Why Is a "No" Good News? by Tessa Stowe, Sales Conversation, 2009

Starting today, I want you to be on a mission to find a "no" every time you talk to a prospect. When you find the "no," celebrate it, give yourself a pat on the back, be grateful for it - it is good news.

Be grateful for a "no"? This sounds crazy. But read on and you will see that it is crazy not to be grateful for a "no."
Suppose you have a prospect and he or she wants you to write a proposal (or even worse, respond to a RFP - Request for Proposal). He also wants you to give a presentation and to have lots of meetings with him. All in all, he wants you to spend a lot of time and money selling to him.

Now suppose you do all he asks: you write the proposal (probably over the weekend instead of going to an important family event), you give the presentations, you have the meetings.

Then, at the end of all this effort, he says they have decided to do nothing or to go "in a different direction" or that they cannot afford your solution.

Has this ever happened to you?

All that wasted time, money and effort! Think of all the other prospects you could have been spending your time with instead. Think of the sales you might have lost because you did not have enough time to spend on them. Think of that important family event you didn't need to miss after all.

What if you had known before you spent all that time, money and effort that this prospect was going to do nothing or that they couldn't afford or weren't really that interested in your solution? What if you had found the "no" at the beginning? Would you be grateful? Wouldn't you give yourself a pat on the back?

So finding a "no" - a valid "no" - as soon as possible is very good news indeed.

This is why I said that, starting today, you want to be on a mission to find that valid "no" before you start the sales process.

So how do you find the valid "no"?

By putting your prospect through your qualification process, a set of questions the answers to which will determine whether there is a high probability that this prospect will buy from you now.

If you don't have a qualification process, find one fast. You absolutely cannot afford not to have one.
Besides putting your prospect through your qualification process, give the prospect as many opportunities as you can to say "no" to you.

Tell him about your weaknesses that you think may be relevant. He is going to find out about them eventually, so tell him about them at the beginning. If these weaknesses are critical, he will say "no" and you can move on to the next prospect. If the weaknesses are not critical, your trust level with the prospect will rise dramatically because you have been open and honest. This raised trust level increases your probability of success.

Once you've put your prospect through your qualification process and given her every chance to say "no," it's time to start the sales process. Still, even though you are in the sales process, you must continue to put your prospect through the same qualification process, over and over again, to see if her circumstances have changed such that she no longer qualifies.

Once you are in the sales process, it is much, much harder to do the qualifying because you have an emotional attachment to that prospect and that sale, and you don't want to think your efforts have been wasted. Hence, you will tend to not want to keep qualifying or, if you do, you will be a little superficial with it because you really don't want to uncover that "no."

When a prospect no longer qualifies - when you find that valid 'no" - no matter how much time and effort you have spent, you must now look at stopping the sales process and putting your efforts elsewhere.

In these economic times, you are probably thinking there are fewer prospects out there and that any prospect is a good prospect. If you think this way, you will not be passionate about looking for a "no" before you start the sales process and particularly when you are already in the sales process. The fact is, though, if there are valid reasons why they are going to say "no," they are going to say "no," and nothing will change that. So find the valid "no" as soon as you can so you can focus your sales efforts on qualified prospects.

In these economic times, qualifying is more critical than ever. You must - and I mean must - spend your valuable time, money and effort selling to those who want and need a solution like yours now, can afford it and who are likely to choose you over the competition. You must sell to qualified prospects only. You can't afford not to.

My message to you is be on that mission to find the "no." Do so by qualifying, qualifying and qualifying, and you will make more sales faster.

Tessa Stowe teaches small business owners and recovering salespeople simple steps to turn conversations into clients without being sales-y or pushy. Her FREE monthly Sales Conversation newsletter is full of tips on how to sell your services by just being yourself. Sign up now at www.salesconversation.com.