What They Don't Tell You About Sales Rejection

Fear of rejection in sales is primarily about reframing our understanding that clients are rejecting our products or services, not us personally. Proper qualification and honest conversations with prospects are the keys to minimizing rejection and building a sustainable sales practice.

• Fear of rejection often stems from making it personal when it's usually about the product/service
• Creating detailed qualifying questions helps identify ideal customers and weed out poor matches
• Don't fear disqualifying prospects – working with low probability prospects wastes time and energy
• When meeting clients, reconfirm qualification factors like budget, authority, and timelines
• Turn common objections into qualifying questions to address problems early
• For technical questions you can't answer, simply write them down and commit to finding answers
• Building trust through honesty and integrity creates better long-term outcomes and referrals
• View rejection as feedback that helps refine your qualification process

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Chapters

• 0:24 Introduction to Fear of Rejection
• 2:50 Making Rejection Not About You
• 3:26 Perfecting Your Qualifying Process
• 8:54 Addressing Budget and Timeline Objections
• 13:03 Handling Technical Knowledge Gaps
• 14:51 Building Trust Through Integrity
• 19:25 Final Thoughts on Managing Rejection

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:12

Hello again. In this podcast, I'm going to talk about overcoming fear of rejection, because I think it's one of the things that a lot of people suffer with, if I put it that way Not only people who are new to sales, but it's definitely one of those things that can pop up from time to time as well, so I'm going to do that. What I would ask you, if you can, is to just like and subscribe this podcast, and that helps me, so I want to dive into it. There's a couple of ways of looking at it. One is what you can do in terms of process about eliminating the chances, or at least minimizing the chances, of being rejected, and I'm really assuming that that is going to come down to either having to deal with objections or getting a flat no when it comes to trying to close your deal. So, either way, those are definitely two areas where you can get rejection, and where I want to start, though, is just looking kind of internally about what that is for you, and I would suggest that, to start with at least.

Speaker 1: 1:24

People have this fear, and this may be true for you, but people have this fear because they feel it's personal rejection, and none of us like to be rejected personally. So if it comes to asking someone for a date, that kind of thing, you know that's quite tough, and the toughest thing about it is that fear of rejection and being in sales it can be exactly the same. We can take on exactly those feelings and therefore put the same fear onto it. So what I would say to that and the big, I guess, mind shift to do on that one is to simply recognize that the rejection, at least in most cases, is not a rejection of you. It's rejection of the product or service that you're offering, and there are reasons why that rejection is likely to happen. But the key thing is it's not about you. So if you start making it about you, hopefully the intensity at least how strongly you're feeling that fear of rejection would pretty much immediately drop, because once you realize it isn't about you, it's something else, and it may well be about the client. That's another possibility. So the thing I would say to you, though, is to not make it about you. Make it about something else. So the reason that this rejection or potential rejection is happening is more to do with your product or solution, or even the client's requirements or their timing or other things that are going on for the client than it is about you personally.

Speaker 1: 3:06

So, having said all of that, what can you do to reduce the chances of having to deal with rejection? And here, as I've said, I'm looking at either objections coming up or a flat no to your proposal. So, again, the first thing to do is to just make sure that your qualifying process is as good as you can get it, and what I mean by that that's the process where you, before you spend any time with a client, you just qualify them by asking them a few pointed questions about what it is that they're trying to achieve, and the purpose of those questions is to make sure that they are a good fit for whatever it is you're offering or, conversely, you're a good fit for them. You need to be a win-win. I'm definitely a believer in a win-win scenario, so that's the first thing. So, if you aren't getting a lot of rejection or being turned down a lot, that's the place to start. Just go back to your qualifying questions and think about the things that are showstoppers for you, and what I mean by that is what are the things that come up primarily as rejections if you're getting that far? Things that come up primarily as rejections if you're getting that far, or perhaps things that differentiate you in the market either differentiate you in, so they're unique selling points that really start to define your niche, or they're things that differentiate you out, so there are certain, perhaps requirements that are common in your marketplace that you can't actually meet. So you know that if you start trying to sell to somebody who has one of those requirements, your chances of making a sale are very low. And also the likelihood is that if you make a sale, you're going to have somebody who's very unhappy with you. So have a think about that. Now. If that's not clear, just some examples If you're selling a car and it's, let's say, a five-door hatchback, it's sort of small size who is the ideal client for that?

Speaker 1: 5:25

Who would be your perfect client for that car? Are they single? Do they have a family? Is it a young family? What kind of things do they do on the weekend? Do they go surfing? Do they need to be able to accommodate a surfboard? Do they do a lot of shopping?

