Stop Trying to Avoid Rejection. Start Collecting It.
The marketing strategist who helps brilliant women become the obvious choice online
The Real Fear That’s Stopping You From Growing Your Business (And to Overcome It)
A client of mine, who’d just left 15 years in corporate to start her own business, told me she needed more sales as she was struggling to pay her bills this month. I gave her a task that sounds completely mad. But stick with me, because the results might surprise you.
The Task: Go and Get 15 Nos
I told her to reach out and get 15 businesses to say no to her within seven days.
Put 15 Post-it notes on the wall. Every time someone turns her down, she crosses one off. In theory, that shouldn’t take long, because straight away she’s thinking, right, I’ll just phone, email or DM 15 people and get 15 nos out of the way.
Here’s what actually happened. And I’ll break down the simple process so you can try this too.
Step One: Your Network Is Bigger Than You Think
Before any of the Nos could start rolling in, she needed a list.
Go back over the last three to six months and write down every single person you’ve been in contact with:
People who made an inquiry but weren’t ready at the time
People who showed interest but never took the next step
People in a similar field who might want to collaborate, because they get busy too
Most people find they’ve got 30 to 50 names on that list without even trying. My client had 25.
Step Two: Get Your Email Ready and Get Ready to Be Told No
The email itself is simple. You’re not selling. You’re just having a conversation.
Shall we meet for coffee? How’s that thing you were working on going? Did your dog get back from the vet okay? Fancy a catch-up?
The moment you decide you’re going to get a run of nos, the pressure to make a sale disappears. It’s poof like magic, gone, because you already know what the outcome is meant to be.
Step Three: Personalise It and Add a Little Something
Once your list and your email are ready, put them together. Make each one individual. Maybe there’s a freebie you can share, or a coffee and conversation you can offer.
You can even go classic 90s sales tactics: “I’m in your area next week, fancy catching up for a drink?” It still works.
Break it down over five days, five people a day, 30 minutes each. That’s two and a half hours across the week for the chance of new business.
What Happened When My Client Tried It?
She had 25 people in her network and set out to reach 15 of them.
By the end of day one, she’d sent her fourth email. That fourth person responded straight away, someone she’d met a couple of weeks earlier. They booked a coffee and conversation, which turned into a discovery call, which turned into a big sale seven days later.
She technically failed the task.
She only got three nos before she got a yes.
I told her that was brilliant, but she still owed me the other 15 nos.
I say that half as a joke, because if you go into outreach expecting 15 nos a month, imagine what happens when every four of those turns into a sale…
Another client of mine got to seven nos before her eighth call landed her six months’ worth of business in one go. She had to stop taking on new work for the rest of the year.
In most cases, you don’t have a Sales Problem. You Have an Outreach Problem.
Here’s the thing, it’s hard to say but… If you’re waffling around on Instagram and TikTok, making content in a scattergun approach, instead of picking up the phone or sending an email, you don’t have a sales problem.
What I have seen time and time again, especially with women in business, is that we have an unknown restriction we’ve put on ourselves that’s limiting our ability to generate income.
Decide today that it’s okay to be told no.
What’s the worst that can happen? Someone says no. That’s it.
Get your big lady pants on, get ready to be told no, and go out there and build the business you deserve.
You are offering something amazing, and you’re worth putting yourself out there for, so what’s stopping you from moving your busienss forward, maybe just 1% today?
You Don’t Have a Sales Problem. You Have an Outreach Problem
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