I fear rejection. How do I ask?

Dear Aunty B,

I just hate picking up the phone and cold calling for favours. It is not just the rejection I fear, but I am embarrassed to ask for favours. ‘Why will people want to help me when they are so busy?’, is basically what runs through my mind. And I also feel: ‘Who am I to ask for this??’

The other issue I have is I take ‘no’ very personally and can feel flat for days after a rejection.

As our business grows, I need to do more strategic networking but I find that part of the job very hard. What do you think Aunty B? Do I need to go to a sales course? Or read Dale Carnegie??

Dianne,
NT

Dear Dianne,

When I started my own business I called a very old friend to ask for advice. I needed to take a big step and didn’t know how. She told me what to do and when I hesitated she said very firmly: “If you don’t ask, you don’t get”.

That, my friend, has stayed with me through four years of running a business. Of course, I did ask and I did get. Not all the time. Not every single time. But so many times that the few times I don’t get, I regard as weird, odd… even surprising.

What you have to tell yourself is this: Most times you will succeed if you ask in the right way. And that includes making sure you consider the other person in the way you ask the favour. And you learn to be persistent. You don’t want to get psychotic and stalky about it. You do have to know when to stop.

And so what if you don’t succeed? There may be all sorts of reasons why someone might not want to help, probably mostly nothing to do with you. So never take things personally and keep asking.

You can do all the courses in the world on how to do it but in my experience practice makes perfect. It is about confidence and once you get a few wins under your belt, you learn to move on from rejection very fast.

Good luck!
Your Aunty B

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