There is No “No”, Only “Yes, If…”

I finished reading “Dream It! Do It! My Half-Century Creating Disney’s Magic Kingdoms” by Marty Sklar. Sklar was a Disney Imagineering Legend and Ambassador. This isn’t a full review of the book…mainly because I didn’t love the book. There are a lot of stories about how they built different attractions for all the Disney Parks, but there isn’t much detail of how they accomplished it. He gives brief descriptions of the obstacles they had to overcome. Then, Walt Disney would tell them to find a way to do it, and they would. But, without saying how. The title of the book is a bit misleading. It should have been called “Yes, If…”.

“Yes, if…” was the one recurring theme of the book. Sklar described the culture as one in which you didn’t say “no”, you would say “yes, if…”. They would then work to make the “if” happen. This concept was the most applicable of the book to what marketers deal with within our work. 

In my career, I’ve always worked on projects and campaigns that had a direct impact on customers. One of my strengths is that I understand the customer perspective. When I work on a project or launch new features or programs, I always take time to think about how a customer will interact with it. Sometimes that requires making adjustments to make the customers’ experiences better. This means saying “no” to some things. I may have a suggestion of what I think would work better, but sometimes it comes off as being negative.

“Yes, if…” accomplishes exactly what I’m trying to say, but also does much more. Instead of saying “No, Plan A won’t work because customers won’t get it”, try saying “Yes, Plan A will work great if we can solve this customer issue.” Reframing the statement eliminates the negativity, plus the defensiveness that may result. It keeps the team engaged and united in addressing the issues to make the program successful.

I’ve begun using “Yes, if…” anytime my inclination is to say no. One example came about recently. We had a lot of in-store sweepstakes in the past that have not had positive results, so we moved away from doing them. Then, one of our partners presented us with a new opportunity with a great prize. Instead of saying “no”, I said, “Yes, we can do it if we can make it an online promotion where we can better promote the sweepstakes and drive more benefit to the program.” The result was an impactful online contest complemented by specific in-store promotional tactics. The results were better than other sweepstakes we had run.

Do you have any similar tips or experiences? Share them in the comments below! Thanks for reading. As always, if you like my blog, please sign up to receive it by email. Also, please share my posts with your friends!