Has Your Business Been Rejected?

Rejection happens in any business. Dealing with rejection is not easy.

However, we can learn from our rejections and improve our business if we want our businesses to last for years to come.

I am going to be sharing with you at least one strategy that can help you overcome rejection in your business.

I don’t know about you, but I have been rejected before.

I’ve been rejected by old boyfriends, universities that I applied to internships, jobs, and professional organization committees.

I got rejected by scholarships that I applied to from my bachelor’s degree all the way to my doctoral degree.

I even got rejected by school districts when I was completing my dissertation on clinical supervision, job satisfaction and burnout among school psychologists. Get this, I was told by the ones that rejected me that my study didn’t have value for their school district or their school psychologists! I thought that was so absurd.

Plus, those rejections hit hard because I had developed my entire dissertation hoping to survey school psychologists in specific school districts. So when some of those same school districts rejected me, I was in tears. I remember thinking….3 years of planning, researching, writing, and more revisions than I ever thought I would do, were all for nothing.

But I also remember telling myself that I wasn’t going to go down like that….not at all. So I wiped those tears away got into action on a contingency plan.

Anyways, I could go on and on about the rejection I experienced in my dissertation. But that isn’t the point of this blog.

So rejection has been a part of my life and I'm sure it has been a part of your life as well. And even as you're embarking on your entrepreneurial journey of having your own business, starting it from the ground up, if you're independent business owner or an independent consultant, whichever one it is, the point is you are on a journey for starting your own business and growing your own business.

“An obstacle-free path to success doesn't exist. Obstacles are what develop you." -- The Higdons

Yes, I agree that it isn’t a great feeling when you get rejected, but you can actually learn from your rejections. Think of rejections like obstacles. They come into your path but you can decide if it will stop you from moving forward or if you are going to overcome it.

Seriously, you can overcome your rejection. But that is only if you are willing to pay attention to the lesson that is embedded in that rejection.

Don’t let the rejection put you in a state of depression. That will not be good for you or your business. Yes, the rejection might get you feeling down, but don’t stay in that place. Look for the lesson and start taking another action.

I remember when I was first starting my business, I thought that it made the most sense that I go after everybody because I wanted my business to survive.

So for some of us, when we started our business, we targeted everyone right?

All our friends and family members and coworkers.

Probably even every single connection that you have on your social media.

How did that strategy work out for you? I bet you're rolling in the dough aren’t you.Well if you are, congratulations and this video is not for you. BUT

If you’re not, then stick around because I have a one thing I will be sharing with you to help you with that rejection.

‘Coz if you are currently targeting everyone with your products and your services that you sell in your business, you might be realizing what I did. And that was the fact that it is not the best approach to target EVERYONE with my business.

I remember reaching that realization when I realized the amount of rejection that I was getting. I remember being told by people (whom I thought should buy from me):

“No, that’s not what I want to do.”

“No, I don’t want your product.”

“No I don’t want your service.”

Then there was a whole bunch of “No…no….no…no….no.”

All of those no’s were given me flashbacks of when I applied to graduate school, to scholarships, to internships, to jobs, and to school districts for my dissertation. I’m sure you can guess that it wasn’t a good feeling at all. But I started to convince myself that I can learn from all the rejection that I was getting and use it to help my business grow.

When we are getting rejected, we pay attention to certain things.

So let’s take a walk down memory lane.

Do you remember your first boyfriend or girlfriend? I’m talking about that first crush that you had ever in your life.

Do you remember how much work you put in so that person could notice you? You probably bought them things, got new outfits, new shoes, new hair style, or whatever. The point is you spent a lot of time and energy on trying to get that person to notice you.

How did that end for you? Did that person ever notice you? If they didn’t that’s because that was not the right person for you. You were paying attention to somethings and you managed to convince yourself that this is the person you wanted to be with. Yet that person didn’t feel the same way about you. It probably is because that was not the right person for you. You were targeting the wrong person.

You put all that time, energy, and effort into getting that purpose to just begin by noticing you, but that person didn’t. You had your eyes on them and they had their eyes on someone else.

Let’s switch from relationships to jobs.

Have you applied to jobs to in the past before deciding to be an entrepreneur and build your own business?

How many times did you submit applications and got rejected? For the ones that rejected you, did you REALLY want to work there or did you just apply just as a backup?

I don’t know about you, but I’ve done those things before. I’ve applied to a bunch of jobs and I got rejected from many of them. There were even some that I applied to because I kinda sorta thought they might hire me even though I really didn’t want the job, but I wanted to get out of the job that I was currently in.

