If you’re starting out with real estate investing or if you’re just trying a new market or marketing technique, it can get discouraging. Often it means getting rejected over and over again.
None of us like to be rejected. We want to be accepted and liked. So hearing people say “No” over and over and over is something we naturally want to avoid. It’s enough to make most people give up before getting the first “yes”.
Types of “No’s”
The “no’s” come in various forms. If you’re calling leads on the phone or meeting with people in person, the “no’s” may be literal, where someone is telling you directly that they’re not interested or don’t want to work with you.
Other times the “no’s” take the form of silence. You place an ad in the paper or put out signs or some other kind of advertising and wait by the phone and… nothing. It doesn’t ring. You had high hopes for lots of calls and it doesn’t make a peep.
Maybe you double check that the ringer is on, double check your ad to make sure there wasn’t a typo on the number, but everything is right and no calls. You know people are seeing the ad, so every moment that passes and the phone doesn’t ring is like being told “no”, leaving you feeling disappointed and rejected.
Solution
What’s the solution? How can you cope with being rejected repeatedly without giving up?
I’ll share a technique that can help in just a moment. But first, it’s good to recognize that it’s not you that’s being rejected, it’s your message, your pitch.
Being told “no” is a part of being an entrepreneur. You’re always going to get more “no’s” than “yes’s”, regardless of what business you’re in. If you can find a business where the majority of people say yes, I want in! And so does everyone else. But that’s not how business works.
Let me share a technique that I heard Bryan Harris from VideoFruit.com talk about. At one point, Bryan was working at a sales job, which means pitching to people and getting told “no” over and over again. Bryan’s manager had him create a spreadsheet with 99 rows that said the word “no”, then row 100 said “Yes!” His manager told him not to focus on getting a “yes” from prospects, but just work the system and get 99 “no’s”. Each time he got a “no”, he was supposed to be put a mark in the box.
Why Is This Helpful?
Because when you expect to get a “yes” from your first prospect (and each one thereafter), you won’t survive. If you’re prepared for the “no’s”, you can tough it out and make it through to the “yes”.
Of course, you probably realize, if you use this system it’s not literally going to be the 100th person who says “yes”. It could be the fifth person, the seventieth, etc. But if you approach it from the perspective of, “I’m going to pick up the phone and get my 99 no’s,” you’ll likely make it farther before wanting to give up.
One person saying “yes” out of 100 represents a 1% conversion rate. There are things you can do to greatly increase those odds so that you have to go through a lot fewer “no’s” before getting a “yes”. Watch for my next article called, “Weeding Out Time-Wasting Leads” for tips on how to do just that.
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