REJECTION
Rejection is not a sales issue. It is part of the human condition and an experience or illusion created
by the person experiencing it. If you don’t like rejection, well that makes you more normal than
abnormal. I have never met anyone who does. Also, if you think you can avoid rejection, sorry, you
are on the wrong planet.
If there is something you want and you ask someone to help you with it, and that person declines,
then you experience rejection. So you either walk away disappointed, rejected, and sad, or you dig in
and figure out how to get that person to support what it is you want.
For example, is a homeless person rejected when he gets told no when he asks for a quarter? Maybe.
Or maybe he needs to change his presentation and offer. A rich boy asks a girl out and the girl says
no. Was he rejected? Maybe he needs to change his presentation and offer and not come off like the
rich guy who always gets what he wants. See, in this case I took two extremes and both were told no.
I think the experience of rejection as an emotion is actually what happens when a person has a low
responsibility level in getting things done. “I didn’t get what I want, so now I am going to feel sorry
for myself, label it rejection, and act like a victim.” Ain’t nothing happening to you; it’s happening
’cause of you!
How you handle rejection is the key. Try to avoid it and you are doomed because you will withdraw.
If you start to think less of your product or offer after being told no, then you are being sold on
someone else’s agenda. When you are told “no,” or “not yet,” or “we bought from someone else,”
have you been rejected? You will only feel rejection as a negative sensation if you do not take full
responsibility for the situation.
When I am told no I don’t equate it with rejection; I look at what I could do differently next time to
earn their business. How could I be more effective? How could I turn this person into a customer next
time? No one says to you, “I am rejecting you,” they merely say no to the offer. You are creating an
illusion that it is rejection. Rejection is experienced by those unwilling to be responsible for the
outcome.
Sales Call Tip: Use The 100 Calls Method Eliminate Fear Of Rejection
Are you having trouble cold calling potential clients or prospects in your sales career? This fear of failure can sabotage your sales. To help you get over your fears of rejection and become a more confident salesperson follow this method for making sales on the phone.
Eliminate The Fear Of Rejection On Your Sales Calls
There is a simple formula that you can use to eliminate the
fear of rejection from sales calls called the “100 Calls Method.” Over the years, I moved from company to company, selling different products and services in different markets.
At the beginning of each new sales job, I was always nervous and uneasy. My fears of rejection and call reluctance surged to the front of my mind and held me back from calling on new people.
Cold Calling Tip: The 100 Calls Method
I developed the phone sales cold calling technique, the 100 calls method. It changed my career. This method is simple. Wherever you are in your sales career, at whatever stage, you simply make a resolution to go out and make
sales calls on 100 prospects as fast as you can. You combine this resolution with a decision not to care at all whether the people end up buying.
As far as you are concerned, you don’t care whether they respond in a positive or negative manner. Your goal is simply to make 100 calls as quickly as you possibly can. If you make ten calls per day, you can accomplish your goal within two weeks. If you make 20 calls a day, you can achieve your goal of 100 calls in one five-day workweek.
Getting Better Results And Lead Generation
Now, here’s what happens. When you don’t care whether or not you make a sale, most of your fear disappears. In fact, you begin to see it as a game. How many people can you get through to and talk to, and how fast can you do it? What I’ve found is that the very best
lead generation comes when you both care and don’t care.
Of course, you care about getting a positive result from your prospecting efforts. But if simultaneously you don’t care if the person likes you or not, is willing to see you or not, or wants to buy your product or service or not, you maintain a sense of emotional detachment that allows you to remain calm and positive, no matter what anyone says.
Here is the most remarkable discovery. If you make 100 calls as fast as you can with no concern about whether or not people are interested, you will actually start to uncover good potential prospects. You will start to make appointments. You will actually start to make sales. By caring yet not caring, you can break out of any sales slump and step on the accelerator of your sales career.
Conclusion
This one simple method will supercharge your sales, unlock your energy, and give you a “fast start” on sales success for the year or for the quarter. Try it yourself and see. Do you want to achieve sales success but don’t know where to start? Download my
FREE report Everyone is a Salesperson to learn how by clicking the button below.
Overcoming the Word “No”
october 15, 2010 by
tom hopkins
Everyone sells, one way or another. As parents, we sell our children on our belief systems and our values. In courtship, we sell ourselves to our prospective partners. At work, we sell ourselves every day to our employers and our co-workers.
However, there’s something keeping us from doing the best job of selling in every situation. It’s the fear of rejection. And, rejection most often comes in the shape of one of the smallest words in the English language–“no.” Isn’t it amazing how such a small word can have such a huge impact on us?
Why are we afraid of this one little word? Our fears began when we were toddlers. We constantly heard the word “no” from our parents, grandparents and others who cared for us. They said it to help direct our actions and learn how to control our emotions, yet we saw it as something negative because we didn’t fully understand the reasons behind it.
