Do you want to play?

My four-year old daughter Ami came home from kinder recently and reported, "today I asked Erin if she wanted to play with me, and she said no.”

 Interestingly, Ami was completely OK about it. There was no sense of anything being wrong, no feelings of rejection. She then asked Mia if she wanted to play, and apparently Mia did. 

I reckon this is a great metaphor for sales. A sales conversation is in essence “I’ve got this thing that could help you solve that problem you’ve got. It costs this much money. Do you want to play?”

The problem is when someone says no, we make it about us. Instead of thinking that person said no that program, we feel like that person as rejected us personally. Not true, and definitely not helpful. 

The thing is, even when sales is effective chances are you will still get more people saying no than yes. If Erin says no to you, that’s fine. Just go and ask Mia.