Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Danielle Cobo: Are you ready to take your business and career to the next level? Discover the secrets from seasoned sales professional with a combined 40 years of experience. Learn how opting for no can build courage, confidence, and resilience that will ultimately lead you closer to achieving a resounding yes. This episode is sure to open up some fresh approaches to achieving success.
Danielle Cobo: Today's guest is Andrea Waltz, bestselling author of Go For No. Yes Is The Destination, no Is How You Get there. Through her book. In keynote speaking, Andrea helps people create a powerful shift reprogramming the way people deal with failure and rejection. Andrea, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast today before jumping on.
Danielle Cobo: We've actually come to a realization after our conversation that we grew up in the same town in. We went to the same high school and now we both live in Florida, so we think that this world is really big. However, it's a lot smaller and connected than we think. But I'd love to hear from you. You had written this book on Go For No, which is contradictory than sometimes what we have been told and what we've been programmed, which is always leading with Yes.
Danielle Cobo: I'd love to hear about. Your career journey and where did you start and kind of where did you go into writing this book about Go for
Andrea Waltz: now. Thanks, Daniel. I'm so excited to be with you. And it is so funny about our background. We're literally like sisters from high school here. My background did not start off in teaching people about how to overcome failure and rejection like I made up that career, but that's what I've been doing now for over 20 years.
Andrea Waltz: And so who actually. Comes up with that as a job. It's so weird. I went to school and got a Bachelor of Science and Criminal Justice, and while I was in school, I was also simultaneously working my way up at a company called LensCrafters and I met my now husband and he told me this story that is actually in the book Go For No.
Andrea Waltz: And it was actually in him telling me this story. It was the. Catalyst for me, understanding that no is actually the way to get to Yes. And that's why the subtitle of our book is Yes Is The Destination, no Is How You Get There. The title though, is a huge marketing issue because people hear go for no and they think Go for no.
Andrea Waltz: Why would I wanna hear No? Nobody wants to hear. No. Everybody wants to hear. Yes, we get that. The challenge though is that most of us, Are taught and trained in society to avoid no and to avoid rejection. And so this book takes a very counterintuitive approach to that. But when we launched our company, we had a decision to make, and that was, we knew we wanted to write a book.
Andrea Waltz: We knew that a book would help us open doors into companies for speaking engagements and training. When we launched our business, that's what we were focused on. And we knew a book was important, but getting a publisher, getting a New York publisher was not in the cards for us. We didn't have a big platform.
Andrea Waltz: We weren't speaking all over the country and there was no social media at the time, so we couldn't even say like, oh yes, we have 250,000 followers. There was none of that. So we did what we call self-published. So we self wrote the book. We self-published it. And it didn't do anything for several years. In fact, it was failing miserably.
Andrea Waltz: We almost gave up on the book, which is kind of funny because the book is about being persistent through No, we almost completely gave up on it, and then we went to a marketing conference and there was a guy who was in sales. And we were handing out books. I mean, we would give books out to anybody who would take the time to talk to us.
Andrea Waltz: And we said, Hey, here's this book. You might like it. He called us a couple days later and he said, are you guys open-minded? And we said, yeah. And he goes, I wanna give you some feedback about your book. And we said, yeah, we're open-minded. What do you have? And he goes, well, it's one of the best sales books I've ever read.
Andrea Waltz: He goes, but you have one of the worst covers in the history of publishing. So if you're willing to change the cover, I would like to buy 5,000 copies and we said yes, we will absolutely change the cover. And that was a important lesson that we learned, Danielle, because we, a couple things. One, you have to be open-minded and be willing to get some painful feedback sometimes, but also the fact that we were just putting ourselves out there taking that chance, and that's what's so important in whatever career you're in is.
Andrea Waltz: Getting out there, showing up, putting yourself out there. The book has been out now for over 20 years. We did change the cover. He did buy a couple thousand copies and my memory serves correct. And since then, we have spent the last 20 years on this journey as experts on rejection using the book Go For No.
Andrea Waltz: And we've now sold 500,000 copies. It went from failing miserably to finally doing really well over all this time. And self-published, never in a traditional bookstore. There's
Danielle Cobo: a lot to unpack here and a little bit of selfish. I definitely wanna have a conversation after this cuz I'm in the process of writing a book and it's very apparent that the cover is important and important when publishing your book and marketing your book.
Danielle Cobo: But coming from a background in sales, I started my career in dental sales actually when I was 23 years old. And it was in capital equipment sales, and I heard no a lot. On any given day, I would be doing door to door cold calling to dental offices, 20 offices a day. I mean, driving around with my Google Maps.
Danielle Cobo: This is kind of dating myself, but my Google Maps driving around going door to door, and what I found is no. Does not mean no, it means not yet. Often they may say no at that time. It may not be the right time. It may be a different approach to my sales, but it doesn't always mean no forever. It could mean no at that time, cuz there's many times where eventually customers have purchased or they've given a referral.
