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The Power of "NO" in Sales and Business
One of the best sales tactics is learning how to say “no.” That sounds counterintuitive, right? Well, it isn’t.
When it comes to sales, if you’re the one selling, your goal is to bring in revenue. But your customer has a different goal: to pay as little as they can and get as much as possible.
What I mean is You & the customer are trying to maximise the gains and minimise losses. Not in literal sense though.
The customers I’m talking about are the ones who ask for more and more – often after a contract is signed and deal is closed – and expect additional incentives, discounts, rebates etc for no additional business or cost. Those are the customers you have to learn to say “no” to.
The word “no” has the power to make your business more desirable to potential clients, weed out people you don’t want to work with and, most importantly, increase your bottom line. “Power of saying NO”, the most important tool we all salespeople and business owners possess. Many a times we do not realize the importance of these two letters.
To clarify, let me share a story with you. When we first started our consulting We wanted to get money coming in and so we were afraid of saying no.
What did that lead to? A few bad deals. By being so willing to say yes we were ground down on price and we allowed for unreasonable scope of work with couple of clients.
On one deal it cost us significant chunk of money and time over few months. The client had good manufacturing, production and other capabilities but on the sales aspect everything was missing right from team to systems and process to a well defined sales ecosystem. Everything was adhoc, forecasting was a challenge, absence of sales pipeline and a sales leader to drive the the bare bones team. Further the CEO believed there was no challenge and his expectations were not in sync with reality. We still took up the project for the money part and saying NO was not hard wired in us. In doing so we set the tone for the ongoing relationship i.e. we give and you take. It was ok initially but later on it caused uncontrollable scope-creep and copious hours of non-billable work which was sending us towards the hazardous rocks of insolvency and not giving attention and time to right customers.
If you start from yes you might have just given away time or money and every time you come to negotiate with that same prospect they’ll expect that same starting place, and believe me they won’t thank you for it and will push further. Hold the line and say no you’ll be much better off.
This power is often used casually, cautiously, out of habit and in many other ways without understanding the implications on the final outcome.
I always fed myself with books, articles, inputs on how to get the customer to Yes and No was often looked by me as a negative tool.
The fear of losing deal, client and goodwill resulted in accepting or giving in to the client’s unreasonable demands most of the time.
These are the clients I learned to say NO to or get in return a fair deal for the additional demands.
"Power of saying NO", helps me:
• Saves time and Stress
• Weed out wrong clients
• Protects the bottom line
Today, saying no is one such strategy at Hisales. That is, saying no to the wrong kind of clients. Over the years I discovered that accepting the wrong business/clients or customers saps not only time and energy but profits, too. I also learned that saying yes to the wrong business slowly but surely kills morale. Employees become exhausted and confused; very talented people leave. Such damaging effects seem obvious now, but again, like virtually every entrepreneurial venture, we had to learn about them the hard way.
Use the Power of NO wisely and realise the immense benefits that comes with it.
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By PrakashOne of the best sales tactics is learning how to say “no.” That sounds counterintuitive, right? Well, it isn’t.
When it comes to sales, if you’re the one selling, your goal is to bring in revenue. But your customer has a different goal: to pay as little as they can and get as much as possible.
What I mean is You & the customer are trying to maximise the gains and minimise losses. Not in literal sense though.
The customers I’m talking about are the ones who ask for more and more – often after a contract is signed and deal is closed – and expect additional incentives, discounts, rebates etc for no additional business or cost. Those are the customers you have to learn to say “no” to.
The word “no” has the power to make your business more desirable to potential clients, weed out people you don’t want to work with and, most importantly, increase your bottom line. “Power of saying NO”, the most important tool we all salespeople and business owners possess. Many a times we do not realize the importance of these two letters.
To clarify, let me share a story with you. When we first started our consulting We wanted to get money coming in and so we were afraid of saying no.
What did that lead to? A few bad deals. By being so willing to say yes we were ground down on price and we allowed for unreasonable scope of work with couple of clients.
On one deal it cost us significant chunk of money and time over few months. The client had good manufacturing, production and other capabilities but on the sales aspect everything was missing right from team to systems and process to a well defined sales ecosystem. Everything was adhoc, forecasting was a challenge, absence of sales pipeline and a sales leader to drive the the bare bones team. Further the CEO believed there was no challenge and his expectations were not in sync with reality. We still took up the project for the money part and saying NO was not hard wired in us. In doing so we set the tone for the ongoing relationship i.e. we give and you take. It was ok initially but later on it caused uncontrollable scope-creep and copious hours of non-billable work which was sending us towards the hazardous rocks of insolvency and not giving attention and time to right customers.
If you start from yes you might have just given away time or money and every time you come to negotiate with that same prospect they’ll expect that same starting place, and believe me they won’t thank you for it and will push further. Hold the line and say no you’ll be much better off.
This power is often used casually, cautiously, out of habit and in many other ways without understanding the implications on the final outcome.
I always fed myself with books, articles, inputs on how to get the customer to Yes and No was often looked by me as a negative tool.
The fear of losing deal, client and goodwill resulted in accepting or giving in to the client’s unreasonable demands most of the time.
These are the clients I learned to say NO to or get in return a fair deal for the additional demands.
"Power of saying NO", helps me:
• Saves time and Stress
• Weed out wrong clients
• Protects the bottom line
Today, saying no is one such strategy at Hisales. That is, saying no to the wrong kind of clients. Over the years I discovered that accepting the wrong business/clients or customers saps not only time and energy but profits, too. I also learned that saying yes to the wrong business slowly but surely kills morale. Employees become exhausted and confused; very talented people leave. Such damaging effects seem obvious now, but again, like virtually every entrepreneurial venture, we had to learn about them the hard way.
Use the Power of NO wisely and realise the immense benefits that comes with it.