Never Say ‘No’ to a Person Holding Hostages

Hollywood actor Samuel L. Jackson delivers a great line in the 1998 movie The Negotiator. He plays a highly skilled police hostage negotiator who has been set up. In a reverse situation, Jackson's character is holding hostages in a New York city building. An inexperienced NY cop is on the phone talking to him and listening to the various demands.

Each time Jackson’s character makes a request of the inexperienced cop, the answer is NO! The professional negotiator says ‘the number one rule of hostage negotiation is to never say NO to a person holding hostages’. Makes sense to me!

Try this on for size. Let’s say that your money is being held hostage by a customer and you needed to negotiate to get it? How do your customers react when you say NO to them?

Can I get it delivered by Friday? No.
Can I get a discount? No.
Can I have it with a sunroof? No.
Can I have get credit and pay in 30 days? No.

If a prospect keeps getting NO’s out of a salesperson, they will likely become irritated and will soon be heading down a negative path. You money will remain ‘held hostage’ and you may never see those dollars in the future!

Try this:

Can I get it delivered by Friday?
Absolutely…we have a system set up that for a small fee, we can rush your order through the warehouse. Many of my customers feel it’s worth the investment.

Can I get a discount?
Certainly, we have a number of ways that the price goes down. Longer term contracts or increases in volume effect the unit price. Are comfortable with long term contracts?

Can I have it with a sunroof?
We have over 30 models in stock that come with sunroofs. Some of them are sliders and some tilt up. Let’ have a look at what would work for you.

Can I have get credit and pay in 30 days?
This is very possible. Let’s complete this credit application and see what comes back from our credit department. I’m sure we will be able to work something out.

Never say NO to a prospect or customer and watch the hostages come out of the building alive!

Mitch Drew

Never Never Never Give Up

Winston Churchill delivered this advice to a graduating class of students as a way of driving home how important persistence is to success in life.

Many successful sales managers know that one of the key attributes a successful sales person must have is the willingness to 'stick to it' and never give up.

So how does a sales persons 'stay the course' and keep motivated when a prospect isn't moving to the next step? I've found that one way to stay motivated is to modify in your mind the definition of 'forward movement'.

Recently I contacted a prospect who I had been trying to work with unsuccessfuly for 3 years. During the last phone call the prospect said 'don't ever call me again'. As I hung up the phone, I realized that even in this blatant and direct rejetion I had actually 'closed' the business...literally...and moved the prospect to the next step. Now the next step did not lead to a sale or revenue, but it did move to the sales proccess to the next level. The prospect is dead (for now) and I move on to other prospects thank you.

Alan Knight is a sales trainer and coach who has a seminar stressing the need to 'close every call'. What he means by this is that a person needs to make sure that every time you make contact with a prospect in person or on the phone...have a goal in mind and move the proccess forward.

Remember in the game of football...it's those inches that make up the yards that bring the first downs and without first downs, it's difficult to score touchdowns.

Never give up and make sure that every time you connect with someone...you move the ball forward...even an inch is getting closer to the goal.

Oh yeah...once in a while...a 'long bomb' doesn't hurt either...your might get a TOUCHDOWN!

Mitch Drew

Welcome to PITCHMAN

When I started by first BLOG MITCH TV, the goal was to create a place to host current articles about television advertising and marketing.

MITCH TV has become an active site with stories, links and videos and has been an excellent selling tool.

As an advertising salesperson, I was also including links to sales related articles and sites. The link list grew longer and the idea came about to create a ‘sales specific’ BLOG. PITCHMAN was born! This site contains links to interesting articles and original content about the lessons I've learned some of the techniques I think will help you sell more.

You will find articles on how to sell more, make more money and periodically how to have fun spending your money!

Enjoy!

Mitch Drew
PITCHMAN