Is It No, or Is It Know?

Time for a spelling lesson. It's important to understand the difference between no and know. Sales representatives spell no as no, taking the meaning literally as more rejection, another opportunity lost. (But of course you can't lose something you never had.) Conversely, sales entrepreneurs spell no as know: the customer simply needs to know more information before making a positive buying decision. It's not interpreted as rejection but more as an invitation to explain the possible benefits of doing business. By saying know, the customer has not yet seen the value in your offering and needs to know more about your tailored solution. This means going back to feature fishing and scrolling your corporate menu for appropriate features (hot-buttons), then bridging to create a benefit package worthy of consideration. That's value. Upon hearing a know, you might consider asking the customer: "What is the single barrier preventing us from moving forward?" A candid response may spotlight a potential objection that when managed effectively produces a yes. Until the customer sees value, you'll continue to hear knows.

Remember, earlier in the book I defined selling as the process of disruption. Making a change in suppliers or adding a new supplier to the list is scary at the best of times. Customers experience fear and anxiety just as we do. Your benefit package has to be convincing enough to disrupt customers into change. Customers will continue to say know if there is a bigger yes offered by the competition.