Okay, so you’ve taken the big step, you’ve decided to launch your business. You’ve settled on the skill you’re going to offer as a service, or you’ve created a one of a kind product that you’re going to try to get into retail stores. Either way, you’re in a scary spot! You’re just starting out and your hearts all in.
Did you know that when you become an entrepreneur, you sign-up for more than just starting a business, you sign-up to be a full-time salesperson? And, being a full-time salesperson comes with some not so glamorous experiences.
Believe it or not, the number one thing you will hear most often is NO. I’m sure for most of your life you’ve looked at NO with a negative connotation, doing everything you can to avoid hearing it, and when you DO hear it, it brings you down and makes you feel like a failure.
I am here to tell you that NO is part of the process, and that you need to work hard to remove emotion from the sales process.
There’s just no room for it! “NO” pun intended 😉
Hearing NO Does Get Easier
I get it, your business is your baby. You work day in and day out on it, you nurture it from the ground up and you want every other person on the planet to see it as the incredible thing that it is.
But, the reality is that people won’t. There will be investors, suppliers, even customers who just won’t understand or want what you have. In the beginning, when you hear those NO’s, they might be heart breaking and you might look at them as a slight or an affront to you personally.
Step back for a moment and think about a time when someone approached you with something you had no interest in buying. You likely told the person NO or that you weren’t interested, right? When you responded in such a way, was it because of them personally? Likely not.
The same goes for you and the NO’s you hear. They’re not personal, it’s just not the right time for that person. Take that NO and move on to the next investor, supplier or customer.
As time goes on, and you hear NO’s more often, you will absolutely become more comfortable with it. You’ll hear it and think, alright, time to move onto the next one. That NO meant “Not right now”.
In a recent interview I did, Jayla Siciliano creator of Bon Affair, shared how when she was first starting out she was looking for suppliers. She had gone to dozens of them and kept being turned down. In the beginning it was tough to hear NO after NO after NO, but after talking and visiting so many different suppliers, she realized it was all part of the process and just kept moving on.
Another, scary time for Jayla was when a few of her investors decided to back out of the next round of funding. Their reasons were all valid, and it was simply a business decision for them, but it taught Jayla that she was more on her own then she realized and that she needed to get out there and and find more funding.
Building Business Relationships
As entrepreneurs we need to find the time to make and build business relationships with other entrepreneurs and with people who can help us grow our businesses (ie. suppliers, investors, etc), and those who can support us. It’s just important to remember that even if they tell us NO, it isn’t the end of the world, there WILL be more people to connect with.
One of the best ways you can build a relationship with another business or entrepreneur is to connect with them in person.
If you’re working with someone who you know has a relationship with an entrepreneur you’d like to meet and potentially work with, ask for an introduction. We all know entrepreneurs are busy people, so if they see a cold email in their inbox, asking to meet or work together, they may just ignore it. Whereas, if you ask for the introduction, you’re more likely to receive a response and probably even connect further.
Relationships in business are important, we’ve talked about it in other posts on The Pitch Queen, before, but more importantly, deep business relationships are how you can get further in your business AND how you can feel more supported. Business relationships can lead to collaborations, or even getting you into different markets that you’ve never been in before.
It’s also important to remember how lonely being an entrepreneur can be. Being able to connect with people, having coffee chats or masterminds can be hugely beneficial to your productivity and creativity.
One area that Jayla used her ability to build deep business relationships to her advantage was when she had finally found a distributor that would work with her and the small order she wanted to place.
They were also a small company and were behind on fulfilling their other orders. Jayla didn’t want them to forget about her and the work that needed to be done for her company, so she camped out in a hotel near their offices and showed up and sat in their lobby for 3 weeks. It was a struggle but it helped get the job done!
NO’s Should Not Be Confidence Crushing
Many people look and think of NO’s as total failure, but that just not true. By embracing each and every NO and looking at it as your bridge to your YES, you allow yourself to stop wallowing in the negative.
It might be hard to believe but, many times the YES’s you end up receiving are the ones that are important! Hearing a YES to a big opportunity can change the trajectory of your whole business.
Living with a negative mindset can weigh on you mentally. If you continually look at every single NO you receive as a bad thing, you eventually begin to believe that you’ll never “Make it.” When that happens, it’s hard to crawl out of the dark place you’ve put yourself in.
Instead, look at a NO as a teaching experience.
Really analyze the whole interaction or transaction, where could things have gone wrong? What are some things you could have done differently? And, then put those lessons learned into practice!
When you review your whole experience like this, you may even find that some things that occurred are out of your control, and that’s OK.
By making this change you won’t be so crushed when you receive a NO. You’ll be able to take it in stride and continue to make progress towards your BIG goals.
You take back control!
For Jayla, that came in the form of realization. She realized that pursuing retail and hearing NO after NO just wasn’t profitable. She was stressing over it to the point, where she just couldn’t take it any more. She had to take a step back and realize that retail may not be the best route for her and her Company.
This was a huge step, she ended up getting rid of all of her distributors, pulling out of most of the retailers, and starting to focus most of her energy on the online market, and through ONE major retailer (Total Wine). In the end, this worked out much better for Jayla and Bon Affair.
In Conclusion
Once you’ve been in business for awhile and you’ve settled on your goal, be honest with yourself. Really take the time to reflect and decide on whether the direction you’re headed in, is the direction that you really desire to go.
It takes real world experience, and being in the right frame of mind to get to some places.
When it comes to Jayla, many people told her that trying to get into many different retailers would be a waste of time and energy, but until she got to her breaking point, it didn’t matter. SHE had to experience it, in order to understand.
We’re all like that. So, make it a regular practice to review and reflect on your journey, so that you can correct your mistakes as you go, instead of waiting until the end and having to make HUGE changes.
