No one likes to be rejected. It's a lousy feeling and it can literally paralyze your sales efforts. Fear of rejection prevents sellers from prospecting for new customers or even following up with existing opportunities.
But what if you reframed "rejection" and gave it a new meaning. What if, instead of feeling devastated when people wouldn't meet with you, you viewed their behavior as simply market research, no more and no less.
With a "market research" perspective in your mind, you're then free to explore other options because it's not about you. It's simply about how they reacted in a given set of circumstances which can easily be changed.
Viewing their behavior as data, enables you to test a variety of approaches. For example, you might want to test:
- A different value proposition.
- The time of day you called.
- The flow and structure of your phone call.
- Various responses to "We already have a supplier."
A market research perspective on rejection gives you the freedom to experiment with multiple sales strategies. It enables you to be creative and have fun exploring. And, the prospect's reaction isn't even one little bit personal. It's just data you can analyze to help you get better.
I sure like that feeling a whole lot more than being rejected.
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