How to say 'No'

Another area I find interesting is how to say ‘NO’ the right way.  You get the hard ‘No’ and the service ‘No’.  The best way to achieve a service ‘No’ is the go through the following process of elimination:

Step 1	Say “yes”	Ask yourself, what stops you from saying ‘Yes’
Step 2	Do you fully understand the reasons why you can’t say “yes”	If your saying ‘No’, do you know the full reasons why(policy, process, resources etc)?
Step 3	Discretion	Any special mitigating circumstances?
Step 4	Any other way to help	Can we signpost the customer?
Step 5	Educate the client	Clear honest, logical explanation of why we can’t help.  Don’t use the words, 'unfortunately', 'sadly', or 'regrettably'.  Instead use the words 'however' or 'but'.