Selling Made Simple And Salesman Podcast

In sales, facing rejection is part of the game. But just because rejection is a given for salespeople, it doesn’t mean you have to let it drag you down.

In this post, I’m sharing 5 ways to overcome rejection that’ll put you in the right mindset to pick yourself up, and put yourself on the path towards blowing past your sales goals.

Sales rejection hurts

Now, if you’re in any kind of sales role, you know how it feels to be rejected by a prospect It’s happened to me. It’s happened to you. It’s happened to the greats like Ogilvy, Ziglar, Carnegie, even that guy from the ShamWow commercials. Is that surprising? It shouldn’t be.

The point is this—even if you’re selling the most amazing, mind-blowing, revolutionary product on the market today, some of your prospects will say “no” when you call or email them. sno.

And when that happens, it can be demoralizing.

It can sap your motivation to keep making calls. It can throw you off your trajectory towards hitting your goals. And it can ravage the sense of fulfillment you get from connecting people with a product you truly believe in.

But the motivation, the drive, the purpose—it can all be restored when you reframe rejection with the five concepts I’m going to share with you in this video.

And these aren’t “hacks” or “quick wins” or any other (frankly bullshit) jargon terms. There is no quick fix for this kind of stuff.

BUT if you want to take this given of sales and turn it on its head, you can start by internalizing these 5 concepts about rejection.

1: The Prospect Isn’t Rejecting YOU

The concept that the prospect isn’t rejecting you personally. They’re rejecting your pitch, product or timing.

There’s a reason we started with this one. Because honestly, this is the concept you’re going to easily improve the most from. Concept #4 is similar but more on that in a sec.

Now, when you hear that dreaded no, the dial tone, or the deafening silence on the other end of the line, it isn’t necessarily you that the prospect isn’t responding to. It’s what you’re saying that they’ve ignored.

There are two main reasons you’re getting a negative response with your cold outreach

Reason #1: It’s Your Pitch

If your pitch isn’t hitting all the right pain points, then your prospect isn’t going to see the value of your product. The lesson here? Refine the pitch. Dive deeper into who your audience is, what makes them tick, and what problems they’re grappling with.

Reason #2: It’s Your Product

If after tweaking your pitch you’re still getting too many negative responses, your product just might not be a fit for the market. If that’s the case, it’s time to do some real research and re-evaluate your target audience.

2: Your Prospect’s on Autopilot

Next up, it could just be that your prospect is on autopiliot when you try to engage with them.

This concept is mostly for cold-call situations, but it can apply to cold emails, social messages, and a slew of other outreach methods too.

When you’re reaching out to your prospect, you’re jarring them out of being on autopilot. They’re knee-deep in the numbers, organizing their desktop, or doing one of a million other things that, guess what, have nothing to do with you.

When you give them a ring, they’re still in that other mode. And that means they’re going to respond reflexively with a “no” rather than do the work of understanding what you’re trying to tell them.

Think of it like this—when you walk into a shop and some spotty teenager stands at the door and asks if you need help, you automatically and instinctively say “no”, right?

Same goes with your prospect on a cold call.

Again, the buyers state of mind is not your fault.

So appreciate this, humbly when you do interrupt your prospects and ask if there’s a better time for a follow up call.

3: You’re Playing a Numbers Game

Point number 3, remember that to a certain extent, you’re playing a numbers game.

When you get down to it, sales is a numbers game. If you’re doing good work and documenting your wins and losses, you already know that it takes working with on average, say, four prospects before you close on one of them.

And if you’re not keeping track of these metrics, I highly re...

James Palmer is the Regional Vice President of Sales, NEMEA at Seismic. On this episode of the Salesman Podcast, James Palmer explains the steps to making your sales outreach more personalized, whilst at the same time sending more of it. Is that even possible?

Featured on this episode:

Resources:

• James on LinkedIn
• Seismic.com – World Leading Sales Enablement Tool

Transcript

Will Barron:

This episode of the show is brought to you from the Salesman.org HubSpot Studio. Coming up on today's episode of this Sales Man Podcast.

James Palmer:

We, as B2B organisations are creating more content than ever. And the buyers that we serve are getting absolutely bombarded with this stuff.

