Cartoon drawn by cartoonist Keira Menon
Usually a “No” feels like a door slammed in your face.
However, in many cases, a “No” isn't a forever thing. If you look at “No” differently, there's a good chance you'll get a bucketful of “Yeses”. Here's my experience of going from “No to Yes”.
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Rerelease: How To Get Clients To Go From “No” To “Yes” (And Why The Right Mindset Is Crucial)
Original: How To Get Clients To Go From “No” To “Yes” (And Why The Right Mindset Is Crucial)
Note: (This is an unedited transcript)
What would you do if you reached out to someone by email?
And they didn't respond? Well, here's what I did. As you know, I've been very interested in photography and I've been reaching out to people so that I could photograph them at their workplace. Now, this is free. There is no catch. And they get to use all the photographs.
You think that if people saw the website and the quality of the photographs that they would respond right away, but they don't. sometimes it's just because of ego, maybe there a big organization like the zoo. And they think, who's this person? Why should we bother? So they don't respond, but often it is a very small company.
This story is about a blacksmith.
I read about how he was conducting these courses and I was very keen to take photographs of him as he went about his work and so I wrote him an email and he didn't respond. So I wrote a second email, still no response.
He lives three and a half hours away from me, up a hill far in the countryside, and so one day on Christmas Eve, I drove to his place, said hello and asked him if he had received my emails.
He said yes and he was planning to respond, but I never got a response. So what is the point of what I'm telling you? Why am I telling you this story? One of the things that I've learned in my life is that when people say no, they are just saying not now. We may take the note personally. We may think that they are saying no to us.
But in fact, what they're really going through is they're trying to evaluate whether you're just the waste of time, whether you're going to get in the way. So they have all of these objections in their heads, or there is a sudden amount of risk, where is the catch they think to themselves? Whenever someone says no to us, they usually have a reason.
Or they don't have any reason at all. Just postponing their decision because they have all the decisions to make or there is something that is in their way. You might think they're saying no to your product or your service or whatever it is that you're offering but usually that's on the case.
But they're saying is not now. And if you remember that factor of no mostly, not always but mostly means not now, then that will allow you to go back. In the case of the blacksmith, I emailed him yet again reminding him that he was going to email me, but I didn't hear from him. Instead, I heard back from his wife.
The blacksmith and his wife had been to Amsterdam on holiday and she read his email and I assumed she had read his previous emails as well and she got fed up of him not responding so she wrote back to me and said, “When we get back to New Zealand, I will make sure that he gets in touch with you.” And they did.
Well, she made sure that he did, because when he got back to New Zealand, he sent me an email and he said that I could come across to his workshop. And on the day that I was supposed to go there, his sister-in-law passed away.
So we had to wait a little more time. Eventually we got to a place. Yes, it was a 3.5 hour drive one way and then back again 3.5 hours. So it was a lot of driving for just a little time at the workshop. But that's how it goes.
Now this is not an isolated incident.
I wanted to photograph the rescue helicopter service here in Auckland and they are not that far away. But even so I had to follow up with emails and text messages for close to a year. What happened at one point was that they wanted some photos for the annual report. And this is often the case when you're dealing with people.
You start off some kind of discussion with them or you send them something and then they don't reject it. They just say no, which is not now. Or sometimes they actually say not now. But if you follow up, they get really impressed with your persistence and then some one In the end, they will say, “Maybe.”
Or they will say, “Yes.” It's much harder for people to say no, or maybe, or later, when you're offline, than just an email where they could just ignore it, or it takes message where they could say, “Maybe I don't know.” (upbeat music) When you're in front of them, It makes a big difference.
Sometimes I met a shoot like I went to a company that processes fish. And there were about 20 employees. 19 employees said, sure, you can take our photographs. But one of them said, no, I don't want my picture taken.
And in this situation, you always consider the fact that this person is saying not now. I continued to take pictures of all the other people, and I showed them the pictures as I took them.
At some point in time, that one person who didn't want the picture taken turned to me and pointed to something that was important. It was important to me, it was important to that person. And that's when you know the not now is starting to shift.
The no is starting to give way. When people start to point out at something or they bring your attention to something, you know that they are starting to bind to whatever it is you're doing.
They have seen something that you're doing and they recognize a change and at least in photography, when someone starts to point out at something or says take a picture of this or that person, then you know that not now has shifted.
It is slowly but suddenly becoming a yes and that's really what happened. And there are situations where I know continues to be a no, but I still try. There's a fish and chip shop in Russell, which is in the north of New Zealand. I like it a lot. I like the whole place and I like the people there. And I've asked whether I could take pictures.
And some of them have said yes, but the main people, the one who are frying the fish, the people who are backing the fish, they said no. So I asked again, and they said no.
And if I go back to Russell, I'll ask again. Maybe they'll say no, but I consider it to be a not now. I think this is really important as we go through life because we tend to get a lot of rejection, whether it is a product that you're selling or a service or just a hobby like mine, you're most only gonna run into situations where people are saying not now.
And if you just think of no as being not now, in most situations, then you can back away and you can go back another day. And maybe they'll say no, but it doesn't matter. My experience is that once people get to know you, get to know your work, get over their objections, get over all the choices they have to make. They realize there's no catch.
And then they say, “Okay, we'll do this under these conditions.” And you say yes, and you can go ahead. So that's kind of the learning that has been sitting with me all of this year. And I just wanted to share it with you.
So what's the summary of this one?
You know, the answer don't you? No, it means no in some cases. And you better pay attention to that. But in many cases, when you're selling products and services and not being a best, but just being respectful, it just means not now. And if you bear that in mind, you'll find it's really cool because it finally opens the ways which seemed permanently shut.
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