The Up Side of Rejection
Many people have a fear of rejection. As normal as this may be it is important to note that rejection has an upside. Back in the 80’s during my years as a recruiter both in my own firm and also at a large search firm, I learned a few things about rejection that have proved very valuable. Following are my 5 positive takes on rejection.
1-Rejection can fuel your determination. I was recruiting in the healthcare industry placing clinical operations at director level and above, nationally. This was before the internet and therefore everything was done by phone. There was a lot of cold calling involved especially when getting started which I did 3 times. I would get a few hang ups per week. But I decided not to accept the hang ups as rejection and instead, I used them to fuel my determination.
2-Rejection gets rid of the competition. The people that can’t take rejection will get into a different field. Just like in the real estate downturn, the agents who worked part time and weren’t able to contend with a lot of prospecting, couldn’t make it and the stronger agents survived.
3-Rejection allows you to develop your niche. When you consistently get no’s from one portion of the market overtime you are led to move into a part of the market where you naturally have more rapport. Perhaps you are more knowledgeable or more comfortable in a particular niche or speaking with a specific type of individual. When I started working with pharmaceutical companies, it was a bit overwhelming to work my way through the corporate hierarchy. So I started calling CRO’s –Contract Research Organizations instead. They were often times smaller and this tended to make them easier to work with.
4-Rejection helps you to develop emotional fortitude and creates a better sales person. It gives you the necessary feedback to improve your ROTI or return on time invested. By spending more time in high return on time invested activities you become more effective.
5-Rejection helps you to find the prospects who are motivated to buy from you. It helps to weed out the prospects that don’t need or want to work with you and saves you time.
The good news is that rejection will always be part of a career in sales. Learn from it, use it and rejection could become your new best friend.
Comment and let me know something positive you have learned from rejection!
