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