Nobody likes rejection. That’s why, through the years, I’ve developed a three-step process to rework situations from hopeless to hopeful. I call it the 3Ps approach:
- Endurance
- perspective
- Positivity
Let me offer you some examples of how you may put the 3Ps into motion.
Departure by 7 p.m
Getting a table at a few of Hong Kong’s hottest restaurants on a weekend can, if you happen to overdo it just barely, feel like winning the lottery. But hope is everlasting, and like all of the individuals who patiently line up on the lottery counters hoping to purchase the winning ticket, I can not help but try my luck at my favorite restaurant chain in Italy. His thin-crust pizzas and pastas are simply irresistible. My family loves eating dinner on the busy Kennedy Town branch on Sundays. Of course, we normally determine to exit spontaneously and it is sort of unimaginable to order a table on the identical day. But that is where the 3Ps got here into play.
One Sunday afternoon I called the restaurant.
“Good day!” A lady replied in a cheerful voice.
“Do you have a table for four tonight?” I asked hopefully.
“No, sir, we are fully booked,” she replied with a touch of regret.
“How about 6 p.m.?” I countered.
“Sir, we’re fully booked,” she repeated, probably pondering, “What part of ‘fully booked’ don’t you understand, sir?”
But I wasn’t deterred. “What if we leave at 7 p.m.?” I asked.
There was a transient pause on the opposite end of the road. “Let me check,” she said. Just a few seconds later she replied, “Yes sir, we have a table.”
I used the 3Ps to vary her mind. This is how it really works:
Endurance: Show your effort
I didn’t hang up after she said “fully booked.” Instead, I made a counter-suggestion. When I suggested leaving the restaurant early, I showed her that I might be flexible with my timing.
Perspective: Understand the opposite person’s priority
The restaurant worker’s most important concern was to not accommodate my needs; This ensured that customers who had a reservation were seated on the scheduled time. She didn’t care if I wanted a table to have a good time my child’s birthday or my boss’s retirement. Getting offended, saying how much business I had done to the restaurant, or threatening to never go there again would not work on her. Instead, I helped her do her job by offering her the restaurant hostess equivalent of options trading in finance. I gave her a contract that gave her the suitable (but not the duty) to chase me out at 7 p.m.
But on that Sunday evening I wasn’t deterred: the restaurant had enough space so the choice holder didn’t need to exercise his option.
Positivity
Call me an everlasting optimist, but I at all times hope that I can turn a situation from unfavorable to favorable. Many would have given up with “We are fully booked”. Not me. I used to be in search of a compromise that was a win-win solution for each side. Since the restaurant isn’t full within the early evening, I helped him use his resources more efficiently.
Can I come over?
The ability to show a “no” right into a “yes” is much more essential in our careers.
When I worked for a bank, a company client based in Taipei requested a renminbi (RMB) construction loan to construct an office tower in Shanghai. It was a 10-year loan, and my colleague from the credit department priced it accordingly, using the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) rate of interest for five years or more, which was then 5, was 94%.
In the cutthroat world of finance, that wasn’t enough. Another bank offered the shopper a more “creative” loan structure. Instead of the usual ten-year loan, the bank proposed a six-month agreement that might be continually prolonged until the loan was repaid at the top of the ten years. This shorter loan term had a much lower rate of interest of 4.86%.
My colleague asked me for advice on tips on how to revive the deal. I proposed a US dollar (USD) loan and a USD-RMB currency hedge to create an artificial RMB loan with a complete rate of interest of 4.5%. It was cheaper than the opposite bank’s offer, but it surely was still a 10-year loan. We proposed our solution to the shopper’s finance team. They liked it and pitched the concept to their CFO. The feedback was positive.
I had saved the deal! At least that is what I believed.
Per week later, the shopper informed us that he couldn’t accept our offer. Their CFO had already made a verbal commitment to the opposite bank before hearing our revolutionary offer. We were devastated. I could not understand why the shopper selected our competitor’s dearer solution, so I asked if I could come over for a coffee meeting in Taipei.
Over coffee, I explained that because of mainland regulations, banks in China usually are not allowed to cost a long-term construction loan using the six-month PBOC lending rate. If the “creative” bank gets into trouble with the regulator, it could impact its customers. The financial manager of the client company took my words to heart. I left the meeting and flew back to Hong Kong that very same afternoon. The next day the shopper called and said we won the deal. The 3Ps worked here too.
Endurance: Show your effort
I continued to work with the shopper even after they rejected our solution.
Perspective: Understand the person’s priority
There were two possible “no’s” here. First, the client could have refused to attend the face-to-face meeting. If I had emphasized that the business trip was simply to see them, they may have declined the meeting. If they did, they may have felt obliged to reverse their decision.
But once I asked, “Can I come over?” they didn’t feel as pressured. I gave them the chance to say that they’d not change their loan decision. That brings me to the second possible “no.” During the meeting I learned that the CFO would lose face if he withdrew his commitment to the opposite bank without explanation. A greater offer wasn’t enough. But by highlighting the competing proposal’s compliance risk, I gave it a way out. A potentially non-compliant financing structure was not a risk price taking.
Positivity
Even though the door was slammed after our competitor won the loan mandate, I still traveled to Taipei still hoping that I could close a deal.
This is the lesson of the 3Ps. We receive more rejections than approvals throughout our lives. People usually tend to say “no” to us than “yes.”
But to realize great things, the 3P method can assist persuade others, turn no into yes, and reject rejection.
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Photo credit: ©Getty Images/zhihao
