Collect 20 Nos to Learn About Your Business

Episode 85 transcript: Collect 20 Nos to Learn About Your Business

Why 20 nos, on purpose

Hey there, and welcome to episode 85 of Your Fun and Profitable Online Business. This is the podcast that helps you build a business that feels as good as it looks. I’m Wendy Muzzy, and I help women entrepreneurs create fun and profitable businesses by taking the things that feel really heavy and turning them into practical actions they can take. And today we’re talking about rejection. This is such a fun topic, right? Okay, maybe not, I get it. But I want to talk about rejection in a way that might make it feel a little less personal and maybe even a little more like a game. Because what if, instead of trying to avoid hearing a no, you deliberately tried to collect 20 no’s over the next few months? Yep, 20 people telling you no on purpose. All right, before you tune me out, let’s get to it.

This idea came up recently because a client is building a new local service from scratch. And when we’re building a new business, there’s so much we just don’t know yet. We don’t know exactly which services people want. We don’t know which prices people will take as an easy yes and which ones will make some people hesitate. And then there comes the timing piece – we don’t know whether someone will hire us today, six months from now, or maybe never. But the only way to learn any of this is to start giving people an opportunity to say yes. And when you give people an opportunity to say yes, you also give them an opportunity to say no.

So one of the first sales strategies we talked about was not making the initial goal a particular number of sales. Sounds crazy, right? Instead, the goal became collecting 20 no’s – not because the business is expected to fail, and definitely not because anyone wants people to reject the offer. The goal is 20 no’s because you can’t collect 20 no’s without making the offers, giving the quotes, talking about the business, and putting yourself in front of potential clients. And somewhere along the way, some of those people are going to say yes. Even more importantly, as you get closer to 20, you’re going to know a whole lot more about your business than you did before you started.

Why rejection feels personal when you own the business

So first, let’s look at why rejection can feel incredibly personal when we own the business. If you worked at a lamp store and someone decided not to buy one of the fancy lamps you had for sale, you probably wouldn’t go home questioning whether you’re meant to work around lamps anymore. Most likely, you’d assume the person didn’t need the lamp, or they didn’t like that particular one, or maybe it wasn’t in their budget. But when you create an offer and you select the price and you put your name behind it, the decision can feel like it’s about you.

But you’re not your client. Your budget, priorities, circumstances, and buying decisions aren’t theirs. And the exact same thing is true when someone tells you no. That is one person with one budget, one set of priorities, one set of circumstances, and one decision on that particular day. Their no is information about their decision. It’s not automatically information about you and your offer. But I know it can feel like it is. I totally get it.

And when someone doesn’t respond at all, your brain starts filling in that silence with an empty imaginary focus group that’s discussing everything you did wrong. And then one no can start affecting the next offer. Maybe you lower your price before the next person even asks, or you start adding things nobody requested, or you avoid following up because you don’t want to seem pushy. Or maybe you stop mentioning the offer altogether and quietly return to working on your website or reorganizing your systems. Unfortunately, that’s also a business in which very few people can buy from.

Let me be blunt here. Hearing no is part of selling. It doesn’t matter how good your offer is or how much experience you have. Not everyone is going to say yes. It doesn’t make the offer bad. It makes the buyer a person with their own needs, their own timing, their own priorities, and their own decisions.

What actually counts as a no

Okay, so how do we collect 20 no’s in a way that actually builds our business? First, we define what counts as a no. A no should come from a clear invitation to buy, book, hire, or take the next step. It could be a quote that someone declines, or it could be a potential client who decides not to move forward after a discovery call, or it could be a proposal that just isn’t accepted.

This isn’t someone scrolling past your post. It isn’t an email subscriber who doesn’t click. It isn’t someone unsubscribing from your email list. And it’s definitely not a stranger who never knew you had anything to buy in the first place. Silence from people you never invited doesn’t count here. We’re not manufacturing rejection. We’re practicing making clear, appropriate offers, often enough that each response stops feeling like a declaration of your worth – because it isn’t.

