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Go for No: The Counterintuitive Path to More Yeses · Selling AI

• Warren Kucker: Hey there and welcome to another episode of Selling AI. Today we're talking about something that doesn't get enough airtime in the AI conversation, how we handle rejection. I have Andrea Waltz on the show. Andrea is the co-author of Go for No, a book that sold over a half a million copies, as well as her newest book, When They Say No, which gives us a strategy playbook for actually handling that rejection. Obviously, this has a lot of crossover for sales because handling rejection is one of the critical aspects of maintaining a great mindset as an account executive. And a lot of times right now, AI tooling and sales is built to help reps hear yes faster. But Andrea's whole methodology says the real leverage is getting to know as quickly as possible. In today's episode, Andrea and I talk about why disqualification beats persuasion, why outlier wins keep weak deals alive in your pipeline. ⁓ and where AI fits into the sales process, which really is optimizing for an opposite ⁓ mindset here. So all right, let's get into it. Andrea, thank you so much for being with us today and to talk about ⁓ going for no. Welcome to the show. Andrea Waltz: Thanks Warren. I'm excited about this. Warren Kucker: Awesome. Well listen, give us a little bit about your background. What was the genesis of you writing ⁓ Go for No almost twenty five years ago? And what's the path that took you from there to now just basically having a through line through your entire career with this type of methodology? Andrea Waltz: Yeah. So it's based on it it kind of has an origin story, if you will. And it's based on a situation that ⁓ my husband Richard had. We we wrote Go for No together, we run run our business together, and it was in the retail industry where he was selling suits for a living. His district manager watched him have this great sale, and then after the sale, proceeded to ask Richard what that customer said no to. To which Richard had to re reply, that customer said yes to everything. What are you talking about? He was really kind of annoyed. And then the district manager said, Yeah, I I watched you sell, ⁓ but if you never had no heard no at all, then how did you know the customer was done? And that was kind of this pivotal moment where Richard realized that he sold out of his own, not only did he sell out of his own wallet, but he really didn't like hearing the word no. And so he decided that he would make it his mission to hear no more often. And his sales got better. He finally became an award-winning salesman after a year. ⁓ went into more sales and got into training and sales management. And when we met, ⁓ he told me this go-for-no strategy, philosophy, if you will. And I realized I was the same way. I didn't like hearing no. And so when we launched our own company doing speaking and training and workshops, again, we were really focused on the retail industry at that time. That was our background. I used the go-for-no methodology to get clients. I mean, there was we had no other plan. It basically it was cold calling and and disqualifying as quickly as possible. And so we used it kind of in the B2B world as well and then decided to write the book. Warren Kucker: Awesome. ⁓ let me pull on that origin story because I think it's fascinating. I actually think there's a additional thread there. So in theory, what your husband's boss was saying at the time was is even if the the sale went great, he sold ⁓ sold a suit, let's say in this scenario, right? The sale went smooth, it was great, you said yes, right? You really had no idea if that person needed three suits, right? Like you c but like, ⁓ why are you here? You just sold them a suit and you have no idea if it like I need three different colors, three different styles, three different reasons for this. I travel a lot and I need multiple suits, right? Like I know there's a lot of like parallels for tech, but that's basically what your husband's boss was saying at the time, right? Andrea Waltz: Yeah, absolutely. ⁓ and he he ended that whole conversation by asking Richard, he's like, Do you know where where that customer is right now? And Richard's like, nowhere. And he's like, He's at the other end of the mall spending the rest of the money that you wouldn't let him spend with us. Warren Kucker: Yeah. That's a that's a fascinating origin story. I love it, and I can't wait to pull into this a little bit more. ⁓ awesome. So yeah, give me a little bit more. If someone hasn't read Go for No, right? Like what's a ⁓ a key premises in the book? Wha how can we synthesize it? And what's one way that like someone might get it wrong if they just assume to understand what you're talking about? Andrea Waltz: Right. And I love that question. And by the way, we've created a huge, I feel like, marketing challenge for ourselves because I think when people hear the title Go for No, if you're really in sales, you kind of get it very quickly. But if you're not, or maybe you're thinking about it wrong, there are there are a lot of ways to get it wrong. I mean, people think like, ⁓ go for no, okay, it just means it's a numbers game. they look at it kind of surface level. Some people actually get confused and they're like, Why would I want to hear no? Yes. I mean everybody wants to get to yes and all of that in sales. So so we have created this challenge. ⁓ in terms of the book, the book is a short 80-page fable. So it is not kind of one of these, ⁓ you know, your your typical, I guess, ⁓ step one, step two, step three type of book. And in this book, ⁓ our main character's name is Eric. He's a ⁓ B2B copier salesman. So of course, this is this goes way back. Like this book is starting to become like one of these, you know. No, ⁓ super dated classics, like everything's very ⁓ everything's exactly Warren Kucker: Right, right, right. Vacuum door to door salesman, right? Like it's been like for and that like a worship, yep. Andrea Waltz: It's a yeah, it's very retro, let's put it that way. So ⁓ maybe that may maybe that even makes it more relevant. So anyway, ⁓ he wakes he goes to bed one night, he wakes up in this fantastic house and he has no idea where he is, and he discovers that he has somehow magically, ⁓ supernaturally traveled ten years in the future, and