The Invaluable Asset of Rejection and Why Every Salesperson Should Embrace It

Years ago, a young actor received invaluable advice from his vaudevillian Mother. "You have to audition ten times in order to get one job." Trusting that advice, he proceeded to do as many auditions as he could, embracing each "rejection" as simply a step closer to his tenth, successful audition. It worked every time. He soon realized it was a numbers game, that as long as he put in ten causes (the auditions), he would ultimately earn the one effect he desired (the next job).

That simple realization changed his life. He accepted rejection as an advance, rather than a retreat, and viewed every audition as a positive experience, a mathematical means to his end. As he mentally checked off each number, he endeavored to learn from every occasion, so as to reduce the number of auditions it took to earn a contract, even though he was fully prepared to do all ten. Eventually, he managed to reduce the number to about six, and enjoyed a five decade long career in professional theatre.

The same is true with anyone working in sales, where rejection is almost as commonplace as in the entertainment industry. It’s a numbers game. You need only put in the right number of correct causes before you get the effect you want. At first it may take the full ten (sometimes more), but eventually, with experience, you can reduce that number substantially. How far you reduce it depends on how much you learn from each rejection.

First and foremost, understand that in sales, your job is to satisfy the needs of the buyer. Only by satisfying her needs will you ever be able to make a sale, and only by making a sale can you eventually satisfy your own needs. Happily, there are only three elements of behavior to understand about sales, and which have been well known to Man since the days of the first printing of Aristotle’s Rhetoric: logos, pathos and ethos.

Logos is the logical or practical approach to buying. It is the list of features that many salespeople heavily rely on to sell the product. Logos dictates that when you present your litany of features, that logically the buyer will see the benefits and make the purchase. While it is very important to know your product inside and out, you must also realize that logic isn’t enough. You must also tie each feature in with emotional benefits to the buyer. That’s where pathos comes in.

Pathos is the emotional issue tied to the product. What emotional needs is your product capable of satisfying? Include such things as more time, status, productivity, security, good health, even love, etc. Take your logos list of practical features and determine what emotional needs each feature can satisfy. The moment your customer exhibits an emotional need, proceed to demonstrate how your product has a corresponding feature that will satisfy it.

Finally there is ethos. Ethos is the commander, the controller, the part of the buyer that will actually make the decision. Ethos usually sits back and waits until the pathos and logos needs are satisfied before coming to the fore and approving the purchase. Few people buy anything for either 100% emotional or 100% logical reasons. Those that do are the rare impulsive buyers who generally regret it afterward and blame the salesperson out of self-contempt. Therefore it is up to a competent salesperson to insure that the correct balance between pathos and logos is achieved first, at which point ethos can then step in and buy the product.

So as you make each sales presentation, be sure to satisfy both the logos and the pathos needs of the buyer up front. Once you’ve done so, ask questions and listen carefully to the answers. Consider whether the question is coming from a logos or a pathos source and address it accordingly, pathos with pathos and logos with logos. Many a sale has failed because a salesperson tried to address emotional issues with logic and vice versa, making the right balance impossible.

Finally, keep a vigilant eye out for ethos. Ethos will show up the moment pathos and logos are in the right balance for that buyer. When that happens, stop selling and start signing. To continue selling risks knocking your logos and pathos out of balance and creating the withdrawal of ethos. In other words, recognize when to shut up, and do so.

Clearly, purchasing priorities are different for everyone, and the weight each of us puts on satisfying our particular needs at any given moment is unknowable. Therefore not every buyer is capable of creating a balance between her pathos and her logos sufficiently for her ethos to become involved, regardless of how skilled a salesperson might be. No need to take it personally, that’s just the way it is.

But certainly, one in ten buyers can be brought into balance by even the most novice salesperson. By learning from each "rejection" how to better identify when and how to achieve that balance, perhaps you, too, can reduce it to one in six, or better!