Getting to No

Guest Contributor: Albert Luk
Albert's Posts - Albert's Site

Small business owners are unfailingly polite. Most of the shrewd ones (i.e. the ones we want as clients) know not to leave any bridges burning so they say "please" and "thank you" a lot. Combined with the fact that our society considers it rude to say no, you have a lot of frustrated salespeople who have small business owners who say "maybe," "call me back in a month" and "let me think about it" when first contact is made.

The elegant "maybe" is sometimes a real maybe but I say "maybe" a lot as a way to get a cold call or a sales call off my back (full disclosure here!). As times toughen, I suspect we are all going to hear the word "maybe," or its variations, in 2009.

Remember that the least desirable answer to any sales call is a "maybe". The best is obviously "yes" followed by a "no." The no allows you to at least move on. The "maybe" leaves you hanging.

Think of your high school crushes. If you asked them out on a date and they said "yes", you were in heaven. If they said "no," you were understandably crushed for a few days or weeks but you got over it and dated others. But the "maybe" was, in hindsight, the terrible answer since you could end up chasing this crush for weeks without any definitive answer when there were other wonderful people you could have dated.

There's nothing wrong with coming back to the maybe- at a later day. The usual question to a "maybe" is "when can I call you back?" You know what though? Whenever I was asked that question, I had no idea how to project into the future to give a definite date so the date was a guess.

Perhaps the better question may be not a date but an event in the future such as "when is your photocopying servicing contract ending?" or "is there a day you usually deal with administration?" If you anchor the date to an event rather than some forecast into an indefinite future, there may be a more accurate answer rather than a good-faith guess.

But remember the goal is to get to a "yes" or "no" quickly.

Have a safe and happy holiday season.