Dealing with the NO Elephant

There is an elephant in the room and he has two letters painted on the side of his big, grey body. The letters are: N-O. NO! How many meetings do you think go on every day around the world discussing everything but the elephant that is in the room. "What can we do to improve sales? Why aren't we hitting our numbers? How are we going to increase sales - or even keep our numbers from dropping?"

Have these questions changed much in the last few decades? Probably not. So, why do the same questions keep getting asked? Maybe it's because people keep expecting a different answer. But one of the biggest answers has to do with the elephant in the room - you know... the one that no one talks about. 

And the people who are sitting in the meetings or dialing into the teleconference, are all keeping quiet. Because most people do not raise their hand and say they don't like being told NO. Most people do not shout out on a group call, finally saying, "Help, the rejection is killing me!" 

But almost no one is immune. It's time to deal with the elephant in the room.

{EAV_BLOG_VER:85d7f020ad4b29de}

{EAV_BLOG_VER:85d7f020ad4b29de}

Women In Business Radio Monday April 25th

I have literally made about every mistake you can make in business. I forgot what I was saying on stage speaking to a group of 6000 people. I have botched phone calls, messed up marketing materials, screwed up projects, hired the wrong people and made bad decisions and costly mistakes.

On the flip side: I did get hired to speak to 6000 people, fixed mistakes in marketing materials, saved projects at the edge of disaster, learned to deal with clients and suppliers, made great decisions, and made some good money.

I teach people to learn to fail their way to success (to go for no) and myself have had plenty of failures followed by great success.  I have literally failed forward and heard lots of No's. I can't wait to share just some of the lessons learned on my journey this Monday with Michele Price on Women in Business!    

The Secret of Not Taking it Personally

I don't know about you, but I have almost a pathological desire to be liked by everyone I meet.  And while you might not be so extreme I think when people like us, like our product, like our service - it's easy to make it personal because we want to be liked.  The truth however, is that no matter how wonderful we are, people's preferences, desires, are their own. We see this when we think about people's preferences for things. All things are neutral. They only have meaning when we put our own "stuff" - preferences onto them.  

So it's no surprise then, that when it comes to people NOT liking us, our product, or service we've trained ourselves to also take it personally. This makes sense because if the good stuff is about us then so must the bad be.  And when it comes to Go for No, people often ask how they can stop taking the No's personally. It is imperative that you start to understand that you cannot take it personally! This is one of The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz:

Don't Take Anything Personally:  Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won't be the victim of needless suffering.

Ultimately the secret is, you can't anything personally. That's right, even the good stuff. Anything means everything. Read The Four Agreements, it can change your life in this area. You can learn to see that all people's perceptions, reactions, etc. are all about them, ironically not about you - and it can free you.

Should You Love NO?

Do you love hearing the word No? Most people don't - in fact, most people hate hearing No! They do everything within their power to avoid hearing No. How? Simple. By avoiding calling and contacting people who they THINK might say no. As it turns out, for many people, that becomes almost everyone! As you can imagine, that is a big issue, right?

First of all, who are we to decide for someone else what their answer will be? In doing so, we rob other people of their opportunity to hear about a service, new product, or interesting offer that could - at the very least make a small improvement to their life... and most - completely change their life!

So, should you fall in love with NO? If you LOVE serving others, if you are in LOVE with the mission you are on... then yes, should love NO... or at least fall into serious "like" with "no!"

Opportunity May Knock (and Say NO!)

Around 2005, after help from an agent, we had a very close call with a book publisher - a REALLY big one in NYC. A BIG ONE! They were literally about to sign us and our book, "Go for No!"

In fact, we expected an offer to be faxed over with a day or two. However... they had just a couple more questions for us - how big was our "platform" and how big were our audiences, and oh yes -- how many books would we buy?... well, back then even though we had sold somewhere around 30,000 copies of the book, it wasn't quite good enough and at that time we still weren't quite "big" enough for them to take the risk on us. So they passed. That was a BIG NO! We were pretty disappointed but we did not give up on our mission to spread the power of NO!

Now as it turns out, this was just the beginning for our little book. Because although it took another 5 years, we made the Amazon best seller list (in the Sales & Selling niche) and have hovered on the list in the top 10 for the last two years. And as of now, early 2011, we have sold nearly 200,000 copies! We have had the book translated in French, Dutch, German, Chinese, Hindi, Hungarian to name a few. Besides Amazon, we are not in book stores. It was through the support and encouragement of some key people + fantastic word of mouth + relentlessly getting known and getting the word out.

Contrary to what you've heard, opportunity does not knock. YOU knock... and opportunity answers. Unfortunately, it often says, "NO!" Don't give up. Don't let those NO's - even the "BIG" ones, deter you from doing what you believe you were meant to do!

How a little NO turned into a BIG YES!

Read a great story courtesy of Bill & Steve Harrison's Reporter Connection. It is a story about a man named Joel Schwartzberg. Joel is the author of The 40-Year-Old Version, a memoir of divorce and parenting his young son. Here is Joel's "Go for No" story as I read it in Steve & Bill's Reporter Connection email:

"Joel wrote an essay and pitched it to the editor of Newsweek's "My Turn" section. The editor said "no" to the essay, but she liked one specific paragraph. Joel took that paragraph and wrote a new essay around it. The subject: post-partum depression in men. The new essay ran in Newsweek. Two years later, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a report about that subject. Looking for commentary, producers Googled "post-partum depression in men," and Joel's Newsweek piece came up in every search. As a result, Joel got booked on Good Morning America, CNN and NPR. And it's all because he turned a "no" into a Newsweek piece."

I appreciate Carol, an editor at Reporter Connection allowing us to re- tell this. There will always be failures and rejections and you just never know what "no" will bring your way!