For example, never say “NOâ€? to a customer, always offer positive advice or offer an alternative. As my colleague says, there is a mile of difference between “oh, that’s not badâ€? and “that’s quite good, actually!â€?. This creates a certain mentality or mindset in your customers’ heads. If things are positive or people are thinking positively, they are more likely to say “yes.â€? But timing is everything, so you don’t need to go through 20 gambits (sales lines) or sales pitches, before asking the client to sign the contract. In fact, most of my own personal sales have been surprisingly direct.

Part of a positive but not misleading attitude is “assumingâ€? that your client wants to use your service or buy your product and simply does not know why he should or how to purchase it. All of this must be accompanied by an attitude that avoids being condescending or even insulting your customer’s intelligence. Imagine if I am trying to sell carpet cleaning service to a particular customer and the conversation starts out like this.

YOU: “Good morning Sir, how are you today?

(Customer Response)

YOU: “Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Marco and I am with B&B Carpet Cleaning Services and I have come here today to talk about an exciting opportunity for you and your family.�

Customer: “Thanks Marco, but I don’t have any carpeting in my home and my wife is allergic to dust.â€?

Let’s see the appropriate and inappropriate responses:

APPROPRIATE RESPONSE:

“Well, I imagine you may not be interested in our services then, but thank you for receiving me anyway, and have a pleasant evening. I will be visiting your neighbours as well, so maybe they will require the services of B&B.�

(NOTE: Here you could have simply said, “Well, thanks anyway, good day.� But instead you took advantage of the situation to mention that you will be speaking to his neighbours, and so it is possible that he/she could mention the helpful attitude you are displaying. You also used the name of your business at the end of the sentence – the last thing they hear is the first thing they will remember.)

INAPPROPRIATE RESPONSE:

“Well let me tell you more about our services. B&B Carpet Cleaning Service has been in business now for 30 years and we hope you will become one of the many proud clients to receive quality carpet cleaning.�

CUSTOMER: SOUND OF DOOR SLAMMING!

As you can see, this was a lack of timing. Yes, every salesperson should offer their services and explain how / why they work. But in case you were wondering, while certain salespeople may tell you that “NOâ€? doesn’t exist, it actually DOES and yes, you just experienced it.

This may seem like a “negativeâ€? or anti-sales attitude, but actually a DOSE of reality is all it takes for any salesperson to understand what I mean. The good news is that “there is only ONE ‘NO’â€? or one kind of NO.

The next thing a salesperson should do after this experience is make a mental and physical note. 1) This is NOT my target client. And 2) Write down the address or name of the person visited so as to call him again next year. Next year? Yes! Though his wife is allergic to dust now, she may pass away (kind of morbid, but true) so you should call them next year or at least again some time in the future.

Have you wasted your time? No, there is no sales call or sales visit that is a waste of time. Even if a customer yells or shouts at you…or says no… – this is perhaps the best scenario! Let’s see: If a person goes around giving your company negative publicity, don’t worry! Negative publicity is exactly that, ‘publicity’ – and there is no such thing as negative publicity. The second and most important thing here is that people who say ‘NO’ are your future clients. If a person says no, they have consciously thought about what you are saying – and this person is more likely to say YES in the future. This is one of the “sales maximsâ€?, which I believe follow certain laws of probability. Isn’t this great!

Now some of you may be a bit sceptical. You may think that this is just another theory and this is only the opinion of the author of this article. However, you will soon find that any “successful� businessperson will agree that if a person says, “no� it means a “future yes� – except when obvious conditions do not allow them to do so. This means that this is certainly not applicable to customers who are not even “potential clients� of yours. Obviously a person from Spain will not require class in “Spanish as a Second Language.� This is simple common sense, but what we are referring to here are potential clients. As we will see in future articles, punctuality, timing, good sales tactics, etc. are not enough to be a successful businessperson.