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The Five Essential Trust Skills: Don’t Leave Home Without Them

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A competency model won’t answer the mail when it comes to building trustworthiness—in fact, there’s risk in attempting to reduce trust to a series of behavioral definitions. At the same time, there is value in culling down the essential skills of a Trusted Advisor to a practical number.

I narrow it down to the following five: Listen, Improvise, Risk, Partner, and Know Yourself.

Common Denominators

The five essential skills share important characteristics:

  • They appear elementary—easily dismissed as too basic to merit our attention. (“I’ve been in sales for 20 years; I know how to listen by now!”) They’re deceptive that way.
  • They’re capabilities you can practice, and should practice over and over again. The five essential skills are to a Trusted Advisor what scales are to a maestro.
  • They’re inextricably linked. Improvisation requires risk, partnering requires listening, and all of them require knowing yourself well to be effective.

Essential Skills, Defined

There’s a lot to be said for simplicity, hence—five and only five. (Interestingly, Steve Arneson, formerly head of leadership development at Capital One, AOL, Time Warner Cable, and a division of PepsiCo, agrees in principle; he advocates for eight—not 67—essential competencies for leadership.)

Here are the five essential skills of a Trusted Advisor:

Listen. Every day, garden-variety listening—which is what most leadership development, consulting skills, and sales training programs teach—is listening with a purpose, and usually that purpose is self-oriented: to sell, to convince, to get smarter, to buy time. By contrast, the kind of listening that engenders trust—deep trust—is not purpose-driven listening to identify needs or to mine for data you may extract to justify the pitch/sell/recommendation/opinion you have to deliver. It is, instead, empathetic listening where the focus is actually on the act of listening itself.

Improvise. The business world is rife with the unexpected including tricky client situations and other uncomfortable and awkward moments that occur at the worst possible time. Let’s call these Moments of Truth. And in these moments, the skill of improvising—inventing, composing, or performing with little or no preparation—is precisely what you need. Improvisation is relevant to any would-be Trusted Advisor because Moments of Truth are inevitable and how you handle them says a lot about who you are.

Risk. There is no trust without risk. Certainly no deep trust. Yet most of us worry about doing something that feels risky—like speaking a hard truth or sharing something personal—because we don’t think we have enough trust in the relationship for that risk to be tolerated. The irony is it’s the very act of taking those risks that creates trust.

Partner. Look up “partner” in the dictionary and you’ll see “either of two persons dancing together” in the definition. The dancing metaphor is perfect for Trusted Advisor relationships. It conjures up images of give and take, synchronization, graceful movement, and being in tune and in step with one another.

Know Yourself. Introspection is the hallmark of a Trusted Advisor. Introspection doesn’t imply narcissism or self-obsession. In fact, the more self-aware you are, the lower your self-orientation tends to be. To “know yourself” is to have a full and complete inventory of your weaknesses, triggers, and hot buttons, as well as your strengths, interests, and sources of passion and purpose. Knowing yourself is about achieving a level of self-awareness that is required for good self-management—a leadership competency rightly elevated in status in the last decade thanks to Daniel Goleman, and re-emphasized in a recent study by Green Peak Partners and Cornell University.

That’s my take. What’s yours?

Upcoming Events and Appearances: Trusted Advisor Associates

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Join us at one or more upcoming Trusted Advisor Associates events. This Spring, we’ll be hosting and participating in events in New York, NY; Washington, DC; Fargo, ND; Boston, MA; London, England and through globally accessed webinars.

Also, a word about the Trusted Advisor Mastery Program.

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Mon. Mar. 28th New York, NY Sandra Styer

Sandy Styer will be speaking on “Building Your Trusted Advisor Skills” at the Masa Israel Journey on Monday, March 28th in New York City.

 

Wed. April 20th Washington, DC Andrea P. Howe
Andrea will be speaking at the Washington DC Chapter of the Project Management Institute on “Trust and Influence: What Every Successful Project Manager Needs to Know.” Paolo’s Ristorante, 11898 Market Street, Reston, VA, 11:30am. Open to public: Sign up here. PMIWDC Members $30; Non-Members: $30; lunch will be served. PDUs will be available for Project Management Professionals (PMPs).

