Rejection stings. Whether you’re pitching a product or trying to win over a new client, hearing “no” can feel like a personal attack on your abilities and worth. But what if rejection isn’t your enemy? What if it’s actually the secret weapon that separates top sales performers from everyone else?
The most successful salespeople don’t just tolerate rejection—they actively pursue it. Keep reading to discover how to handle rejection in ways that lead to sales breakthroughs.
Table of Contents
Strategy #1: Develop “Buoyancy”
In To Sell Is Human, Daniel Pink writes that selling of any kind will often result in more rejection than success. Dealing with rejection in sales can become overwhelming, causing you to consider throwing in the towel before you achieve any success. Buoyancy is about maintaining optimism and persistence despite rejection. It has three core components that can be applied before, during, and after any attempt to move others.
Before the Ask: Prepare Your Mind for Success
The most difficult part of the sales process is usually hyping yourself up to get it started. Human beings talk to themselves all the time. Sometimes it’s positive self-talk, mostly it’s negative self-talk, but all of it is generally “declarative.” Declarative self-talk states what something is or what something will be (e.g., “I am powerful,” “I suck, and I’ll always suck”). Pink notes that positive declarative self-talk is effective, but it’s also definitive rather than open-ended. It doesn’t inspire growth or change. The most effective style of self-talk is interrogative.
Interrogative self-talk asks questions instead of making statements. Those who use interrogative self-talk outperform those who hype themselves up with positive declarative self-talk. The interrogative nature of the exercise automatically facilitates insight into how to do whatever you’re preparing for, because asking questions allows for a deeper impact on your thoughts or behavior (and therefore, your results). It also helps you develop intrinsic motivation versus extrinsic motivation. It gives your goals meaning, which helps you motivate yourself to achieve those goals. For example, prior to a sale, ask yourself, “How can I move this person to make a purchase?” This implies a positive outcome and prepares you to attune to the buyer’s needs.
During the Interaction: Maintain Positivity and Momentum
Negative emotions induce a survival response, narrowing your perspective and negatively impacting your behavior. That being said, too much focus on the positive encourages self-delusion and impedes your ability to accurately identify areas for improvement. Studies show that the golden positivity ratio is 3 to 1. Those who encounter three positive experiences to one negative experience typically have increased well-being. Once you reach a ratio of 11 to 1, there are negative effects.
People sometimes cringe at the word “positivity,” but positive psychology shows that it’s a crucial part of well-being and a significant component of moving others. Studies indicate that people are twice as likely to accept deals when presented to them with a display of positive emotions (like smiling or using a friendly tone of voice). Positive emotions make us more receptive, expand our perspective, and inspire positive action. Remaining positive as a seller allows you to see a broader range of options and solutions and allows you to more easily attune to the person you’re engaging with.
According to Pink, most modern salespeople assert that having positive emotions about your product or service increases the efficacy of your sales by giving you a deeper connection to what you’re selling. This kind of awareness supports attunement, which increases buyer trust. Additional research indicates that inserting conviction into your communication enhances persuasion. Therefore, speaking about your product or service from a genuine belief influences the buyer to trust its quality.
You can practice positivity during a sale by expressing friendly emotions, using the 3 to 1 ratio when describing the positive or negative aspects of your product or service, and using phrasing that emphasizes your belief in it (“I’d pay for this even if I could get it for free”).
After the “No”: Learn From Setbacks
How we describe our experiences impacts how we feel. If we have a bad day, and we think about how bad it was, we feel bad. If we focus on the positive more so than the negative, we experience positive emotions.
Pink explains that overt emphasis on the negative can lead to learned helplessness. Learned helplessness occurs when an experience of powerlessness persists to a point where an individual feels powerless even after there is no longer anything controlling their environment. It’s directly influenced by a person’s explanatory style. Those who are vulnerable to learned helplessness generally talk about negative experiences in ways that are pervasive, permanent, and personal.
- Pervasive: Believing negative experiences are universal
- Permanent: Believing negativity will last long-term
- Personal: Believing negative experiences are your fault
Let’s say you try to sell a product to your mailman and he impatiently or rudely rejects you. If you’re operating from a pessimistic explanatory style, you might say, “All mailmen are jerks,” “Now he’ll hate me forever,” or “I’m a terrible salesperson.”
The solution to learned helplessness is the ability to maintain “flexible optimism” or an “optimistic explanatory style.”
- See negative experiences as temporary
- See negative experiences as due to circumstance
- See negative experiences as impersonal
Consider again the example with the mailman. You can practice an optimistic explanatory style by saying, “He might have been behind on his route and in a rush” (circumstantial). Or, “He might have been having a hard day” (temporary). Or, “He might have just been irritable due to negative experiences with other salespeople” (impersonal).
