A sales course that teaches you how to close deals.
Most deals are not lost because the buyer disagrees with you. They stall because changing feels costly. This course teaches you what to do about that.
From No to Yes is an online course in selling. It takes you from the first conversation to a signed yes: how buyers decide, how to find out what is really stopping them, how to negotiate, and how to close. Two courses and thirty modules, grounded in the published literature on decision-making and in the best practitioner accounts, with every source named and its kind stated, and practised on your own deals.
How this sales course helps in your job
Three reasons deals stall instead of closing
A stalled deal was not lost to anyone. Nobody said no and nothing happened. Three common selling mistakes lead there, and each one feels like progress while it is happening.
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Taking “yes, that makes sense” as a decision to buy
A buyer who agrees has assessed your argument and found it sound. That costs them nothing and commits them to nothing. Buying is a separate decision, made against a harder test: whether the change is worth what it will cost them to make.
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Adding more benefits when the real problem is the cost of change
A buyer weighs any change against what they already have, and losses from that position weigh more than equivalent gains. Another advantage adds to the lighter side of the scale. It does nothing to the heavier one.
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Answering the objection instead of finding its cause
An objection is the reason a buyer is willing to say out loud. Answer it well and a second one often appears, because the first was never the cause. The useful response is diagnosis: finding the root the objection grows from.
How the course teaches you to sell
You learn to sell by doing it, not by reading about it.
Every lesson takes one idea about how buyers decide and makes you use it on a real deal of your own. You write, you practise out loud, you get things wrong in private, and you check yourself against a clear standard. About half of every lesson is that kind of work. The rest is reading.
Every lesson runs in the same nine parts, from a short written scene of a deal going wrong to a single printable page you keep on the desk. There are no videos to watch. The diagram is from the first lesson: the gain from changing on one side, the loss from changing on the other, and the line a buyer has to cross before they buy.
| Part | What you do | Minutes |
|---|---|---|
| Written scene and illustrated explainer | read | 8 |
| Reading | read | 13–14 |
| Case teardown | analyse | 5 |
| Your turn, on a deal of your own | write | 6–7 |
| Interactive exercise | interact, solve | about 5 |
| Practice drill | do | 4 |
| Check yourself (ungraded) | check | 3 |
Typical minutes across the course’s lessons. Spaced recall and each course’s final project come on top of the lessons.
A lesson counts as complete only when you have done the reading, written your own version, used the exercise and recorded the practice drill. Each lesson ends with a short check you take for yourself; it is not graded and counts toward nothing. Reading alone completes nothing. How the method works.
The two courses: Foundations and Advanced
| Course | Hours | Modules | Credential | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Foundations Earning the Yes | 47.25 h | 10 | Professional Selling: Foundations | $395 |
| Advanced Negotiation, the Room, Judgment and the Long Game | 59.25 h | 20 | Professional Selling: Advanced | $795 |
Everything you will learn about selling: all 30 modules
Foundations: Earning the Yes
47.25 h · 10 modules- 01 The Buyer’s Mind 6.75 h
- 02 Earning Attention 6.75 h
- 03 Diagnosis 6.75 h
- 04 The Problem Frame 4.5 h
- 05 Trust 3.75 h
- 06 Articulation 3.75 h
- 07 Objection as Information 3.75 h
- 08 Commitment 3.75 h
- 09 The Follow-Through 3.75 h
- 10 The Craft 3.75 h
Advanced: Negotiation, the Room, Judgment and the Long Game
59.25 h · 20 modulesPart A · Negotiation · 19.5 h
- 11 Positions and Interests 3.75 h
- 12 The Zone of Agreement 3 h
- 13 Concession Architecture 4.5 h
- 14 Price Under Pressure 3 h
- 15 Deadlock and Walkaway 2.25 h
- 16 Professional Buyers 3 h
Part B · The room and the deal · 14.25 h
- 17 The Room 3 h
- 18 How Spend Gets Approved 2.25 h
- 19 Deal Architecture 2.25 h
- 20 Commercial Terms 3.75 h
- 21 Competitive Displacement 3 h
Part C · Judgment · 13.5 h
- 22 Disqualification 2.25 h
- 23 Pipeline Judgment 2.25 h
- 24 Forecasting Honestly 1.5 h
- 25 The Loss Post-Mortem 3 h
- 26 Ethics Under Pressure 4.5 h
Part D · The long game · 12 h
- 27 Referral and Reputation 2.25 h
- 28 Account Expansion 3 h
- 29 Teaching the Craft 3 h
- 30 The Twenty-Year Career 3.75 h
Each lesson takes 45 minutes. No total here includes an estimate.
