How Hearing NO in The Sales Process Will Lead to More Sales: From Andrea Waltz Author of Go For No

0:00If they want to be more successful, if they want to hear more yeses, they need to hear no more often. Andrew's gonna take us through the steps for it. She's gonna blow your mind with her philosophies on how no can lead to success. You've just got to be willing to ask more. When top performers hear the word no, they think the process is just getting started. Being number one bestseller on Amazon for sale. More than half a million copies of this book. Go for No is kind of like a bell that once you ring it, it's hard to unring it. What is success to you? And it might not be actually that simple. It's certainly the achievement of a desire or a goal.

0:38But for me, it must also include the possibility of failure. How do you believe success happens? Well, first of all, I do think that it's a choice. And I think that when you have something, whether it's brought to you or shared with you, some kind of vision that's created for you, you make a decision that, you know what, I'm going to go after this. You adopt a different mindset. No one's path is identical, but I'll tell you what is identical, obstacles. There is no such thing as achieving success without some failures and without obstacles. And so if you want to talk about what the path to success is, I'll just tell you right now, it's full of obstacles.

1:24Go for no. Where did the idea, first of all, come from for this fable, for this book? It's a story that actually happened to Richard, my husband and business partner, where he learned the secret of going for no. And it was something that we taught. We were teaching to retailers, were our big clients at the time. And so we were teaching the go for no strategy, basically, which you need to intentionally increase your failure rate in order to be more successful. So in business, we teach people in every business and industry that if they want to be more successful, if they want to hear more yeses, they need to hear no more often.

1:59And there's strategies to do that, obviously. But there was one story, and it was a story about how Richard was selling suits for a living. And the district manager came up to him and said, Richard, what did that customer say no to? And Richard had to admit that everything he sold this customer that he never heard no one time. And then Harold, his district manager, said, well, then how did you know he was done? And that was the question that kind of was the light bulb moment for Richard, because he realized that he was the one who ended that sale, that he never was willing to hear the word no.

2:29So anyway, we're teaching this concept and it's getting traction. And finally, Richard says, you know, I think we should write a book. Yeah. So that's how it started. And it was a disaster, Brad. Very first order that we placed, we did an offset print run. We got 5 ,000 copies of the book. They were shipped in and we sent out 500 copies to VP of sales, VP of training all over the country. And we're thinking that the orders are going to roll in. The calls are going to come in to hire us. And it's crickets. We ended up with one order. We struggled and struggled. And it took 10 years for us to get the book from those days onto Amazon's number one sales book, which happened 10 years later.

3:11We didn't give up on the book. We believed in the concept. mostly because we know that it's just a fact. If you are willing to hear no more often, you will hear more yeses. What is it about salespeople that they do stop wanting to get no, that they do just want to hear yeses? What's the philosophy shift they need to make then, I guess? I mean, of course, yes is super important. But I think a lot of salespeople have been taught and trained that no is somehow bad and that if they get no, that it's the end of the process. And I will tell you, we have talked to hundreds, thousands of top achievers.

3:51And the main difference is that when top performers hear the word no, they think the process is just getting started. When average performers hear the word no, they think the process is over. And I have seen that again and again, where people say, I got the no, and then that's it. I decided I didn't want to push. I ended the sale. I never went back to that person. I wasn't, you know, I wasn't persistent anyway. Part of it is just understanding the connection to no and yes. But the other part of it is just being willing. And I guess this is the other part of go for no is you've just got to be willing to ask more, ask more questions, build that relationship, be willing to face the no instead of talking yourself out of it.

4:38Like people go to a networking meeting. Say you'd talk to 10 people and you'd collect 10 business cards and then you'd go home. Now, what should you do? What would a good go for no salesperson do in that moment? Well, a good go for no salesperson would call every one of those 10 people. Why? Because you're not going to make assumptions about what they're going to do, what they're going to decide, whether or not they want to meet with you and continue the conversation that you started at the networking event. If you're a go for yes salesperson, And you look at the 10 business cards and you start coming up with assumptions.

5:08You say, okay, well, out of these 10, you know what, five of these, I don't think it's going to be a value. So I'm just going to put those aside. And now you have five left. And now you say out of these five, you know what, three of them, I don't think they were super qualified and the conversations were kind of weird. So I'm just going to put those aside. And now out of 10 cards, now you have two people left. And now you think, okay, maybe I'll go ahead and call these people because maybe I believe based on my conversation that they're going to be a yes. So you've divined that this, you're a go for yes salesperson.

5:43I'm only going to reach out to the people and call the people that I think will be a yes, which is doing a disservice to everyone you met. It was now a total waste of your time. And quite frankly, if any, you know, when you're in sales, you know, you have no idea that those two people are going to be the yeses. They could just as easily tell you no. And the two yeses you wanted are back with the other people that you didn't call. So this is having the courage to hear no. So how do you get that mindset, that courageous mindset? To me, it all has to do, it's all rooted in your definition of failure and success.

6:21If you are simply trying to hear yes, be successful, I don't want to fail, I don't want to hear no, then you are going to struggle because you will always be that go for yes salesperson. You will always be looking for the yeses, focusing on the yeses and never willing to hear no. And so if your definition of failure or your definition of success rather is that I can fail my way to success, that I'm going to hear no in this process and I'm going to learn from those no's and I'm going to get better, then the switch, as you said, is flipped. Then you simply, you say, I'm going to do it. Now, are there things that hold people back.

7:02Yes. Fear is still an issue. And it's, it's, I would be, you know, obviously remiss if I said like, ah, it's easy, you know, the switch has flipped forever, but it is, I would, I will say this go for no is kind of like a bell that once you ring it, it's hard to unring it because you will always have it in your mind of why don't I just ask, why don't I just, I'm right here. This is a go for no moment. I should just ask this person the question. hey, do you want to have a meeting? Do you want to set this up? Instead of shying away and saying, well, maybe they're just going to say no, or maybe they're going to think I'm pushy, and I'd rather not.

7:44And that's the big success podcast for today. Hopefully, you took a lot of notes, learned a whole bunch, and if you need to go re-listen to it, we dropped a lot of information right there today. Big success is what it's all about. And by the way, if you haven't subscribed, hit that subscribe button so you're here with us every single week on the Big Success Podcast. I'm Brad Sugars. That's BS. Big success is what we're shooting for. Check the show notes for all the links. Make sure you follow through. Keep learning. Keep coming back. Oh, and by the way, share this with any of your friends who you know are up for success.

8:15I'll see you next week on the Big Success Podcast. You've been listening to the Big Success Podcast with the number one business coach in the world, Brad Sugars. To learn more about how to achieve business and personal success, as well as how to level up or listen to past episodes, visit www.bradsugars.com.