For someone with experience running a business, I must have been naïve to underestimate the feeling of a rejection. Naïve to think if you’ve had tons of those in the past then you should be immune to its effect. Well, not after my recent reality check.
When it comes to pitching Wafunk Publishing, my approach is what I term the 1-Prospect-A-Day strategy. It’s a naming format I coined from one of my favourite books, The 1-Page Marketing Plan by Allan Dib. My 1-Prospect-A-Day strategy simply involves sending a cold email to Wafunk Publishing’s prospect on a daily basis. An hour outside my regular work hours is all it takes to research, write up the email, send, then log the entry into my CRM. It’s almost robotic with the simple system I’ve put in place; one of the missing pieces of the puzzle of my last business. However, that’s as far as it goes when it comes to what’s within my control.
Once the email goes out, it’s outside my control. And so, with 98% of the emails receiving a silent treatment, I couldn’t help checking to see if they were somehow stuck in my imaginary outbox :-). Considering each email is carefully crafted with the right tone and context, it couldn’t be about the message.
A few nights ago, it was a relief to see an unread email in my inbox when I turned on my PC. I was just happy to have gotten a response even though I hadn’t read it. When I did open it to read the line “I’m afraid your service is not something I’m interested in at the moment…“, I felt a dent to my morale. Yup, I truly did! I lost my mojo for the task I wanted to do and felt like retiring for the night. But not before taking a step back to reflect on it.
Ironically, I was disappointed by the response but relieved that I had at least gotten one after multiple consistent emails to different prospects on a daily basis. And then it hit me that as someone with experience running a business, I had managed to forget the rite of passage in the early days of most businesses involves rejections. Perhaps, because of the long gap between the early days of my previous business and this new one, I had forgotten about the multiple rejections I had. In fact, I couldn’t say for sure how I got over them because when I eventually scored wins, they dwarfed all the emotional drains I must have had. It is what it is; a process. In the end, I did what I knew I had to do; gracefully respond to the prospect with niceties, request to reach me anytime if there’s a change of mind or circumstance…then updated my CRM. Yup! I’m likely to be knocking on his door again when it triggers.
I shared the experience with a close friend and his response was, “What kind of NO was it?” What! I couldn’t help laughing even as I responded, “A No’s a No, stupid!” To which he said, “Nah! Some NOs leave no room for you to persist; they slam the door right in your face!” That made sense. But to be honest, it didn’t make any difference. I am following through with the process within my control; implementing my daily 1-Prospect-A-Day plan.