 

Wed. Apr. 27th Fargo, ND Sandra Styer

Sandy Styer will be presenting “The Heart of Trust: Keys to Becoming a Trusted Advisor” at the Tristate Trust Conference of the North Dakota Bankers Association on April 27th.

 

Wed. May 18th Boston, MA Stewart Hirsch

Stewart Hirsch will be a guest lecturer at Emerson College, speaking on “Becoming a Trusted Advisor.” The class to which Stewart will be addressing is a part of a professional services marketing course taught by Prof. Silvia Hodges, Ph.D.

 

Tues. & Wed. May 24th-25th London, England Julian Powe and Charles H. Green

In a highly interactive, practical and lively day-and-a-half program, TAA will be offering the opportunity to accelerate your professional growth, identify and strengthen the outstanding practice you already have, and address areas for improvement. This is the first time these two extraordinary presenters have offered this program together! Our early-booking price for the program will be $2200, with discounts available for group participation. For more information or to register contact Julian Powe or Tracey Del Camp, respectively.

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The first tranche of the Trusted Advisor Mastery Program is completing its final month. Members are taking stock. Here’s what one participant has to say:

“This program is extremely valuable. While the concepts seem so basic and simple, they are powerful. The exercises have helped me to practice what I’m learning. The online modules with Charlie Green are engaging, the one-on-one coaching helped me address specific challenges, and the group calls and Forum gave me an opportunity to share ideas and learn from others.” (Mike Leffler, Owner/Financial Advisor, Portfolio Advisors, Inc)

To be notified of the next available program, email us at: [email protected].

David Zinger, CEOs and Vulnerability

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In his Zing-Review of March 3, employee engagement expert David Zinger cited research by the health care research firm Beryl on improving patient experiences in hospitals. The whole article is rich with references and research, though the title is a bit intimidating. David pulls from the final paragraph:

[The CEOs’] vulnerability is the first step in employee engagement. To decide on a “mission, vision and values” that truly reflects the [organizations’s] character, the CEO must sit down with staff from all levels to discuss improvements in culture. (from Becker’s Hospital Review, Feb 25, 2011)

Vulnerability and Intimacy

Vulnerability – openness, softness, exposure – is one of three key pieces of Intimacy as we define it. The first two, discretion and empathy, refer back to the other person in the relationship, how we treat them, but vulnerability sits squarely with us, how we treat ourselves.

Why is it so Hard?

Why is vulnerability, which conveys softness and openness, so darn hard in fact to put into practice?

Well, it starts with saying: “I don’t have all the answers.” Now, that’s terrifying! How will people respect me or my position?

And goes on to: “But I’m sure you have some ideas.” What if I don’t want to hear the things they have to say? What if they criticize me?

And concludes with: “Let’s put our heads together.” Yikes, and collaborate?

Like so many things in life, simple, but not easy.

8 MBAs Solve World Hunger. In Theory.

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Back in October 2006 I started this blog, Trust Matters, by looking back from the vantage point of my 30th MBA reunion, in a post called Harvard Business School 30 Years Later: Bring Back Joe. That was five years ago.

A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of joining a golf outing with 7 classmates. For three days, we enjoyed some much-needed Arizona sun, golfed, dined—and talked. One night we decided to compare solutions to the Major Problems facing the United States. We were all surprised at what we heard. See what you think.

Look Who Came to Dinner

Among the 8 of us were 6 present or former CEOs, and 6 former or present management consultants. Industries represented included communications, manufacturing, restaurants, airlines, banking, healthcare services and forest products.

We’re all male, ages about 60-63. Most had children; some have kids still in their teens; some are on the cusp of grandparenthood.

If You Were Emperor of the US

We posed the question to each other, “If you were the emperor of the US, whatever that means, what policy steps would you put in place?”

