How Quickly Can You Say “No?”

I’m always both baffled and entertained by sales calls I receive.

You have to wonder sometimes how these guys make any money. Blabber, blabber, blabber. Feature, feature, feature.

Boring, boring, boring.

What surprises me even more, though, is how much time a sales rep will invest in me even though I’m an extremely unqualified prospect. They’d rather spend an hour with me in what seems like a one-way conversation (monologue?) rather than spend 10 minutes making sure I’m worthy and prime for their product or service. (Which, ironically, makes them more attractive. But I digress ….)

It’s like they get points or something for giving presentations.

With this in mind, I’ve vowed to put both sales reps and myself out of our collective misery as soon as I know something isn’t gonna happen. I’ve vowed to say “no” often and quickly.

It works really well. And though they don’t know it, I’m doing the sales rep a favor, too.

Say “No” More Often

Here’s how it’s worked so far:  Once, after sitting through a rep’s pitch for 45 minutes (in which I may have said four words, consisting of mostly “Oh,” “gotcha,” “I see.” You know, pulse-checkers), and after the rep made the amazing case for how his service will save me the equivalent of $5 million a year annually in labor costs and lead to 20% increases in retention and order size growth, I simply responded with, “This looks like a great service, but it’s not right for us right now.”

Then, silence.

I think where we prospects get in trouble is that we feel like we have to justify our responses. Like we have to make a case for saying “no.”

We don’t. We get to say whatever we want to. The whole act of sales is that the salesman is the one making a case for us to say “yes.”

So the silence is actually key here, because your sales rep is waiting for you to hem and haw about why you can’t do this right now. Because once that happens, they can throw out the “Well, why don’t I follow up with you in a month or so and see where you’re at?” To which you would typically jump at the chance to simply relieve your sense of obligation to explain your decision now. Even though you already know nothing’s gonna change in one month.

Stop doing that.

In a way that would make Nancy Reagan extremely proud, just say no. Leave it at that. If they want to follow-up, I typically tell them they’re welcome to send me anything they’d like, but nothing will change within 30 days, or 90 days, or 365 days. The service is just not a fit.

Is Saying “No” Cruel?

Oddly, you may feel like you’re being mean at this point. But you’re actually doing the nicest thing you can do for any sales rep worth their salt. You’re giving them an honest answer. You’re giving them permission to stop wasting time planning touch-base calls with you in the future. You’re allowing them to wipe your name off the white board (when it probably never should have been there to begin with). You’re making room for someone who is qualified.

You’re also saving yourself from a lot of nagging phone calls and emails down the road.

You can apply this mentality much sooner in the process, too. If you get an email from a sales rep wanting to “connect,” don’t ignore it. Quickly respond with a “no thanks.”

When you get a phone call from a rep wanting to simply set up 15 minutes next week, say “no thanks.” When they ask why not, tell them exactly why. They should consider it market research.

Start saying “no” more quickly. It gives you the chance to say yes to more of the important stuff.

(Unless, of course, you want to say “yes.” I’m not anti-sales rep; I’m just anti-clueless sales reps. If you find something you actually want, by all means say “yes.”)

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Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thedamnmushroom/