Who this sales course is for, and who it is not for
For
- Anyone whose income depends on closing sales: founders, account executives, brokers, consultants, agency owners and anyone who sells face to face.
- Salespeople who are already competent and keep losing deals they cannot explain.
- People willing to write, record themselves and review the recording. Most of the course is practice.
- Sales managers who want one shared language for why deals stall and what to do about it.
Not for
- Anyone who wants sales scripts to recite. The course teaches why buyers act; you write your own wording.
- Anyone looking for ways to push people into purchases that are wrong for them. The course teaches the opposite, including when to walk away from a sale.
- Anyone who wants a credential without the work. Reading alone does not complete a single lesson.
- Anyone who needs training in a particular piece of sales software. The course names no tools and needs none.
What the selling methods draw on
The selling methods in this course are grounded in the published literature on decision-making and in the best practitioner accounts, with every source named and its kind stated. Researchers are cited as sources, never as endorsers: none of them has reviewed or endorsed this course, and nothing here suggests otherwise.
- Prospect theory
- People judge a choice against a reference point, usually what they already have, and losses from that point weigh more than gains of the same size. In the same work, people tended to avoid risk when choosing between gains and to take it when choosing between losses. The course uses it to explain why a well-argued benefit is discounted while the cost of changing feels larger than it is, and why a seller who is behind target may favour long shots.
Kahneman, D. & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk. Econometrica, 47(2), 263–291. https://doi.org/10.2307/1914185
- Status quo bias
- A measured preference for keeping things as they are, independent of the merits. Doing nothing is not a neutral option for a buyer; it is actively preferred. The course uses it to explain why buyers who agree with you still do not buy.
Samuelson, W. & Zeckhauser, R. (1988). Status Quo Bias in Decision Making. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 1(1), 7–59. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00055564
- Implementation intentions
- Plans of the form “if this happens, then I will do that” help people turn an intention into action. The course uses it to agree next steps that say who does what, and when, instead of “let’s keep in touch”.
Gollwitzer, P. M. (1999). Implementation Intentions: Strong Effects of Simple Plans. American Psychologist, 54(7), 493–503. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.54.7.493
- Anchoring, resemblance and what comes to mind
- When people estimate a number, they tend to start from a value in front of them and adjust too little. A review by Furnham and Boo drew together research finding anchoring in many settings, purchasing, negotiation and forecasting among them, in people with expertise as well as without, and hard to remove by warning people about it. In the same paper, Tversky and Kahneman described judging how likely something is by how much it resembles a typical case, and how often it happens by how easily examples come to mind. The course uses them to let a buyer’s estimate start from their own evidence, to test a diagnosis that rests on a resemblance to a past deal, to turn a buyer’s memory of a problem into a count, and to explain why the first figure in a negotiation carries so much weight.
Tversky, A. & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases. Science, 185(4157), 1124–1131. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.185.4157.1124
Each lesson lists the works it rests on and what kind of evidence each is. The research page sets out every finding, what the course uses it for and where it stops applying, with full references. All 72 research findings, with references.
Sales credentials you can earn
Two sales credentials, issued by From No to Yes, one for each course. Each rests on written work about your own real deals. Professional Selling: Foundations needs Foundations complete and its capstone, a discovery plan for one of your own opportunities, submitted with every part written; it is not marked, and is issued automatically. Professional Selling: Advanced is assessed by examination, 60 questions at 85% or more, with the Advanced capstone and a written deal analysis submitted, each checked for completeness and neither marked. The short checks in each lesson are for you alone and count toward nothing. Each credential has a permanent public verification page and does not expire.
