Author, speaker, and Founder of Courage Crafters, Andrea Waltz, talks about setting “no” goals, why hearing “no” is important EVEN for top producers, and why to never be afraid to ask for what you want.

Andrea Waltz is the co founder of Courage Crafters.

That's the name their company, which is just awesome. She's the

author of a tremendous book. The book is called "Go For No".

She's also been featured in TV Guide, Success Magazine, I mean,

on this mission to shift the way that the world thinks about the

word no. But Andrea, we're so excited. Thank you for being

here.

I am thrilled.

So most people are terrified of the word no. Can

you explain what your philosophy is about that and how, like, how

did you come up with this? Like, how did you get there to this

philosophy?

Well, I know that does that so counterintuitive,

right? Everybody wants to hear yes, and they've been taught and

trained to hear yes. And that is the interesting thing about the

philosophy, is that it is totally counterintuitive. What

we teach is that in order to get more yeses, in order to hear yes

more often, you've got to be willing to hear more nos. In

fact, we say you've got to go out and intentionally increase

the number of times you are hearing the word no in order to

get to those yeses. And so it that's the fundamental

philosophy. Of course, there's a lot behind it, because we do

have all the psychology behind it and all the emotions that are

wrapped up in getting those no's and feeling like we're failing

and and all of that. So that's kind of the surface level thing.

And Richard was working in a men's wear store. He was, and

this is years ago, kind of in the beginning of his sales

career, he was sailing miserably. He was hoping to

improve. The district manager, a man by the name of Harold, was

going to come in and visit the store. And rich thought that if

he had a great sale while this guy was in the store, that it

would maybe buy him some time to improve. So the district manager

comes in this one day, Richard's there. They open the store.

Everything's great. Customer walks in. Rich is the first

salesperson in that morning. So he gets to help this first

customer. And the customer who walks in happens to say, you

know, i Hello, I want to buy an entire wardrobe of floating.

Rich gets to help this guy. And he's like, okay, great. So he

they're going from thing to thing, and he's selling the guy

shirts and ties and slacks and underwear and pocket square and

the whole this wholesale rings them up. It's like $1,100 and

again, this is years ago, but it sold this great sale. Um, ring

some up, sends him on his way, and is thinking that he's going

to be congratulated by Harold, the the district manager who's

visiting, thinking that Harold's going to be so impressed. Harold

doesn't say anything. Finally, they're standing side by side,

and Harold says to rich, he's like, you know, you know, that

was my sale. And Rich is like, Well, yeah, did you I mean, it

was, it was $1,100 that was great. And Harold says, yeah.

But can I ask you a question? Just wanted to ask you a little

question. And Rich says, Okay. And Harold says, Out of

curiosity, Richard, out of everything that you show that

man made, what would that customer say no to? And Rich

thought about the wholesale and he's like, Oh, geez, Harold, you

know I, if you saw I sold them all this stuff. What do you

mean? What did he say no to? He I guess he didn't say no to

anything. And then Harold asks rich the really important

question, which is, well, then how did you know he was done?

And, yeah, that's the this kind of hit rich like a punch,

really, he was floored. He's like, Well, I guess I knew he

was done, because I'm always done. You know? It's like he got

to that his own mental spending limit, and he sent the customer

on his way. And that was it. And that was kind of that moment

where Harold and we all need leaders in our lives kind of

point us in the right direction. Well, that was Harold for rich.

So Rich took that message. He he got the message, and then I

thought I was a great salesperson. And he, he tells me

this entire story, just like I told you. And I said, oh my

goodness, you know what? I don't like to hear no either. And I

realized that, as great a salesperson that I thought I

was, I actually shied away from hearing no because I didn't want

to look pushy. I didn't want to look overly aggressive. You

know, I did. You know all of that, I've interviewed a ton of

experts on this exact topic. And I think pretty much everybody

agrees that, you know, as kids, we start off very tenacious.

We're willing to try everything. We're willing to fall flat on

our face. We don't care. And then somewhere along the line in

our teenage years, you know, we just kind of get that tenacity

drummed out of us, and we kind we kind of get taught and

trained and learn. That you don't want to stand out and you

don't want to look like a failure in front of people. So

here we are all as adults, just shying away from looking and,

quote, failing, maybe looking like that sleazy, pushy

salesperson asking somebody for anything. It doesn't matter. I

mean, this is not even necessarily a sales philosophy.

It's really, we like to say it's a life philosophy. He's asking

for anything. Asking for anything, and having somebody

think, wow, she's pushy, you know? So I think we have, we've

been raised with some of these paradigms, as you say, and so we

kind of keep living them over and over again.

So what are some of the action steps that we can take to

change our philosophy or our mentality about all of this, and

kind of, you know, how we approach looking at no?

The first thing I would suggest, I would

recommend, to anybody is just start to create a no awareness.

