(Photo by Steve Boneham)
Congratulations! You got the courage to pitch a new proposal that you arranged with a prospective client that you cold-called. You give a strong pitch. You watch your client smiling and nodding along with you. And when it comes time to ask for the deal, you hear a “no”.
Quick Quiz: What do you do next?
A) Quickly leave. After all time is money, and trying to convince someone who’s not interested won’t make a whit of difference.
B) Repeat yourself. You know that you have the best value in the market, and the person sitting across from you likely doesn’t “get it”. So, repeat your key points and try to convince them that their “no” is wrong.
C) Ask why. You can’t satisfy someone’s needs if you don’t know what they are.
You should ask “Why did you say ‘No’?”. You’ve already invested your time and your prospect’s. If you leave without understanding what you missed, you’ve truly wasted your time. Learning from no’s will improve your presentation (even if you can’t satisfy their need) and fine-tune your marketing effort. When we hear a “yes”, we seldom think to dig deeper – we just think that we should repeat our actions and we’ll get another “yes”.
By asking for an explanation for a no, you create a dialogue. Up until now, you’ve probably been in selling-mode – a straightforward presentation when you tell what you have and wait for the yes. But by creating a dialogue you can better gauge your prospect’s true needs, timing, and budget. You might not win the sale today, but you’ll leave the door open for the possibility of re-connecting, and re-presenting a more appropriate offer to your client.
It’s not easy to keep going after your hear “no”. We’re trained to think that a “no” reflects badly upon us personally. Remember that someone else’s “no” may become a “yes” after we learned from our interaction.
(Aside: If you’re having problems getting to hear a “no”, read my previous article: Go For No.)
Great topic.
It’s like learning from failing.
You might have lost the business, but at least you’ll know what to do next time.
Asking this question and observing a new prospect’s walls (photos, certificates, awards) and credenza are valuable tools to learn about them and their needs.
The way to be successful in business is to help your client get what they want.
You can’t know what they want unless you ask.
Bruce Koren
I often would open up the conversation by asking “What is it you’d like to get from our time today?” Then really listen. A couple of times I knew from the answer that I didn’t have a solution, so let the prospect know this and left the door open to a future conversation. Both times I got a call back when my service was needed, as the people appreciated my honesty and that I valued their time enough not to waste it (or mine!)