Danielle Cobo: But I think there's a lot of lessons that we can learn, whether we're in sales or not in sales. On the value of embracing no and the value of transitioning into that, the vision of getting two. Yes. What is some advice that you share in the book that, like I said, whether they're in sales or not in sales, that our listeners can apply to their everyday life when they hear No.
Danielle Cobo: The
Andrea Waltz: funny story that I have to share with you is the one that my husband told me, and I'll kind of just preface it, I'll shorten it up and I won't go through the long part of it, but basically he was selling suits for a living and his district manager showed up to see how he was doing, cuz my husband Richard was failing miserably.
Andrea Waltz: And he ended up getting this customer who came in and bought this entire wardrobe of clothing. He spent like $1,100. Now this goes back a long time, so this is like the equivalent of spending, let's say like $5,000 today. And the district manager watched him have this great sale. At the end of it, he asked Richard, what did that customer say no to?
Andrea Waltz: And Richard was so mad because he showed this customer all of this clothing and he bottle all this clothing and it was this great sale. And so he's thinking he's gonna get congratulated, but instead the district manager, what did that customer say no to? And Richard had to say, the customer didn't say no to anything.
Andrea Waltz: And then the district manager asked him the really important question. He said, well, then how did you know he was done? And it was in that moment that Richard had to admit that he only knew that customer was done because that customer had hit his mental spending limit. He was pretty young, he wasn't making a lot of money at the time, and when that customer got to that $1,100 mark, it was like, okay, this guy has to be done.
Andrea Waltz: I'm just gonna ring him up. I'll take him to the cash, registering him up and send him on his way. Harold, this district manager said, you know, I watched you sell. You're not half bad, but your fear of the word no is going to kill you. I think if you could just learn to get over that, you could be one of the great ones.
Andrea Waltz: And so my husband decided in that moment that that was the key to his success. That he was going to start going for no, that he. Could show more products and services to customers and let them decide. And so when he told me that story, as I was mentioning in my background, because we worked for the same company, and he told me that story one day and I had my own epiphany, I was like, wow, you know, I actually thought I was a superstar salesperson.
Andrea Waltz: I didn't have the same hangups my husband did of failing, but I thought I was great. At the same time though, I recognized that I would hold myself back, that I would see opportunities and then talk myself out of them thinking to myself, well, they're just gonna say no to me, so why bother asking? And I had a fear, I think, of a lot of salespeople, but a lot of people in general.
Andrea Waltz: And this concept applies to everybody because the reason is it's rooted in two things. One, it's rooted in asking, which is scary for a lot of us, and two, It's rooted in courage. You have to have that self-esteem and also that courage to ask. When I learned this, when he taught me this, told me this story.
Andrea Waltz: I recognized that I needed to be better, that I also let the fear of no hold me back. And so when we launched our business, that's why so much of it was built around this concept, and that's why we wrote the book around it. I find that people, no matter what they do, if you have a kid who's a girl scout and she's going out there selling cookies, if you are fundraising for your favorite charity, if you're trying to get a promotion, if you're trying to get a raise, we all have to ask for things.
Andrea Waltz: Or if you're in sales, for sure, right? We're always asking for things all the time. The thing that holds us back though more than anything is just that fear of that word, no.
Danielle Cobo: Are you feeling burnt out and overwhelmed? Wanna advance your career or find a new job? Maybe you wanna build an impactful and profitable business.
Danielle Cobo: I love a highly successful Fortune 500 sales career to help people develop the grit, resilience, e courage, necessary to thrive in a complex and changing market. In the show notes, you will find free workbooks with tips and strategies for attracting your dream job, advancing your career, preventing burnout, and building a business.
Danielle Cobo: Take advantage of your free workbook by downloading it now. And you're so right. It can be applied to so many different areas within life, within business, in sales, there's this, and I don't even know who came up with the cystic or it's just kind of this random phrase, but it's, you have to hear a hundred nos in order to get to the yes.
Danielle Cobo: When you're looking for a job, people will often disqualify themselves based off of looking at whatever the job descriptions, they start to say, well, I don't have industry experience, or I don't have X number of years of particular experience that they're asking for. So they start to disqualify themselves and talk themselves out of applying for a job.
Danielle Cobo: And the more jobs you apply to, the more of a chance you have of getting a job. And then here's the one that I think really resonates, especially if you're looking to advance your career, is. When I would have people on my team and they'd possibly go for a position at our company that I worked for, it was highly, highly competitive.
Danielle Cobo: I mean, these are the top of the top salespeople in all of medical. It's always been the top performers, and you would have sometimes five, 10 top performers going for the same position, but even if you didn't get the job, you get the no. There's still value in going for it, one being. It increases your currency within the organization.
Danielle Cobo: And what that means is you get exposure to people and part of the interview process that you may have not been exposed to. So now you're putting yourself on the radar that, Hey, I wanna get promoted. If a position comes available, you've already interviewed me. Consider me for the next time. It opens the conversation.
