Key Number One to Successful Self-Marketing

Marketing always seems to be one of the more difficult tasks, and marketing ones self, for many, often becomes insurmountable.  This does not have to be true for you! Learning to market yourself comfortably will go a long way in your life whether you are marketing yourself for a new career, a promotion in your current place of business or to sell your business services.

Key Number ONE is: Learning to Overcome Rejection

I. Overcoming rejection, the ages old concept of rejection and how to overcome that down in the belly negative feeling that comes when you put your talents on the line and they are rejected.

What is actually being rejected?

Try this vision: What is real…At this moment I am OK. I have certain talents and abilities, hopes and dreams, needs and values. I have family and friends that care about me. I have accomplished many things in my life; be it my schooling at what ever level, my employment history and my ability to be a team player and many other learned talents along the way.  The concrete evidence of my existence thus far proves I am capable of tackling the world and what it has handed me. I am O.K.!

You take one small action of opening your email and you discover your business proposal was rejected. What happens?  The air is knocked out of you, you get that lead feeling in your gut, suddenly, the act of reading one email has changed “I am OK” into “I am not good enough”!

Look back a moment…has anything actually changed from the information above? NO, you are still all of those very capable things.  What has changed is your attitude. You have allowed yourself to take the rejection personally. All of a sudden it is about you not being good enough, when moments before you were just fine.  You have given your power away because of someone else’s action. In reality what happened is another person had a stronger set of tools for this particular situation, or perhaps there was a personal contact that was selected or the person making the decision had a bad day the day of your proposal, we will never know.

Getting Over it! We meet rejection every day, whether it is of our dreams, of a new job or a promotion or a sale we have endeavored to close. There are 3 important rules to dealing with rejection successfully: a. Don’t take it personally. b. Use it as a learning tool. c. Quickly take appropriate actions to move on to the next challenge.

The first rule of dealing with rejection is: Don’t take it personally! It is rarely about us, even though our egos seem to try to tell us it is.  Our minds are very creative and energetic and if left alone, are masters at the negative.  I call it my “Itty Bitty Pity Committee”. Replace your old committee with a sensible group of voices: which include your intuition, your heart, your intelligence, your curiosity, your passion, your spirit and your experience.

Your new “Success Committee”, will help you deal with rejection as a learning tool. Which is the second rule of dealing with rejection: Use rejection as a Learning tool. Ask questions when you receive a no.  What did not meet your needs?  What was missing so I might improve? Rarely is a person reluctant to help another improve. Then set up an appropriate action plan to carry out what you have discovered. Choose to learn from the rejection and move on to the next with a greater arsenal of tools for your future success.

The third rule of dealing with rejection: Quickly take appropriate actions to move on to the next challenge.  Take the learning and grow your knowledge base and tool kit.  Create a plan of action to move past the rejection and on to the next challenge. Think of rejection as a tool for learning and improvement and you will soon move beyond it to the realm of success.

Want to see Overcoming rejection in action? Look up the story of author J.K. Rowling of the Harry Potter novels. She was rejected by the best of the best printers over 100 times! Aren’t we all glad she kept believing in herself?