Step

37

Don’t stop always taking ‘no’ for an answer

David Zucker said: “Quit now, you’ll never make it. If you disregard this advice, you’ll be halfway there.” He may be right. Research in the field of selling has shown that 73% of customers say ‘no’ five or more times before they say ‘yes’. By five or more times, I mean after a phone call, a meeting, or say upon receiving some of your marvellous marketing material which is immediately filed in the bin.

The good news is that such is our fear of rejection that most of us won’t even give something or someone new one try (note: these figures relate just as much to your disastrous attempts at dating members of the opposite sex as they do to selling).

So being committed to failure, and as someone who quits even before they start, as I know you are, of course you won’t even have to worry about picking up the phone in the first place. But if you do, accidentally, build up the courage to try once and hear the dreaded ‘no’, then at least that’s it. You can put your hand on your heart and say you gave it your best shot.

Just don’t let your boss, or anyone else, find out that according to this research only 8% of salespeople go past five ‘no’s. Which means they are getting 73% of the business. This naturally makes them the most successful individuals in the organisation and guarantees the rewards that go with that. Of course, their belief is that if you don’t ask, the answer is always ‘no’. Dr Joyce Brothers said this: “Studies indicate that the one quality all successful people have is persistence. They’re willing to spend more time accomplishing a task and to persevere in the face of many difficult odds. There’s a very positive relationship between people’s ability to accomplish any task and the time they’re willing to spend on it.”

Want to know what I think? Well, I think they are just masochists and the best thing we can do to protect our sensitive dispositions is be realistic (which is just another word for scared). I mean, it isn’t going to be very encouraging to be able to say to yourself, “Whoopee, I just got a fourth ‘no’, just one more and the business is mine,” is it?