he meets a wildly successful future version of him. And so the book basically is the two of them trying to figure out how did this future version Warren Kucker: Yeah, retro's great. Andrea Waltz: Become so successful. Like the current version, he's an average sales sales guy and he's like, What happened? You know, what and they discover through kind of comparing notes about their past that it was that moment when they were selling suits for a living, when the district manager said, What did that customer say no to? How did you know he was done? That that was kind of this pivotal moment. And this multiverse version of him took that and said, This is how I'm gonna be successful. I'm gonna go for no. I'm just gonna hear no all the time. And so that's kind of the the the general plot and we we go into some strategies and some tactics through conversation and through other situations in the book, but we accomplish a lot in 80 pages. I'll say that. Warren Kucker: love it. ⁓ and I know it's more of a general focus, right? This isn't just pure sales, but we're gonna try to ⁓ hone in on how this kind of impacts sales where going for no, handling rejection is a big piece, right? So, like there's a scenario here where like ⁓ you've talked about disqualification, right? You hear a decent amount, and this is the purest form of going for no, and there are a lot of different variations here, right? But like reps, the best reps disqualify deals, they're looking to disqualify deals. Can you talk about the strategies that you discuss in sales for how reps can actually like get into this mindset, right? Like and what the barriers for reps getting into that mindset where they're they're overqualifying and not disqualifying? Andrea Waltz: Yeah, so you've got to completely change your philosophy, right? And and become ⁓ really a gatekeeper to your own products, services, whatever whatever it is you're selling. And the fat the best way to do that is through disqualification. And that really is I mean, we don't have talk tracks, we're not we're not recommending particular scripts, but it really is figuring out the two to three questions that are the questions. that if you can get those answered early, then you're gonna save yourself a whole lot of time and you're also respecting your prospects time. And that's one of the things that I think is a differentiator is having the respect To get to the tough questions first instead of trying to massage this person and kind of schmooze them and go through all of this stuff and wait on asking the hard questions, thinking that this thing is somehow going to turn into a yes. When if you would just ask the better questions up front, you would have gotten a quick no and you could quickly move on. Warren Kucker: Yeah. Do you have an example, an engagement you've run over the past couple of years where you had a really good, like stark example of a couple of those questions or a question that could be asked that might be a little counter to what a let's say a lay person might think sales should be doing? Andrea Waltz: So I mean in even in our own business, like for a long time, ⁓ when we first launched our business, I mean, we were we were calling people and kind of doing, I guess, kind of more old school tr ⁓ conversation starting and asking general questions and trying to build the rapport, ⁓ trying to do discovery, find out, ask information, and then and then we decided, you know what, let's just start doing go for no early and often. So our like very first disqualification question. like right out of the gate is ⁓ hey ⁓ do you guys ever hire professional speakers And ⁓ if they say ⁓ sorry, that ask ⁓ that's actually question number two. Question number one, this is the most pivotal question, is do you have meetings and conferences for your salespeople? I mean, that's like question and if they say no, then I'm not gonna sit there and waste time trying to convince them that their approach is wrong and that they really need to have a sales meeting where they bring people together. And do you hire speakers? Question number two. And if you hire speakers, would you be open to getting some information? Would you be open Warren Kucker: Okay. Andrea Waltz: for us to set a meeting where we could talk this through further. So in our own business, we're really big on disqualification. And if we get no's to our first two or three questions, then we're good. We move on. Warren Kucker: Yeah. Yeah. That's a good question, right? Like so like when we talk about discovery, we run let's say these let's say relatively complex conversations, right? Like ⁓ we have to train our people to do proper discovery. They need to learn Sandler, how to ask these types of questions, staying behind the pendulum, which is kind of like a version of like going for no. It's not like jumping for yes would be the ⁓ opposite of like being ahead of the pendulum, right? ⁓ but it's not so stark, right? But really it's just as simple. It can be just as simple as that, right? So ⁓ I sell a product that helps people drive win rates. I don't ask the question first, hey, like are do you have trouble winning enough of your qualified pipeline? Right? Like, ⁓ no, I don't have trouble. All right, cool. Sounds good. Like, what's your win win rate? Thirty-five percent? Cool, that's the no. Great. You're probably not gonna buy a piece of software to try it from thirty-five to forty percent. It's lovely meeting you, right? Like, how could you really it's everyone I talk to thinks it should be simpler than it is, but then most people execute it in a way that's too complex in this scenario. So I really like that. Like, what are the couple of questions you could ask up front to just get to the answer? And then you let's say someone gets to those core yeah, we have meetings and conferences and we have professional speakers come in, right? So like to get to that, what's the next version for you in your pipeline to like what's the next no you're looking for? Andrea Waltz: Yeah, so the next note really is to find out more about them and what their wants are and what their needs are. And of course those are two very different things oftentimes. And we always kind of start ⁓ more with want. ⁓ Because if you can start, if you can focus on what people want, ⁓ you're gonna get there faster than what people need. See, we all know like people