NO is normal

No is normal in our household. Our 18 month old daughter, Malia, is fluent in no. It’s her favourite word. Ask Malia anything and her standard response is NO! No is normal in business and in life, too. Adults just aren’t as honest as toddlers.

According to neuro-influence expert Rachel Bourke, our brains are hardwired for no. Her business, SalesSPACE, combines the science of decision making with the art of influence, to move buyers into what she calls the yes zone. She explains that our emotional brain is designed to resist change and keep us safe and it has far more control over our decisions and actions than most people realise.

Our emotional brain is responsible for our flight or fight response and its speed of impulse is many times faster than our logical brain. For our emotional brain: status quo is safe, making a change is dangerous. This means, we make no decisions a lot more often than yes decisions, often without even realising it.

If you are in a leadership or sales role, a lot of your time is spent influencing people to make a change, which goes against peoples natural instincts. Whether you are selling an idea to a colleague or a solution to a customer, the art of influence is all about overcoming people’s resistance to change by making them feel safe, inspiring hope and making yes the new normal.

As Tom Hopkins, author of When Buyers Say No, puts it:

“If no wasn’t a natural part of the selling process, there would be no need salespeople.”

I’m interested in your thoughts, how can you overcome uncertainty and inspire hope for your customers and colleagues?

Mark Windust is an influential Thought Leader in the areas of Sales Strategy, Sales Leadership and Sales Performance. Since launching his consulting practice in 2007, Mark has worked with 1000's of business leaders, salespeople and entrepreneurs’ to help them transform their sales results.