The correct way to Pushing Back and Saying No

The correct way to Pushing Back and Saying No

Hi everyone. Hope you’re doing great. Today I want to do a quick post on pushing back in a sales situation. This could be equally relevant in your personal life and in your professional life.

When you’re talking to somebody, it could be a friend or relative, or your spouse or your kids, and they say something that is incorrect. How do you push back? In the old days, people used to say the customer is always right. I don’t agree with that. There are certain times that the prospect is making an incorrect demand or is asking something that is unreasonable. There is a correct way to push back. First question is do you push back? Or do you just take it and not say anything.

It is important to push back when needed

In my opinion, it’s important to push back, but to do it in a professional way. Let me give you an example. I was in a situation where we were trying to help the client, and we were asking them to get on a call. But this person who we were dealing with kept saying, “You’re just wasting my time, I don’t have time for this and just send it to me an email.” I’m not going to do that. So very politely, I actually escalated it and went to his managers manager who was a Senior Vice President- I explained to him that, “look, we’re trying to help you here. But we cannot do this over email. The last thing we want to do is waste your time or ours. And if you don’t feel that it is worth your time to get on a call, there’s nothing else for us to discuss.”

When you do that in the right way, I’m not saying you have to use these exact words, but you convey the message that you are trying to help the client at the same time. You put across your opinion, and I explained to him, and I said that the email that Chris sent was unprofessional, and it was downright rude. And we’re not going to deal with that.

Steps to correctly and professionally push back and say No

Let’s drill down into this in more detail. First, reiterate the fact that you’re trying to help the client. That’s important because nobody cares about you. They care about themselves and their situation and their problem and the issue that they’re trying to fix. So start right there.

Number two, explain to them that what the other person did was incorrect. And here’s why- “We cannot discuss this over email, we need to have a meeting. And that’s all we’re looking for.”

Number three, raise and counter the objection that they mentioned-“We’re not trying to waste your time, neither are we wasting our time; we have worked very hard to creatively come up with a solution that will help your situation and be cost effective.” So explain that.

Number four, make the ask. What is it that you want-in this illustration, we want to schedule a call with you and your supervisor and your manager and get on the call and figure it out. We cannot do what they’re asking- say that. But we do have an alternative solution. And that’s what we want to present.

My viewpoint is that if the customer or the prospect is saying something that is incorrect, push back on it, but push back on it professionally. Make them the focus of the conversation, make them the focus of the discussion, make the issue all about solving their problem. Make the ask, say why it was incorrect and move forward. We have to move forward. That’s the goal.

Do not damage the relationship

You don’t want to damage the relationship because you’re going to work with these people moving forward.  But at the same time, you have to put your point across fairly and professionally and be respectful about it. The same thing applies when you are in a personal situation. Push back when it is unrealistic for what they are asking you to do and explain to them why.

Never attack the person- focus on what the ask is and put your point across. The flip side of that is, what do you do when you are wrong? Do you try to make excuses and blame other people, or do you take ownership and accept responsibility and explain what or why you did what you did and move forward. So that’s the flip side of it.

Do not make excuses and take responsibility

Many times, we are very quick to blame others or to make excuses instead of owning our mistake and taking ownership and coming out and saying I’m sorry. Here’s what I did. And here’s why I will do it differently moving forward. I wanted to discuss the importance of pushing back on the customer when they are making an unreasonable demand and the flip side of that is taking ownership when you made a mistake and creating a pathway to move forward.

At the end of the day the issue and the objective is to move forward- you’re not going to close every deal; you’re not going to win every opportunity, but you don’t have to be a jerk about it. You can part ways for the time being in a professional manner.

If you have any questions or to schedule a complimentary discussion on learning to say No correctly and professionally to maximize potential and transform to lead a balanced, happier and impactful life, please email me at coach@maximizeu.life

Live, Work and Lead with greater Freedom, Power and Peace of Mind.

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