Here is the list, together with the number of us who agreed (note there were some abstentions on a few questions):

  • Change the presidency to one six-year term, no renewals (7/8)
  • Imprison about 250 financial industry executives (3/6)
  • Shift House of Representatives terms to four years (8/8)
  • Reinstate some form of Glass Steagall (8/8)
  • Embark on major public works investments (6/8)
  • Adopt means-testing for social services programs (8/8)
  • Break up big banks (5/8)
  • Institute electoral campaign finance reform (8/8)
  • Increase immigration of high-education high wealth-creating people (7/8)
  • Cut the defense budget (8/8)
  • Some form of single-payer system for health care (5/6)
  • MBA programs take leadership role in creating an ethos of service in business (8/8)
  • More consumer responsibility for health care payments (7/8)
  • Cut back on scope of public sector benefits programs (6/8)
  • Increase age of social security (8/8)

(There were several substantive side comments, e.g. solve banking issues by shifting regulatory authority from the Fed to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency; move public pension plans to 401ks; index social security).

I know of no reason why these 8 MBAs would differ from another group of similar vintage. And we were all quite serious in our recommendations.

Why Those Ideas Are So Not Happening

Lots of people think that the US is run by 60-ish ex-CEO’s from ‘top’ MBA programs. (Picture our two foursomes as the opening scene of a Wall Street-like movie about ‘who really pulls the strings in this country.’) But those ideas don’t seem to represent policy of either of the two major political parties. In fact, the odds are very low that most of them will be implemented.

There are many explanations for the discrepancy but two big ones are:

1. Our group of 8 was not representative
2. The world is indeed run by a small number of people, but MBAs are not at the center of it.

I vote for number 2. If we’re the ones pulling strings, apparently the strings we’re pulling aren’t attached to much.

Trust and Policies

One classmate (not in attendance) who did find his way to public office said it’s easy to explain why politicians don’t express those views: “You’d never get elected saying those things.”

Which leaves us all in a bit of a trust dilemma (assuming you think our ideas are not crazy–perhaps a big assumption):

• Are voters really that ignorant? (We all agreed that ‘yes’ is not an implausible answer).
• Is it reasonable to expect politicians to commit career suicide-by-truth-telling? (Probably not).
• Is our system broke? (We think so: that’s why we had such unanimity around social responsibility for business, and campaign finance).

In one respect, I imagine that we eight are like the majority of US citizens—we hold a set of beliefs about how things ought to be that is not mainly reflected in policy.

When most people feel their views are in the minority, social trust issues lurk. When it’s not one minority but many different ones, those issues are even tougher.

As one of our wiser golfers said, “Occasionally some of our global friends are inclined to over-simplify when looking at the US–this is one ungodly-complicated country to run.”

 

Reduce Stress: Stop Selling. Start Helping.

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A lawyer I was coaching recently felt his sales performance was weak. He had a few prospective clients asking him about his services and “kicking tires” but not retaining him. After discussing the specifics of one such prospective client, I asked him: “what was your goal with this person?”

He responded: “To make him a client.” He told me that trying to convert the person from contact to client was uncomfortable for him. Worse still: it wasn’t working.

Is Turning a Contact Into a Client the Right Goal?

I frequently find lawyers, consultants and financial planners wanting to mine their relationships and turn the many contacts they have into clients. They are focused on business development and want to build relationships so they can get more business. That may sound like a good goal–but it’s the wrong one.

The goal should be to build relationships and help the other person. The more one tries to sell, the more the prospective client gets turned off. Just think of the times when you needed services or products. You probably just wanted to be guided and helped, not to be sold something.

This isn’t a new concept. There are many articles and blogs that give all the reasons to stop trying to sell. Just do a search on “stop selling.” You’ll be inundated with articles and blogs. Charlie Green published an article on this topic in 2006 called “Stop Trying to Close the Sale”.

Let Go of the Goal and Start Helping

The more you try to sell, the less the other person wants to buy. It’s one of the paradoxes of selling. So—don’t do that. Instead, really do let go of that goal. Of course you need more clients or customers–but that’s your problem, not your prospective client’s problem.