James Palmer:

Something that has been a huge black hole for go-to market teams has been insight into this, the performance of content. So which content resonates in this geography, which content resonates in this industry.

James Palmer:

Salespeople think that marketing are the mugs and t-shirt department and that the content they come out with is very aspirational. And doesn't really speak to what salespeople see on the ground.

Will Barron:

Hello Sales H. My name is Will Barron, I'm the host of the Salesman podcast, world's most downloaded B2B sales show. In today's episode, we have an absolute legend. We have James Palmer. He is the regional VP of Sales, NEMEA over at Seismic.com. And on today's episode, we're getting into how you can personalise your outreach, make it more effective, your B2B sales outreach, and do it at scale. And we cover topics here that we've never covered on the show before. We're talking data, sales enablements, how to do this properly in the modern way, as opposed to just sending more and more spam emails. Everything that we talk about in this episode is available in the show notes over at Salesman.org. And with that said, let's jump right into it.

Will Barron:

James, welcome to the Salesman podcast.

James Palmer:

Thanks Will. Thanks for having me, I'm very much looking forward to chatting.

Will Barron:

I'm looking forward to chatting with you as well, Sir. And on today's episode, it's a topic that we've somewhat covered but I don't feel we've ever got to the bottom of it. So I'm hoping you can give us some insights and share your expertise here. We're going to touch on how to personalise your B2B outreach at scale. Now, let me ask you this, James, and this is a difficult question to get us started off with. But is this not a little bit of a paradox in that, to do anything at scale, surely we have to reduce the personalization that we need to be able to get it out in the hundred or thousand of contact points over the months or years that we're prospecting.

James Palmer:

Yeah. No, I definitely get the paradoxical nature of the question and I think my answer is going to be that it certainly is possible and actually pretty imperative that we do get this right. I think the world that we live in at the moment, we, as B2B organisations are creating more content than ever. And the buyers that we serve are getting absolutely bombarded with this stuff. So if you don't have the ability to personalise and personalise at scale, you're going to be lost in the noise. You're going to be disregarded. You're going to be in choppy waters and this has only really been amplified by the year that we've just had. We've had probably the salesman's favourite channel removed. We can't go and...

Fred Copestake is the Founder of Brindis and author of ‘Selling Through Partnering Skills' & ‘Hybrid Selling'. In today’s episode of The Salesman Podcast, Fred shares strategies around how you can smash your sales quota and unleash your full potential by becoming a hybrid seller.

Featured on this episode:

Resources:

• Fred’s LinkedIn
• The Sales Today Podcast
• Book: Hybrid Selling: How salespeople can use a complete approach to drive opportunities in the new world of sales
• Rocky – AI Mindset & Self-Improvement digital coach in your pocket.

Transcript

Will Barron:

Hi. My name is Will, and welcome to today's episode of the salesman podcast. On today's show we're going to look into how to become a hybrid salesperson. And today's guest is the man Fred Copestake. Fred is the founder of Brindis Sales Training and author of the Hybrid Selling book and Selling Through Partnering Skills. And we're going to talk about both these on today's episode. With that, Fred, welcome to the show.

Fred Copestake:

Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me. Real pleasure.

Will Barron:

You're more than welcome. I'm glad to have you on, mate. Okay. I can feel you've got a strong energy. I can feel you're excited mate, to be on the show, so hopefully we can continue this with some questions from my side. But with that, I'm going to give you a terrible question. It's a lazy question, but I think it's a good starting point to set up the rest of the show. You probably answered this question a million times before. And so I feel bad for throwing it at you, but what the heck is hybrid selling? Someone who's unfamiliar with that term, there's tens of thousands people listen to this. What is hybrid selling Fred?

Fred Copestake:

Well, my usual lazy answer is what do you think it is? But actually, no, let's go with that if you don't mind. If you could give me what you think it is without going into too much thought, then we can take it from there.

Will Barron:

Well, I'm not assuming because I know what it is because I've read the book. But coming from an assumptive standpoint I would say it's selling both old ways of phones and emails, and the new ways of leveraging Zoom, leveraging the newer buyer journey where the buyer is focused on consumer content, engaging with salespeople like [inaudible 00:01:32] on the process. It's focusing on a new exchange of value where the buyer has access to information where they didn't have it in the past, and they perhaps want salespeople to help them out with different things. How does that fit?

