How many times have you had to deal with rejection when trying to turn a prospect into a customer? How many times have you been unable to get someone else to do what you wanted them to do?
As an entrepreneur, your success depends on your ability to persuade others, so you know how important it is to get people to say “yes.” The problem is, you can’t possibly get everyone to accept your offer. The reality is, you will get rejected — many times. It doesn’t matter if you’re the greatest salesperson in the world; you will not see a conversion rate of 100 percent.
If you’re not careful, rejection can discourage you and make it harder to persevere in your efforts. Not knowing how to handle it can significantly diminish your ability to influence. Fortunately, you can learn how to turn a demoralizing experience into a lesson on how to have greater success going forward.
Winston Churchill said, “success is the ability to go from failure to failure without a loss of enthusiasm.” Of course, it sounds sensible, but it’s not that easy. You have to learn how to become mentally tough enough to get turned down repeatedly and still maintain a positive mindset. Here are some steps to turning rejection into awesomeness:
Listen
If your prospect is rejecting your offer, the worst thing you can do is to try to refute their objection with another sales pitch, which is more likely to make them double down on their refusal.
The most useful thing you can do is to listen carefully to what the prospect is saying, and find out the real reason they are not accepting your offer. In some cases, it will be something you can do nothing about at that time. Other times, you may gain some insight that will uncover another opportunity to get the prospect to buy from you.
Sometimes, you can turn the rejection around right away, or you may have to wait until the person is ready to buy. Either way, you won’t recognize the opportunity if you’re not listening to what the other person is saying.
Learn
The other thing you must do is learn from the rejection. You must objectively analyze why you lost the sale. If you have listened carefully, you will be able to determine what, if anything, went wrong during the interaction.
Were there things you could have done better during the conversation? Maybe you could have taken more time to understand the customer’s pain points. Perhaps you fully understood the customer’s situation but didn’t adequately explain how your product or service addressed their problems.
It’s crucial that you identify an area where you could improve your approach. It’s an essential part of turning the rejection into something positive.
Leverage
LeverageAfter you have identified areas to improve your sales approach, it’s time to figure out how you will put what you learned into action. You must leverage the lessons you learned from the rejection.
This part isn’t easy, however, because you have to decide how to take what you learned and use it to change the behavior. If you didn’t position yourself effectively on the sales call, figure out how you can improve your positioning; then do it, and do it consistently until it becomes a habit.
Solutions don’t mean anything if you can’t implement them. It’s like putting fuel in your car when you don’t even intend to drive it. Learning from your mistakes is a waste of time if you aren’t going to take any action to ensure that you don’t repeat them.
Turning rejection into something positive doesn’t have to be difficult. It does take some discipline, but if you take these three steps and make them into a habit, you will become a far more effective salesperson.
- If you’re getting rejected, listen to your prospect. Find out the real reasons they are not accepting your offer.
- Learn from the conversation. Take the time to figure out what you could have done better on the sales call.
- Leverage what you learn. Turn your new-found knowledge into action. Plan for the next sales interaction and make sure you don’t make that same mistake again.
Following this pattern is a great way to make rejection work for you instead of against you, viewing it with a healthier attitude. Not only will rejection not discourage you anymore, but it also will make you feel more in control of your overall growth as an influencer.