Trying too hard just doesn’t work. And, as my lawyer client said – it’s stressful. Let go of your goal along with the stress it engenders and try something else – like helping, in the context of building real relationships. Interestingly, the more you try to help, the more success you’ll have in selling. (As long as you don’t let short-term, gosh-I-hope-I-can-sell-this-one thinking reverse the means and the ends).

Helping means finding ways to assist the other person to identify, analyze and resolve his or her problem. If that process results in a need for your services, that outcome will emerge. If helping includes referring the person to someone else, perhaps even a competitor, so be it.

Helping rather than selling fits well into the Trust Principles. Helping is:

      It also reflects low self-orientation, and enhances credibility, both components of the Trust Equation.

      How Helping Reduces Stress

      Most Professionals with whom I work rarely got their JD, CPA or MBA because they wanted to sell. What they wanted to do was to practice their chosen profession and to help people. They create stress for themselves by feeling they have to sell when they don’t want to, a feeling that is compounded by then having to deal with rejection on top of it.

      This is an unnecessary, even painful, vicious circle. Change your mindset towards helping others. It will reduce your stress. And it may actually result in more business sold.

      Stop selling and start helping.

       

      Sample Selling Without Giving Away the Store

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      “I know you recommend sample selling for intangible services, Charlie,” the caller said, “but I have to tell you, I think that’s naïve.”

      “I followed your advice,” he continued, “I gave them a great idea; but I didn’t get the deal. Worse, they stole my idea; now they’re making it a practice area. You can’t trust everyone; you can’t give away the store.”

      The Three Myths of Giving Away Too Much

      My caller is not alone in his fear of being taken. And as the saying goes, just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

      Yet he is the architect of his own misery. He has fallen prey to three mistaken beliefs. And while you can’t think your way out of all tough situations, this one you can.

      Myth 1: Ideas, Like Shoreline, are Limited. I’ve heard it said there are really only seven jokes—all others are variations. I have no doubt that’s true: but there is no end to standup comedians telling no end of those variations. Limited categories don’t preclude infinite instances.

      Myth 2: Ideas are the Scarce Resource. As a consultant, I originally bought into the idea that corporate strategies were invaluable; if discovered by competitors, they could bring the company down.

      This turned out to be a conceit. In truth, you could give an entire industry public access to each other’s written strategies, and due to a combination of hubris, incompetence and the inertia of culture, very little would change as a result.

      As the NRA might put it, “ideas don’t change businesses—people do.”

      Myth 3: They’re Out to Take My Stuff. Yeah, some are. And they are the people who believe that ideas are limited and that access to ideas alone is valuable. See myths 1 and 2 above.

      Those who are out to take your stuff are co-conspirators in a joint exercise of self-delusion. They’re like thieves bent on stealing counterfeit cash. Go find some fresh air to breathe.

      Sample Selling without Giving Away the Store

      Let me acknowledge that there are certain businesses where idea theft is quite real. Chemical formulae in the pharmaceutical industry, novels in the publishing industry, code in the software business—I’m not talking about these cases. They are covered by patent, trademark and copyright laws. There are still lawsuits, but by and large the rules and case law are very well developed.

      I’m talking about marketing, change management, business strategy, process change methodologies, sales processes, communications, systems implementation—the world of complex, intangible services. Like jokes, there may be a limited number of categories—but there is an unlimited number of applications.

      How do you avoid falling prey to the myths? How do you not give away the store? Here are three tips to remember.

      Sample Selling Tip 1: Present Ideas Collaboratively. The context in which you present an idea is critical. Don’t waltz in and dump an idea on your client’s desk; first they’ll reject it, then they’ll tweak it, then come to believe it’s theirs—leaving you to stew in your own juices. (That’s best case; most likely, they’ll ignore it.)

      Instead, go back three steps and engage your client in a general conversation; let the idea emerge in context, between the two of you. Don’t be obsessed with ‘ownership’ of the idea unless you already have a patent.

      You might say something like:

      “Susan, I was thinking about the XYZ problem we discussed Monday. Does that situation ever arise in other divisions? I’m wondering if it’s really a process problem, or a people problem; can we bounce this around for a while?”

