Couldn't agree more. This talk crystallises so many wonderful gems and this slide is the essence of the sales cycle. I had my largest client say flat out "no"

Couldn't agree more. This talk crystallises so many wonderful gems and this slide is the essence of the sales cycle. I had my largest client say flat out "no" to me twice during what was an 8 month negotiation for our news publication software. It was quite testing, we had a lot unanswered emails and I got a wonderful education in sales. Perseverance pays off but don't let it turn to desperation. That slide was 3 times worse for me, however, at some point during our sales process I had distilled the strategy down to focusing on "positive, forward momentum". That meant that if the conversation went quiet for a few weeks, momentum was lost and the next conversation took longer (this happened to me) and there are good ways to mitigate this. If the client has queries you are unable to satisfy, the momentum is working against you--internal discussions are now about how your product is not feasible or inadequate and that kills momentum and moves the pendulum against you. This too happened to me and we remedied this by adding conditional clauses, as Tyler points out. Any sort of negativity is contagious, whether its coming from you or from the client. It latches on to all people involved. You must nip it in the bud, always.