Close High-Ticket Sales By Saying “NO”
Summary
- When selling, differentiate between mining questions to extract information and questions meant to seek agreement.
- Employ a mixture of yes-based, neutral, and no-based questions in your sales conversations.
- Yes-based questions, like "Doesn't this sound great?" can sometimes ask too much of a prospect and be harder to get an agreement on.
- Neutral questions use phrases like "Does that sound fair?" which can be easier for people to agree with because they are more toned down.
- I love the "fair enough" close, which I learned from Jordan Belfort, because it's simple and plays on people's natural tendency to reciprocate.
- No-based questions can be powerful; people often feel safer saying no, retaining their control and autonomy.
- To use no-based questions effectively, ask in a way that makes a 'no' response lead to a 'yes' outcome. For example, "Would you be opposed to moving forward today?" is less intimidating than asking directly for agreement.
- No-based questions can be sneakily effective; they let people stay in their comfort zone while still moving them towards a sale.
- Not every question in your sales process needs to be no-based, but strategically using them at key moments can be highly effective.
- Consider implementing no-based phrasing into sales scripts, especially for prospects who might experience decision fatigue.
- Remember that the goal of your sales conversation is to reach an agreement to work together, and using different types of questions can help achieve this based on psychological responses.
Video
How To Take Action
A good way of doing better in sales is by changing how we ask questions. Let's start with three types:
Yes-based questions – They can be tough to get a 'yes' to because they push people to agree too much. Avoid using them too often.
Neutral questions – Questions like "Does that sound fair?" are easier to agree with. They're simple and don't put too much pressure on. Use these often when you want to keep the conversation going smoothly.
No-based questions – These are the sneaky game-changers. People like saying 'no' because it feels safe. Flip your question to make 'no' mean 'yes'. For example, "Would you be opposed to moving forward today?" If they say 'no', they're actually saying 'yes' to moving forward. Sneaky, right?
Let's put this into action:
- When you talk to customers, mix up the types of questions. Start with neutral questions, then use a no-based question at important moments.
- Write a sales script. Make sure to put some no-based questions in there, especially for those parts where it seems hard to get a 'yes'.
- Remember, our goal is to make an agreement to work together. Using different questions can help us get there.
Say, if you're selling fitness plans, instead of asking, "Are you ready to get the best body of your life?" which is a big yes-based ask, try "Would it be okay if I show you a plan that fits your busy schedule?" It feels safer, right?
Keep practicing this, and I bet you'll see a change in how many people say 'yes' to working with you. Good luck out there!
Quotes by Alex Hormozi
"Fair enough?"
– Alex Hormozi
"No worries, what if we did this?"
– Alex Hormozi
"Would it be completely unreasonable for us to get started at the end of this conversation?"
– Alex Hormozi
"Would you be opposed to moving forward today?"
– Alex Hormozi
"Are you against XYZ?"
– Alex Hormozi
Full Transcript
what's going on everyone alex ramosa here founder of jim launch allen prestige labs and owner of a couple other companies um and today i'm going to talk to you um about how to sell some stuff all right so there's um there's there's three types of questions um i think i've talked in other videos about how um how to structure your sales conversations but i haven't talked as much about the nature of the questions and the types of responses that you're getting right and so in a sales process right you're you have some questions that are going to be mining questions that's trying to extract information from the prospect and the remainder of the questions are questions to get agreement right so you're going to put a proposition out there and ask for agreement right and if you get enough agreements it's going to be natural that they're going to want to move forward working with you now the way that you structure these questions all right i would say that you have yes-based questions you have um neutral questions and then you have negatively inclined questions all right first time i heard about this from chris voss he's the guy who does the um he wrote the book never split the difference really interesting stuff um and so a yes-based question would be like sound great yes that sounds great right a neutral type of question would be like fair enough does that sound fair does that sound reasonable to you right they'd be like well that sounds reasonable now it's still technically a yes-based question but the question that we're asking has a neutral tone to it all right because we're not saying hey is this the most amazing thing you've ever heard of like do you think this is the most amazing program the amazing product like blah blah that's asking a lot of someone right for them to agree to that so that would be a harder yes to get it's easier to get something like a a reciprocal yes which i would say someone says you know that's a lot and we say no worries what if we did this fair enough they say well he made a concession that sounds fair or if we did this does that sound reasonable that's not like a fair expectation yes it does great and then you can go to close the sale and if you've heard any of my past sale stuff one of my favorite closes which i got from jordan belfort um is fair enough right i just love this clothes so much because it's like fair enough right you make a concession fair enough and so many times we were like well they made a concession and i'm