Is Fear of Rejection Killing Your Sales?

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Today’s word is: CATASTROPHIZING.

Now, if you try and write that word in a .doc you’ll get the red squiggly underline telling you it’s not a real word.

But it absolutely IS a real phenomena. It’s what happens when your brain imagines the worst possible outcome of a scary situation.

Like say… when you’re asking for the sale.

Here’s a recap of everything in this episode of 5 Minute Sales Training:

Rejection is far worse in your mind than it is in reality.

To understand our fear of rejection, we have to go back to Psych 101.

The number on objective of the brain is survival.

The brain is there to keep us alive, and therefore, it is constantly on the lookout for threats.

The brain is a self-defense mechanism.

It’s like our own internal Doberman Pinscher.

Here’s the problem: that dog is too faithful.

Our brain tends to over-respond to discomfort, and it interprets that discomfort as a threat to our wellbeing.

Our brain thinks it’s doing us a favor; in reality, it is hurting us.

Dr. Marc Schoen wrote a book called Your Survival Instinct Is Killing You.

Dr. Schoen postulates correctly that our brain is too efficient when it comes to keeping us from discomfort.

The field of sales can be uncomfortable at times.

There is, undoubtable, plenty of discomfort in sales.

And when we face something uncomfortable, our brain is going to say, “Hold on there, let’s evaluate.”

And then our brain paints a picture of all the bad things that could happen if we do that uncomfortable thing.

Our brain will consider the discomfort and then paint the worst possible scenario.

Our brain will go to great lengths to keep us out of discomfort.

Imagine that we’re going to ask for the sale and that this worst possible scenario will be the result.

Here’s what you must understand: the fear of rejection is way worse than the rejection itself.

You must learn to overrule your brain. How? You need to plan your mental response in advance, and you can make two important decisions right now.

The first is this: you can decide to ignore the catastrophizing voice.

The second thing you can do is you can decide how you respond to a “no.”

You can decide to be strong. You can decide to stay calm. You can decide to be confident in that moment.

This is a mental game that you cannot afford to lose.

Is it fun to get a rejection? No.

Sometimes it sucks, but my advice is to embrace the suck. Embrace the rejection.

Learn how to overrule your overly protective brain.

Until next time, learn more to earn more.