Speaker 1: 5:43

Think through who your clients are and then, once you've done that, put together a list of questions that define that person. So it may be in the case of the car, to just simply ask the client how they intend to use it. Is it something that they would use themselves, maybe just to commute to and from work, or would they use it for the occasional long journey? Would they be taking family with them? Would they be doing regular weekend them? Would they be doing regular weekend breaks where they would be driving somewhere, and what kind of breaks do they like to go on? So it's really about starting to come up with a set of questions where, if they answer yes to everything, then you know you're a good match.

Speaker 1: 6:27

But if you get a no, you then have to decide whether or not it's worth continuing with that person as a prospect, because it may well be that something they really want you to deliver for them. You can't deliver, and so they're never going to buy from you, and this is the important thing. You only want to be spending time with people who are likely to buy from you. So once you've got your qualifying process down and getting the right questions is a really important thing to do, so it's well worth spending a bit of time just thinking it through. Maybe sit down with a cup of coffee and just think about people who are good clients for you, people who are happy with what you are delivering to them, and what are the key things that you're delivering to them that makes them a happy customer. You can even ask them if you've got a good relationship with somebody. Take them out for a cup of coffee and just say look, I would actually appreciate your help and would you mind telling me the key benefits you've got from using our product, now that you've been using it for a little while? It would just really help me. Help to help other people. That's what we're here for as salespeople. After all, we're here to help people.

Speaker 1: 7:41

So get that pinned down as early as you can so that you're very clear and you've got very specific questions that will rule people out, and don't be afraid of turning people down. This is one of the biggest mistakes salespeople make. They are worried about saying no to people when they're clearly not a good fit, and so that's when you do it when they're clearly not going to be a good fit, and therefore they waste more and more time and effort in trying to sell to somebody who will never buy, and of course, that will bring on rejection. That will put you into that downward spiral of rejection. So mentally it's quite hard to keep picking yourself back up and going back to it.

Speaker 1: 8:28

So, having done that, when you go and meet with the client, so I'm going to assume that you're going to have a face-to-face meeting with them at some point. Again, when you're with them, the first thing to do is to run through the qualifying questions, essentially just to make sure, and you can open it up by saying look, I, just before we start, I just want to make sure I've understood exactly how you're planning to use this thing, whatever it is. You could maybe have them just repeat to you what they told you, just maybe to outline what are the really key things that they're looking for. And that's probably a good place to start. Just ask them again before you get started. They could just outline what's most important to them about what they want to buy from you and if there's anything else that maybe there's some showstoppers in there, you know is there anything that would absolutely not work for you. So don't be afraid of that. And what that gives you. First of all, it confirms that they are right for your solution. It can also help to give you just a little bit of insight in case a rejection does come up and you can then just question them and say, well, my understanding was that you needed this, and if it's an option, just say that's great, we can do that.

Speaker 1: 9:48

Just be aware of pricing I mean, budget is generally one of the things that you would clarify early on and also things like making sure they are in a position to authorize the purchase and also to get a feel of when they need delivery. So all these things are important. So if one of those and it's quite likely that one of those things might come up and as an objection and this is another thing to understand that, if you are getting objections coming up, if that's forming part of this fear of rejection that you're having to deal with, then just write those down and make them part of the qualifying process. So part of it could be our price is generally in this ballpark. Is that the kind of budget you're looking at?

Speaker 1: 10:35

So if it's $10,000, pounds, whatever, and they've only got two, clearly there is a gap there and unless there's an easy way to fill that gap, you've got a problem. You've got a problem, equally, when it comes to delivery, if they want a delivery in three days and your typical delivery period is five to six weeks, then that can be tricky unless you're able to get something delivered quickly. On the other hand, if your typical buying cycle so from inquiry to delivery is again five to six weeks, but they're looking six months away, so what's the level of urgency? If there's no urgency around the sale, it gets quite hard to close them. So, as a salesperson, this is one of the things we have to do.

Speaker 1: 11:22

So when you're having the conversation with the client so you're not trying to close them, you're just having a conversation to make sure they're a good fit and you're trying to understand what it is they're trying to do and what's the most important, what are the most important aspects of what they're trying to do? While you're having that conversation, make sure you cover all of these things, all of the areas that could be potential places where you can get rejected. So objections so typically, as I've said, they're going to be budget authority. Are they able to authorize the sale? If not, who needs to? Because you need to get them into conversation. Have they got approval? And it's easy to waste your time with somebody who goes through the whole process with you and actually has no approval at all to buy. So you've got to tick those boxes early on, make sure the budget's there, make sure delivery is there, and that's really important actually to make sure that you are talking the same kind of periods. If you're not, then you need to balance that up somehow. But that comes out of the conversation.

Speaker 1: 12:31

Another thing to just work on, I guess, if that's a fear for you, is just to make sure the knowledge of your product is good, because often fear of rejection will come from us being aware of all the things we don't know about our product. So I've certainly had that with selling quite technical equipment. I'm not. I'm kind of reasonably technical, but definitely not as technical as a lot of the people I was talking to and one of the fears for me was that they would ask me a question that I wouldn't know. And this is another thing, another area to where you can work on it and also you can just change your approach.