Danielle Cobo: And people who listen to my podcast know that I don't say feedback, I say it feed forward coaching because. You're asking for what wouldn't, well, what didn't well, and that's helping you move towards that next step in improving the skills that you want. It could also open up the door to ask one of the people that is part of that interview process.
Danielle Cobo: And saying, would you be willing to mentor me and help me get to that next step so that when that position comes available again, I am prepared for it. Unless we put ourselves in that situation, unless we have the courage to put ourselves in the situation, to be willing to accept the no, then we'll have a harder time getting the results that we want, both in business and in
Andrea Waltz: life.
Andrea Waltz: I couldn't agree with you more, Danielle, and the reason that, and we don't talk about this so much in the book. The book is actually a really short 80 page fable and it tells a story of a guy who wakes up in a house that he discovers belongs to a wildly successful future version of himself. It's got a little supernatural twist going on.
Andrea Waltz: It's kind of a fun fable. But it shares the philosophy. But to your point, and this is something that we've seen, is that we all have a relationship with the word no. We don't know. We do, but we do. And so what happens with your brain, and you use the word willing, which I really like, is you have to be willing to hear that word.
Andrea Waltz: And when you're unwilling, when you're not willing, what happens is your comfort zone starts to shrink around you. Your opportunities start to shrink around you. And so, People wonder, well, how do I get to that next level? How do I get a mentor? How do I get more opportunities? And the secret is not so difficult.
Andrea Waltz: It's not necessarily easy to do, but it's very simple. And that is, is put yourself out there and start asking more. And that's where you have to be willing to face that. No. And as you do, you learn so much as you said, and you learn that you can survive it. You learn that you can handle that rejection and in handling that rejection.
Andrea Waltz: One of my favorite quotes is from Jack Camfield, who wrote The Success Principles, and he said, self-confidence. He defines self-confidence as a successfully survived risk, that successfully survived risk. So when you put yourself out there and you ask for that thing that you want and you receive that, no.
Andrea Waltz: It is building your resilience. It's building your self-confidence even though you didn't get the result that you wanted. And that can be distressing and discouraging, and you might throw a little pity party, and you've gotta allow yourself to kind of move through that. Understand that that's how you build your resilience.
Andrea Waltz: And that's why when you see so many people, I remember hearing an interview with Lizzo, the singer, and she was talking about how she went through so much rejection and lived in her car and she would beg people to buy tickets to go see her at some. Horrible club, and she was just hustling and hustling and asking and asking.
Andrea Waltz: Built a tremendous amount of resilience, and that's what we need in today's marketplace. Richard and I talk about how there's such thing as your iq, right? Your intelligence quotient. We know how important that is. However, there's also your nq, that's your no quotient. It's the number of times you are willing to hear no and keep going, and that really is an interesting number because in today's world, that persistence, that tenacity, that.
Andrea Waltz: Underlying resilience, I think is more important because in the marketplace that we're in, it's more competitive than ever. It's just a different world now, and everyone's playing in the sandbox on social media and everybody's doing things, and so if you aren't willing, as you said, using your words to hear, no, it's going to be a struggle.
Andrea Waltz: When you look at some of the
Danielle Cobo: most successful people in the world, you've got people like Oprah, Steve Jobs. Denzel Washington Lizzo. The woman that wrote
Andrea Waltz: Harry Potter. Jake Rowling, yeah. Yes.
Danielle Cobo: And Steve Harvey. And you think of all these people that are wildly successful, if you listen to their interviews, every single one of them will talk about the nos that they had earlier on in their career.
Danielle Cobo: All the nos that they had and the rejections that they had, that they built the resilience to be where they're at today. But if they never heard though, no. If they didn't put themselves outside of their comfort zone, they would never be to where they're at today, I believe. I would believe they wouldn't be where they're at today if they weren't willing to hear the noses, to push through it, to learn, to grow, to build on their resilience, to have the courage to keep going.
Danielle Cobo: It's because they were willing to hear that nose, and I truly believe that a lot of times we talk about failure, but I don't see some of the instances when we don't succeed in the areas that we want. It's not a failure, I believe. We either win or we learn and we grow. And so when we hear no, that is an opportunity for us to learn, to grow, to ask questions, to be curious, and help us prepare for that
Andrea Waltz: next step.
Andrea Waltz: Absolutely. Could not agree more. I truly appreciate
Danielle Cobo: you joining the podcast. You shared very valuable advice on the willingness to hear no how to push through it. What are the benefits of hearing? No. And for our listeners out there, I will include the link of your book so that our listeners can go ahead and grab a copy, especially if you are in sales, as you heard.
Danielle Cobo: So there's the c e O out there that says that this is one of the best sales book, and I know there's a lot of people that listen to this podcast are in sales. So I'll include the link and you also get to see the new cover of her book. But thank you for joining. Truly
Andrea Waltz: appreciate it. Thanks so much, Danielle.
Andrea Waltz: It was so much fun talking to you. Thank you.