      If you’re really smart—and evolved; see Tip 3 below—you’ll let your client discover the idea.

      Sample Selling Tip 2: The Real Sample is Problem Definition. The idea of ‘sample selling’ is a bit of a misnomer. The real sample you’re giving the client is not a sample answer, but a sampling of how it feels to work with you.

      You do this by continually asking—with the client—“what problem are we trying to solve?” You might say something like:

      “Joe, we’ve come up with some great ideas in the business process arena. As we’ve talked, some related issues have arisen in the talent side of the business. Could we schedule some time to work those issues together?”

      Then repeat Tip 1 above.

      Sample Selling Tip 3: Rebalance Humility and Confidence. You need humility. Not humility about your ability—humility about your uniqueness. You are not Einstein (unless you are); you aren’t the only one with ideas. And frankly, your ideas are probably not unique either.

      You need confidence. Not confidence in your ideas—confidence in your ability to spot an infinite number of problem areas in your client, and confidence in your ability to generate more ideas to address each problem. It starts simply with seeing opportunities for improvement.

      Above all, you are the one with the client relationship; in that, you are unique. So—go define problems, and generate ideas collaboratively.

      You’ll get credit—but more importantly, you’ll get repeat business.

      Upcoming Events and Appearances: Trusted Advisor Associates

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      Join us at one or more upcoming Trusted Advisor Associates events. This Spring, we’ll be hosting and participating in events in New York, NY; Fargo, ND and through globally accessed webinars.

      Also, a word about the Trusted Advisor Mastery Program.

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      Tues. Mar. 15th New York, NY Charles H. Green

      Charlie will be speaking in New York, March 15th, with Jordan Kimmel at NYU Alumni’s Executive Forum. The subject is “Restoring Trust in Post-Madoff America: What it Means for Advisors, Companies and Investors.” National Arts Club, 15 Gramercy Park South. 5:45 Cocktails, 6:30 Dinner, 7:30 Speakers. $75. RSVP for the event here.

       

      Wed. Mar. 16th Global Charles H. Green

      Charlie will interview investor relations expert Laura Rittenhouse, on the subject of “How the CEO Candor Crisis is Strangling Our Economic Recovery.” Laura is president of Rittenhouse Rankings, Inc., an investor relations company that advises managements on strengthening corporate candor in order to improve execution and financial valuation. The Rittenhouse Rankings annual survey is the world’s only benchmark to correlate financial performance with CEO Candor. She is the author of Buffett’s Bites and Do Business with People You Can Trust. Log in to listen at www.voiceamerica.com. 12pm EST.


      Mon. Mar. 28th New York, NY Sandra Styer

      Sandy Styer will be speaking on “Building Your Trusted Advisor Skills” at the Masa Israel Journey on Monday, March 28th in New York City.

       

      Wed. Apr. 27th Fargo, ND Sandra Styer

      Sandy Styer will be presenting “The Heart of Trust: Keys to Becoming a Trusted Advisor” at the Tristate Trust Conference of the North Dakota Bankers Association on April 27th.

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      The first tranche of the Trusted Advisor Mastery Program is completing its final month. Members are taking stock. Here’s what one participant has to say about the online Forum portion of the program:

      The online Forum is a group of professionals from the US and Australia – our Forum goal is to help each other take the next right actions to raise Trust, and Trustworthiness. I applied several participants ideas and they worked out great! The Trusted Advisor Master Program delivered professional and personal results beyond expectations”. (Virginia Sambuco, Sr. Director Marketing Services, Enterprise Solutions, Harland Clarke, San Antonio TX)

      To be notified of the next available program, email us at: [email protected].

      Empty Calorie Social Networking

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      I’m an enthusiastic user of many social media. I welcome interaction on Twitter (@charleshgreen), for example. In many ways, online networking is sort of the first derivative of the old, face-to-face type—faster, shallower, but broader and more far-reaching, and with essentially the same objective.

      Still, there are some differences. In ‘real’ (i.e. analog) life, socializing can be an end in itself. Online, sometimes the connection is dropped; the symbol no longer links to the symbolized. Numbers become their own narcissistic rationale.