need people need your software. I I would say everybody, right? Everybody you talk to in your head, you're like, you need this, right? The question is do they want it and that again is kind of more of a go for no type philosophy so it's ⁓ it's like any sales process warren it's finding out like what's going on with their salespeople what are their struggles what ⁓ and and kind of kind of helping them and and since we are not a sales methodology right we're not medic we're not we're not sandler we're not challenger we're not spin ⁓ so for us it's like hey just ask questions try to get to the root of the problem and if at any time you sense and so this is kind of the mindset part of it and any time that you sense ⁓ I should ask them about this but you know what that might be a disqualifier and they we may find out that this isn't gonna work we ask it so it's always you you have to always ask the tough questions as early as possible and I think ⁓ what a lot of salespeople do is they have kind Of these one or two things where they they know, like, ⁓ this oftentimes is where people stumble. This this thing is is such a big objection, and oftentimes this is where I'm gonna get like my no, andor ⁓ this is gonna be a problem. But instead, what they want is they they delude themselves. into thinking that if they can just kind of stay on the yes track and kind of pull this person in through like, okay, let's talk about your pain. Let's let's ask some other questions. Let's not let's not talk about the the elephant in the room, that that will somehow magically f get fixed when we're much further down the line. Warren Kucker: Yeah. Yeah, that's a good way to put it, right? And there's a couple of different angles I want to pull on r ⁓ quickly here. And so let's talk about the elephant in the room. I'll put a pin in that one for a second and try to come back to that. So it's my mental note. Let's talk about this ⁓ this wants versus need scenario here. so it's again, thinking about this. You're absolutely right. Most of the time when you're talking to a prospect, you have a mindset and in my case it's true, right? Like my piece of software, and I never talk about this on the podcast. Everyone should use it, right? And I would give it, if you didn't want to pay for it, I'd give it to you. So you'd use it. It's not that expensive for me to run, right? There's really no reason not to use it. You need it, right? But that doesn't matter. I go into every call, it doesn't matter, right? Because like not everyone buys my piece of software when I try to sell it to them. So like that that need doesn't matter as much. But I'm always trying to solve for understanding or getting them to understand if they need it, right? Hey, you have a win rate problem. You think you have a pipeline problem, you need this piece of software, right? Like that's what you're trying determine with discovery, right? But if I you I go into mindset as everyone needs it. And if I get off a call and someone's like, well, I don't really need this, I don't actually really believe them. I understand it's not the right time or you sh it it doesn't fit perfectly with your paradigm, but it'd be better if you had it. If I went with the mindset of like, great, we really have to get to it. Do they want it? Do you want to improve win rates? Is that something you think about? No. You know what? Honestly at that point I'd have no shot at the sale. If they're not thinking about improving their win rates, I have no shot, right? So like flipping that mindset from wants to needs is important. Is that something you just said? Is that something that's kind of pivotal to what you talk about as this? Like that's kind of like shifting mindset. Andrea Waltz: actually, ⁓ we spend a lot more time, I think, in our go for no world talking about ⁓ fear of no, hesitation, talking yourself out of things, making assumptions. The wants need discussion I think came up for me, And we talk about this a little bit in when they say no, but the the want need, I think, really comes up when you're pros to me when you're prospecting, right? It's ⁓ and you are doing kind of and this goes back to a methodology called high probability selling. So if you're if you're trying to quickly disqualify and quickly move through, the want that's where the wants needs come in. It doesn't mean though, go for no is not anti-persuasion either. It's just we don't start there. ⁓ we want Warren Kucker: Yeah, right. Andrea Waltz: To disqualify so that we're then talking to somebody who has that we've now wildly increased our odds that this could be a fit. Now it's okay, let's start digging in and be willing to hear no to the hard questions. But at the point where we move into need, and I agree with you, Warren. Like to me, any company that I would call who does have sales meetings should have us speak there. Like, there is there is Warren Kucker: Yeah, right. That's right, yeah. Andrea Waltz: almost no scenario in which that could not be the case. The question is how much persuasion is it going to take and what kind of objections do you need to overcome to make that happen? Warren Kucker: Yeah. No, ⁓ I'd probably argue that's a great I'd probably argue a little bit around the fact that you guys aren't at sales methodology, or at least sales methodology tangential, right? I don't know if you'd replace Sandler, right? Or ⁓ Challenger sale, which is a kind of a methodology, but like it's ⁓ what I I I try to get to is I used to be heavily process based in sales and really you have to switch that to mindset, right? Like ⁓ it's mindset that leads to behaviors, that leads to process and not the other way around, right? So if you can have a mindset that Andrea Waltz: Right. Warren Kucker: By default, this is what we're trying to achieve. We need to get to what they want. We need to hunt out the nose and we need not waste our time. That's a different if everyone in your sales work is behaving this way, that's a different motion than like most companies are running. So this is a really fascinating way to look at it. I think most sales leaders talk to their reps about getting the elephant in the room out of the way. Right. I think there's actually something that's done pretty well. And most times when I'm doing coaching, I'm like, what's the biggest risk to the deal and how do we address that now and not delay that into later stage. So I think that gets talked about more. But I actually think with what you're talking about, the meat of the middle gets ignored, right? Like where it's like you should be looking for these small triggers throughout the entire process. Do you find it to be ⁓ like kind of similar in like that like most sales teams are a hunt do like get the big problems out of the way, but are reluctant to look for those small reasons to disqualify or solve for reasons to like go over those hurdles during the process? Andrea Waltz: Yeah. So I mean I I think I see more at least in we do a lot of work in like professional services type of situations. And so I think I see more of the elephant in the room stuff that doesn't get addressed. ⁓ but to to your point, you know, it's interesting. Warren Kucker: Okay. Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Andrea Waltz: Jeb Blunt, who wrote Fanatical Prospecting and he's written a ton of books, you know, he talks about getting micro commitments. To your point, about getting these small yeses and moving the deal forward. I think that's also where Go for No applies. and It I mean, every little micro commitment is an opportunity to go for no as well. That and that's that's the meat of it, right? That's the meat of the whole process is keep moving step by step by step and make sure that if you do have a couple elephants in the room, they they get handled first. Warren Kucker: Right. It's great to know. Let's kind of pivot to when they say no. Once you get the rejection, how you handle that. Tell us a little bit more about like why this was kind of the best follow on for go for no. Andrea Waltz: So for for years and years, we have just been hammering people. Like you need to go for no. Yes is the destination. No is how you get there. ⁓ if you're not hearing enough, if you're not getting enough yeses, you probably are not hearing enough no's. You're not asking enough people, you're not you're you're ⁓ so there is a big piece of the quantity game there, even though I hate being I hate being couched as like, ⁓ go for no, it's like that's a numbers game philosophy, because I know in today's world. quality is so huge. That's what we all talk about, right? It's it's a quality. And I mean, you come from I I think Warren, right? It's it's quality. It's like it's making sure that you are doing the best job possible. And so, we're not like we haven't swung the pendulum all the way over ⁓ To the whole numbers game philosophy by by any means. So when it comes to when they say no, the reason why we wrote that was we're in this go for no world, but it's like, wait a minute, what if what do people do when they get a no? And we really don't, we don't address that at all in a go-for in our go-for-no book, in our in our fable, in our speaking engagements or anything. So I told Richard, I'm like, you know what, we need to write this book. So we came up with, and we could have come up with 104. We came up with 44 things that you should think or do or say when you get a know. And some of them are I none of them are rocket science. Like none of them are just like We've all experienced all 44 things that we cover in this book and we've all done them at one thing at one time or another, I think, in terms of you know these strategies, but you have to be reminded of them. And so, like what for for example, one of them is when you get to know, are you talking to the right person? Like you would say, Well, duh, obviously. ⁓ a lot of the people that read that book are like, ⁓ wow, that makes sense. Does the person you're talking to, whether they're a gatekeeper or they're there's someone within an organization, do they have the power to say yes to you? And if they don't, then you just got a no from somebody who has no power and And can't even say yes to you. So that's, you know, that's a bad no, ⁓ as opposed to getting a good no where somebody understands the offer, understands what you're talking about. ⁓ another thing when they say no that we go into a lot is the whole idea of response, responding to a no. There's responding to a no mentally, what you say to yourself, psychologically, and also what you say to the prospect. And there was a guy named Jonathan Farrington. He passed away. He was British, ⁓ I think he was the founder of ⁓ Top Sales Magazine. I don't know. I could be completely wrong about that. But he I remember him talking about how important it was to not burn a bridge because you know you get a no from an organization and then Something goes wrong, that deal falls apart three weeks, six weeks later, six months later. And now who do you think they're gonna call if you handled that respectfully, gracefully, like, hey, totally understand? it was great getting to know you guys and to know what's going on with you. Love to stay in touch. But if anything changes, please call us. We're here. You're gonna get a lot of yeses that way. So ⁓ in terms of response, Wern, just to kind of put a Period on this. It's your internal response, what you think, and how you handle that emotionally, and then also externally what you do. Warren Kucker: Yeah, it's ⁓ I think this is especially important when you're talking about let's say mid market enterprise sales, right? Like let's say seventy five thousand dollar plus in like annual contract kind of things, right? Especially with more and more technology come out too, the notion is ever everything's gonna become a little bit more niche, right? So I don't have a C I I'm selling a CRM to everyone will go away more so than I sell a CRM to medical device salespeople who sell this type of medical device because I built this for purpose, right? And so the market to get more now and I have accidentally got a lot of experience in like quite narrow ICPs where it's like, listen, you have product market fit with 3,000 accounts out there. And you can become a $20 million year business with those with ⁓ in this market if you capture 15% of it, right? But it's like narrow. It's not like wide open, right? In this scenario, there's two things at play that we've talked about. One, most of your market really has some sort of need. They would be better off if they had their product. Maybe it's too expensive to solve the problem. Maybe they have other problems they're not ready to they're they have to solve first. But most of that market has a