137. Overcoming Rejection When You're Pitching Yourself

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Speaker B: o o.com doors to the visibility Shift, my public speaking program, are open. Please go to kimberlybonline.comTVS to learn more. Welcome back to episode 137 of the youe Next Move podcast. I'm your host, Kimberly Brown, and today I'm excited to talk about something that we all kind of deal with. I'm going to talk about it in the sense of public speaking, careers, businesses. But, uh, rejection, that is the thing that we're talking about today. Rejection. Whether you're pitching yourself to be on stage, you are going for a promotion, a new client, any completely new direction in your life, rejection is honestly a part of the deal that we generally forget comes with trying something new. Nobody gets to skip it. Not me, not the people you admire, not anyone who puts themselves out there in any way, shape or form. Rejection is something that we just have to get used to. So today I want to get into it. First, I want to say that as a speaker who pitches herself on a regular, uh, basis, I don't have a percentage. But what I will say is that I do have a spreadsheet where I track every single engagement that I pitch myself to. And when I tell you it's hundreds, it's hundreds of engagements, and I land probably about 25%, maybe a little less every single year. But I want to talk about why as a speaker, that this type of rejection feels a little bit different. In a coaching call this week with the Visibility Shift, rejection was coming up and a lot of people are like, oh, my gosh, it's not rejection, it's this other thing. It's maybe rejection, but not really. When a company rejects a product pitch, that's business, it stings, but it's not personal. The product is just not something that they want. But when you pitch yourself for a stage, for a role, for a client, you are both the offer and the person delivering it. So you have two parts there. So when a no comes back, it's really Easy to let that become some type of referendum on your worth instead of what it actually is. A decision about fit timing, budget on someone else's end, or things you may not even know. Here's the separation that I really need you to lean into. There is what they said no to, and there's the story that you attach to it. These are two completely different things. The first one is honestly, uh, about them. Their room, their budget, their calendar, their priorities, other relationships they have. The second, second part is the only thing that you have control over. So I want you to sit with this for a moment. Pitching is not begging either. And that's why a lot of my clients are a little hesitant to do it. They're like, first it's like, I'm not ready. Then it's like, well, shouldn't they know me? Then? There's a host of mindset mumbo jumbo that comes up for my clients. But what I try to teach them is that you are introducing the right solution to the right room. They just don't know you yet. The reality is that for so many things we pitch in our lives that we share. They do not know you. They don't know me. Like, uh, I would love to be a household name. Like, that's the goal one day, okay? But right here, right now, most people do not know Kimberly Brown. If they do agree. And that name holds a little weight, but a lot of folks don't. But when they get to experience me, then they can come into my orbit, right? So when you pitch yourself, I need you to remember that you are not asking someone for a favor. You are offering their audience a unique experience. Their audience, their team, the organization. It is something that they need. They have a stage to fill a role, to fill a gap to close. And you are something that fits to close that gap. Okay? That means that every no is not a rejection of you. It's information about their room, about that moment, about what they have going on. And sometimes it's just timing, sometimes it's budget, and sometimes it's honestly M A not yet. It's not a no, never. So what I actually want you to do when that no lands, because I think it's unrealistic to believe that we are just going to. Oh, another no. It's fine. Another no. I want to give you a simple something, like a little something that you can use to help your brain process the no and not spiral. And I'm going to call this the rejection reset. It's three questions that I want you to ask Yourself immediately following getting the no. So I want you to envision yourself opening up that email or being on the phone and someone says, you know, this really isn't a good fit right now. Or a template rejection. Because most rejections are templates. They're not a custom rejection. You're opening it, you're listening to it, you're reading it, whatever it is, right? I want you to envision it. And the first question I want you to ask yourself is, what did they actually say no to? It's almost never you. It is timing, it is budget for that quarter. It's a room that someone already booked. It's a relationship that they tapped into instead of bringing in someone new. I want you to get specific about what was actually declined instead of letting your brain fill in the blank with I'm not good enough. Okay? And again, I'm going to reiterate this. Most of the time they are not rejecting you, not you, the individual. Question number two, what is the very next action? I don't want the whole plan. I don't want the five year, ten year, whatever plan. Not how do you fix my entire life in this moment? Just the single next step. Uh, what do you want to do for some of you, that's sending the next pitch. Maybe follow up in three weeks if it's not yet, or three months or a year, Add something on your calendar to remind yourself or to continue to build that relationship. Or maybe it's simply moving on to the next name the next company conference or contact on your list. And last but not least and honestly, probably the most important is what do you need right now to move forward or take care of yourself? This one honestly matters more than the other two because sometimes you need to keep moving like you are building momentum. You need to get those reps and keep on pitching. But sometimes you need to give yourself a moment to process. Maybe that's 20 minutes, maybe it's the entire weekend before you open up that laptop and hit the road again, right? Both are valid. Whether you need a weekend, you need 20 minutes, five minutes, whatever it is. But we want to think about what do you need in this moment and how can you just give that to yourself? The point is to ask yourself this question instead of just skipping right to self criticism, because that's generally what we do, right? So I want to look a little bit at the numbers and it was really hard to find some speaker rejection rates before I sat down to record this. There's a lot of numbers floating around. They say that 80% of pitches take five follow ups. Things like this get repeated time and time and time and time again. They don't necessarily have a key source. Right? So there are so many steps in the amount of time it takes for someone to follow up after a pitch to closing the deal. That's another thing I teach my clients, is that many times we wanna pitch one time and get a yes. That is not how it goes. If I showed you my communication tracker, sometimes it's taken me a year or, um, longer to close a deal and to get whatever it was I wanted. Whether it's a stage, a client, consulting, coaching, whatever it is. Things take time. What I want to share with you, that is specific because that stat is just widely quoted that it's about 80% is that every yes that you've ever gotten is sitting on top of a mountain of no's. And you honestly probably don't even remember all those no's anymore, Mine included. So here's what I want you to do this week. If there is a no sitting with you right now, today, while you're listening, you were thinking about that email in your inbox and you're like, I know this is a no. Like, I peaked and then I closed it because I didn't want to process it. I want you to run it through the rejection reset. What did they actually say no to? And remember, it's not you. What is your next step? And what do you actually need right here, right now? What do you need to keep taking care of yourself? Rejection is not proof that you are on the wrong path. It is proof that you are in the game. Okay. And the only way to guarantee a, uh, no is to stop pitching yourself altogether, to stop trying. So I'm going to leave you with this today. A little bit different than my normal clothes. Your next move doesn't always have to be your biggest move. Right? I always say, may your next move be your very best move. We want that, right? But sometimes your next move just has to be your next one. That is it. You just have to get up and keep going until next time.

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