A bizarre follow-up tactic:
Encouraging 'no'

Jeff Molander

Sales communication coach & Managing Partner, Communications Edge Inc.

Trainer to brands like:

Sometimes prospects go dark—stop responding to emails and voicemails. Even after good meetings… where prospects are enthusiastic about meeting again… they disappear.

Suddenly, and without reason, silence. No heartbeat. No response.

Now what?!

Lessons from the FBI & parenting

“If you’re a parent, you already use an effective (email follow-up) technique instinctively,” says Chris Voss, a renowned former FBI kidnapping negotiator and business negotiation expert.

“What do you do … when your kids won’t leave the house/park/mall? You say, ‘Fine. I’m leaving,’ and you begin to walk away. I’m going to guess that well over half the time they yell, ‘No, wait!’ and run to catch up. No one likes to be abandoned.”

Mr. Voss says starting to walk away may seem like a rude way to address someone in business. But you have to get over that. Indeed, it’s not rude. Ignoring you is what’s rude.

Bottom line: This works. It even works across international business cultures. Because the tactic is cloaked with the safety of “no.”

Make your follow-up a safe place

“Yes” is commitment. “No” is protection. Think about it when designing follow-up email messages for unresponsive customers.

“There is no shortage of times during the day when someone is trying to trap us with ‘yes,’” says Voss.

He’s right. Most often, sales people send emails—or have discussions—that “sprinkle a small trail of ‘yes’ to lead us down the path to the big bear trap of ‘YES’,” says Voss.

We try to persuade, convince. Think about it in your life, as a buyer of goods or services.

Here’s where it gets interesting. Voss says there are 3 kinds of “yes.”

Commitment (“I will”)
Confirmation (“I heard you”)
Counterfeit

Most of your clients are becoming experts at giving the counterfeit “yes” … as a reply to the bear trap “YES” lurking around the corner.

This is what makes “no” so powerful. “Yes” is commitment. “No” is protection.

When prospects say “no” they are:

Protecting themselves
Avoiding feeling vulnerable to you
Demonstrating power, control… and, thus, are more open to listening

Pretty cool right?

Use one sentence to provoke 'no'

Wait a minute. Provoke no? This sounds crazy. Why would you do that?!

Because it works. And because few sellers practice this follow-up tactic when clients go dark.

Here’s why this works: Provoking “no” plays to prospects’ natural aversion to experience loss.

Thus, asking one focused (and unusual) question encourages a client to respond with “no” because it makes the implicit threat you may walk away, on your own terms. If your prospect does not want to lose you they will stop it from happening. They’ll reply with something like:

“No, our priorities haven’t changed. We’ve just gotten bogged down with ________ …”

Prospects will explain why they have not responded to you. That’s the gold.

Here’s another mental trigger… why this works. Potential buyers will take pleasure in proving their power over you… they will hit reply and disagree.

That’s the beauty of this technique. If you don’t receive a reply you likely have an unmotivated prospect. Cut bait and move on!

The sentence

Is this another charlatan b.s. gimmick?

Nope. Here's what our clients say.

"Okay, I put this one sentence into action yesterday and today. I wrote 5 of my ghost clients and four have written back. One client wanted me to resend a proposal, one client is not interested at this time and the other two will be checking in with the rest of the team today and asked me to follow up next week. Crazy!"
Brad Gamson

"Jeff - A bit over a week ago I read your 'gone dark' (one sentence) article and I told you I thought it was cool. I finally got around to sending two this morning to two prospects from whom I had total radio silence over a multiple-email period. BOTH wrote back within about 20 minutes. I mentioned it to my partner - he sent one to another prospect. 20 minutes."
Jim Edholm

Join us in our online Spark Selling Academy and I'll share the one-liner with you.

Look---you can keep reading these tips I'm sending OR you can start DO-ING. Knowledge is worthless---without action. Take action.

None of this is easy. But with the right people involved (helping you) it feels effortless. Fun. Enjoyable.

Email prospecting isn't about getting more yeses... or more meetings. It's about getting yeses and meetings from prospects who are ready to give them!

What do you think? Let's chat about this (and your experiences) in comments below!

Sales communication coach & Managing Partner

Telling prospects, "You should consider X solution because Y research says so" is a non-starter. Pushing information at customers works far less than provoking them.

"People generally opt in to receive marketing newsletters, but no one chooses to get cold emails. This simple fact is one of the most important differences between the two," says cold email expert, Heather Morgan.

Ms. Morgan reminds us also how cold emails arrive without context. This is often the first time prospects have heard from you. Further, "you haven’t yet earned their trust or attention yet," says Ms. Morgan.

Context is key. Why talk at when you can talk with? Why push when you can pull, attract the conversation to you?

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A bizarre follow-up tactic:Encouraging 'no'