If you’re turned down for a raise, ask your superior why. If a customer won’t buy your product, ask her why. Frame the question as a search for self-improvement, not as an accusation. Don’t even hint at any efforts to turn the no around.

Say that you’d be eternally grateful, and that it would be of terrific help in your future efforts, if they would tell you why they chose not to give you a raise, hire you, or buy your product. People who have reacted to facts presented will, after sensing your acceptance of their reaction, meet such a humble request by readily telling you the truth. Remember how effective humility was in establishing trust? Well, it’s just as powerful in ferreting out what is behind the no. Having turned you down once already they’ll be eager to readily comply with your request, if for no other reason than it will help assuage their guilt.

Even people who have responded with an emotional no, will, when prompted in this modest manner, give you a reason for their rejection. Of course, they probably won’t tell you the truth. It would be too embarrassing, or self-incriminating for someone to reveal the emotional basis behind a no. On some level, they know they’re being unjust (ethically or legally) in deciding a business issue emotionally. When prompted for a reason they will be forced to cover up their injustice by offering some factual reason.

In effect, by asking for a reason you turn their emotional decision into a reaction to facts. Once they give you a factual reason for their no, they can never safely backtrack and claim it was an emotional decision. All they can do is keep coming up with other factual reasons. And no matter how many reasons they continue to come up with you’ve succeeded in turning their emotional no into a rational no.

By humbly asking why someone said no you’ll be given a reason. When you’re given a reason, or even multiple reasons, for the rejection, you’ve also been handed the key for turning it into an acceptance.