How To Cope With a “No!” From Your Client
Monday, October 3rd, 2011
I came up with this idea after closing a workshop with my sales staff on how to deal with a “no” from a client.
As a bilingual speaker and being in the translation business sector, I am always interested in idioms. For instance, one thing I find funny, and trust me pretty useful too, is comparing different ways of saying things in English versus Spanish or vice versa . I promise to share some in another post.
In the meantime, let’s cut to the chase! My goal was to find an easy way to make my team remember what they had learned at the workshop. Our white board was the place where our four main ideas were crystallized in words. However, they all sounded too formal and I was looking to spice them up in order to make them more user-friendly. I ended up finding four idioms summarizing all four different points:
1) Never say die! Whenever you get a “no” for an answer…Don’t give up! Find a polite and diplomatic way to refloat the negotiation. In other words: Fight back! Of course, without bugging your clients!
2) Actions speak louder than words: Get to the task at hand! Don’t waste time as you might be facing tough competition from other translation suppliers. Try to get a hold of your client with some pig-headed discipline as advocated by the sales guru Chet Holmes.
3) Get the low-down! You will certainly need to review all the information that you collected from the beginning of your negotiation. In this world of asymmetric information, keep in mind that there might still be important data missing in regards with your client’s needs. Make sure you fully understand them as this is the only way to really review your quote to present a better proposal.
4) And last but not least…Let’s go back to the drawing board! Once you’ve reset rapport with the client, gotten more info and performed a better analysis…everything is ready to crunch numbers to find a cost-effective solution perfectly matching your client’s expectations.
Finally…Keep your fingers crossed!
