Here’s Why You Should Reject Rejection on the Job

    Like the cliché notes, life has its ups and its downs. It’s what you do when those downturns occur – as they will and often and usually on a Monday – that shows off your style and substance.

    Gerry
    Gerry Weinberg.

    Gerry Weinberg understands the feeling. After 22 years in business, he has learned a thing or two about turning failure into success. Gerry Weinberg and Associates is a Southfield-based firm that provides sales training, management, and leadership training to individuals and companies.

    Weinberg and his team have trained hundreds of business professionals using a blend of personal experience and nationally proven sales training and leadership techniques. Their broad client base includes individuals, entrepreneurs and companies of all sizes in more than 200 different industries and professions.

    Weinberg says people need to keep rejection in perspective as you move toward your goal. Here are some tips to help.

    1. Expect your share of rejections.

    2. Focus on the long term. Tomorrow you’ll barely remember those rude words barked at you today. Next week, you’ll have to struggle to recall them. Life goes on.

    3. Develop perspective on your pain: a) Like all other adversities you’ve experienced, this too shall pass; b) At this instant there are many people, perhaps some very close to you, who are suffering from far greater tragedy and heartache than you; c) Selling is a profession, not a life.

    Gerry 34. Understand why people are mean. Those people who are ugly, rude and nasty to you are usually that way because they are frustrated, pained or afraid. Recognizing that their meanness is rooted in their own dispositions or inadequacies helps to protect you from an emotional beating.

    5. Separate your “I” from your “R.” Your “I” is your identity – your feelings of value as a person. Your “R” represents the roles you play – for example, the role of cold caller. On a scale of one to ten, you are always a ten in your self-worth, your identity. That’s because you have unconditional positive regard for yourself, and well you should. How you rate yourself as a cold caller, on the other hand, can fluctuate between one and ten. This rating has nothing to do with who you are.

    6. View rejection as a statement about an interaction between two particular people at a particular time. What just happened is not a statement about you, but about the failure of two people to connect. The buyer said no to you, not about you. Even though your proposal was unsuitable, you were not.

    7. View rejection as an invaluable lesson. Snubs teach you something about prospecting, qualifying leads or building rapport. Don’t think, “Boy, did I just blow that call!” or “I failed again!” Instead, think, “I just learned one more way not to make a sales call.”