How To Handle Sales Rejection With Grace
by Ariana Newcomer
Have you ever gone into a sales conversation with a prospective client DREADING the whole thing? I have.
The fear of rejection is a powerful one, and it is what stops most women entrepreneurs from getting more clients.
Rejection can trigger deep, core emotions, and even make us feel our survival is in question. We learned to avoid situations that could cause us to feel threatened this way – to protect our tender, inner selves.
As entrepreneurs, however, we have to grow past these self-imposed limitations. I’ve written before about “Business As A Transformational Journey.” Getting past and transforming our fear of rejection in sales conversations is crucial to our success.
We need to let go of what one of my mentors calls “spiritual stubbornness,” too. For spirit-driven entrepreneurs, fear of rejection mingles with the story that money shouldn’t even be part of what we do, which can cause almost total paralysis, along with big time resentment and the pain of not succeeding in our deep purpose.
I can’t tell you how many times I hear these stories from my clients: “I shouldn’t charge for what I do because it’s my calling,” or “my gift” or “I should just be giving this away if I’m really spiritual.”
As we shift into embracing money as part of our spiritual path, along with using the strategies I’m going to give you today, we open up wonderful possibilities for ourselves – not just in our businesses, but in all our relationships, and in our spiritual dimension as well.
Growing in this specific area helps us let go of old patterns of self doubt and feeling unworthy that we definitely don’t need to carry around anymore!
Would you like to handle sales rejection with grace?
Great! I’ve got 3 strategies for you to step into your power in sales conversations when you feel threatened by rejection.Continue Reading
Making Money Wrong
I’ve done my share of it. Spirit-driven and service-oriented women are especially likely to make money wrong.
We have stories we grew up with, that came from religions, that we absorbed from our culture. Money is the root of all evil. It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven. Rich people are selfish and greedy. Caring about money makes me a bad person. I can’t be a spiritual person and be wealthy.
Here’s one of mine I uncovered last year: If I make a lot of money, I’ll no longer be an artist. (This is of a piece with the mentality that if I go for lots of money as an artist, I’m “selling out.”) That was really holding me back!
There are plenty more of them, too. Some people believe that we need to get rid of money entirely and have a “gift economy” where people give and receive freely, sharing and taking care of each other.
If you’re making money wrong, you won’t allow yourself to get much of it, which means you won’t be working with (serving) many people. Your impact in the world will be small.
What is money, really? It’s a medium of exchange. The coins and pieces of paper don’t have any value in and of themselves. They have value because we say they do, and because everyone agrees. We give it in exchange for things and services.
Money makes it easier for us than if we had to exchange actual stuff for everything. This is the barter or trade system. It works well if you want chickens and your client wants to trade you her chickens for your services. It breaks down when you don’t want chickens and that’s all she has to barter with. (You also don’t want to have to take her chickens, then trade them for something else you really do want, because you have no place to keep chickens in the meantime.)
If you got chickens for your services, would the chickens then be “the root of all evil?” Of course not.