      Call it empty calorie social networking—lots of apparent connections, but with no socially nutritional value.

      Buying Friends and Buying Lists

      Which feels more personal to you: email addresses, or twitter handles? If you’re like most people, you probably have a lot more email addresses than twitter addresses. After all, the social media are opt-in—you choose who gets to be in your network.

      But check this out.

      You can buy a one-time email list of people who purchased homes in the State of New Jersey in the last 30 days. It will cost you $500 for about 5000 names—that’s $0.10 per name.

      You can also buy 10,000 twitter followers for $97.00—that’s $0.01 per name—one tenth the cost of emails.

      The email list is ten times more expensive than the twitter list. Still think opt-in networks are special?

      Of course, there are a lot of reasons why those particular numbers might diverge, but one of them is this: a lot of the ‘social’ in ‘social networking’ is nothing of the kind. It isn’t just ‘lo-cal’ networking, it’s utterly ‘no-cal.’

      Who’s Consuming All Those Empty-Calorie ‘Connections?’

      I’m not talking about those who follow @charliesheen (1.8 million at this moment) or Justin Bieber (7.8 million). I’m talking about those who follow 20,000 people and who have 20,000 zombie-like followers themselves—and who have only ever published ten tweets.

      What’s driving this is a perversion of relationships—reciprocity gone wild. You follow me, I’ll follow you, and we’ll all get—bigger numbers. But for what end?

      There is more than a whiff of spam about all this, but that’s not all that’s going on. Spam is imposed against our will; following is not. Spam survives on one hit in 10,000—following gets darn near 100% returns. Like Pogo, we have found the enemy, and it is us.

      Much as high-calorie junk food addiction is being linked to obesity in the physical realm, there’s an addictive quality about this empty-calorie following. Fat follower lists are not conducive to relationship help.

      Out of control eating no longer has anything to do with nutrition; out of control follower-collecting no longer has anything to do with relationships.

      Ask yourself: why are you following someone? If your answer is anything but “because they sound interesting,” enlighten me.

      The Godfather Chronicler: Gay Talese on Trust

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      Readers of this blog know that we often write about Intimacy in a business context. And two of the three elements which make up that invaluable quality are empathy and discretion: creating a cocoon of safety in which another person can talk to us.

      I have never heard a more poetic description of this than the one from Gay Talese in “A Writer’s Life”:

      “I learned [from my mother] … to listen with patience and care, and never to interrupt even when people were having great difficulty in explaining themselves, for during such halting and imprecise moments … people are very revealing—what they hesitate to talk about can tell much about them…

      I have also overheard many people discussing candidly with my mother what they had earlier avoided—a reaction that I think had less to do with her inquiring nature or sensitively posed questions than with their gradual acceptance of her as a trustworthy individual in whom they could confide.”

      Lovely words: “…to listen with patience and care.” If we can do even this simple yet powerful thing in all of our business conversations, we’ve accomplished something nearly miraculous.

      We’ve shown respect and empathy.

      We’ve allowed another person to reveal something troublesome or difficult or embarrassing, and gently received their secrets.

      And we’ve taken steps to becoming, like Talese’s mother, “a trustworthy individual in whom they could confide.”

      Listening is indeed a gift, not a tactic, and let us give this gift with patience and care.

      Handling Sales Rejection Without Becoming a Narcissist

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      It’s one of the hardest parts of selling—that knife edge space where company revenue stream meets interior personal psychology. It is business, and it is personal.

      Most solutions share one problem; they are narcissistic, leading the salesperson to believe it’s all about them.

      But it’s not all about you. And the sooner you build that insight into your selling, the better.

      This is a topic I wish I had written more about in Trust-based Selling, so I’m glad to amplify it here.

      Why Dealing with Rejection Messes You Up

      Let’s start with the obvious. If you’re not getting some rejections, you’re probably not taking enough risks. So if you avoid rejection, you’re avoiding risk; which means you’re losing sales.

