Hunting Rejection

Selling anything is hard.

But it’s really the only way to make money. You sell things. Whether you are selling software, time, your body, or anything else for that matter, you’re selling.

For years I spent weeks and months chasing sales leads that had shown me a tiny bit of interest and trying to convert them from a “maybe” to a “yes”. The word that’s missing there is “no”. I never looked for a no in their answers I always only and exclusively look for the smallest hint of a positive answer.

Ignoring the rejection can feel like a gut-punch over a long period of time.

The first time I really understood that people like to say maybe just in case they might be missing out on something was when I was raising funding for my previous company, Motribe.

I had flown to New York to meet a few investors who had shown interest over conference calls and email. In hindsight if I had really been reading those emails and listening on those phone calls I would have understood that the investors weren’t saying: “Get on a plane and lets chat”.

What they were really saying was: “We’re kind of interested in your vague industry and sort of interested in investing in Africa but more importantly we’re shit scared of missing out on the next billion dollar startup so yes, we’re interested if xyz happens.”

Off I went to New York and looking back I remember a few surprised faces when I arrived at their door for meetings that I had arranged. I think that they were expecting me to cancel or not pitch because it’s an unspoken rule that a maybe is just a maybe not a meeting.

Needless to say, I didn’t raise any money from those investors.

I was ignoring the soft rejection. This is a favourite tactic of some business people. They leave the rejection open ended and really subtle just in case things change and they want back in. This is like slow-acting poison. In the past I would set myself calendar reminders to email/call the lead every 5 days. Eventually they started to hate me and my company.

I would become drained and despondant about not closing sales and my enthusiasm would dissappear.

All of this because they didn’t say “no thank you” when I was selling them my product and I wasn’t hunting the no.

Entrepreneurs are programmed to ignore rejection. This is often the single most important reason some entrepreneus succeed. But I think this is also a slightly flawed feature of our breed.

Over the past few years I have learned to seek out rejection. I hunt it. It’s something I thrive on. I hate it but I understand how it helps my cause.

I don’t waste time on maybe. I hunt for a no and then move on.

By a process of elimination; if I don’t get a maybe as an answer and I don’t get no as an answer then I can only be on the path to a yes and a sale.

Finding The Right Customer

I used to scoff at the formality of working out who exactly my target audience or ideal customer was. Now, because I’m hunting the no, I understand the value of the right customer.

The wrong customer needs a hard and tough sell. They need to be massaged and worked on hustled around and fussed over. They need time, money and resources to close the sale.

The right customer understands and often shares your vision. The right customer is desperate for your product and will throw money at you to get their hands on it. The right customer says yes (or no) immediately and they communicate with you honestly.

If there’s any single thing I’ve learned about selling it’s that if you are selling to the right audience the job is significantly easier.

So if you find yourself years into your business and still battling to find the “yes” from customers then perhaps you’re talking to the wrong people or perhaps you’re selling the “maybe’s” instead of culling the “no’s” and closing the “yes”?