Dealing With Rejection In Business: Why It Hurts, And What Actually Helps
Thirty years ago, JK Rowling finished a manuscript about a boy wizard. She sent it out to publishers, hoping one would say yes. The first one said no.
So did the second, and the third, and the fourth. Twelve publishers turned down Harry Potter in a row.
The thirteenth publisher, Bloomsbury, very nearly said no too. The chairman gave the first chapter to his eight year old daughter to read. She came downstairs and demanded the next one.
That is the only reason the book got printed at all. Even then, Bloomsbury only ordered five hundred copies.
Business owners face rejection every day.
A client asks for a quote, then goes quiet.
A bigger customer picks a rival supplier instead, after months of meetings that felt promising.
A local award or a press mention goes to someone else. None of them makes the news, but they still sting.
Why It Stings More When It Is Your Business
JK Rowling was not pitching on behalf of a company. She was pitching herself, twelve times in a row. Every single rejection landed on her, not on some distant department.
That is what makes a business no different from other kinds of no. The idea and the person are the same thing. There is no one else to blame and nowhere else to hide.
An employee can vent to a colleague and clock off at five. A business owner takes the no home instead. They replay it that night, then start the next morning again anyway.
Nobody else feels a single no quite like the person who built the thing.
How To Deal With Rejection In Business
Imagine knowing in advance that you were only a hundred nos away from the yes that changes everything. Every rejection would start to feel like progress instead of a setback.
That feeling holds up in the data too. One large study of sales leads found most yeses only landed after six separate attempts, not the first one. Most people give up long before that point.
1. Don’t Make One No Bigger Than It Is
One prospect saying no does not mean your offer is wrong.
It means that person said no, to that offer, at that moment.
There is quite a difference.
Rowling had twelve publishers turn down the same manuscript before somebody saw what the others had missed. Had she treated publisher number three as proof the book was rubbish, there would have been no publisher number thirteen.
2. Work Out What Kind Of No It Was
Not every rejection means the same thing.
Was it price? Timing? The wrong person? A stronger competitor? Did they simply not understand why they needed you?
Or was your proposal genuinely not good enough?
Those are very different problems, and they need very different responses.
Instead of immediately licking your wounds, ask what actually happened.
3. Ask For The Feedback
When you lose something you thought you were going to win, ask why.
Not with a wounded “what did we do wrong?” email.
Simply ask what made the difference.
Sometimes the answer will be useful. Sometimes it will be frustrating. Occasionally it will make absolutely no sense whatsoever.
But every now and then, someone will tell you something that improves the next sales conversation, proposal or pitch.
That makes the no worth having.
4. Look For A Pattern, Not An Exception
One rejection is an opinion.
Ten similar rejections might be data.
If several prospects keep mentioning the same concern, pay attention. Your pricing might be wrong. Your message might be unclear. You might be talking to the wrong market.
The answer is not to change everything every time somebody says no.
It is to notice when the same no keeps turning up.
5. Control The Next Move
Epictetus wrote nearly two thousand years ago, “Some things are up to us and some are not up to us.”
Annoyingly, he had a point.
You cannot control whether somebody buys from you.
You can control whether you follow up. Whether you improve the proposal. Whether you contact the next prospect. Whether you ask for another introduction.
Rowling could not make a publisher say yes.
She could keep sending the manuscript.
6. Don’t Deal With It On Your Own
This is probably the bit business owners are worst at.
A rejection happens and, rather than mentioning it, we quietly spend two days wondering whether the entire business is doomed.
Talk to somebody who understands.
Quite often they will either spot something useful you missed or remind you that one lost client really is just one lost client.
Sometimes you need advice.
Sometimes you just need someone to say, “Yep. That’s annoying. What are we doing next?”
The Takeaway
Harry Potter went on to sell more than five hundred million copies worldwide.
One yes, after twelve nos, was all it took.
Running a business means collecting a fair few nos along the way. The important bit is knowing which ones to learn from, which ones to ignore, and when you just need somebody else to help you get your head straight.
That is a big part of what happens inside Mastermind9.
You bring the problem, the knockback, the decision or the thing keeping you awake at 2am.
You get the perspective of other business owners who have probably been there too.
Fancy seeing how it works?
Book a free virtual tour and come and have a nose around.
And if you have ever had a no that eventually turned into a yes, hit reply and tell us. We read every one.
Onwards and upwards our friends,
Pete, Sarah, and the Mastermind9 team
