By Thu Tran – Graduate Birmingham City University and freelance marketeer
Most of us have to go through rejection in life. The rejection can be from society or from yourself or someone you love. I want to focus on ‘how can you handle rejection and move on?’.
I have gone through rejections thousands of times. So below is my experience, which I have done many times to help myself overcome rejection.
Imagine that you have an idea or product you want to sell, and you have found the target clients. Your gut told you that everything would work well. You conducted the research; you prepared well and came on time to propose your idea to one of your clients: ABC company’s business director. However, after 30 minutes of presenting your opinion, you got a rejection. You felt disappointed, upset and want to know how you can change the situation. Well, some people will jump into a fight or just give up.
Here are my top tips to avoid that fight or flight feeling and successfully overcome rejection.
Identify why you are being rejected with a positive attitude.
The first thing you need to do is to find out ‘why’. When people say ‘No’ to you, they must have their own reasons. Identifying these reasons could help you improve the situation more positively. For example, back to our scenario above, if the director rejected you, he did not think your product package is eco-friendly or cannot bring much profit to the company, but you feel your product is. Then, explain it to him by showing your product packages’ ingredients or showing how your product can bring profit to the company. If he rejected it because he thought your communication is confusing, you would need to clarify your point and be more explicit in your presentation.
Is the problem something you can control?
When you know precisely why you are being rejected, you need to assess it, identify your primary focus, and deal positively with the problem. The best way to do it is to know what you can control. Something like the weather, inflation or the most recently is Covid-19 pandemic are not things you can control however you need to understand how this impacts your prospective client and to see if you can provide products, services or solutions which will still add value to them whilst having empathy of their challenges and understanding the marketplace.
Self-reflection.
Sometimes people do not tell you why they rejected your offer. In this case, self-reflect on what you have done and what you have tried to sell. Remember to look at the positive side of the rejection, such as what you have learnt from it and what you could do differently next time. This could help you find much easier to handle these type of rejections
Take action to improve the situation.
So far, you know when you met rejection, you need to identify the problem and be positive when dealing with it. However, remember knowing how to deal with it is not enough; you need to take action to improve the situation. Therefore, my last top tip for you is to ‘take action to improve the situation. The steps you should take can be very different depending on the problems. However, to decrease the rate of rejection, ensure you dress nice, be confident, communicate clearly, be open to ideas and always looks for an opportunity to develop your knowledge.
These top tips are coming from my experience, so I do not promise it can help you get a ‘yes’ after the rejection, but it does relieve you from the weight of being rejected and help you deal with rejections more smartly.
Author: Thu Tran – x- graduate and freelance marketeer, Birmingham City University
Tip from Debbie @ Genzy Talent Academy
If you move into a sales or business development career, you will experience a lot of rejection. Your ability to bounce back, learn from your experiences and find effective ways to overcome rejection with business development and sales strategies, winning opening pitches and questions to gain interest and commitment to the next step will help you succeed.
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