need for your product. So need's okay, right? Like don't worry about that. But two, most of the time you're gonna take two, three, four, five open opportunities in order to close that deal. Right? Like it is rare. It is less than half the time you have an open ⁓ first opportunity open, qualified, close one in these niche markets. Handling the no in a way that makes it is beneficial is gonna be pivotal in this market, right? Like not just like professionally and how you handle it, but how you communicate after that no? How do you stay in touch? How do you nurture that opportunity, knowing that it could take you 36 months to get back to a point where they're ready to solve the problem there? ⁓ in this particular case, what are some bad ways to handle that no? Maybe like ignore the professionalism piece, like in a in a non unprofessional way, ignore that. What are some bad ways to handle that rejection? Andrea Waltz: Yeah, so there's a few different things that we see. I mean, ⁓ what do we say in our book? No begging, no bargaining, no ⁓ you know, th no pouting. ⁓ know all of those I I've seen all of those things, ⁓ both as on the seller side but also on the buyer side. And and that's that's why I think it's a big reason why buyers hate dealing with salespeople is they don't I mean in general people don't want to let other people down, right? And so nobody really nobody wants to say no. That's why it's so hard to get no. Nobody wants to tell you like, hey, no, it's just not the right time. ⁓ and so I think those kind of unprofessional ways of handling Warren Kucker: Yeah. Right. Andrea Waltz: It are what give salespeople a bad reputation. So, you know, when you do hand and you're you're so right about the idea that you've got to nurture those no's. And today's no is tomorrow's, you've got to have an unwavering belief and patience, especially like doing what you do. You've got to have patience. You've got to see it in the long term. I have had My record was like nine years. I was very proud of the record. It was nine years calling on one company before we finally got hired. And then that record got broken. And I think the the company that replaced it was like 13 years. Cause we've been in business for a long time. So my attitude is just like, all right, cool. Well Warren Kucker: Right. Yeah, right. Andrea Waltz: You're on my list. You're highly a highly qualified prospect for me. I know that you guys need this even if you don't want it now. And this would be a perfect fit. And so this goes on my forever list, right? I I will follow up forever until ⁓ something happens to me or the company goes bankrupt. Like whatever. Warren Kucker: Right, right, right, right, right. Yeah. That's a great way to that's a great way to approach it, right? Because I actually think like in especially in tech sales, venture capital created this pressure, not in a bad way, but like you there's a lot of great businesses that sales cycles look more like four year journeys with multiple opportunities clo opened and closed and lost before it's the right time for a company that needs your product is gonna buy your products, right? Then the juxposition of like, I have an investment and I need to get to the next level of revenue in the next 18 to 24 months kind of threw that off. That was the the pressure, right? I've talked to a couple companies where I was like, it seemed like you were about to go out of business at any point, right? And you're getting all this pressure from your venture capital, your board to move faster. And then you kind of got through it for whatever reason, great resilience. And it but if you had known where you're at now, where you were at then, you would have been okay with it, right? Like you got a lot, you had to get to a lot of no's. Your whole market has to know you. They have to tell you no several times, right? I've I've dealt with this in a bunch of companies, right? There's a p patience in this space and not looking in the sales process as like I need to I have a company that I've never spoken to, I need to speak with them, qualify them, just qualify them, and move on. But looking at it more like a long-term journey, right? Like what do I do post-no? How do I manage this nurture relationship in a better way rather than not just an email every month, but a long-term relationship is really kind of like a fascinating way to play on this, right? If you're gonna go for no with higher win rates, you're gonna have less opportunities and you need to nurture your core market much better in that kind of model. Andrea Waltz: Absolutely. And I mean you can and should be going for no with multiple, multiple, multiple people in the organization. And if you look at it from a quantity standpoint, ⁓ you know, people always say like, ⁓ talk to more people, right? Bring just bring more deals into the pipeline. Well just look at it as what are the relationships that you're nurturing within that company? And you may have you may have gotten a no from somebody in that company. But again, there's seven more people that you should be connecting with and starting to nurture. And that's all that's all a go for no. But also we're in that is a mindset of like don't give up, don't walk away. Like what can we do with this no? And how do we how do we are we accepting that from the entire organization? Like this is just done? Well of course not. I mean of course not you you we could never do that because to your point about niching down, yeah, and it's only gonna get more narrow. And so it's not if it you know, ⁓ in fact we were just Richard and I were just creating a module about this today. And and we use the example of ⁓ two an example of a Girl Scout ⁓ selling Girl Scout cookies and a jet ⁓ Is it a jet airplane salesperson like who sells jet engines? And what would happen if they switched roles, right? Because you have one super focused on the quality of the presentation, and you have one that's simply focused on the numbers and simply focused on the asking. And yet the Girl Scout is really, really good at asking. The jet engine person is really really good at quality, but they both have to, they both have to get good at both, right? Warren Kucker: Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, right. Yeah. That's a funny way to look at it, right? The Girl Scout is better at asking the question, right, in that