      But that’s not all. If you’re avoiding rejection, on some level you know it. If you know you’re avoiding something, you know you’re not doing what you know you could do; you’re not living up to your own self-image. That soaks up a whole lot of energy; it makes you inward focused and unhappy. None of which helps you as a salesperson.

      So avoiding rejection hurts your business, and it makes you feel unhappy. Inability to handle rejection hurts you everywhere it counts.

      The Three Usual Solutions to Rejection—and Their Weaknesses

      There are three common approaches to dealing with rejection. I’ve given them each distinctive names. They are:

      1. Endure it. This approach suggests there is some natural relationship between the numbers of rejections you have to endure to get to the good stuff. If you spin the wheel long enough, your number will come up. Get out there and dial for dollars.

      The problem: it’s hard to treat prospects as people if you’re just counting their no’s.

      2. Shrink it. This approach says. “It’s not about you, it’s not personal, you shouldn’t feel hurt.” Bring in the shrinks; think your way into not feeling.

      The problem: it really is personal, it’s about as personal as it gets–and you know it.

      3. Motivate through it. This approach relies on getting you ‘motivated,’ which usually means pumped up, psyched, and able to just play through the pain.

      The problem: prospects don’t appreciate being bulldozed.

      Why “Handling Rejection” is Narcissistic

      All those solutions have one defect: they’re all about managing your psychological response to an issue called “rejection.” But rejection is an imaginary concept—a fiction, a figment of your imagination.

      “Rejection” is a belief that if something happened that affected you, then it must have happened to you—that it was about you, concerning you, because of you, etc. And that’s what I’ll refer to as narcissism—a tendency to view everything as being about you.

      (Not-so-ancient societies used to believe that the sun and the planets revolved around the earth. There’s a very natural human tendency to believe that we are at the center of our own anthropomorphic universe, our own private Idaho. Much of growing up is getting over this idea, and most of us are only partially successful at it).

      Instead of “dealing with rejection” let’s focus on what’s really going on in the real world—the world outside your head.

      Curiosity is the Real Antidote to Rejection

      Think of selling as a scavenger hunt. On a scavenger hunt, you go off into a relatively unstructured environment, looking for pre-defined items to collect. Of course, you’re interested in winning; but the game itself is fun as well.

      In the game, you decide how and where to spend your time. You set priorities, and notice how and what your competitors are doing. There is skill involved in collecting the items. And you often end up in blind alleys when a particular path didn’t pan out for you.

      What you don’t feel on a scavenger hunt is rejection. There simply is no such thing. It is not about you; it is just a process involving many people, of whom you are one.

      All you need on a scavenger hunt is curiosity. And curiosity is a perfect emotion to bring to sales. Curiosity means you don’t have to ignore your emotions, or play through them, or convince yourself you’re immune to them. Instead, you’re just paying attention to a different set of issues. Let’s call those issues ‘reality.’

      In the real world, nothing is being rejected; there are simply solutions and fits, or no-solutions and no-fits. It’s not a struggle–it’s a puzzle. If you’re a good solution to that puzzle and are curious enough, you might solve it. If you’re not a good solution for it, and/or aren’t curious, then you probably won’t.

      So where’s ‘rejection’ in all this? In your head. So just stop it.

      Three Steps You Can Take to Reject Rejection

      1. Make a list of questions you’d like to know about each of your key prospects. Real questions, things you’d really like to learn.

      2. Just as you would in a scavenger hunt, keep track of what you’ve learned at each blind alley. You don’t win scavenger hunts sitting back at the office; you learn it going out and finding blind ends.

      3. Be alive. Have fun. Keep your ears open. There’s no point in blinding your senses in a scavenger hunt; why blind your emotions in the sales hunt? Just use them to figure out the puzzle.

      Did the post-Copernican western world feel “rejected” by the sun when they found out it didn’t revolve around the earth? Of course not–though they probably did feel deflated. But that was just because they were cosmologically narcissistic. You don’t have to be that dumb or that narcissistic.

      Nobody can reject you without your complicity in defining ‘rejection.’ Any time you hear ‘handling rejection,’ learn to laugh at yourself for thinking it’s about you–and go back to being curious.