“NO” for an Answer

Yes, you will take “No” for an answer, or you might get thrown off the farm!

Traditional sales training preaches it.  “We don’t take No for an answer”.  Then, we get out in our territory and call on real world customers and prospects.  That’s when we find out the brutal reality.  We will be told “No”.  And at some point, we will have to accept it. 

This is when we are told, “Persist!  Fight through the objection!  Get them to say Yes!”  Good advice but few salespeople feel comfortable following this advice.  And even fewer know how to persist through a “No” response.  We are hyper aware of being too salesy.  To persist once a customer tells us “No”, feels like we are being too salesy.  So, we back off. 

The first step in dealing with this situation is to understand the psychology of “No”.  Telling you No is liberating to your customer.  It frees them to go back to what they were doing before you showed up: farming, working livestock or doing their job.  It frees them from changing from what they are currently doing. 

Instead of worrying about what to do when (not if, but when) you are hit with a No, I want you to seek it out.  Run right at your fear of No.  Doing so will make you fearless of its power over you.  But you need a strategy.

          Four perspectives on NO to dig into:

• No for WHAT? Unless you only have one product or one service, view a No as a No on the product or service you just presented.  Maybe you misunderstood the producer’s needs.  Maybe you didn’t even ask if they needed the product at all.  Take a step back and approach your customer with the mindset of: “I understand this product is not a fit for you, we have many products and services to help producers like yourself.”
• No for WHEN? Another way to say that is “No for now”.  Your timing might be off.  Discovery questions are critical at this point.  For example, “Have you ever used this product before?  Are there times of the year when this product might be right for you?”
• No for HOW? More discovery style questions around how.  “If this is not the right method of solving your problems, how will you solve it?  How have others in this industry solved this problem?”
• No for WHERE? Your solution might not be a fit right here, but might be a fit in another location.  Again, more discovery questions around where are needed at this point as well.  Especially if this company is nationwide or worldwide. 

Why didn’t I ask “No for WHY?”  Ultimately, you want to know Why the customer or prospect told you No.  We absolutely want to know why.  The problem with asking Why is that it causes the customer to defend their reasons.  By defending their choices, they justify them in their mind and make it harder for you to change their opinion.  The What, When, How, and Where questions will tell you the Why answers you are looking for.  Don’t back them in a corner like an interrogator and ask them to justify their choices.

Another key point on responding to No.  Your strategy to persist through a No response depends on when it happens:  early or late in the selling process.

If it’s early in the process, most likely you didn’t develop the need for your solution.  This happens when a salesperson tries to sell before building enough trust.  Switching a customer to your products when they have been buying from another company for many years, requires a high level of trust.  Start small:  one product, one field, one pen of animals, one feed store, one agronomy location, etc.  Trying to go for the whole farm, all their livestock, or every agronomy location is too risky.  Prove yourself.  Earn the business one pen, one field, or one pet store at a time.

If the No comes late in the selling process, you either didn’t solve the need or you solved the wrong need.  This one is a bit tougher to deal with but it’s not over.  As long as you are still talking, you still have a chance.  However, it’s time to back the sales train up and ask more questions.  Obviously, you went down a path to solve a problem for this customer and it’s the wrong path or the wrong problem.  A simple question like, “My mistake, I thought we were trying to improve yield on that one farm.  I was trying to solve that problem area for you.  Was I wrong in trying to solve that problem area?”  Words to that effect should open the discussion back up and put you on a better path towards Yes.

The purpose for these articles is to give real solutions to your real problems.  It’s easy for a sales trainer to stand in front of a sales team and tell them, “Don’t take No for an answer.”  And many do.  The problem is that audience of salespeople already know that.  They also know that once the class is over, they have to go back out on sales calls.  They have to go back out and face tough selling situations where No is more common than Yes. 

Hopefully, through this understanding of No, you have a game plan for when it happens.  A plan that is more than just blind persistence.  More than just, “But wait, there’s more”. 

A plan that will give you the confidence to not only face the No response, but seek it out.

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