People hate rejection.
Surveys about human fears reveal that public speaking is the most fear activity, even more than death.
Why is this?
Public speaking means getting up in from of people and presenting something.
That something, or worse still, you is being evaluated by the audience.
If they like it, then that something or you are accepted.
If they don’t like it, then that something or you are is rejected.
It’s safe to say that the fear of public speaking is the fear of rejection.
I’ll say it again…
PEOPLE HATE REJECTION.
But the thing is, in marketing and sales, not just the strict sense that is marketing and selling any product, service or solution, but in the broad sense of marketing and selling sponsorship, partnerships, romantic relationships, jobs, customers, ambassadors, yourself and so on.
People are then passive aggressive as they don’t know how to be assertive.
This comes from a fear of rejection.
Most people fear to be upfront about what they want and need, because of potential rejection.
Yet ironically, rejection is a positive thing, it reveals incompatibility really fast.
Here it is: rejection saves all parties involved time.
It acts as a way to segment suspects into alignment.
In other words, qualified.
Are they unaligned with what you are marketing and selling?
Are they aligned with what you are marketing and selling?
If it is former, they were never going to buy as they have no need.
If it is latter, they are open to buying as they have a need.
Basically, you are looking for a big enough servable market.
Let’s have a quick look at an example, in this case, a health product…
You ask someone “Do you want to be healthier?”
And they respond “No.”
For all intents and purposes, they have rejected you or what you were hopefully trying to sell.
No matter, how much begging, pleasing, over-selling or sales tricks you try on them, they will keep saying no and start to resent you.
Whether you know it or like it or not, here you are proactively trying to segment suspects into alignment.
A more subtle version is simply putting brand communication out into the market, say via marketing and sales content.
This time, you are not directly asking someone “Do you want to be healthier?”
But you are still, trying to segment suspects into alignment.
People that are not interested will not respond.
Again, for all intents and purposes, they have rejected you or what you were hopefully trying to sell, in an indirect way.
If George Clooney asked a woman out, she’d drop and cancel everything to go on it.
If they are not responding, they simply are not interested.
I have mentioned that rejection is based on lack of need.
But something people are just nasty in how they reject you.
Maybe they are rude to you; maybe they call you nasty names, maybe they ignore you, maybe they threaten you or your family (trust me I have had a cold-called for charity, and I have heard everything!)
People take rejection personally and usually make it mean that there is something wrong with themselves at a core level.
This is utter nonsense.
Except if you did something truly heinous, the rejection is not about you personally and has no reflection on your identity or who you are.
Seriously.
They don’t know you.
At this stage, they don’t know you on a deep level, so they are only rejecting the context or the image of you by association in their mind.
For example, you’re wearing a red jumper, and their high school bully also wore the same red jumper.
They only have a small amount of data to make a choice on, and they certainly haven’t had time to get to know you as a person.
Based on this small amount of data, they are not rejecting you, but their perception concept or story of you.
However, if one person says you have a tail, they are probably insane, because obviously, humans do not have tails.
However, if 100 people say you have a tail, they are probably right, and you better turn around and see if it’s true, as they may be on to something!
What does this all mean?
It means based on the small amount of data you have given them, they have run it pass all of the rules and situations and experience they have had in the past that are similar and made a snap judgment about this current situation in relation to their past.
Malcolm Gladwell talks about this in his book Blink.
They are relating you to their past experience.
You have never communicated with them, so the rejection cannot be about you as a person.
If you don’t have positive signs from people, then they are unlikely to be emotionally willing to talk to you – you have no idea why, so don’t read it as a rejection.
According to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, humans desire to be self-actualized by being connected to things that are important to them.
Further, after physiological and safety needs, humans naturally want to be connected and deepen relationships with others.
So if you are being “rejected” or your communication isn’t working, it could be because of their emotional state.
Most people’s emotional willingness drops due to basic physiological factors such as:
- They are tired;
- They are hungry;
- They are cold;
- Etc.
They are not normally emotionally unwilling, but for those factors.
Beyond those, emotional unwillingness could be due to unusual circumstances such as:
- Their cat died;
- They lost their job;
- They broke up with their partner;
- Etc.
Or it could be that they are responding to their context of you, not actually you.
Their context of you is how you appear to them based on their past experience.
Most people’s context of a stove top is that it is hot and will burn them, even if the stove is off and physically cannot burn them.
At this stage, they don’t know you on a deep level, so they are only rejecting the context or the image of you by association in their mind.
For example, you’re wearing a red jumper, and their high school bully also wore the same red jumper.
A rejection, in other words, mean you cannot progress further in trust building, means that the person who is rejecting you is uncomfortable in deepening the relationship based on:
- Them not having enough information; or
- You communicating at a level of rapport that hasn’t been established yet (as per the previous “let’s get married” example.)
But if you are still being rejected or your communication isn’t working, it could be because of their emotional state…
On top of that past experience, you have no idea what situation they are currently going through.
Did they get a cancer diagnosis?
Did their cat die?
Did they lose their job?
There are so many other, legitimate and plausible factors to why they are rejecting you.
And unless you ask them directly (you may not get a straight answer then, because people lie to protect people feels or they are simply unaware or not confident to say so), you will never know the true meaning behind the rejection.
And even if you did, who cares, it doesn’t change the fact that they are still not aligned or qualified.
So there is no point, spending precious emotions energy and time dwelling on the reason.
This is not narrow either!
It applies ANYTIME you directly or indirect, proactively or passively ask something of someone.
My modus operandi is as follows: “Reject me quickly, so we do not waste both our time!”
I want to spend my time, money and effort on people that are aligned and qualified with what I am marketing and selling, as I know that is the best use of those resources.
Imagine if you follow this simple rule how much time, money and effort you would save.
This means that marketing and sales are a numbers game.
This means you can’t align and qualify them all.
This is because you are interacting with other humans.
And humans are complicated and complex, and this means you do not have 100% control over the outcome.
Attrition rates as you move down the marketing and sales funnel.
It’s also very hard for you to know where they are at.
Yes, you can ask, but unless you have a lot of rapport and trust, then it’s unlikely you will get the truth.
“Maybe,” “No,” “No, not right now,” “I don’t know” etc. are all better than ignoring communication.
But again, ignoring communication reveals incompatibility really quickly (if that’s a core value.)
No may only mean no for now, not no forever.
It means “no, until I have a need.”