Why do you need to learn to say no in business? Let me explain. As you may already know, I’m a law of attraction practitioner and I can tell you that many people in the law of attraction community state that you need to delete to word NO from your vocabulary.
I totally disagree. In fact, I believe NO is your power word and there definitely is a time to say NO if you want to create your ideal business.
Watch the video I made to support this post. Say No for Business Success.
When you say yes to everything that comes up in business, you’ll most probably end up broke (very, very quickly) and exhausted. So here are my top tips to decide when to say Yes and when to say NO.
Get clear about what you really want
It’s essential that you get clear about what success means to you. What is your ideal business? What is your ideal life? What is most important to you. I have created a free workbook Ideal Business Workbook – Download it, print it out and complete it.
The workbook is designed to help you gain super clear focus in your business.
When you are clear about what your ideal business is and your ideal life (the two work together) and someone presents an opportunity to you, you can quickly assess if it’s a match for your ideal life and business. If it’s not a match, it’s an easy NO.
A yes ties in with your business goals
The things that you say YES to need to tie in with your business goals. Set your goals out for the year, month, week… Again, then when an opportunity comes up, you can quickly check to see if this helps you to achieve your business goals.
Who does the opportunity really benefit?
I’m going to be harsh here. But this needs to be said and to be honest, I really don’t care if it offends anyone. It’s the people it will help that I care about. On a weekly basis, I’d say that I get asked to attend around 5 charity events, various opportunities to sponsor something, AMAZING opportunities to purchase that thing that will make you a millionaire, opportunities to mentor for free…
You get the idea, don’t you?
Now, if I was to say yes to every opportunity, I’d definitely be broke, never spend any time with my family and probably not be in business.
This is why we need to be really clear about what’s important to us personally.
Always realize that most of the time these opportunities are benefiting other people. The person who’s telling you about the amazing product wants you to buy from them to boost their sales and help them live their dream. If it doesn’t help you build your dream, say no. It’s totally okay.
I used to get asked to attend so many coffee mornings and whilst I do think these are great for connecting with people locally. If I said yes to them all, it would be at the sacrifice of my business and my family time.
Most people genuinely do think their product is the best. Most people are not trying to con you or anything like that, but it’s up to you to make that judgment about whether it will help you to build your ideal business or just theirs.
A post I’d really encourage you to read is Don’t grasp at straws in business. I definitely fell into the trap of believing every get rich (just break even) scheme during my first couple of years in business. It’s not the way to go and I want to help you avoid the same mistakes I made.
Of course, it’s not always a case of what do I get out of it. Part of my vision for my own business is that I’m able to help millions of people around the world create the life and business they love. The reason I’m so passionate about my blog is that people can get valuable advice without it needing to cost a penny. Giving back to my community is also important to me, but it is on my terms and not dictated by others.
What’s important to you?
All charities are important to people. However, I can’t give my time or money to all charities, it’s just impossible. Instead, I know the charities I really want to support and I do. So, whilst it still sometimes pulls on the heartstrings. I keep this in mind when I make a decision when I’m asked to support a charity.
And let’s say you’re contacted by someone who is offering you the most amazing Facebook for HUGE business success system for the amazing discounted price of just £500 but you have to buy today. At the beginning of the year, I recommend that you have a clear business plan with your action plan. For example, this year, I knew I wanted to focus my attention on Pinterest. So, investing in a good scheduling system and taking the time to work on courses that help me use Pinterest effectively would be a good match for this goal. Buying a Facebook course is not a match, so it’s easy for me to say NO to this opportunity.
Think about this – IT’S REALLY IMPORTANT
This really is something that’s very important to understand and it’s something I really didn’t get for a long time. Every single time that you say YES to something that isn’t a match for your ideal business/ideal life, you say NO to your ideal business and ideal life.
Read through that again to make sure you get it. I so want you to get this.
A personal story
A few years ago I was communicating with someone who wanted to book coaching with me. From our communication, I was very confident I could make a big difference. I sent the person a list of times I had available for the next month. My coaching times at the time were (I think) between 10am and 3pm Monday to Friday.
The person came back and said they could do evenings from 7pm or a Sunday day time.
I explained that I did not work in the evenings or weekends. The conversation went backward and forwards with the person stating that most people who work can’t do coaching during the day Monday to Friday and telling me that I should change my coaching hours to fit around my clients. I referred this person to a coach who worked evenings.
The person missed something very important. They wanted to book me to help them create a life they wanted but they totally expected me to fit them in regardless of whether it fitted in with my ideal life.
Let’s do a recap
- Get super clear about what success means to you – Download the free workbook
- Set out your business goals and create a business plan – Download the LOA business planning pack
- Does the opportunity really benefit you or fit in with your ideal business and ideal life?
- Say yes to your ideal life, achieving your goals, the things that are most important to you.
I hope this post helps you to create your ideal business and ideal life and hopefully avoid some of the mistakes I’ve made.
I’d love to hear from you and how you handle saying no.
Wendy