After hearing “no” enough times, many of us tend to desensitize ourselves to its impact. Others of us continue to take it personally. Those who still take the word “no” as a personal affront have a low threshold for the amount of rejection they can handle. And in selling, you have to have a pretty high threshold if you intend to survive these tough times and thrive as we begin to recover.
Let’s rethink how we react to the word “no” in selling situations. Hearing “no” is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it should be expected in every sales situation because you have to get through the “no’s” before you can get to a “yes.” Start thinking of the word “no” as feedback rather than a stopping block. With every “no” quickly think of how you can change direction and try again. The “yeses” are out there, you just may have to run through a maze of “no’s” to find them.
If you allow yourself to start feeling negative about all the “no’s” you’re hearing, remember my five attitudes toward failure.
I never see failure as failure, but only as a learning experience.
I never see failure as failure, but only as the negative feedback I need to change course in my direction.
I never see failure as failure but only as the opportunity to develop my sense of humor.
I never see failure as failure but only as an opportunity to practice my techniques and perfect my performance.
I never see failure as failure, but only as the game I must play to win!
Stop taking “no” personally! Learn to love it instead. It’s just a detour sign, not a dead end!
This information is copyrighted by Tom Hopkins International, Inc. for
Handling Failure
november 7, 2013 by
tom hopkins
I recently sent this article about handling failure out to students for whom I have email addresses. It’s something I teach at nearly every seminar. I feel it’s a good one to revisit regularly.
A strong positive attitude is one of the most important traits a sales professional can have. Most people who fail in business fail because they don’t know how to keep their attitudes positive on a daily basis. They start their careers learning and practicing the basics, honing their skills, and end up making lots of money. Then, they go into a slump. They will stay in their slump until they go back to the fundamentals, until they return to doing what they get paid for — accepting failure and rejection without letting it stop them.
The key to success is handling failure.
Handling success does not come naturally to most people. It is an acquired skill. Some of your emotions tell you to sulk and avoid any situations in the future that are likely to put you in line to feel the pain of rejection again. Other emotions tell you to get more out of life for yourself and your loved ones. Concentrate on what you have to gain, and learn how to change your attitude toward rejection.
There are five concepts that have helped me move forward in all areas of my life. Memorize them and recall them when you’re rejected or have failed to achieve what you wanted.
1. I never see failure as failure, but only as a learning experience. Every sale that doesn’t close is a learning experience; every challenge you face is a learning experience. Look at failure and rejection in a different light — as a learning experience.
2. I never see failure as failure, but only as the negative feedback I need to change course in my direction. Outside a restaurant, I once saw a gentleman who’d had too much to drink to try to unlock his car with the wrong key. No matter how many times he tried, the key didn’t work. After I’d talked to him into taking a taxi home, it occurred to me that sometimes we keep trying to make the wrong key unlock the door to success; keep using techniques that don’t work in our selling endeavors.
It takes some stick-to-it stamina to keep calling the hundred potential clients you have to go through to get your next sale. And, while you’re doing it, you’ll have plenty of learning experiences, plenty of chances to change course in your direction to make your technique more effective.
3. I never see failure as failure, but only as the opportunity to develop my sense of humor. Have you ever had a traumatic experience involving a selling opportunity? Three weeks later, you finally tell someone about it and suddenly that same event is hilarious. The longer you wait to laugh, the more that failure will hold you back. Make a determined effort to laugh sooner, and learn the trick of telling a good story on yourself.
4. I never see failure as failure, but only as an opportunity to practice my techniques and perfect my performance. Every time you present your service to others and they don’t make a decision to “own,” at least they’ve given you a chance to practice. Many people don’t realize the importance of this. Appreciate the opportunity to improve.
5. I never see failure as failure, but only as the game I must play to win. Selling is a game. Life is a game. Both have their rules. Over the years, I’ve discovered that a single rule dominates every situation: Those who risk failure by working with more people, make more money; those who risk less failure, make less.
If you risk failure, sometimes you will fail. But every time you fail, you’re that much closer to success. Success demands its percentage of failure.
Work with the five attitudes toward failure and rejection. What counts isn’t how many transactions fall out, how many people hang up on you, how many things don’t work out, how many people go back on their word. What counts is how many times you pick yourself up, shrug off the failure, learn from it, and keep trying to make things come together.
There are challenges and obstacles in business, but they are all temporary if you take control of your thoughts and develop the right attitude. I believe that winners are winners because they’ve learned to fuel their
success drives by overcoming failure.
There’s more: One of my longtime students, Rick Frayne, sent the following reply to this article and I told him I just had to share it. What a great way to help the next generation be prepared to face the world!
Just thought you should know your five points
- See more at: http://www.tomhopkins.com/blog/sellingskills/handling-failure#sthash.5Yups8tq.dpuf
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