The "NO" Factor is better than the "YES" Factor

ENGLISH in India is taught in a very funny way. Firstly the child is made to learn the alphabets and then is made to by heart sentences and so on. But the two words "YES" & "NO" are cutely and hilariously used by each and every one during their child hood. In India you will not be surprised to see each and every student who is admitted in an English Medium school saying "Yes Teacher/Miss" or "No Teacher/Miss". Till the child remains a child he/she remains brave enough to use this both words whenever possible but as he/she grows the first word surpasses the next word (Yes surpasses No).  Once the child enters the world of business, he starts saying yes for everything in order to make career, close a sale deal, impress the boss, impress the person and so on.  But often he/she forgets to use the most important word "NO".

In marketing the most important word according to me is NO. Every marketer should learn to say this word. You may be puzzled now thinking why this fellow named Rohit Tiwari is suggesting to say "NO"? ; For which my answer is :

If you cannot say a NO to your customer and cant explain him why you cannot do what he wants then you are selling the product on a wrong platform which may yield result for a while (short term) but in long term once the customer gets to know about the false promise made with a "Yes" added to it at the point of sale, then you loose on two things :

1. The trust of your existing customer (the sufferer) &

2. the most important; the power of "word of Mouth" advertising


One of my favorite author Robin Sharma quotes: 
 "Every time you say yes to something that is unimportant, you say no to something that is important. “Yes men” never create anything great. There’s great value in getting good at saying no." 


Likewise every time you say a "YES" to customer and bluff him/her you misses a long term opportunity. 


Now the question arises "Why should an employee think of the long term benefit of a company, he can leave whenever he wants once his short term goals are achieved"? 
This question is apt for majority of the employees. Everyone thinks of achieving short term targets/goals integrated with them by the company, but let us not forget that the customer is buying a product from you and once you cheat him you loose your contact for ever. On other hand if you be truthful to him, irrespective of which competitor you join later, the customer will buy whatever you sell. So retain your prospective customers by telling them all "NO's" and all "YES" but tell them a NO at least.


Regards,
Rohit Tiwari