Ryan Dohrn explains why salespeople should get three "no"s before ending a call. Most reps quit after the first objection. He walks through handling objections with open-ended questions, flashcards for common responses, and assumption-based probes to keep conversations moving.
What's going on, friends and fans? Ryan Dohrn here, your friendly neighborhood sales coach. And this week we're talking about not giving up, and I'm going to call it 3 Nos Before You Go. What I like to do in the sales business as I'm working through objections, closing techniques, and strategies of that sort is I want to train my brain around the rule of 3 as it relates to getting 3 nos before I let somebody go. Now, I'm not saying to you that if it's not a good fit that you should keep pestering somebody until they give you no. What I want you to consider though is the number of salespeople that I work with that actually get a no and then they go. They don't try to push further. They don't ask for further clarification. They don't try to name-drop new customers. They don't do a whole lot more. There's not a strategy in their mind ready to go so that when they get the next no, they get another no. Once you get a third no, by the time you get to the third no, then I mean, let's be honest, at that point more than likely you've given it your very best shot. So I think what you want to be asking yourself is Do I actually have a strategy as it relates to the end of a sales call or objection handling? So let's just say you're getting an objection. Well, do you handle the objection correctly, and then do you pivot that conversation to try to get a yes or at least another no? The answer is not usually, because there's usually not a strategy behind it. Alright, so the beginning of the strategy would be saying to yourself, hey, I'm gonna work to ask open-ended questions, dig deep, and try to get 3 nos before I let a client go. Okay, so that's the kind of, if you will, the baseline of the All right, so the second step would be to be identifying what are the main objections that you normally get? What are the objections that you get that would potentially lead to a yes or to a no where you might have to move that conversation forward? Then what you'd want to be doing is creating flashcards for yourself, writing down those objections, asking others for input on the objections, and those type of things. Now, if you don't have a team to ask, normally what you'd be thinking about is, If you get an objection and you handle it correctly, then move to your next value proposition. What's the next thing you can do to potentially help that customer? And then get some clarification on that. Or even better than that, make some assumptions. I assume that you'd want this. I assume that we could help you with that. More than anything, I just want to be encouraging to you to recognize that in sales, A, it's a hard business, B, we're going to get a bunch of nos, but 3, have a process in place. Be thinking to yourself, okay, what am I going to do to get to either the next yes, or if I get a no, to at least not get up and to push that conversation forward. So in your mind, be thinking 3 nos before I let this customer go. Never forget, friends, if this job was easy, everybody'd be doing it, and they're not. We're not crazy. I used to say we're crazy. We're not crazy. This is a great career. It'll feed your family for a lifetime. Hey friends, besides these sales tips, I'm coming all— traveling all over the country speaking to sales teams large and small. Love to come and motivate your team, come to your office, or we can meet on Zoom or whatever the circumstance is. Reach out to me, ryan@ryandohrn.com. All right, All right, friends, we'll see you next week. Bye.