a reciprocal human being it's very hard for me to deny this request and say yes i do believe it's fair and then you say boom then let's move forward right but this is one that i learned very recently um that i really like and i when i look back through my actual conversations i do this and that's why i think it's so interesting because i'll i'm gonna i'm gonna be i'm gonna level with you really quickly all the people that i know who teach sales are natural born salesmen which is interesting right they're natural born salesmen i don't know a lot of people who who teach sales who weren't naturally very good at it quickly right um and so there are some things that people naturally do because they've had a lot of experience doing it and usually you get a lot of experience doing it because when you start doing it you get enough success that you can you can steamroll right um and grow and get a lot of volume and then once you do lots of volume then you can master at it but you had some sort of inclination or proclivity towards the skill all right um that being said it doesn't mean that anyone else can't become a great salesman it just means you might have to have more reps to get there now that being said no base statements this is actually where you you go in opposition right and so the reason and the psychology behind this per my understanding and it makes complete sense to me at least is that people feel safer saying no people feel like they retain their autonomy they feel like they're they're at ease it's harder especially like you think about decision fatigue at the end of the day people don't want to be responsible or anything they don't feel vulnerable to saying yes and agreeing to something right instead they prefer to say no and stay safe right but if you phrase your questions properly you can get people to say yes by saying no which is one of the most powerful sales taxes i shared in a different video where richard schwartz taught me how to get someone to say yes by saying no hey you don't want anything else do you no i don't want anything else and by doing that they got 95 of people to take an upsell all right now no base question this is something like would you be opposed to moving forward today would it be completely unreasonable for us to get started at the end of this conversation um would it be a completely would it would be completely out of left field for me to say that we should start you know start start working together today um so it's all of these would you be opposed to would you be against would it be unreasonable right all of those things are no based kind of antecedents or sorry precedence that that that lead into a no base question and so think about this if i said and i'm going to give you the same same kind of scenario here if i'm trying to get my wife to go where i want to go to dinner right because i want to go to cheesecake factory the finest establishment in the land all right count it get the cajun chicken little so you can get them half grilled and half uh half a half right and get the get the sauces from the thai lettuce wraps anyways um if i say hey babe you want to go to uh cheesecake factory she might be like well no i don't want to go to cheese factory right or like i'm not really sure right now if i switched that and i said would you be against going to cheese factory well i'm not against going to tca factory and i'm like great let's go and so that's the beauty of a no base question see how different it free it's phrased right and if i say hey you excited to move forward today that's a yes right it's harder to get someone to say yes i'm excited before today would you be opposed to moving forward at the end of the conversation no i'm not opposed to moving forward great and we get the sale and so this is really interesting because um what i find because there's there's lots of uh literature on you know getting people to say lots of yeses and trial closes and things like that throughout the sales process but in my mind these are all still ways of getting agreement which is the goal so it's simply using psychology in terms of how people like to respond to things how they feel in the moment of you know saying yes makes them feel vulnerable saying no makes them feel safe and leveraging that now that that being said it doesn't mean every single question you have to ask has to be a no based question but i think if you if you can rephrase a couple of the key milestone questions that you have in your sales conversations or if you feel like you're kind of closer to the edge with someone leaning towards a no based question i think is something that natural salesmen do well automatically like is it unreasonable for us to move forward today right would you be opposed to moving forward today would you be opposed to knocking out the paperwork should be opposed to are you against xyz right oh no i'm not against it all right let's rock and roll right um all of these are still ways to get questions and so i think that in some of my sales scripts right now we're going to be shifting from fair enough clothes drive is so wired in my brain from doing it so many times um to some no based phrasing uh because it's easier to get agreement with prospects especially even if they're kind of fatigued at the end of the day or which is when people are less likely to want to say yes to things um counter example there could be decision fatigue and they just want to say yes to to get done with it right depends on the size of the purchase but anyways i hope this was valuable for you in terms of phrasing behind the questions obviously this is not for mining based questions where you're trying to extract information from someone um and to better understand this is really where you're trying to get agreements um towards milestones to work together all right so i hope this made sense keep being awesome lots of love i'll catch you guys soon bye