scenario than the jet engine sales person. That's interesting. ⁓ cool. Let's position this with a another sales topic. So above the line, below the line selling, right? You have like frontline user buyers and you have like economic buyers that are making the decision, VPs, C CEOs, and above. A lot of times in sales there seems to be this notion. I come across this a lot, that I'm not I shouldn't reach out to anyone Andrea Waltz: Yes. Yes. Warren Kucker: below the line, user buyers, right? That are talking that can't be the one to make the decision to buy your piece of software or your service, right? I I always push back about against this. Like one, mainly because there's just not enough volume of economic buyers and everybody wants to get to them. So you have to go to below the line and figure it out. I think in this paradigm, the go like go for no and like could they have said yes, there's part of it where you have to qualify what you want them to say yes or no to. If I talk to an account executive for a piece of sales software, I am well aware that they can't like write a check for that software, sign a contract, right? So what yes am I going for there? Right? Like I want them to say yes to something to help me progress the deal somehow in some way. How do you talk about that when you're talking to sales teams, right? Like how do you qualify what you're trying to achieve with the person you're speaking with where you're and how you're racing to that no or yes answer as fast as possible? Andrea Waltz: Yeah, well I guess I guess for every interaction you have to figure out what your objective is. So you're absolutely right. Like it your objective is going to be different at everyone you're talking to. And there's no better way to get a yes than to have people below the line clamoring for your product or s like that's the easiest sale in the world. And That's what we have found. ⁓ actually. and and we go after like the the top people too. And it's the same it it's the same thing. It's very, very difficult to get through the door with that kind of competition. So it really kind of comes back to what is your objective and what is your what is your call to action? Like what is your single go for no type question? ⁓ that that you would like this person to do that would move you and and help you move forward. ⁓ and how how does that benefit them, of course too. ⁓ That's obviously very important. Warren Kucker: Yeah, if I like got really explicit with my example, right? If I I'm trying to, as we talk, think about what my progression of questions to ask would be, right? So if I'm talking to an account executive who immediately tells me they don't have buying power, right? Like, ⁓ yeah, I'm not the right person to talk to. Like you're in sales. You know you have to talk to people that don't have buying power, but people by default, if sales team were gonna default to this, then everyone's going to default to this, right? If I was like, great, like what I want to know is do you have a problem with win rates, right? Yes, I have a problem with win rates. My win rate's too low. Do you guys talk about your one-way problem? Yes, I'm at 16%. And I need to get to 30%, right? We talk about this all the time. Are you doing anything to solve that problem? No. Well, why not? Right? Like there's got to be a reason for that, right? Like we haven't gotten to it. We have a bigger problem. That's my next no. Be like, yes, I am doing something to solve this problem. I'm doing X. If that's X is what I'm already doing, then I'm probably sunk, right? If it's something different, then there's something there. And then it's like, all right, well, if I if I show you we have this solution, the last yes or no I need to get to, would you be willing to tell your boss this is something they should take a look at? Right? Like and if any step along that process it's a no, I'm probably not going to be able to overcome it, is what you're saying. Right? Like it's not worth the time. ⁓ on an outlier basis, maybe, but it's not worth the time. Is that like a a kind of the appropriate way to look at that? Like really simple. Andrea Waltz: Yeah, completely. And that's why going for no, w we have this we have this ⁓ structure in the book we call it the five levels of failure. And ⁓ can I go through them really quickly? Warren Kucker: Yeah, come forward please. Andrea Waltz: So level one, the ability to fail, it's where everybody starts. And we use failure liberally because when you are going for no, the mindset is you've got to be willing to fail. Like that's what this whole thing is about. It's it's teaching salespeople not to be afraid of the word no fundamentally, not to avoid it. Level two is the willingness to fail. It's like you hear go for no and you're like, okay, I'd be willing to hear no, but I don't love it. Level three is the wantingness to hear no. This is where you want to hear no. You know that you are not progressing, that you are not talking to enough people, you're not telling your story, you're not nurturing your relationships. Pick whatever, however, you ⁓ you know are out there getting business, apply that to wantingness to fail. And then level four is failing bigger and faster. And that is talking to people who are maybe bigger companies that you wouldn't normally go after, maybe it's different. Levels within that organization that you normally wouldn't talk to, and faster. And so you're right. It's getting to know as fast as you can with as many people as you can. So that's the quantity aspect that I was talking about. And that that is, I think, where Go for No started all those years ago. And we were so into like quantity, quantity. And now, as I said earlier, you know, the game has kind of changed a little bit, and everybody's very concerned about quality, and they should be because competition is insane. now, but at the same time, what I find, Warren, is that still and it's people are just not making enough calls. They're not reaching out enough. They're not having enough conversations. Warren Kucker: No. No, and that's the time aspect, right? If you're disqualifying deals, right? Like then the question I I believe I asked you when we first met was like everyone talks about pipeline problems. Everyone has a pipeline problem. Even people people that say they have seven X coverage, they don't have seven X coverage. So