Clip from Episode 8: Jacquelyn Nicholson of Percolate:
I think when people hear no they just assume OK. It’s no. Move on. To me a no is always an opportunity to ask what they want. Obviously there are situations when a prospective customer says no. That OK it really means no that’s fine. You know and it’s not it’s just to me though it’s also an opportunity to go deeper and I think a bit of a corollary to that is if you’ve lost a deal so let’s say your company tried to sell a solution to you know a prospective customer they signed with a competitor or a similar company and they signed a contract for a year. Well just because you lost that round doesn’t mean you shouldn’t stay in touch with that person and to provide value over time because you can always win that business back. And I’ve had that situation happen to me the last two years where were competitive situations where we had lost prior to my arrival where we stayed in touch with the prospective customer and several times now have actually been the victor in the next time around. So so no. Yes means. I mean I get that No means no. But at the same time you know there’s depending on where you’re at in a negotiation or a particular conversation they could be seeking more information from you a concession more value. And so you want to uncover that instead of just taking the no at face value and moving on you’d want to ask the questions uncover the motivation uncover the reasons and then you can make an assessment as to when you might be back in touch. But it’s it’s never really over is my point is you can always re-approach that situation.
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