Speaker 1: 13:11

So, very briefly, what I'll say about that is that first of all, just learn what you can about your product and be client led to a degree. So certain questions are likely to come up regularly. So there's going to be a core amount of knowledge that you need to know to feel confident when you're in most meetings. But there will always be things on the edge that only pop up every now and again, so they might be more specific questions that relate to a particular client and it might be a question that comes up very rarely. So if you don't know the answer, the simple thing is to just say I don't know the answer to that, but what I'll do, I'll write it down. Just write it down, or even ask them to write it down, but make sure it is written down and they see the question and it definitely reflects their question. It is the same question, particularly if you're dealing with something that's quite technical and you may not have the level of technical knowledge to ideally handle it. So I would always do that, I'd always write them down. I'd also confirm them by email after the meeting and just commit to getting an answer and agree when you will get back to your client and then just make sure that you get back to them when you say you will, ideally before, even if you don't have an answer, and that's really important. So these are really just some tips to help you.

Speaker 1: 14:39

First of all, to recap briefly, I mean, the first thing to remember about rejection is it's, most of the time, won't be about you. Occasionally it might be. Occasionally, people just take a disliking to us for whatever reason, and so there's not much you can do about that. But again, just make it about them, not about you. If you're behaving professionally, you're doing your job. There's no reason particularly why somebody would not want to do business with you. But, on the other hand, you might do something that you know upset someone. You might not be aware of it, but these things happen.

Speaker 1: 15:14

So most of the time it isn't about you, it's about what you're offering, and so the key thing to eliminate that potential area of rejection is to make sure that you only work with people who want to buy what you are selling, and the way you do that is to have people Very good qualifying questions and not being afraid to qualify people out. You want to qualify in the people who are kind of really 80, 90% chance of converting them. If they're 50%, you're wasting your time. You know you can very easily burn all of the time you have and come up with nothing except you know no orders and really suffering from all the things that happen when that when that happens, so get very clear on that. So good qualifying, and then when you're with the client, have the conversation. So make sure that you did get everything right in qualifying, because occasionally things get misunderstood or something goes wrong. It doesn't happen often, but chances are it will happen and this is something to accept as well, that these things will happen from time to time.

Speaker 1: 16:32

So have the conversation, re-qualify and then just have a conversation to make sure you cover off and make sure part of that qualification process is covering off, making sure they've got budget, making sure they have authority, making sure the timelines work and anything else that comes up regularly and the kind of things to put in. There are the things that if you're suffering from a lot of objections at the moment what are the objections? Go back over them, what are the common ones, what are the objections? Go back over them, what are the common ones, and turn those into qualifying questions, because that way you can just tell people, if all of these are coming up in a conversation with the client, then just tell them look, I'm sorry, but I really don't think we're a good fit. And if you do that, the interesting thing is and I've had this, some people will start to make a case to buy from you and it's quite interesting, when suddenly they're trying to sell to you, that you should allow them to buy from you and it's quite an interesting experience to have.

Speaker 1: 17:34

But this is honesty, this is integrity and this is the core of good selling, because when you do make a sale, you've got all of that stuff sitting in the background the referrals, the conversations that you know nothing about. So all of that stuff that is outside of your control and you're probably not even aware of anything that's going on in the background. You want to be positive and the only way to make that happen is to behave properly, you know, be ethical, try and get them the best deal, try and help them genuinely. If you are the more sleazy sort of salesperson or you're someone and I know, I know somebody and I'm actually going through a process right now of selling my home and there's one salesperson I know locally there was there's not a chance he is getting anywhere near my home because I just absolutely don't trust him. And have I got? What reasons have I got for that? Well, I can't point to any deals that he's particularly, you know, mess people around in, but I just don't trust him. There's just a vibe about him, the way he is and that, and that's just me. You know there are certain people I don't get along with. Other people I do, and the people I am getting involved are people that I feel I can trust, and one of them was a recommendation from somebody else that I trust. So you know, these are the things to be aware of.

Speaker 1: 19:00

So it's not always about you. It can be them in my case. So I don't know, this guy might be brilliant, but I, you know there, you go, there, you have it. That's just. We're just people. This is what people do, um, and then just go through, have a think about um, where the problems are technically from the sales side, uh, where you're getting rejected, and see what you can do to qualify those areas. So I hope that's helpful. Hopefully that has given you some things to do and remember if you genuinely go in once to help people, that will definitely be a big sort of plus for you anyway, because people pick that up and you're likely to just lower rejection straight away. But don't take it as personal. Treat it as feedback. You know what do you need to change If particularly, the same thing keeps coming up. What can you do to change that? Okay, that's it for now. I'll speak to you on the next podcast.