What To Do When You Keep Hearing No.

We don’t like to hear “no.” Hearing “no” in the form of:

“No, I don’t want to give you money.”
“No, that costs too much money.”
“No, we like their work better.”

Sucks. But it’s a part of life, business and art. So how do we deal with it? How do we keep going when all we seem to be hearing is “No?” We’ve all heard stories of authors who submit their book to be published and are turned down 60 times only to have it accepted at 61. My question is what happened in-between 2 and 61? What did they change in their presentation of the book along the way? or did they change anything? Did they wait until 61 to change something? How did they feel when they kept hearing no? Did they want to give up altogether? What made them keep going?

When I hear a few “nos” in a row I freak out. “No” means “no money.” When you keep hearing no, it feels like a yes will never come. But what we can learn from the story of the author who tirelessly submits her book, is that the yes will come in time. What we don’t learn is what to do until it comes. There is a yes at the end of the tunnel of no. But what do you do while you’re in the tunnel?

What to do when you keep hearing no:

1) Stop and look at how things are being presented.– Are your ideas being presented well? Are you presenting with a clear why? If you’re offering a service or product, is the structure of the pricing clear? Change something in your presentation and try again. Experiment and find what works. It’s important to note that what worked last year might not work this year. So always be evaluating and shifting little things around to see what works.

2) Don’t compromise you just to get a yes. – When we’re in panic mode, we make bad decisions. We book clients that might not be a good fit, we write books that might not be true to us, we follow trends and what’s popular because we think that must be what people want. The truth is that someone wants to pay you for what only you can make. Following something you might not have the heart for smells a lot like burn out to me. Change something in your presentation, not your personality.

3) Panic, but don’t panic. – It’s gonna be ok. Yes you need a yes and use that sense of urgency to make it happen. But showing you’re desperate will just bring in more no’s. Be confident because and know you have something good to offer and there will be a yes eventually. Let the no’s drive you to the yes. Get mad and make something happen.

4) When you get the yes, find out why and look at what you did differently.
– Just like we need to know why “no” is happening, we also need to understand why “yes” happens. What did you change? How did the conversation flow? What is it about this client or this company that might be different? What do they have in common with other people who said “yes?” Maybe later on in the relationship you could even ask “What made you want to book us?” Learning why yes happens means we can work on our consistency to be able to get more of them.
It just makes you feel better when someone says “yes.” It’s reassurance that what you’re doing matters. We need a yes but we also need no. “No” is a chance for us to learn. To grow. The yes will come but don’t keep searching for it blindly with no understanding of why people are saying no. Remember, there is a yes at the end of the tunnel but don’t just ignore the tunnel. Let “no” be a teacher. Learn, then move on to the yes.

Happy Friday!