6 Ways To Make Rejection Suck Less
Want to figure out how to make rejection suck less?
I mean who doesn’t! Am I right?
Rejection may make you feel like:
not worthy
unlikable
not heard
misunderstood
not accepted
You feel like an imposter.
Getting rejected reminds you of all the doubts you have about yourself and your ability to build your business.
From my experience as a business coach, the action first-time business owners avoid the most is outreach.
Business is about serving other humans. Plain and simple.
If you aren’t regularly finding ways to connect with potential clients, you don’t have a business, you have a hobby.
Most people who start a business for the first time focus on every other aspect of their business to avoid doing outreach.
They will tinker on their website.
They will fuss over the creation of their product.
They will obsess over the name of their business.
They will overthink whether or not to organize their business as an LLC.
I’m not suggesting any of those actions aren’t important to the development of your business, but they also provide a convenient excuse for avoiding the most important action for growing your business: meeting other people.
Why You, Me And Everyone Else Avoids Rejection
Rejection is an unavoidable part of working for yourself.
Not everyone is going to like you.
Not everyone is going to like your product or service.
Not everyone is ready to buy from you when you want them to!
Let’s face it, humans don’t like rejection because it hurts.
It hurts us emotionally.
We take it personally.
We feel like our very being is being attacked.
Thousands of years ago when humans roamed the Earth in tribes, acceptance by our peers was quite literally a matter of life and death.
If you got kicked out of the tribe, your chances of survival plummeted when you were all on your own.
We live in much different times, but we still have brains coded to believe that rejection is a threat to our very existence.
Our brain makes rejection feel so painful (as painful as experiencing physical pain), so we prioritize acceptance to increase our chances of survival.
If you get rejected by a potential client, you’re not going to die, but your brain still makes you feel like you might.
The first step for reducing the threat of rejection is to recognize its evolutionary roots.
Why People Reject Others (and why you do it too)
As much as you don’t like rejection, you still do it to others.
Funny how that works, isn’t it?
The next step to reducing the fear of rejection is to recognize why YOU do it.
Most likely, you’re not doing it to make someone else feel bad, right?
You’re doing it because you don’t feel a connection. You can’t like everyone and not everyone is going to like you.
You’re doing it because the timing just isn’t right. Someone might love your service, but they just don’t have a need for it at this moment.
You’re doing it because of your own assumptions and fears. Many times the person rejecting you is projecting their own issues onto you.
Rejection is usually not personal to the person giving the rejection, but frequently the person receiving rejection takes it personally.
Further weaken the power of rejection over you by putting yourself in the shoes of the person “rejecting” you, so you learn to take their rejection less personally.
6 Ways To Make Rejection Suck Less
It takes practice to get more comfortable with rejection. It’s an inevitable part of doing business.
Following are some exercises you can give a try to start making rejection a little less sucky!
1) Misalignment, not rejection.
The next time you’re declined by a potential client, think of it as “misalignment” instead of rejection.
When someone tells you “no” they’re actually doing you a favor!
Maybe your values aren’t aligned and you’re just never going to click. Maybe the person is really into your product or service, but it’s just not the right time for them to buy.
When someone tells you “no” they’re saving you time and energy, so you can go find someone else who’s more aligned with you!
2) Beware of the data point of one.
Don’t fall into the abyss of self-doubt when just one of many potential clients tells you “no”.
Stop chasing after the person who doesn’t like you! Seek out the people who are into you and your service!
Don’t overemphasize an individual interaction as the key to your success. Get in the habit of regularly seeking out MANY prospective clients to engage or learn how to use the Rule of 3 to defend against the data point of one!
3) Yes/No Ratio.
Track how many “No’s” it takes on average to get a “Yes” when you land a new client.
For example, for every “Yes” you might get an average of 10 “No’s”.
This helps give context to the “rejection” you experience by knowing the path to “Yes” has to go through rejection first.
For every person who became a member of the 30-Day Accelerator we previously offered, we lost an average of 10 email subscribers each time we promoted it!! And that’s OK!
Business isn’t about keeping everyone happy. It’s about finding your people and keeping them super happy!
4) Process your emotions.
Even if you can rationalize why you got rejected, it still hurts!
Take the time to process it, so you can move on more quickly the next time you get rejected.
5) Rejection therapy. Build up your experience with rejection by inviting more of it!
Like anything else in life, the more you practice dealing with rejection, the better you’ll get at it. Listen to my interview with Alex Grodnik about how he endured getting rejected by 1,000 investors!
6) Learn from every “No”.
Did you realize getting a “No” is sometimes more valuable than getting a “Yes”?
The next time a potential client tells you “No” ask them why, so you can improve your business!
Maybe you’ll learn to refine your target client.
Maybe you’ll learn about a problem more important to your clients than you realized.
Maybe you’ll discover you need to adjust how you engage potential clients by clarifying how you communicate with them.
The more you learn from your “No’s” the more you can close the gap between your Yes to No Ratio!
Consider joining our Outreach Mastery Community of Practice to improve your outreach skills.
