The door-in-the-face technique is a sales strategy that involves starting with a large request, to which we are virtually certain in advance that we will be told no, before requesting or agreeing to a smaller purchase action.

Although it may seem counter-intuitive, this technique can be effective in increasing the customer’s willingness to commit to our offer.

This psychological effect occurs because by starting by suggesting or directly offering the customer to place a large order, what we achieve is to capture their attention and make them reject a large volume, quantity or cost transaction. In this way we can ask him what volume of operation he could commit to that is more in line with his needs and interests, and establish it as a reference point during the rest of the negotiation or for future negotiations.

A large offer implies a great risk in the purchase, therefore after that great sensation of risk that we will have created, we will limit the offer to something much more moderate, but that was really of our interest, and this automatically produces in the mind of the client a reduction of the perception of risk in the operation, since a much smaller and manageable offer will seem to him a great advantage with a much more assumable risk.

This is how we manage to increase with this technique known as “door in the face” or “obvious denial” the probabilities that the client will end up accepting a smaller offer and the closing of subsequent deals.

In summary, by using the door-in-the-face technique in our sales strategies, we can effectively initiate sales conversations and improve our conversion rates.