Exploring rejection

A few days ago a company rejected one of our proposals. It was quite a decent-sized project which we pitched for, and the rejection certainly came as a disappointment. In the past, a situation like this would be met with assumptions of why we did not get the work, and then we’d just go on with business as usual.

I had 2 assumptions about why we did not get this particular project. The first was price, and the second was that I thought the client didn’t see the value that we would add to their business. So I enquired, politely, as to why we didn’t get the work. To my surprise, the company presented 2 reasons for the rejection, and neither was related to price or value. In fact, they thought the price was right, and identified the value – but they had 2 other concerns. This was totally enlightening. Now there is an opportunity for dialogue! The first of their concerns is valid, but we might be able to convince them that it should not really be a concern (due to the nature of the Web and Social Media), and their other concern – we think – is invalid and we can probably come to an agreement on this one.

How many times – in business and outside of it – do we accept rejection and not explore the reasons behind it. I think that most times we will be amazed that our initial assumptions about being turned down are far from the truth. Sometimes we’re so afraid of the truth, that we fail to see the potential benefits which lie in the truth.

Communication is so easy today, and all we really have to do is talk! I believe that talking is the essence of relationships, and relationships are the core of business today.

Gina Smith wrote a very interesting article about communicating and connecting. Read it here. Thanks to Sheraan Amod for the link.

Photo credit: quinnanya

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