How To Say No Without Offending People

We’ve all been there!

We are eager to please, chomping at the bit to show people how fantastic our classes, parties and events are!

Keen to get our name out there!

Wanting to show the world that dance is amazing!

And we want to do it all!

But after a while, we realise that we can’t do it all.

And, after a while, we realise that we don’t want to do it all.

We get to a stage where we can be in control of what we actually want to do and what is worthwhile doing.

There’s no point being at every single event if you are running around like a headless chicken from here, there and everywhere and you are not actually getting anything out of it.

We all need to make a living.

We all want to help where we can.

But there has to be a limit.

So, how do you say no to people without offending them?

Here’s our top tips:

• Be strong! Even though you feel like you really should say yes – be strong and stay strong.  It sometimes feels uncomfortable when you are saying no to something, but remember why you are doing it. As long as you are clear from the offset, and don’t lead people to think you may say yes, or you “have to think about it”, then people do respect you.

• Be nice! Obviously 😉 Saying no can be said in the right way 😉  Things like “this looks great but…”, “We’ve love to, but…..”, “We can’t do this but xxxx may be able to”.

• Divert! You are saying no, but you may know someone who can say yes? Perhaps a fellow dance teacher or school can help. We were recently asked to put on a dance demonstration, which isn’t something that we do, we are more of dance participation, so we simply replied to say that it’s not what Popdance do, but perhaps Livin The Dream could help.

• Offer what you can help with! You could say that you can’t do what they are asking, but you can do “x”. As with the request in the previous bullet, we were asked to put on a demonstration – we replied to say that we don’t do demonstrations, perhaps Livin The Dream could help, but if they wanted audience participation, then we can definitely help.

• Just say no! Or, perhaps you could sing it, like the good old Grange Hill Days (showing my age there) – for those of you who have no idea what we are talking about, take a look HERE

We would love to know your tips too – get in touch via email to info@popdance.co.uk