There Is No Yes Without A How (The Seller's Mindset Series)

In his brilliant book, Never Split the Difference, Chris Voss repeats over and over, “there is no yes without a how.” There is no yes without a how. This is often the missing mindset that gets our deals over the finish line as well.

We've done the work. Everyone's excited. We got a yes. But far too often, beautiful deals get to the bottom of the finish line and just go nowhere. This can be avoided by taking the mindset that there is no yes until I get the how. Turn this into the final hurdle you put your deals through.

Rather than take a yes and assume that everything is fine, we need to ask really good ‘how’ questions to make sure that this deal is real, and the customer is ready to move forward now.

“How are you going to buy this thing?” is one of my favorites. “Will you pay with a credit card? Are you allowed to set up recurring payments of this size? Do you need board approval before moving forward with it?” Figuring out the technical how of a customer's purchasing process will uncover major roadblocks that could wind up coming and killing the deal later on.

Similarly, we should make sure that we know how they're actually going to use this product. And I don't mean what they're going to do with it, but I mean literally, “How are you going to use it? Who on your team will be the administrator of the platform? Have they ever used a technology like this? Are they prepared to bring this on on day one?”

“Where in your office are you going to place this hardware? What day of the week works best to come and serve it?” These practical ‘how’ questions plant us firmly in the real world. They carve a path for us to carry this deal all the way to the finish line. 

So do this exercise: go to the bottom of your funnel and all of your deals there, ask yourself, “Do I really understand the how of this deal? Or have I been making assumptions that could wind up coming to bite me later on?” If the answer is no, set up one more call with your customer.