You get a call from a dream prospect who says they want to meet with you to discuss their budget and purchase plans for 2009. Yippee! If you could only land this account, 2009 will be looking like your best year ever. And you are determined to do everything in your power to make it happen. To prepare for the meeting, you spend several hours researching the clients web site, putting marketing materials together, collecting customer testimonials and organizing your pricing information. You drive two hours to the meeting, build great rapport with decision-makers, ask relevant questions, energetically convey your solution, skillfully overcome their objections and deliver what you consider to be a competitive pricing structure. In short, YOU NAILED IT! They tell you they will review your materials and seem very appreciative of efforts. You walk out of the office, confidant that you gave it your best and that the effort WILL be rewarded.

Three days later when you follow up, the decision-maker who you met with tells you they decided to stick with their current supplier but thanks you for coming by. In the next three minutes your body and mind goes through four of the five stages of the Dying Sale…Denial, Anger, Bargaining, and Depression.

Denial-It couldn’t have happened! Anger-What a jerk! Bargaining-Maybe I should cut my price even more? Depression-Oh my goodness, how could this have happened! So what do you do from here? Should you tell the prospect they are making a huge mistake and that in the long run, it will cost them? Or perhaps you should throw out the great rejection cliché, “Are you sure you were comparing apples to apples?” Or why not hit them right between the eyes and ask them what I KNOW you are thinking, “Okay Phyllis! Did you just play me so you can get a better cost out of your current supplier?”

Well as much as your heart and mouth are dying to tell the prospect they made a tragic mistake that they will regret for the rest of their lives, you must get to the ACCEPTANCE stage as quickly as possible. And from there your next steps should be the following:

• Sincerely (yes SINCERELY) thank them for the opportunity
• Ask them a question that helps you learn from the experience. “Phyllis, I was wondering if you could help me. Was there something better I could have done to earn your business?” Remember, more lessons are learned from failure than success, so don’t miss the opportunity.
• Drop a thank you note in the mail.
• Tell them that you will always be here and will continue to work hard to earn the opportunity to serve them

Then create a plan to keep your name in front of them over the next 12 months. One good way to do this is by creating a monthly newsletter sharing with them anecdotes of how your service helped your clients become happier and more productive. You could also provide valuable information about new products that your competition is neglecting to tell them about. Add industry trends and news that they would find value in. And personalize it with a picture of you being YOU. Maybe it’s a picture of you showing a prospect a new technology. Or maybe it’s just you hanging out with your kids at a on a recent vacation! Just make sure that the newsletter hits their logic and emotion. In other words, it should make them smarter while at the same time create a personal connection with you. Does creating a newsletter like this take time? Sure, but sales you get as result will far outweigh the time invested.

And here’s the good news. The day will come when your competition slips up. And when they do, that prospect will think of you first because of how you handled the first rejection and how you continued to find ways to serve them. And once you get the account, you will then be able ACCEPT the fact that the first rejection was nothing more than the first essential step in the creation of one of your best long term customers.