even bigger pipeline people that than people that say they have two and a half, 'cause two and a half is probably well qualified, right? ⁓ it's hard to give up deals. I'd say eighty percent of this mark sales market out there doesn't have enough pipeline at the moment to over disqualify. Or to lean into disqualification is a tough, tough hill to chat to get over. But I think what you're talking about is that it'll free you up to try to generate as many possible conversations as you can, right? So you spend less time chasing deals that are most likely not going to close percentage wise, and more time generating those conversations along the way. ⁓ that's this Andrea Waltz: Right, where there is a where there is much more potential of opportunity. And if you don't know what the opportunity potential is because you haven't started that conversation, then that's a huge problem. Warren Kucker: Yeah, and that volume piece is huge because you again you're figuring out who's saying no. Why are they saying no? What types of demographics should I be reaching out to? What message gets that conversation going? What questions gets me gets me to a no or yes faster, right? ⁓ I think this aligns perfectly. I've never really thought about it in this kind of framework with my reps in the past, but I've always always talked about that. Sales is really not about convincing anyone of anything. Like I have close friends, family that I haven't I couldn't convince them of. Doesn't matter how persuasive, doesn't matter how many facts I have, it does not matter. They will tell me, Yeah, that's good, that's right. You're right, Warren. Like I I get it, right? Like totally understand. But in their mind, they haven't changed their mind, right? To think that sales people as strangers are out there convincing people that they have problems that they didn't know they had or they need solutions they didn't know think they needed is kind of a fool's errand, right? Like figuring out that pinch point to be like, How is how is this deal gonna end? And can I Andrea Waltz: Right. Yeah, and to your point, so because of that, you start the relationship, you see if they're open, you see if you can get them educated, you ask some questions, and then your mindset really is, okay, now this starts. And if they are qualified, if they kind of passed that initial disqualification hurdle, then now it's just a matter of constantly staying in communication and seeing who else you need to get on board ⁓ so that you can push that deal forward. Warren Kucker: ⁓ Andrew, let's talk about actually like some tactical use cases for sales leadership. What what are some approaches they could take to start to enable their team to kind of shift this mindset along the way? Andrea Waltz: Right. Couple things. One, we encourage people to set no goals and this is where leadership really comes in big time. So it is to set a goal for the number of no's you are going to hear in a given day or week. ⁓ it really kind of gamifies it, it makes it a lot more fun. You can hear no's in any part of the process. So ⁓ some people like to really differentiate their no's. So it's it's follow up no's, it's referral no's, it's prospecting no's. I mean prospecting no's is kind of the the easy one, right? And so as leaders Warren Kucker: Yeah, right. Andrea Waltz: It's holding people accountable to get those no's. Now, and I know people are thinking like it's so hard to get a no. Like most of the time, it's you know, you're you're leaving messages, you're DMing people, whatever you're doing on LinkedIn. It's so hard to get a no. ⁓ and so we're talking about good no's. Like we're talking about people who are understand what you're asking them to do, like what is the call to action here and saying no to it. So the no goals can't be crazy. They can't be like, Okay, yeah, I'm gonna try to get a hundred no's this week. I mean, most people aren't doing that kind of volume and and we're not talking about this is not just production. This is actually getting to to a no in any stage of the process. So that is a fun way that a that leaders can kind of implement this tactically. And then the thing Warren is that they really have to celebrate the activity as much as they celebrate and reward the results. So if you have somebody who got 10 or 20 no's in a week. Or 50 no's in a week, you've got to celebrate that activity. Now, I know people watching this or listening to this are probably like, ⁓ now wait a minute, that seems like a lot. If your nos are too high, you're you're doing something wrong. Like you're messing up on the quality. And yes, we talked about this earlier. No is data. And it will tell you something. And if you're getting no a lot in a particular stage of the process, then obviously that's where you're getting hung up. And so that's where you need to make changes. One of the fun things. That I have done in the past over the last few years is 21-day go-for-no challenges with a little cohort. And we've gotten people together. Usually it's like a small group of eight to 12 people. Everybody's in a completely different business or industry. Like I have people who sell insurance and I've had digital marketers and just like people, I've had B2B salespeople in all different kinds of walks of life. And we talk about go-for-no, we talk about setting no goals. And a lot of people learn that there Their messaging and their scripts are not doing them any favors and they've got to mix that up because they finally have the data to decide that it's not working and they can change that up, or they're starting to see that when it comes time to close, they didn't ask good questions up front. And so now ⁓ that's where they're getting a lot of no's and they're not they're not closing anything. Warren Kucker: Could I I talk a lot about like conversational intelligence. I think one of the best things that like LLMs have done for the enterprise so far and can do is give us access to what people are talking about, both in sales and internal to the organization, right? Like one on average of about five meet hours of meetings a day. And w historically we turn them into a few bullet points in an Asana task board, right? Like conversational intelligence, you could break that, right? A good example in sales is like ⁓ Salesforce closed loss reasons are terrible. The data's not good. There's like eight