And if you have applied to jobs before, you know how much time, energy, and effort it takes to find your transcripts and take information from your resume to enter into specific locations in the employer’s application system. Not to mention the research to do a good cover letter.

But even though I got rejected by many employers, I got accepted by some.

So this ties back in with targeting. It is highly likely that the ones I got rejected from were not the right paces for me to be targeting.

So the reason why I brought up getting rejected by a crush, boyfriend, girlfriend, or a company is because you are going to get rejected in your business. We have to invest in targeting the right audience for our business.

Not everyone wants to be your customer nor is everyone the right fit for your business.

A big reason why your business is getting a high number of rejections is that you are probably not targeting the right audience for your products or services.

So we need to sit down and think about who we want our ideal customer to be for our business.

As a Strategic Business Coach, I ask my clients about their ideal customer because that is vital to understanding their business, their problems, and identifying appropriate solutions.

When we know you are our ideal customers, it helps us to target our efforts and reducing the likelihood that we will be spending our money, time, and effort, on a bunch of nothing.

Your product could be amazing. Your services could be amazing. But when you are getting a high volume of rejection, you might start doubting yourself and might even think about giving up on your business. I highly recommend that you don’t. Talk to a business coach or a marketing consultant before you decide to quit your business. The reason is because you could be targeting the wrong audience.

So, have you SERIOUSLY ever thought about who you want to be in your ideal audience or target?

Remember I mentioned my dissertation. If you are not familiar with a dissertation, it is a massive research project that you must complete when going for certain doctorate degrees. You need to finish it so that they will give you your degree and you can use the Doctor title in front of your name.

So going back a little bit to my dissertation. Like I mentioned, I was targeting school psychologists. I was researching clinical supervision, job satisfaction and burnout, but that wasn't the point of the target. The point of target were school psychologists.

But, I didn't target ALL school psychologists in the U.S. and the world. I had to pick a U.S. state, then I had to justify why I was picking that state. Plus, even within that state I chose, I didn't go after all of the school districts within that state, because there's some school districts that are urban and some that are rural. I wanted school psychologists working in certain areas to participate in my research.

So the point I'm making is this. When I did my dissertation, I didn't go after every single school psychologist there is in the world. I had to identify my target audience. So that way I could put my survey in front of the people that I wanted to actually complete my survey so that I could get the results that I was hoping I for. I had specific hypotheses that I wanted to test with that specific target audience.

So after reminding myself about what I went through with my dissertation. I realized that there was a very similar process in business.

I learned that I can't go and put my business in front of everyone because first off I ain't got the money to do that.. That was a whole set of money that I ain't going to be burning, just putting my business in front of everyone. I couldn’t continue to blow through my budget for my business. I needed to get my target.

Knowing your target audience and your budget are part of your strategic planning. Your target audience connects with your budget.

Identifying that blueprint or map for your business is crucial. If you have not already done so, I highly recommend that you develop a strategic plan for your business.

When you know your target market, that will influence your marketing products, your marketing plan, and most importantly, your budget. When you engage in strategic planning, you will work through and develop your plan for these areas.

If you don’t already know this, 20% of small business owners and entrepreneurs fail within their first year. Part of that failure has to do with having a poor budget or financial plan.

I have a video on budgeting that you can find in our Facebook and YouTube libraries. In that video, I share with you some ideas to help you with budgeting wisely and strategically.

Not knowing your target audience and going after everyone is a part of blowing through your budget and not having enough money to develop the other aspects of your business.

When you engage in strategic planning, you know those actions that you're going to take for your business, so that your business can survive its first five years and beyond. Don’t be one of those 50% of business that fail to make it to year 5.

Then I really suggest that you sit and think about who you want to be your target audience. Think about that budget that you have and how those things are going to go together so that you can limit your rejection.

Don't get me wrong. Not everybody in your target audience is going to buy your product. There are some other things that come into play such as the know, like, and trust factor and sharing value.

But the point is, is that once you know your target audience, you're getting your products and services in front of the people who are more likely to be buying your products and services. Some people might buy from you right away. Some people might take a day, a week, a month or even a year.

Implementing your strategic plan will help you with learning from any rejections that your business is experiencing and them make the necessary improvements. Those improvements could include refining your target audience.

Regardless of how long it takes for them to buy, doing your strategic planning will help you get your business in front of the right people, reduce your rejection, and increase your sales!

If you are ready to get started your strategic planning schedule your free strategy session after you download our planning guide.

Remember that Solutions+Actions=Results! (SoAR!)™

Thanks for reading.

Regards,

Dr. Priscilla Kucer "Dr. P"

Founder & CEO

Priscilla Kucer Consulting Solutions LLC