gold, you don’t really look for the gold, you remove the dirt. Selling and gold mining are very much alike. It’s the people who remove the most dirt, who work their way through the greatest number of no’s, who ultimately discover the greatest number of golden yes’s!”

“Correct. Ninety-two percent of all salespeople give up without asking for the sale a fifth time, but research also shows that sixty percent of all customers say no four times before they finally say yes. That means the quickest way to separate yourself from the rest of the pack is to get at least five no’s from everyone you try to sell to!”

“I have nothing against calling on small accounts. Small accounts grow up to become large accounts, and they can often be more lucrative. I’m just suggesting that there are many salespeople who intentionally avoid going for large sales because they’re afraid of blowing the big one. This is silly! In the end a no is a no regardless of the size of the account, but the rewards for the yes’s are huge!”

“For starters, I’d say that a primary key to creating outrageous success is to understand the need to fail exponentially. After all, one person can only fail so fast. Great leaders help everyone in the organization understand the need to fail faster. “Take a company with a sales force of one hundred, for example. Imagine that each of the organization’s salespeople were to increase the number of no’s they received by five a day; not the number of people they sell to, but the number of no’s they get during their current sales opportunities.” “Like Cheryl was saying before,” I offered, “getting a no or even multiple no’s from every person you sell to.”

“The second is to reward people for their failures, not just their successes,” he responded. “Everyone runs over to congratulate people for their sales successes, but how often do we go out of our way to congratulate people for their failures?”

“That’s because we’ve caught on to the concept that winning a ‘Go for No!’ award almost assures that you’ll end up with a Producers Pin. Or, put another way,” Kurt concluded, “Yes is the destination, No is how you get there!”