As a sales professional, have you ever had someone simply fall off the face of the earth and stop communicating with you? Do they go where all our lost socks are?
In today’s super “connected” world of social media, mobile devices, email we feel like we are “communicating” more than ever with more people than ever. In fact, I think communication is dying at a staggering rate.
Have you planned a wedding recently? My amazing wife and I got married back in 2001 – before Facebook had 750 million users and billions of online minutes per month. Email was around – and of course cell phones. We were having a beautiful ceremony – and the reception was at Maison Jardin – a very ritzy restaurant and event hall. It is one of the most beautiful – and expensive – places in Orlando. We sent out our invites. I’d say we received about 85% responded immediately with a resounding “yes” we will attend. We never heard from the other 15%. (I guess they figured they’d rather not even respond than to say “no” – we’ll cover that later…)
Out of the 85% that RSVP’d, 10 people did not show up. Did we miss them – no…it was an amazing day. But did those 10 people that no-showed cost us nearly $2,000 for we still had to pay for their food, drinks and more at the reception…yes! Meeting planners are suffering from this plague every day. People don’t respond then show up, or they RSVP and then don’t show up. This causes utter havoc in planning food, seating and more.
Is it people are just so afraid to disappoint anyone these days that they would rather run and hide rather than say no? Are we all so busy with all of the distractions around us that if we don’t schedule to RSVP or not to an invitation that it just doesn’t happen?
Right this second – I empower anyone and everyone to say the word “No”…Cmon say it with me NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! LOL.. It is empowering to say no to something. When we were kids we said no to our parents all the time. It might not have lead to good things for our behinds – but it still felt good at the time.
As adults I think we fear the word NO – and we fear disappointing people. I see this in many family relationships…We’ve all probably said at one point in time “We’ll I have no choice to do this because I just can’t tell them NO”. Yes you can. The will get over it – and still love you. They will not disown you. Avoiding them all tighter or simply NOT communicating will always cause more angst then just saying no.
Say it with me again…”NOOOOOOOO!”
So now take this new liberation into your professional lives. If you don’t; want to buy something, simply say no. If you don’t want to meet with that person because you know it will be a waste of time….Be professional and just say no (politely). You don’t have t run and hide anymore. You are now empowered to say “NOOOOOO” to things you don’t want, don’t see value in, can’t or don’t want to attend. I promise people will not be offended. If they are – they don’t need to be in your life.