More Ways to Create Buoyancy
In his book, Pink shares further strategies for dealing with rejection in sales. First, he urges you to enumerate and embrace:
- Enumerating is tallying up all the rejections you experience in a week. Recognize how resilient you are in the face of so much rejection.
- Embracing means finding some way to put the strongest rejections you experience into a physical form. Place the object somewhere you can see it daily. Use it as a reminder that you’re resilient and as fuel for never giving up.
Pink also recommends that you write yourself a letter of rejection. This allows you to process your fear of rejection by immersing yourself in it, and it gives you an opportunity to see your perceived flaws through adopting a new perspective.
Strategy #2: Recognize the Benefits of “No”
In their book Go for No! for Network Marketing, Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz reveal that most salespeople abandon their efforts too soon: 44% quit after a single rejection, and 92% give up before the fifth objection. This premature surrender is particularly counterproductive because customers typically say “no” four times before saying “yes.” Successful salespeople persist through at least five rejections, understanding that fear of rejection is the only obstacle preventing extraordinary achievement. Rather than viewing rejection as a setback, top performers recognize that each “no” brings them closer to an inevitable “yes.”
Reframing rejection as an asset rather than a liability transforms your entire sales approach. Fenton and Waltz identify three compelling advantages of accumulating rejections over acceptances.
Benefit #1: Higher Productivity
Organizations can dramatically increase productivity by raising their teams’ rejection rates. One insurance company experienced significant profit growth after its sales force began celebrating high rejection volumes as positive indicators of activity and effort.
Leadership plays a crucial role in this transformation. How leaders respond to failure directly shapes the company culture, influencing how employees perceive and react to setbacks. When leaders model resilience and reframe rejection positively, they create an environment where teams embrace rather than fear unsuccessful outcomes.
Rejection serves as the catalyst for breakthrough achievements, transforming potential barriers into stepping stones toward success. This approach emphasizes persistence, resilience, and a fundamental mindset shift that prioritizes consistent action over sporadic wins, focusing on behaviors rather than outcomes alone.
Benefit #2: Increased Sales
Set specific targets for the number of rejections you want to receive. Pursuing high rejection volumes naturally drives greater success by increasing your outreach efforts and client interactions.
Focusing on collecting “no” responses rather than chasing “yes” answers fundamentally transforms your sales approach, building immunity to rejection-related fear. When you establish rejection quotas, you inevitably initiate more conversations, which directly increases your probability of closing deals.
Benefit #3: Faster Learning and Innovation
Rejection provides valuable insight into customer needs and preferences. By asking prospects to explain their reasons for declining, you transform each “no” into a learning opportunity that refines your approach and strengthens future presentations.
Embracing failure at every organizational level significantly impacts overall performance. When companies view setbacks as natural components of growth, teams maintain momentum and persistence despite inevitable obstacles.
Thomas Edison exemplified this principle by expanding his team of inventors, enabling more failed experiments that ultimately accelerated his breakthrough discoveries. The greater volume of failures directly correlated with faster innovation and success.
Strategy #3: Foster a Culture That Celebrates Risk
Fenton and Waltz argue that successful sales organizations cultivate a culture that values effort and perseverance, regardless of immediate results. An ideal sales environment celebrates not only closed deals but also the courage of team members who consistently face rejection and setbacks. CopyQuest exemplifies this philosophy through its recognition program, which includes the “Pursue Rejection” award that honors both victories and defeats.
Creating a culture that prioritizes growth and learning transforms the inevitable experience of rejection into something valuable. Rather than avoiding rejection, successful salespeople embrace it as an integral part of the process. The company’s top performer—renowned for exceptional resilience in the face of repeated rejections—demonstrates the powerful connection between accepting failure and achieving outstanding sales results.
Taking calculated risks often yields greater rewards. As Fenton and Waltz observe, salespeople may be tempted to pursue smaller, safer accounts that offer predictable outcomes. However, those who target larger opportunities—despite the increased risk of rejection—typically achieve superior returns. This strategy requires accepting more frequent rejections in pursuit of transformational deals.
Effective sales professionals actively engage with extensive prospect lists, undaunted by the likelihood of being turned down repeatedly. Inventor Allen Breed’s journey illustrates the transformative power of persistence, viewing each rejection not as a permanent barrier but as a stepping stone toward eventual success, even after enduring countless rejections over many years.
Learn More About Sales Rejections
To understand these rejection strategies in a broader context, check out Shortform’s guides to To Sell Is Human by Daniel Pink and Go for No! for Network Marketing by Richard Fenton and Andrea Waltz.