reasons on the drop down. It's probably not the right selected reason. And even if it was, it's too narrow, right? But if you could use all of the transcripts that are people are generating to see why are people saying no, some probably some bad no's where it's pure bad salesmanship along the way. We need to like get those out of there, right? but we could really start to build a data set around this, right? Like ⁓ that is like helpful to analyze Great. Like why are people saying no? And it's the right part of the process, right? A lot of times if you're dragging a deal along, then at the end they're like, ⁓ this is too expensive, right? Like I this is great, but I can't deal with it. Honestly, the no is probably earlier in the deal, right? Like there's another reason, right? Like they couldn't quite say no. They didn't. You dragged it along. And then at the end it was easy to say it was too high price wise and you couldn't come down, right? So like it's just an easy way to look at it. I think there's a lot of good data that could be tied to an initiative like this. Andrea Waltz: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. And ⁓ I think in general, as a general philosophy, if you believe that go for no, that w when you increase your no's, you increase your yeses. If you're willing to buy into that, then as a sales leader, ⁓ you can't punish people for failure. You you can't punish people ⁓ you know, for hearing no if they're doing what they're trained to do and they're doing it in the ways that everyone else is doing it. ⁓ no, you've got to Warren Kucker: Yeah. Yeah. Andrea Waltz: Yeah. Warren Kucker: Yeah, I totally agree. ⁓ cool. Maybe last question, and you didn't know I was gonna ask this, so it might be a hard one. But let's take a little crystal ball out. Let's say your next book, ⁓ topic in the same vein. What do you think you might be talking about in that next one, right? Andrea Waltz: Right, right. Well, so this is something that I didn't mention to you in like our pre-call and everything else. We actually finally wrote a sequel to Go for No. And it's called, no surprisingly, Go for Know the sequel. So yes. We take Eric, our main character, who I I talked about in the first book. ⁓ it is a fable. He now has a daughter. So it's twenty five years later, and now his daughter, ⁓ Warren Kucker: Right, yeah. Yeah, all right, nice. Okay. Andrea Waltz: i and and a lot of this of course is it's it's philosophy. Like it's it's our philosophy on sales, our philosophy and go for no. And so his daughters doesn't know what she's gonna do. She graduates from college. She's like totally lost and he's like, well why don't you come sell for me? And she's like, I hate sales. And he goes, What? You're like my you're you're he's this go for no guy, right? Like he learned to go for no. He ended up becoming this successful salesperson. And she's like, No dad, you know, go for no is icky and you push people and you badger people and it's all about pushing people into into yes by going for no. And he's like, ⁓ no no, you don't understand it at all. So that that allowed us to we actually took the sequel and wrote it in such a way that we were able to handle some of the objections that people had by reading the first book of well what about this and what about that. So we were able to address a lot of these things. But in the book, Cassidy, Eric decides he's gonna buy it this golf course and there's an auction and there's a whole plot line to it. And she ends up flying to Dubai to to meet with a potential investor. And this is what we call a big no. So we we got to kind of explore Warren Kucker: Interesting. Andrea Waltz: some of the things that we didn't explore in GoFor No. You know, one of them is just ha having the courage to go for the big no, like taking more risks, taking more chances. Warren Kucker: Yeah, that's a that's a really good follow on too, and for maybe a new generation of salespeople, right? so I can't wait to read it. That sounds sounds like a a great approach. ⁓ and funny, yes, you probably got if twenty five years ago, maybe not so much online hate about this theory, but if you had posted that ⁓ on social media now, you would have gotten a good amount of feedback that were like, No, this is why this philosophy doesn't work, and you could address those in a subsequent book. So really exciting, ⁓ fun approach. Cool. Listen. Andrea Waltz: Yeah. Warren Kucker: ⁓ for our listeners, where should they find you? wanna book you for a speaking engagement, they ⁓ you got b big problems in their sales process, how should they find you? Andrea Waltz: Well, I recommend that people go to go for no dot com forward slash quiz and take the no quotient assessment. And this this is a really quick, simple little quiz. It measures your thoughts and feelings on failure, success, ⁓ not sales so much, but really the really where thinking and mindset is in relationship to no so that you know your no quotient and that will kind of guide you on your journey into becoming someone who is better handling rejection, who goes for no sooner. So that's what I suggest. Warren Kucker: That's great. Well listen, I appreciate you being on the show as as o I like always like to say and I mean it each time. It's also like a good forty minutes of consulting for me. ⁓ so I need to go change my sales process this week. ⁓ to be a little bit more focused on chasing it now. Andrea Waltz: Yeah, I can't wait to hear. Yeah, you gotta test test some things out and then let me know. You'll be want to make any things. Warren Kucker: No, I'd really have to simplify this process. I've made it too complex. And again, it's ⁓ it's a perfect example as like a do as I say, not as I do kind of scenario where I'm right back into my old bad founder habits in terms of sales. So I l this is a really good breaking point for at least some of those ⁓ kind of bad habits. So ⁓ I can't wait to read your next book. And yes, I'll drop your link into the show notes and anybody that has a speaking engagement mm would love to get someone in front of their sales team in front of an SKO. At some point you're gonna need Andrea. There's no reason not to. So sometime in the next nine to thirteen years. ⁓ on that scale would be great. That's good. That's great to hear. Thanks so much for being on the show. Andrea Waltz: I will still be here. Thanks, Warren.