Teaching Your People to Say “No” (Maybe Learning it Yourself)

Believe it or not, having the option to say no, and even better giving this option to your employees, is one of the quickest ways to a lot of yes in your business. 

Popular opinion is that you always, always, always want to be able to say yes to your customers.  The problem with that thinking is that it draws in a lot of customers who maybe shouldn’t really be your customers – or at least should be so on better terms.  Terms you can actually live with.

You have all heard the stories of companies that say yes all the time – even to customers who are just plain ridiculous.  And in all these stories, it works out in the end.  Nordstroms gets a big article in the Wall Street Journal for giving some lady a refund on her snow tires.  The lady is happy, the company is happy with the press.  People who shop at Nordies feel better about paying too much because they are doing so with a great company.  See?  Everybody wins.

How about the other stories though?  The ones that don’t make the WSJ.  The ones where a customer asks for a better price without a real good reason.  Or the ones where they ask you to give a little extra just because.  Or the ones that become a huge time suck for your team.  The customer isn’t always right (even if we may want to make them feel like they are – which will be a future topic on this site) and you need to make sure to keep your eye on the long term prize as you wade through these “opportunities.”

Dave Morgan does a great job of spelling this out in his recent article.  While his examples relate to his role in an advertising firm, the principles hold true regardless of what your business may actually produce - whether a large manufacturing company or a hot dog stand.  If you want to read the whole article, follow this link.  Pressed for time?  Here’s the abridged version: 

It’s quite natural that we want to please everyone when we can. But, we can’t. And most people figure that fact out over time — certainly the successful ones do. However, many people still try to make as many people happy as long as they can, to the point that they never make any of them as happy as they could — and make some unhappy. Those situations call for using the word “no” early and often. Giving your teams the power to use the word “no” freely and at their discretion is one of the most important ways that you can enable them.

Power to the People

Giving your team the ability to say know, and the guidelines on how to use it, allows for your people to keep the ball rolling through their day.  They don’t have to get stuck waiting for an answer from you, and they don’t have to get swamped under by an unreasonable request from a customer.  The upside of all this is that you get to quickly determine who are your best team members.  If they can handle this level of authority well – meeting both the company and customer needs on a regular basis – then you may want to consider them for additional responsibilities as well.

What’s Most Important

Ultimately this forces you to do a great job of helping set priorities and guidelines within your business.  If you are clear where yes slides into a no, and can share this effectively with your people, you’ll also end up being more effective in your time as well.  Gone are the 100s of little interruptions in your day to gather your opinion on minutiae.  Leave these details to your well-guided staff and get on to the bigger stuff.

Make Hard Decisions Sooner

Setting appropriate boundaries with your customer will have to happen sooner or later.  Training your team to do this as early in the process as feasible ensures that your resources are not wasted, or only wasted minimally.  Better to nip things in the bud while they are still a bud.

Make Better Sales

By only promising to do what you are good at and at a price that you can thrive at, means that you are set up to do a good job for your customer.  Again, whether you are a major manufacturer or only running a hot dog stand, your customer wants you to meet their needs – price, selection, quality, and timing.  By working with customers that want what you are good at, you’ll have more profits and time to do more of that for more good customers.

Better Products

By only selling what you are good at, you’ll be able to focus on getting better at what you are already good at.  Trying to be too many things to too many people means that you’ll likely spend too much money on inventory, too much time building stuff you’ve forgotten how to do since the last time, and way too much time apologizing for mistakes. 

And all of this results in a better use of your time.  Questions on how to implement these concepts in your business?  Or even whether it would be a worthwhile endeavor? (It is by the way.)  Give me a call and let’s chat a bit about your specific situation.