The Invisible Game

Chapter 8Overcoming the Fear of ‘No’

We mentioned earlier that the Cambridge Dictionary defines price as the amount of money we exchange for something, but the dictionary contains a second primary definition of price: ‘the unpleasant results that you must accept or experience for getting or doing something’.¹ In other words, a price is also a burden. This second definition of price – equally valid as the first – also matters in sales negotiations: Who pays that price for the outcome? Who bears the burdens?

This question is usually overlooked, to the detriment of salespeople, their products, and their companies. The presumptive solutions described in the previous chapter impose an additional burden on salespeople in order to make it harder for them to say ‘yes’. But what if we define the problem differently. Instead of trying to make it harder for them to say ‘yes’, why not make it easier for them to say ‘no’? That difference sounds esoteric, but from a practical and behavioural standpoint, the two phrasings could hardly be further apart.

There are two primary reasons why making a ‘no’ easier is a better approach than imposing additional burdens on salespeople in order to make a ‘yes’ harder. The first primary reason involves the mental and emotional aspects of discounting that the ghost of homo economicus doesn't acknowledge. Think back to the wine experiments and the price–quality heuristic. Prices have strong emotional effects and not merely financial ones. Similarly, there ...