“I was turned down by 217 of the 242 investors I initially talked to. You have to have a tremendous belief in what you’re doing and just persevere.”
-Howard Shultz, CEO, Starbucks
The best salespeople understand that rejection is just a part of the game and have grown thick skin. If I went around a co-working space full of startups and accelerators, I think there are very few that would say their favorite thing is to go out and look for customers. It is the ominous fear of rejection.
In a local Austin startup group, I came across a new TedX Talk from a former Austin entrepreneur Jia Jiang that has since moved to Silicon Valley. After stumbling across a website (which has since become his own) called rejectiontherapy.com he took on a challenge to go out and get rejected. On purpose. The original challenge the previous site owner had put out was 30 days, but he decided to go for 100 and created a YouTube channel, where he actually recorded himself being rejected, and sometimes surprisingly not rejected. (That channel is here). While I could continue to summarize the Ted Talk and Jia’s awesome lessons in overcoming objection, he will entertain you much more.
You can also find his book, “Rejection Proof” on Amazon. (affiliate link)