How To Succeed by Going for “No”
By Keith Cook
It’s true, no one likes hearing or being told no. Or so we’ve been taught. Going for no is a very new and innovative concept. Is no any different from yes? Is failure any different than success? Your actions and intention were focused on a particular result. You did not get the result you wanted. You think about what you did, you make an adjustment, and do it again to get the desired result. It took the same effort to fail or get a result as it did to get the desired result.
The book “Go For No” by Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz expresses the complex simplicity of the word no. We all naturally gravitate toward nurture, affection and love. These words invoke very powerful emotions. The word “no” can be like a kick in the face.
This concept points out “that hearing yes is the easy part of the job and teaches you virtually nothing. But learning to hear no over and over again and to never quit…now that builds character and self-esteem. That’s empowering!” Richard Fenton
Where is it written that rejection has to be awful? What if you decided to look at rejection as annoying or amusing or, for that matter, exciting and energizing? We have absolutely no control over the actions of others, we do have total and complete control over how we react. So we can decide to stop and think and then react.
Let’s say you set a goal for the week of 5 sales. Let’s also say you see 25 prospects every week. Instead of you setting a goal of getting five yes’s, your goal is to get a minimum of 20 no’s. For individuals in the sales industry, this is one way of many to turn rejection or the word no into empowerment. This would not only increase the number of prospects but provide you more opportunities to get a yes.
Another benefit of setting no as a goal, it permanently puts you in position to be a top producer especially when you are in a zone or on a hot streak. Normally when someone is on a hot streak, they slack up or ease back, and that’s the worst thing you can do. You want to keep the momentum going. When you are going for no and you hit a streak of yes’s, you will actually step up you game to hit your no goal. When you think about it, it’s really no different in the pursuit of yes. How many times is a person willing to fail before succeeding? How much failure can you endure on the road to success? Decide to look at failure as a success and you’ve won the battle in your mind. The same effort is used to get a result.
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