Stop Taking Rejection Personally

It doesn't matter if you are in Sales or in Service you have felt rejected. Some of us feel it more strongly than others. You may be hesitating from picking up the phone right now because of fear of rejection. It is like having a rocket that is fueled up, tested, and ready to go. Then, all you hear are all the ways it could fail. All the ways for it to stall out or quit unexpectantly leaving you feeling humiliated. In a previous blog, I talked about Pre-Mortem. This is the practice of imagining a conversation and communicating all the ways it could fail or any additional arguments that could be made. By doing this you can pivot when it is necessary to move the conversation forward. 

Now, let's say you do all of that and then imposture syndrome takes over. The "Who am I to speak as an expert on these things?" That little voice eats and takes root. Growing into anxiety and choking the words from coming out. Maybe you think your emails seem lame, your posts seem dull, or your phone voice is annoying. Everyone has something they aren't in love with. 

Here you are with a wealth of knowledge and your stumped. The first thing we have to overcome is embarrassment. You become embarrassed that you feel this way. you become embarrassed to admit it and then nothing moves forward. So let's start with just saying the words "I'm stuck."

Ok not that we have acknowledged that we have failure to launch by human error we can take on a new approach to what we are doing. First, you need to remove the emotions and the only way to do this is to plow. What does that mean? Ok, let's imagine you are a kid looking at a pool from the diving board edge. You could stand there all day and never jump. Now imagine you didn't look and you just ran off the diving board, leaping into the air, and with enjoyment landed in the water. Great, that is what plowing is. It is saying I hate my emails so I am going to send 9,000 today without overthinking. I am just going to hit send with a template so many times until it doesn't hurt to hit send anymore. Ok, your phone voice, let's write a script. Practice it on a real person or look in the mirror when you are talking on the phone. Don't memorize like a robot, listen for the other person to give you an emotion to piggyback off of. Ok, content, build 90 days of content, type as fast as you can so you can't overthink, and imagine you have a deadline. When you go back you will realize you released all the knowledge you had without overcomplicating it with too much emotion. 

Now, let's say you do all that and you still hear no. Great! Wait...what do you mean great? I mean this is wonderful news because the goal in the long term is to establish only 2 things:

1. Do they know who you are

2. Do they know what you do for when they need you

That's. It.

Why is that it? Because most of your No's are because people are skeptical of people and things they are unfamiliar with. With enough consistency, they build Brand Awareness, which builds consumer trust, which means more referrals long term, and less of the cold calling you hate.

All this to say the only way to feel less intimidated is to do it so many times it holds less of emotional hold on you. Imagine just shutting your eyes and jumping off that diving board and doing it again and again and again.

I once had a client I coached who would stay in bed for a week after being turned down for a prospect. That was a huge emotional hold. As I talked to him I realized he would gain 2-3 prospects for the month and if they fell through he was devastated. Instead, we had to learn to plow. Emails and calls over and over until he stopped sounding like a desperate puppy asking for scraps off the floor. We had to set appointment after appointment, day after day until he stopped becoming so emotionally attached to the people he met with. Start analyzing what someone wanted and not hyper-focusing on what they needed. Not everyone cares if their wife has income after they die but that person may still want a boat when they retire. So we start listening and building plans for our customer's direct intentions for doing business. Our clients don't have to fall in love with us and losing a client doesn't have to feel like losing a best friend. Relationships built on trust in the workplace are important but we don't have to get in the weeds to get tangled and choked.

For personal coaching virtually visit clvplanners.com

-Izzy Gentry