- Professional Selling: Foundations
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- Foundations complete: every lesson’s reading, Your turn, interactive and drill done
- Foundations capstone submitted, every part at least 100 words (checked for completeness, not marked)
- Automatic
- Professional Selling: Advanced
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- Professional Selling: Foundations held
- Advanced complete
- Advanced capstone submitted, every part at least 100 words, the last naming one change and the reason for it (checked for completeness, not marked)
- Written deal analysis submitted and kept: six sections of at least 150 words each, with a figure or date in each section that asks for the deal’s numbers (checked for completeness, not marked)
- 60-question examination at 85% or higher
- Automatic: assessed by examination, with a submitted written analysis
Adding a credential to a professional profile opens a pre-filled form that you check and confirm yourself. Nothing is posted on your behalf.
What the sales course costs
- Foundations: Earning the Yes $395 47.25 h · 10 modules · Professional Selling: Foundations
- Advanced: Negotiation, the Room, Judgment and the Long Game $795 59.25 h · 20 modules · Professional Selling: Advanced
- Both courses $995 Foundations and Advanced · all 30 modules · the path to both credentials
- The book and mini-course $39 Why They Say Yes, a ninety-minute mini-course, and Foundations, Module 1 in full The smallest first step into the sales course.
Advanced, and both courses together, can also be paid in three monthly payments. Prices are in US dollars.
Questions about the sales course
What is this, in one sentence?
An online sales course: it teaches you how to take a buyer from a first conversation to a signed yes, and what to do when a deal stalls on the way.
Does reading through a lesson complete it?
No. A lesson is complete only when you have done the reading, written your own version for one of your deals, used the exercise, and recorded and scored the practice drill. The short check at the end of each lesson is for you alone: it is not graded. Someone who reads everything and practises nothing finishes the course visibly incomplete. That is deliberate.
Are there videos?
No. Every lesson is written and illustrated, with exercises and practice. You learn to sell by doing it, so the course spends your time on writing and practising rather than watching.
Who is behind this? Where is the founder’s story?
There is no founder story and there will not be one. The course is grounded in the published literature on decision-making and in the best practitioner accounts, with every source named and its kind stated, rather than resting on one person’s sales career. Judge it by its sources and by the free diagnostic, not by a biography.
Where are the reviews and success stories?
We publish a learner’s words only with their name, the credential they hold, the date, and their recorded permission. We do not invent any, and we do not show anonymous praise.
Will this help me close more deals?
We cannot promise a result, and no honest sales course can: your results depend on your market, your offer and what you practise. What the course does is teach how buyers decide, using published research, and make you practise it on your own deals.
Isn’t this just behavioural economics, repackaged?
The research is not ours, and every lesson says so. What the course adds is the step from finding to selling behaviour: what to ask, what to write, what to stop doing, and enough practice that it holds under pressure. If you already make that step from the papers alone, you do not need this course.
Is this a course in manipulating people?
No. The course describes how people decide; it does not override anyone’s judgment. It teaches you to find out whether a purchase is worth it for the buyer, and to walk away when it is not. Module 26, Ethics Under Pressure, is part of the curriculum, not an appendix.
Do I have to take the two courses in order?
No. You can buy and take them in any order, and the site will not stop you. We advise starting with Foundations, because Advanced assumes what it teaches.
How long does it take?
Each lesson takes 45 minutes, and a module has as many lessons as its material needs. Foundations is 47.25 hours. Advanced has 59.25 hours. The course is self-paced, so the calendar time depends on you.
What do I need?
A web browser and a microphone. The practice drills ask you to record yourself saying things out loud, as you would to a buyer; recordings are private and only you can hear them. The course names no sales tools or software, and everything in it works on paper.
Can I pay in instalments?
Yes, for Advanced and for both courses bought together, in three monthly payments. Foundations and the book are single payments.
Start learning to close deals with Foundations.
Ten modules on how a buyer decides to buy, and how to earn that decision. Everything else in the sales course builds on it.