Master the Art of Using This 'One Word'
Thanuj Gunawardana
A sales professional with an MBA and a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering. With over 8 years of experience in sales, marketing, and key accounts management
In the first year of my first job, I learned one of the most important lessons – a word I should learn and master throughout my career and life.
I worked in an engineering sales job for four years. At the end of my first year on the job, I was overwhelmed: spending a lot of my time on non-converting, non-value-adding, less-profitable activities.
Every month end brought me disappointment seeing the sales figures. I didn’t understand what I was doing wrong because I believed I was doing the right thing—providing great customer service, faster response time, accurate technical support, and many more. In fact, there was no complaint from the customers.
But I knew something was wrong!
I talked to my manager. He assessed my situation and replied.
“You need to learn to say NO to your clients”.
I was like “Really?”.
“Yes. Saying “YES” to everyone takes your focus out from what is important. You should understand what is important and prioritize the tasks”.
and he continued, “Saying “NO” is not easy, you need to practice. This is something really important in your work”.
I realized I was doing the same in my life. I was saying “YES” to everything that came my way compromising my work.
Same for the clients. My weekly plans never worked because I altered them based on the sudden and unplanned inquiries of my clients.
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I started practicing this new methodology of handling client inquiries. When I said, “NO, Mr. Saliya, we can’t do it this week—it’s already packed. What about next Wednesday?”
“Yes, sure we can wait!”
The magic started happening.
I realized though people expect things to happen so quickly, they are almost always fine with a little planned delay.
This changed everything!
When my friends asked me to go out on a Friday night, I was very much confident to reply “I’ve got an assignment to submit this weekend, what about Saturday?”
It’s only by saying “NO” that you can concentrate on the things that are really important- Steve Jobs
There are many reasons why you should master the art of saying “NO”:
It takes courage to say "NO," but it is worth it rather than saying "YES" and regretting your decision.