How Can Salespeople Deal With Rejection?
Rejection sucks. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. Imagine how great your life as a salesperson would be if you never faced any rejection. The problem is that if that was the case, then the world wouldn’t need salespeople, only order-takers, and you can bet that commissions would be non-existent. So how can salespeople deal with rejection?
But rejection doesn’t always need to slow you down. The longer you dwell on it, the less likely you are to move onto the next prospect and get closer to your next deal. Here are some tips to help you deal with rejection:
1. Don’t take rejection personally
“It’s not personal, it’s just business.” They always say that in mob movies before they whack someone, and in sales it’s true. It’s not personal. Business is ruthless, and there aren’t many rules. An inability to close a deal has nothing to do with you as a human being, it literally only has to do with business. If it’s just business to everyone else, why should it be personal to you?
2. Do the math
We’ve written before about how 80% of prospects say no four times before they say yes. Rejection is a statistical part of sales, and it helps to remember that fact whenever you hear it. Too often we get too bogged down in the moment and our individual situations to take a step back and think of the bigger picture. If you knew that you could land the man/woman of your dreams but that they were likely to say no four times before they said yes, would you keep trying?
3. Have a plan
Every salesperson knows that they will have to get over rejection, but very few actually plan ahead for what to do when they experience it. For example, make a plan that says the next time you’re rejected by a customer, you will immediately send follow-up emails to five other prospects. Or, the next time a prospect turns down your offer, you will ask them if you can add them to your mailing list to keep them updated on industry trends. The point is, if you have an “if/when” plan, you won’t let rejection freeze you in your tracks.
4. Use tools
You can overcome rejection by using tools to help you quickly move on, like Spiro, the AI sales platform with a sales assistant that comes with different personalities to help motivate you and close more deals. You should also keep visual representations of your goals near you, like photos of your family, or that Lamborghini so that you can remind yourself why you started. And of course, there are no shortage of inspirational sales quotes you can pull from the web to add a little fuel to your fire.
5. Can salespeople deal with rejection? YES!
Rejection is only a complete waste of time if you can’t get something out of it. On every deal, if you’re not learning something about yourself, your clients, or your business, then you’re not paying enough attention. How can you change your pitch to close the next deal? What did you overlook when you were qualifying the prospect? Like John Sculley said, “I have found that I always learn more from my mistakes than from my successes. If you aren’t making some mistakes, you aren’t taking enough chances.”
