Wanting Your Yes More Than They Want Their No

Your mindset matters a great deal, especially as it pertains to prospecting. Even though people bandy about all kinds of statistics about how poorly this method or that method may work, the truth of the matter is that your mindset is largely responsible for your results.

Let’s boil it down to a statement: You must want a yes more than your prospective client wants their no.

Here, we need a disclaimer. Wanting your yes doesn’t mean that you get to act selfishly and self-oriented, using the tools of a two-year-old or a full-grown bully. Nor does it allow for any action that would subtract from trust and lessen your dream client’s desire to work with you. It does, however, include an impatiently impatient, professional persistence.

If you want a yes and receive a no, wanting that yes means you ask for the meeting you want a second time, modifying your approach to trade more value for the time you are asking for and increasing the odds of reversing the no.

The yes you are after may require that pause in your pursuit, waiting a short period of time, and trying again. The short pause is intentional and no indication that you are giving up. Knowing that timing can help or hurt you, you try again later, but not too much later. Your dream client gets to keep their no for now, because you value the relationship more than the transaction, and because you are not desperate.

Your dream client’s no was in response to a single ask. Varying your approach in what you ask for and how you ask, you change your approach to one that may increase the chances of a yes. The next ask you make can be different than the earlier ask. It can be funnier, more engaging, and show a side of your personality that gives them the idea that you are the kind of person that they would like to work with instead of the same boring, tired trope they hear from others.

The recipe for struggling to produce results in prospecting is to continue to do the same thing over and over again, without creating greater value, without a professional approach, and without varying how you ask and engage your dream client.

If you want your yes more than your dream client wants their no, you will persist until you find a way to get a yes.