06/ 13/ 2003
by Jeffrey Moses
The success of many small businesses is based on the owner's ability to market and sell the company's service. When an attempted sale turns into rejection, it is often easy to become discouraged and withdraw from sales to avoid the uncomfortable feeling of hearing the answer "No." When small business owners withdraw from sales activities, however, they put company growth at risk.
The following tips can help you and your small business avoid the obstacles of sales rejection:
- Separate your sales efforts from your business' service, or your "real work." Identify yourself with your chosen expertise, and not with your marketing efforts.
- Realize that when potential customers choose not to work with you, they are not making a statement about your level of expertise. Instead, they are simply making a business decision based on finances, timing or other factors.
- Realize that sales is often a numbers game, meaning that a certain percentage of people will choose to work with you, and a certain percentage will not. Sales professionals understand that these percentages are often fairly consistent, no matter what approach they take. When you realize that you normally get one sale out of every 10 people you speak with, you can treat each rejection as another step closer to that one sale.
- Try to achieve small, incremental sales results. If you try to get 10 new customers a week, for example, you may be disappointed and feel each rejection more deeply. Instead, give yourself a realistic goal.
- Learn to recognize the negative feelings that come from rejection. Examples are: feeling that you're wasting your time and that it's not worth the effort or feeling that perhaps you really aren't as good in your chosen field as you thought you were.
- When you begin to have negative reactions from sales rejection, do something to reestablish your confidence. Talk with someone who respects you, think of other aspects of your life in which you are successful or remember successful efforts you've had in the past.
- Finally, if you find that you need to devote a considerable amount of your time to sales, consider hiring a sales professional. If that is too costly, you could attend sales seminars to continue learning about overcoming the fear of sales rejection.
As a small-business owner, you will find that sales rejection is a very common thing. You should remember, however, that only by persevering will you gain new customers and make sales.
