The 21 Irrefutable Rules for Selling in the 21st Century

Rule One If ‘NO’ Bothers You . . . QUIT! “The sound of a tapping foot could be heard even through the closed door of the conference room where I was completing my second-to-last interview of the day. As there was only one person remaining in the lobby for the one available sales position with our firm there was no doubt as to who the culprit was. Fortunately, the interview was nearly over so the metronome-like tapping – which, over the previous 30 minutes had taken on a ‘Chinese water torture’-like sound – would not continue long. As I saw my interviewee to the door of our second floor office, she glared at the gentleman whose ‘foot tapping’ had already put a sour taste in both our mouths … though neither of us had met him. As I closed the door I turned back to the suited gentleman who sat solitarily with his back to a window which overlooked the parking lot. I proceeded to interview this gentleman and against my better judgment I hired him for the open sales position. He failed in less than a month due to his inability to stay in control and his inability to accept the “no’s” that came his way. Patience is a virtue and the tapping of his foot was a clear signal for his potential failure. In my many years of interviewing literally hundreds of sales people, one of the questions that I have always asked the prospective Sales Person was, “Do No’s bother you?” To my amazement, I have yet to hear even one person who has said to me, “I don’t like to hear ‘no’.” As with example above, failure can occur in a matter of but a few weeks following the hire if the new sales person becomes overly discouraged by hearing multiplied “No’s.” No one likes to be rejected. Not you or me. It’s in our nature to want to be liked, to want to be received by others . . . whether personally or professionally. The bottom line is, we like to hear ‘yes.’ ‘No’ hurts our feelings. It makes us uncomfortable and we feel rejected. And each of us knows via the dating scene what it’s like to be turned down. Sales are no different. Why is it that we will spend our days reading anything and everything we can get our hands on to make us better sales people (in our attempts to find the ever elusive ‘secret’ of becoming a 21st century sales guru) but we will utterly fail actually to believe and put into practice even half of what we read? For instance, it is a well-known fact that for every six to seven “Yes’s” you finally receive, you must inevitably go through a hundred “No’s.” We know instinctively that not everything we touch will turn into gold (there are no King Midas’s in sales) and yet we launch into each new week with the expectation that this time-honored sales statistic will somehow be suspended in our case. The fact of the matter is that the few gold nuggets that we do get will be worth all of the rejections we’ve had to endure. You’ve heard it before but the pain of rejection causes it not to sink in: Selling is a numbers game. Success in the sales dictionary is spelled ‘p-e-r-s-i-s-t’! Your commitment to ‘persistence’ must overrule your (natural) emotional responses to the numerous “No’s” you will receive. If “No” bothers you, perhaps ditch digging would be a more fruitful endeavor. At least at the end of your work day the hole which you’ve dug will earn you a few dollars. It would be better for you to be a successful ditch digger and be happy, than to agonize over the fact that rejection is your constant ‘depression’ companion. “No” today may mean “yes” tomorrow if you are persistent. You just need to stay the course.