You might think the answer to "who's afraid of the big, bad wolf (rejection)" would be "everyone"...but you'd be wrong.
Incredibly there is a group of sales professionals who have learned how to handle rejection with ease. Notice that I did not say "ignore" rejection, or "avoid" rejection, I said "handle" rejection. That means you can still receive it and you still have to do something with it, but you can learn to put it in its rightful place.
T. Harv Eker, who wrote, "Secrets of the Millionaire Mind" knew that he would face enormous rejection in his climb up the wealth ladder. So he decided to meet it head on and took a job, on purpose, for two months as a telephone solicitor. He believed he would become numb to rejection and he was correct. People hung up on him, swore at him, called him names, blew loud whistles into the phone, and tore him and his offer to shreds. He never felt so despised.
And he was thrilled because of it!
He knew that he could never "handle" rejection without actually experiencing it. A lot of it. It takes practice and, like any skill, you can only get better with lots and lots of practice.
If you're not selling now because you are waiting for your self-esteem or self-confidence to get better, you may as well pack it in right now. Those sales professionals you admire so much are good at what they do because they have gotten used to being rejected and the only way to get used to something is to actually move through it so much that it simply has no effect on you anymore. Those winners understand that working through rejection is what gives them their self-confidence. They don't fear it, they embrace it.
If you avoid rejection, you'll stay neat and clean and won't muss yourself up, like a china doll that sits quietly on the shelf. Or you can be a Raggedy Ann doll. They get messy and stepped on and thrown around the room...but they're the ones having all the fun.
Being afraid of rejection doesn't prevent it from coming. It only prevents you from getting what you want.
So the first thing I want you to do is to call that one customer or client you have been avoiding the most and make her an offer she can't refuse. And if she does, smile at the gift of rejection.
Seek it out, take it on, lean into it, learn to "handle" it by reducing its effect on you. Look for it everywhere and embrace it when it comes. Then choose to move through it and on to where you really want to be.
Choose your success!
Copyright 2011 Ann Vertel. All rights reserved.