Over the past several years, I’ve seen plenty of versions of so-called “rejection therapy” going around online.
However it’s framed, the goal is almost always the same: to expose the participant to rejection so many times that it loses its sting. At that point, as the thinking goes, the person is “freed” from the fear most of us associate with rejection, empowering them to go on to achieve bigger and better things.
The only problem? I’m not sure it’s in everybody’s best interests to get that comfortable with rejection. The fear of rejection is what keeps us trying. It keeps us sharp. And it’s one of the best teachers you can have, as I’ve seen time and time again while growing my digital marketing agency.
Here are a few of the lessons 11-plus years in the business has taught me about rejection:
It’s not a ‘yes’ until the deposit is in the bank.
Rejection takes plenty of forms as an entrepreneur. It’s the outright “no” from an investor or prospective customer who refuses to even meet with you. It’s a “no” from the bank when you really need funding to carry you through the lean times.
But one of the most surprising kinds of rejection I’ve encountered as an agency owner is the sneaky rejection — the rejection you don’t see coming. There have been times when I’ll meet with a prospective customer and it’ll feel like we’re on the same page. We’re aligned on everything from campaign objectives to metrics to potential performance. But the minute I send over the contract and the initial deposit invoice, I never hear from the prospect again.
Admittedly, this happens a lot less when you get better at qualifying prospective customers. But knowing how sneaky rejection can be keeps you on your toes. Don’t take anything for granted. Don’t count your chickens before they’ve hatched, and certainly don’t count the most promising of leads as customers until the deposit is actually in the bank.
Rejection isn’t always about you.
This goes hand in hand with the lesson above. Clients ghosting me used to drive me crazy. I used to spend hours — even days — walking back through every conversation we’d had, trying to figure out what I’d said or done to lose the deal.
And although I can’t say I’ve completely cured myself of the habit, I spend a lot less time revisiting my rejections these days. I’ve come to realize that, often, it’s not really about me.
Maybe, after talking with me, the prospect had a serious family emergency. Maybe their company ran into financial challenges that meant they could no longer hire out digital marketing services. Maybe they thought another company would do a better job. Or maybe they just decided that they didn’t like me.
If you spend time trying to solve for these and other possible situations, you’ll drive yourself crazy. Of course, you should look for anything you can improve. That might mean testing different messaging in the future or adding new information to your prospect qualification process.
But after that? I’ve had to learn the hard way that it’s often better to let the rejection go and move on than to waste time dwelling on things you can’t change.
Success is a numbers game.
Part of the reason I’m so willing to let rejection go is that I’ve learned that success in business ownership really comes down to a numbers game.
You’re not ever going to close 100% of the prospective customers you talk to. Nobody will. But rather than let that be discouraging, choose to see rejection as part of the equation — same as success.
If you make 100 sales calls and turn five of them into customers, that means you’re going to need to deal with rejection 95 times before you hit your wins (or you’re going to need to take steps to improve your ratio). That might sound depressing, but to me, it’s hopeful.
If you want to close 10 new sales, you need to talk to 200 people. You don’t have to take the other 190 rejections personally, you just have to keep moving forward until you’ve found new customers. It’s just a numbers game. There’s nothing personal about it.
Treating Rejection As A Reality
If the understanding that you’ll need to rack up a certain number of rejections to meet your goals sounds a bit like the rejection therapy I claimed to dislike earlier, you’re not entirely wrong. Accepting that rejection is simply something you’ll have to face does tend to take the sting out of it.
But for me, accepting the idea that success is a numbers game and that rejection is inevitable is about more than complacency. It’s actually something that powers me.
When I look at ratios, like chalking up 95 failures for every five wins, I get excited. Because I know that there’s another digital marketing agency owner out there, competing against me, who’s going to get scared. They aren’t going to be able to handle that many no’s.
I don’t want to make myself immune to rejection because I want rejection to power me. I want my ability to handle it — and to handle it well — to be the thing that sets me apart. The thing that means I’ll be in business long after those who can’t cut it are gone.
Rejection can be a motivator. It can be a learning device. It can be a tremendous tool for growth. Don’t limit its potential impact on your business by trying to overcome it and take away its power.