Know your numbers beneath the price

Next, know your numbers beneath the price. Know what your offer actually costs you to deliver. For an online business, it could be preparation and software and payment processing fees or support or follow-up or even the time you can no longer sell to another client. If you’re providing a local service, there may be materials and mileage and maintenance and some other cost. You’re looking at the non-negotiable cost behind the price.

That’s the important part, because if you don’t know those numbers, the moment someone says that’s too expensive or I can’t afford it, you may start negotiating against yourself. Maybe $500 suddenly becomes $400, or you start twisting the offer around until you can get a yes. But your goal isn’t to turn every no into a yes. Your goal is to make offers to the right people at the right price that makes sense for your business.

Because here’s what I’ve learned in business: not every yes is profitable. Some cost way too much in time and energy, and some create resistance before I’ve even started doing the work. Those aren’t wins just because money changed hands.

Document the conversation before your brain rewrites it

And then, when you’re out there collecting the no’s, count them and document the conversations along the way. Create a simple scoreboard on Google Docs if you want. On page one, you can have 20 squares at the top, and a space for gold stars at the bottom. Every time you receive a no, fill in one of your 20 squares. And every yes you get gets a gold star on that page. That’s really important.

Then, on the next page, record a few useful details. What did you offer? Who was it for? Did they seem like a good fit? If they said no, why did they object? If they said yes, why did they sign up? And here’s an important one: what did they actually say? Not what you think they meant, but what did they actually say?

Because “I can’t afford this right now” is not the same thing as “this isn’t worth the price that I’m charging.” Or “I need to talk to my partner” isn’t the same thing as “your offer’s confusing.” Or “I want to do this later” is not the same thing as “nobody wants this.” Record what actually happened before your brain gets the opportunity to rewrite its own version of the story.

Remember, we’re looking for patterns here, not one-off reasons to throw in the towel. One person saying the price is too high is an opinion. Ten well-qualified people raising the same objection – now we have information worth investigating. Those are two different things.

Turn selling into a game

And what I think you’re going to discover is that as you get closer and closer to collecting those 20 no’s, you’re also going to start collecting a bunch more yeses, because you’re making the offers, you’re having more conversations, you’re getting better at explaining what you do, and you’re getting less weird about asking people to buy.

This is what I want selling to start looking like for you. You give a quote, the person says the timing isn’t right, you thank them, make a note, fill in a square, and keep moving. You don’t immediately decide something is wrong. You leave the door open and you make another invitation. Someone says yes, gold star. Someone says no, square filled. Either way, you did the thing. You stopped requiring yourself to feel completely confident before you took the next sales action.

Now, I’m not going to lie and say collecting 20 no’s makes rejection delightful. You’re still allowed to be disappointed when you wanted the sale. But disappointment doesn’t have to become your roadblock. You can be disappointed and still make another offer tomorrow. You can hear no without deciding that nobody wants what you have to sell. And every time you hear a no, make the next offer anyway. At that point, selling becomes a little less emotionally loaded.

And along the way, you’re going to learn what people want. You’re going to learn what questions they ask, where they hesitate, and what they value. That’s how your sales confidence grows – not because everyone says yes, but because you know what to do when they don’t.

This week’s action step

All right, let’s get your action step this week. I want you to pick a number of no’s. I’m using 20, but you can make it 10 if you want. Write that number somewhere you can see it. Now draw your squares, get your gold stars ready, and then decide what a clear invitation is that you’re gonna make. Maybe you’re sending a contract, or giving a quote, or asking someone to book a call.

And remember, your job is not to force the answer. Your job is to create the opportunity for the answer. Track every no like a point earned, not a point against you, and track those yeses too. Actually, let’s make the yeses worth three points and the noes worth one point. Now you’ve got yourself a game.

And if you know another business owner who’s been taking rejection personally or avoiding sales because she doesn’t want to hear the no, send her this episode and invite her to join the game with you. You can compare notes and celebrate the offers you made, and make a little confetti when one of those turns into a yes. And I’d love to join in the game with you – you can go find me on Instagram at funandprofitable. I’d love to hear how it’s going. I’m all about all of it.

All right, that’s it for today. Until next time, happy building your fun and profitable business.