Welcome to the Bottom Line Top Line Podcast with Carol Bartlett, Jol Hunter, and Chris Spurvey.
This week, we delve into the topic of handling rejection, from both a sales perspective and a personal perspective. We share some of our stories and ideas about managing rejection and the mind-set that is needed to overcome rejection and grow afterward.
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Developing Grit
There are two ways that we experience rejection. One way is when you expect something good to happen but it doesn’t, and the other is when people say outright, “Oh, no thanks.”
When you’re in sales, you must embrace rejection and either learn from it and use it to improve your process or simply focus on the number of offers you make rather than the number of rejections you receive.
Reasons for Rejection
You should try to understand why the rejection happened. Often, our assumptions about the reason for the rejection are wrong.
It’s entirely possible that there’s nothing wrong with you or your potential client. Maybe the timing just isn’t right for you to come together. Your potential client may think that your product or service is awesome but might just be overwhelmed or not have enough budget. Maybe the individual or business is dealing with recent failures or other pressures and doesn’t have the bandwidth to start a new project. There are many possible reasons.
Having the Right Mind-set
Managing ourselves, our mind-sets, and our health are all important elements of building a successful business and dealing with the ups and downs that come along.
I’m reminded of a video of Steve Jobs in which a man walked up to him and said, “I want to be an entrepreneur. What advice do you have for me?” Steve said, “I encourage you to be really passionate about what you’re doing. You need to expect that lots and lots of things are going to go sideways and, therefore, you’ll need your passion and belief in that thing that you’re doing to help you get through those things. And you’ll need to look after yourself well in order to be persistent enough to keep on going.”
To learn more about these topics, please listen to the episode.
Mentions
Connect with Carol, Jol and Chris on LinkedIn.
Steve Jobs’ Advice for Entrepreneurs