Really look around and say to yourself, how many knows, as if

you're a salesperson, you know, how many knows, am I getting a

week or a day? And try to really quantify it, and try to really

look and say, you know, I don't, I do stop at that one yes. I

don't continue to to show things or to make calls if I got the

two yeses I wanted for, you know, a particular day. So

create that no awareness. And then got to do something that we

call setting no goals. So instead of just saying, I'm

going to get a one yes today. We suggest that you, you say, I'm

going to try to get five no's this week. And it can be, you

know, whatever, whatever you want, whatever it could be. We

help people in fundraising. So it doesn't really matter what

you're quote asking or what you're selling. It's really just

have fun with it. Set a no goal and try to get more no's, and a

lot of people have some really serious, deep, rooted fears. And

there's nothing wrong with that, because, again, we've all been

taught and trained to live in the stove for yes world where

there's a lot of pressure to get yes and so yeah. And I think a

lot of people, you know, they have kind of a perfectionistic

quality. They want to be great, which is great, but, you know,

they they almost put too much pressure on themselves to be

perfect. And so what I would tell somebody says, I give them

permission and actually insist, you know, I want you to fall

flat on your face. I you're going for no so I know, pick up

the phone or talk to the person, and I don't want you to get Yes,

I just literally get no. Be bad. Fall on your face, experience

it, so that you can at least take the action and do it, and

then we can move to the next step and improve on that. But

it's taking that action and seeing that gosh, I can. I

nobody died every I survived. It wasn't a disaster. And what's

funny is when people do that and they have permission to go for

no and they have permission to live in that go for no world and

have that go for no mindset, the stress actually is removed, and

what we find is that people relax more, and the whole

experience is actually so much better because we said, listen,

there is no pressure here. We want you to mess up. Don't worry

about it.

Does the go for no philosophy apply to top

producers do you think?

Yeah, and I love that you said that we always

make the point that we that, you know, the people that are on

stage winning awards, super successful people in every

business of industry, writers and actors and, you know,

athletes and stay at home moms with a side business, you know,

everybody who, really, who ends up being coming a top producer

actually hears some more no's and literally failed enough.

There's like this tipping point. You know, there's a tipping

point where, if you fail enough and hear enough no's, then what

happens is, your confidence starts to grow. You learn from

those no's, and then you this tipping point happens, and you

don't hear no quite as often. But what happens is we don't get

through that process. We don't force ourselves through that

process, through the pain, if you will, to reach that tipping

point. And that's kind of the trick and so but absolutely, top

producers here know more than anybody, and when we start

getting those no's in the beginning, I think a lot of

times we the questions that we start asking deep inside is,

what does this, know really mean? And we start thinking

this, no means I'm not going to be successful this. No means I'm

bad at what I'm doing. You know, we get this. The nos have all

these negative meanings, where, when we work through those and

we do it enough, and we we let those statistics and those

numbers play out, and eventually they do play out in our favor

when we stick with it enough that we see that those no's

don't mean that at all, but it takes some time to get to that

place.

How have you leveraged go for no philosophy like to

advance your own career, like, how is this? How have you been a

practitioner of this message yourself?

Well, you know, it's so nice to be able to teach

something that you need yourself, which is totally true.

I, as I said, when Richard told me this story about go for No,

we hadn't written the book or anything. And I said, this is

brilliant. I get this. And after we wrote the book and we decided

to. Create a whole training program around this, and kind of

forced me to really look at all of the psychology and to see

where I needed it, and so I have absolutely used it in my career.

My favorite story is one time we were at this conference and I

saw the vice president of huge retail organization standing

over in the corner, and I wanted to approach her, and I I just

thought, oh, you know, I was very young at the time. I was

super nervous, and I thought, you know, you spend all this

money, you pay this money. What's the worst that can

happen? Remember to go for no so I walked up, I approached her,

we had a great conversation, and we ended up doing, you know,

probably $100,000 worth of business later on, because I

just forced myself out of my comfort zone and had to remind

myself to go for no and the truth is, I've gotten over the

whole psychology and the emotional reaction that's been

so freeing for me, because I do keep my stress down. I do

understand the whole go for no philosophy, but every now and

then, you know, when I get nervous, I have to remind myself

and tap into everything that I know. So that's why it's so fun

for me to teach, is I get to constantly. I get the constant

reinforcement every day.

How does go for no apply to non sales people like, do you

think this philosophy fits in other places?

Absolutely. And that's what I love about it, is

I feel like when we get to share this with people in every

business and every industry which we do, it applies to

everybody and and kids. I have so many great stories of people

who tell me that they're teaching this to their children

because they feel like they don't. They want their kids to

remember this. And you know, kids that are 10, 1214, they're

starting to hit that magic age where they start carrying what

other people think and start ringing themselves in. But it is

a complete life philosophy. We all tend to shrink back and not

ask for what we want. Jack Camfield talks about this quite

a bit and relates up to self esteem. So you know, if you're

we always say, you know, you're out with your spouse or

significant other, and you're at a restaurant, and they put you

at the horrible table in the back next to the water station.

And then, of course, there's the cute table for two of the front

with the candle. And this is your moment to say, Okay, I'm

gonna go for no if they put us, you know, if they, if they can't

move us to the queue table, at least I asked. At least I tried.

So ask, ask for what you want, and you'll be amazed at what can

happen. So it's definitely a great light philosophy.

It's just fantastic. It empowers you. So, Andrea, we

just, we appreciate you for what you're doing and keep going and

think thank you for being with us on the show.

My absolute pleasure. Love it.