Secrets to making more money by looking for Nos

In harsh economic times, there is a tendency to hear a lot of comments about the economy, especially when you want to elicit a buying desire from a prospect. The discomfort of hearing a NO is something a lot of people run away from. For this reason alone, a lot of people hide in their shell, look for time wasting activities and even sit at home doing nothing, all because they’ve associated NO to mean failure, rejection or inadequacy.

On the contrary, NO is a good word. As a sales person (which everybody is) you will need to change these associations of failure, rejection or inadequacy linked to the word NO. NO is your greatest opportunity. Get used to the word, NO, even as the alphabet N appears ten letters before Y, so don’t be bothered if you hear more than ten NOs before you hear a YES. Just keep at it, the YES will show up.

YOUR YES ARE IN YOUR NOs
There’s a story of a man who visited a sculptor and saw him hitting a rock with his nail and hammer. Apparently the sculptor was trying to break the rock. The man observed that the sculptor hit the rock 1013 times before it dashed to pieces. He then said to the sculptor “wow! That last strike must have been the most effective,” the sculptor replied, “All the strikes were effective, if not, the last strike wouldn’t have cracked the rock.” The lesson learned here is, NO is part of the sales process. Like the sculptor hitting that rock with no apparent results, when you hear a NO it seems there is no result, but there are results. The results are;

1. Every contact you speak to earns you money, this money is unseen because true money is not the currency notes but value and value can’t be seen, it is only perceived. We only use the currency notes to equate our perceived value. So, whenever you communicate to prospects and they say NO ‘you still communicated value’ even though it was not perceived by the prospect. The more you speak to more prospects (even though they still say NO) the more value is built within you.

2. Every NO makes you smarter and more effective if you learn from it by focusing on what you did right not what you did wrong. A major key to selling effectively is to catch yourself doing something right then rewarding yourself.

3. Your creativity is awakened. The brain releases creative juices to excel when placed in an uncomfortable position. This creativity extends to other areas of your life to make you more productive.

Mary Kay Ash, the business woman behind Mary Kay products, said when she opened her first store in a mall, she practiced what she called the 2-feet approach. Meaning, anyone who came 2-feet close to her, she spoke to the person about her cosmetic products. Hence, let this be your attitude when looking for clients; even in the face of seeming rejections, talk to as many prospects as you can about your product then you will make more money. Iyore Ogbuigwe is a Sales Coach at Ultravantage Solutions.