Last week my son Jake totally closed me.

He usually goes to bed around 7.30pm, a perfectly suitable time for an 8 year old I thought? But he’s homeschooled and he’d caught wind of the fact that some of his other homeschooled friends go to bed later.

He wanted in.

His campaign started off pretty simply.

He asked the question “Can I go to bed at 8.30pm instead?”

Personally, I think 7.30pm is a perfectly reasonable bedtime for an 8 year old so my answer was no.

But he persisted.

A few days later he asked again. “When can I go to bed at 8.30pm?”

Smart boy. Not only is he persisting but he is changing the language to make the assumption that AT SOME POINT I will say yes and he will be able to go to bed later.

Again my answer was not yet.

A few more days passed then he tried again. “Mummy WHY can’t I go to bed at 8.30pm?”

So I give him ALL my objections. I explain that he’s growing, he needs a lot of sleep, if he goes to bed late he’ll be grumpy and tired during the day.

He’s quiet for a few minutes and then he says “But I don’t have to get up early. I might sleep later in the morning and then you get a lie in? Why don’t we try it? Just a for a little bit and SEE if I do get tired and grumpy? If I do then I’ll go to bed at 8pm.”

God dammit! The kid is overcoming my objections AND highlighting the benefits to me!

I’ll think about it, I say.

The next day he asks again. “Mummy are we trying my later bedtime tonight?”

I mean, what can I say? There’s no reasonable objection that I can give at this point. I cave. He goes to bed at 8.30pm.

The next morning my eyes pinged open at 7am as usual. No Jake. He’s still fast asleep.

So I have some time to ponder. I know a lot of business owners who can learn a lot from Jake.

What did he do to move me from my initial refusal to “buy” his proposition, to the point where he made the “sale”?

It comes down to three key things:

1: He asked the question

So many business owners fall down at this very first hurdle. They’re afraid to ask for the sale for fear of sounding pushy or putting people off.

2: He persisted.

Each time I said no he waited a little while then asked again. He understood that no didn’t mean no forever. It just meant not now.

3: He listened to me and asked me questions.

Then adjusted his proposition to take into account my objections.

Now, he’s pretty smart but he’s not a mastermind genius. He didn’t hatch some cunning plan to win me over.

He just did what makes sense.

It makes sense to ask for what he wants. It makes sense to keep asking if the answer isn’t the one he wanted. And it makes sense to find out why I kept saying no and adjust the proposition to something I would agree to.

His innocence and nonchalance towards rejection lead him to the perfect sales and follow up approach.

But most business owners don’t follow this common sense approach.

They feel awkward when they’re rejected. They’re afraid they’ll piss people off if they keep asking and they don’t ask their prospects what their objections are because it feels a bit uncomfortable to ask!

How about you? Do you keep in touch with your prospects even when they’ve turned you down? Do you nurture them, find out what went wrong and keep asking for the sale even after they’ve rejected you?

Or could you learn a little from Jake too?

Here he is enjoying a celebratory drink at the Cat Cafe…

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