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The “pain” of rejection is very trivial in comparison to what else could happen if you aren’t successful at selling your product, service, or yourself.
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Saturday Sales Tips
"The harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph." - Thomas Paine
 
Hello ,

How has your business week been? I hope it’s been at least constructive if you haven’t had any significant "wins". In my book, if you’ve learnt something then I’d mark the week down as a successful one, even if the learning points came from a negative experience.

It’s sometimes difficult to remember that sales, business, and life are all about learning and developing. Identifying where things could have gone better, as well as where they went well, gives us the insights we need to make sure we don’t repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

TEACH ME TONIGHT
If you do find yourself hitting the same sales brick walls despite knowing what you should have done then perhaps it’s time to find yourself a mentor. This should be someone who can not only look at your business and sales practices from the outside in but also motivate you (and perhaps sometimes scold you) into putting the right things in place all the time.

Being a business mentor is a part of my work that I particularly enjoy. You tend to work with clients long term in this sort of role and you get to know them very well. It’s really rewarding to see someone develop and strengthen and see their business really start to take off as a consequence.

I’ve taken on a new mentee client this week who is very typical of small and startup business people. They have a great service, they are passionate about it and deeply motivated to work very hard, and they want to achieve success.

Now, you knew there was a "but" coming, didn’t you?

But, like a lot of small business people, they haven’t made a lot of time available for selling their great service, and there’s not been a lot of prospecting going on. They have approached me to help them with some sales ideas, but actually it’s not the ideas they are lacking, it’s the emotional resilience.

 
 
NO EXPECTATIONS
Why do I say that? Well, like a lot of people, they don’t like being rejected. People saying "no" to them is demotivating and stressful. So much so, that they pretty much avoid doing any proactive "cold" prospecting.

Of course, I understand this completely. After all, it’s human nature to want to be liked. You have to be a rather "special" type of person to actively enjoy rejection!

But by changing your mindset to realise that rejection can be a good thing you can transform your ability to find new business.

Let’s be blunt, which feeling would you prefer - the feeling of being rejected every now and then or the feeling of going out of business, struggling to pay the bills, or even having to borrow from your kids’ savings to pay your mortgage?

Ok, that got heavy quite quickly! But my point is to make you realise that:
 
As a mentor, I spend a lot of time working with clients to identify their character and personality type and then giving them strategies to "cope" with the natural reluctance to expose themselves to rejection. A lot of these come down to negative motivation - in other words, if we don’t pick up the phone, the potential "pain" could be a lot worse.

EVERYBODY'S ON THE PHONE
Here are just a few things to think about if you are reluctant to pick up the phone and get prospecting for potential new clients for your business.

How would you feel if they went to a competitor?
Imagine that after a lot of procrastinating you finally pick up the phone and call that prospect, only to find out they signed up with your biggest rival last week. How would you feel? If you’re anything like me, pretty damn frustrated!

I’m like everyone else in that I don’t like losing, but I absolutely hate losing when I could have done something about it. Use this as an inspiration to avoid procrastinating and just get it done. As with other areas of our lives, there are lots of princes and princesses to meet out there but only if you’re prepared to kiss a few frogs!

Turn the rejection on its head
This is one of my favourites, and it’s the technique that works for me every time. Don’t sit down and set yourself the target of making one sales appointment on Monday morning. Flip it, and set yourself the target of getting 10 rejections and reward yourself when you do!

This isn’t negative thinking - we’re not aiming to fail. But this is allowing you to see every "no" and being one step closer to the next "yes". Always be positive and hopeful on each call, but if it turns out to be a rejection then mark it down with pride as one more towards your reward.

Even the least "sales-y" people enjoy hitting targets and achieving rewards, even small or silly ones. Our brains enjoy the feeling of winning much more than losing, so set yourself the task of winning the rejection game.

Don’t take it personally
Ok, I know in the cold light of day that seems rather obvious. However, you’d be amazed at how many people do take a business rejection as a personal slight. Lots of people don’t hear "No, I don’t want your product" as "No, I don’t want/like you".

Remember that it’s just business. Heck, it’s just life in general. After all, you didn’t marry everyone you had a date with did you? No (well, I hope not otherwise you’ve had an expensive time of it). Sometimes things just aren’t right for one or both parties. Nothing to do with the individuals, but circumstances.

Selling is exactly like dating and relationships. Everyone isn’t compatible with everyone else, but there are plenty of people we are compatible with - you just have to put yourself out there and find them.

Learn from Rejection
This goes back to my introduction. When you engage with new prospects using a well-practised script and templates, you can always learn from it. Those lessons are incredibly valuable, and in the longer term, they are more valuable to your business than one isolated sale. Why? Because a sale doesn’t teach you anything except how to sell to the person who said yes - and you already did that! Rejection teaches you what you need to do differently next time you encounter a similar situation.

So, as regulars will no doubt be tired of hearing me say, analyse every call and meeting you have and extract those learning points. Maybe the person was interested in a different issue than the questions you asked? Perhaps the person you asked to speak to had left, and so you need to improve your information sources?  When they said they were busy, did you just apologise and hang up or did you ask them for a better time and date to call back?

Challenges make you stronger
Ok, that sounds a little bit "twee" and like something you might find in a crappy self-help book. That may be so, but it’s bloody right! Sometimes, doing things we find the most difficult and getting through it does make us stronger.

I have faced many issues and had numerous challenges to deal with over the years. What I have learned is that dealing with issues takes you out the other side more resilient and with greater self-belief. The word "no" doesn’t feel good at the time, but if you accept it, learn from it, deal with the reasons behind it, then move on you will be amazed at how you will develop as a person.

What’s worse?
Ok, so this is kind of the "nuclear option" because it’s forcing you to choose from two negatives. But for some people, this is the key mental focus to have.

What is worse? An uncomfortable couple of hours on the phone or in meetings with someone who doesn’t know you and doesn’t particularly care about you, who says "no"? Or losing your business, losing your livelihood, maybe even losing your house?

For some people, focusing on doing the "least painful thing" is what they need. Some of us will always find prospecting and cold calling painful, uncomfortable, and unpleasant. But keeping in mind the likely results of not doing it can make it just about bearable enough to get it done.
 
YOU CAN GET IT IF YOU REALLY WANT IT
I hope you find some of these hints useful if you are someone who is struggling to pick up the phone because a cold shiver runs down your back every time you look at it. The good news is, it’s like riding a bike. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. I’m not going to say that at some point you’ll grow to love it - even I can’t say I love my prospecting. But after a while, it won’t seem so bad, and it will help a lot that you will quickly start to see results from your efforts.

Remember, the whole point of this exercise is to grow your business and help you to achieve everything you want to. What are some of the techniques you have used - or use now - to get over the dread of the cold call? Do you need some tailored advice to improve your ability to hit the phone and keep you motivated? You can get in touch by emailing hello@jameswhite.business. You can also find me on social media - Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube - by searching for "jameswhitesales".

If you missed last week's email - Hiring the right salespeople and putting together the right commission plan can be daunting, particularly if you’ve never done it before. If this is something that you’ll be coming up against in the next 12 months or so, I recommend you register for my free webinar on Thursday, 5 March 2020 at 7pm.

Here’s to a productive and positive week ahead, and to hitting your target of "no’s" received!


James

www.jameswhite.business
Sales Trainer and Mentor

I specialise in working with successful service businesses who want even greater sales success.


 
 
 

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