We all get rejected in the sales field; it is a part of the job. The most important part of a rejection is the way the sales professional chooses to react to it. I say choose for a reason. Even though you cannot control how and when a person rejects your proposition, you can always control how you react to it. Often the knee jerk inner reaction is kicking, yelling and screaming, not very helpful. Much can be gained by employing more control.
Rejection can be a debilitating force that drains the precious energy sales professionals need to go from one sales call to the next. It can be a terrible thing to hear the word no after weeks of preparation and effort but what can be even worse is our chosen reaction to it. If you allow a rejection to fester on your mind, to invade your thoughts and lessen your spirit, you experience low productivity, poor results and limited rewards. You must control the reaction you have to rejection in order to succeed in the sales field.
Take the following example: Penny has just started her own small business, a catering company specializing in gourmet catering for corporate events. She chose this market because she felt she could actively seek business among the many corporations who hold events locally throughout the year. She has found the process of cold calling to be a difficult one. After finally getting on the phone to a decision maker, Penny pitches her services going through the menu and low prices. After what she believes is a great presentation, she gets a very abrupt “not interested” followed by the click of a dial tone.
Penny’s inner dialogue sounds like this: How dare he slam the phone down on me? That is so rude. I would never do that, at least not to anyone I had any respect for. I guess to this guy, I was just another telemarketer calling and wasting his time. He doesn’t see me as a business person at all. I am the CEO of my company just like he is the CEO of his, but I wonder how many CEOs he hangs up on every day. I guess I just didn’t seem that important to him. How awful this is spending all day being treated like nothing on the phones. I don’t know if this business idea is even going to work out.
In the few minutes after receiving that harsh rejection from a complete stranger, Penny has gone from being a confident new business owner to doubting the importance or possibility of success for her company at all. She now wonders if she should even consider herself in the ranks of CEO. She has taken the rejection from being just about her company to being something more personal. Seeing the rejection as a personal insult makes Penny wonder if she can go on for much longer with this business that she was previously so excited about.
Action step: write out on a 3x5 index card the question “who am I?” Answer this question with a list of positive attributes of which you are very proud. The next time you are in a difficult situation, read the list out loud to remind yourself of your greatest and most notable qualities.
I call this strategy Logical Separation. It is a powerful way to make a distinction between the rejection you must experience on a regular basis and your worth as a human being. We are bound to react when we hear the word no but we must learn to control that reaction. To succeed in this field you must be able to approach each new sales situation with confidence, determination and great energy. When you learn to control the way you react to rejection, you will diminish its ability to wreak havoc on your sales career.
Alvin Day’s Sales Training and Self Improvement Advice have helped many sales professionals and success-seekers reach and exceed their goals. For more of Alvin Day’s FREE resources, visit http://www.AlvinDay4Free.com
