o really understand rejection
and turn it into an oppor-
tunity for your
company—and your growth
as a salesperson—you’ve got to think
about it differently. There are plenty of
reasons why a sale might not have gone
through: maybe the timing was off, the
budget wasn’t there or a competitor of
yours came in with a better value propo-
sition. Whatever it was, you must figure
out what happened so you can learn
from it.
To help you do exactly that, here are
six ways to handle sales rejection:
T
Rejection is never easy,
whether it’s in your personal
life or your professional one.
And when you work in sales,
it’s unavoidable. No matter
how solid your pitch is or
how many calls you take,
you’re simply not going to
win every single deal you’re
going after. Rejection is part
of the job; what matters is
how you handle it.
LEARN FROM
YOUR MISTAKES.
As we mentioned earlier, there could be
any number of reasons why you might
have lost a sale — and some of those
reasons are beyond your control. The
first step in handling rejection is to
figure out why the sale was lost, identify
the factors you can control and start
recognizing trends among those factors
outside your control.
One thing our sales team at Influence
& Co. always does after a loss is ask our
prospects why they decided not to go
with us. This helps us gain a deeper
understanding of what happened and
why, and it gives us the feedback we
need to learn and improve for the next
sales opportunity that walks through the
door.
To guide your team through this
process of feedback, reflection and
action for next time, think through these
questions:
l Were you talking to the right
decision makers?
l Did you truly and fully understand
their problems?
l Did you put together a proposal that
met their needs and eliminated
surprises?
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