“There is no way to totally detach yourself emotionally from
the selling process. You will feel elated and disappointed. But you
can’t get caught up in either or the ride is too manic. It always
seems to come back to the law of averages. You have some prospects
who look and sound so promising, but they don’t pan out. You have
others that look like it will never happen, yet it does.” —Louise T.,
Sales ProfessionalTheresa sells advertising and knows that, in a good economy, one out
of twenty prospects are likely to buy her product. Her product has a rejec-
tion ratio of 95 percent. Until she had a firm grip on the rejection ratio in-
herent to her product, she felt like a failure every day. Now she knows the
numbers game, and even though she goes through streaks where the ratio
is higher or lower, she expects to close at least 5 percent over time.
Mitch sells retirement plans. He told me that when he first started, he
would go through an emotional ebb every time he was rejected—until he re-
alized that it was a numbers game. Some people needed what he had to offer,
some were satisfied with what they had, and some were habitual procrastina-
tors. Once he realized that his rejection ratio was going to be 60 to 70 per-
cent, he decided he had to see more people every week to achieve success.
He is now obsessively organized in scheduling as many prospects as he
can fit into a week’s schedule. He led the nation for his company in the
number of new accounts signed up in his first year. He signed up over 900
new accounts. Most were small and medium accounts, but he knew they
would grow with time. Mitch never lets a day go by without seeing at least
four or five prospects. He works hard at utilizing referrals and keeping on
top of scheduling. He understands how the numbers work.
Less resilient sales professionals focus too much on the emotional as-
pect of the sales rejection and too little on the law of averages. What sales
professionals have is not for everyone, and even if it is, not everyone will
understand it. To be successful in sales, individuals must study their indus-
try, calculate the success ratio of the top-level achievers, mimic their habits,
and try to avoid getting caught emotionally by rejections.
KEEP FISHING
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote, “To travel hopefully is better than to ar-
rive.” To fear rejection is not what one could call “traveling hopefully.” Paul
Quinnet, in his book Pavlov’s Trout,wrote, “It is better to fish hopefully than
to catch fish. Fishing is hope experienced. To be optimistic in a slow bite is
to thrive on hope alone. When asked, ‘How can you fish all day without a
Risking Rejection / Getting Past No 143