Fred Copestake:

Yeah. No, very good. Very good sir, yes. You clearly have read it. No. No. A lot of people will tend to say is, “Oh. It's when we've got to do stuff using different techniques,” or, “We've got to do stuff like using video and sending video and this kind of stuff,” so working virtually. And my answer will tend to be well you, “Well, that's virtual selling then isn't it? That's already got a name. That is a thing.” So for me, it's something slightly different where hybrid's about a mix. And so it's a mix of approaches, it's a mixture of things that we need to do to make sure that we are bang up to date and we're going to do things that make a difference for the customer. And come seeing a lot of good stuff that's gone on before, and some of those newer things to deal with the way that people are thinking, because people are thinking differently as well now. So it's a blend. It's a mixed approach.

Will Barron:

How are people thinking differently from the perspective of we're hopefully on the far end of this global pandemic, there's other things going on in the w...

Cold calling’s dead? I don’t think so. 82% of buyers say they accept meetings with reps who cold called. And 57% of C-suite execs preferred way to be contacted.

So don’t fall for the hype—cold calling is alive and well. And if you’ve already seen some success with it, here are just a few small tweaks you can make to take things from paying the bills to early retirement.

Now before we get started, I want to point out this is not a video for beginners. There are plenty of tutorials on how to get started with cold calling. And this is not one of them.

Instead, it’s built for reps who have already built a semi-successful process, but you can’t quite seem to make any progress. You’ve plateaued. And despite your best efforts, your numbers never seem to get better.

Sound familiar? Well if so, I’ve got your back with these three strategies. So let’s jump in.

1. Tone

Tone. Your tone is a critical part of what types of feelings you’re eliciting in your prospect. From pitch and volume to speed and your own attitude—yes, people can hear smiles—your tone of voice says a lot about you as a person.

And one big problem reps face is learning how to hone their voices when cold calling so that buyers aren’t scared off in the first second or two.

As it turns out, most buyers don’t respond well to an overexcited sales rep on the line. Their over-enthusiasm comes off as suspicious. And no matter how great your product is, you’re going to scare off prospects when you come in hot with the stereotypical sales rep approach.

Instead, try taking a calmer, more relaxed approach. And to do that, you need to...

Shift Your Self-Worth

Let me tell you what I mean by that.

According to sales expert and professional trainer Josh Braun, the tendency to sound overexcited on a call comes from reps wanting the sale too much.

And you might be saying, “Will, isn’t wanting the sale a good thing?” And on one level, it is. But what needs to take precedence over wanting the sale is wanting the right buyer. Because truth be told, every prospect isn’t going to be a fit for what you’re selling. Some buyers are going to say no. And that’s okay.

There are plenty of other prospects out there. And when you find the right one—the one that’s actually a fit for what you’re selling—that’s when the magic really happens.

So remember, stay calm. Stay collected. And try to sound as natural on the phone as possible.

Now the second tweak involves...

2. Mindset

Mindset. And this one isn’t about your mindset like the last one was. Instead, it’s about the prospect’s mindset. What they are thinking. How they are viewing the world. And most importantly, how they are thinking about you.

So first of all, most people don’t like to be cold called. Shocker, right? Because they’re busy. They’re managing their staff, they’re on the hunt for new clients, they’re blah blah blah. They’re doing stuff! And your call is an interruption for getting that work done.

Now, most sales reps try to ignore that fact. They try to lure prospects into forgetting about it by being personable, by being likeable, and by demonstrating that they have value. But I’ve got news for you here—your prospect will not forget .

They may move past it at some point. But the vast majority of people who pick up a cold call are going to be annoyed. And the more you try to schmooze your way into their good graces, the more they’re going to think of you as just another skeezy salesman.

So what’s the solution here? How do you break down that stereotype and shift their mindset?

Acknowledge the Interruption

Call it out. Tell them you understand you’re being an inconvenience rather than trying to push that inconvenience under the rug.

This tip comes from Chris Beall, Founder...