Podcast Ep 322 - How does it feel to be rejected?

In this episode of the Flourish Academy podcast, Heather Lahtinen explores the idea of rejection and how it affects photographers trying to grow their businesses.

As an experienced photographer, educator, and entrepreneur, Heather offers advice on handling rejection, why it's crucial for growth, and how to turn "no" into opportunities. 

Discover practical tips to manage and embrace rejection and learn why getting more "no's" can lead to more "yes's" and a successful photography business.

Show Notes:

• The concept of perceived rejection and why it may not be real rejection.
• Simple formula for making more money: make more offers, meet more people.
• The importance of being willing to hear "no" and the benefits of rejection.
• Six strategies to manage and embrace rejection.
• The importance of embracing rejection for business growth.

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Connect:

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TRANSCRIPT

You're listening to the Flourish Academy podcast, and today we are talking about rejection. My name is Heather Lahtinen, and I'm a photographer, educator, and entrepreneur, and I founded the Flourish Academy as a resource for photographers of all levels.

We want to help you pursue your passion on your own terms because we believe there is room for everyone. In this podcast, we focus on creating breakthroughs with your mindset to discover the things that are really holding you back in business and life.

Do you appreciate it when people tell you no? How do you handle that perceived rejection? I am going to address this through the lens of a photographer,

no pun intended, who is seeking to grow their business by making more offers to more people and therefore getting more knows, which we tend to classify as rejection,

even though I could probably argue that point as well. But today we're talking about how to handle that perceived rejection. I keep using the word perceived because I don't think there's such a thing as rejection,

but okay, let's stay focused. I'm teaching a class right now inside of Elevate on how to double your business in four months. I'll put the link to elevate in the show notes if you're interested in,

you know, making more money. But this is the third course in a series around mindset and money and strategy as a photographer inside of elevate. And in a recent class,

I shared a simple formula to make more money, which basically comes down to this, make more offers to more people, meet more people, tell them you're a photographer, It means you have to be willing to hear the word no.

And I have had photographers tell me so many times, quote, I can't handle the rejection. I can't handle hearing no, to which my response is,

are you sure you can't? Because what if you could? What if you could learn to adapt and even embrace the no's? Because in my business, I have to be willing to hear no 950 times in order to grow my business.

I happen to know my conversion rate. If I make 1000 offers, then I'm probably going to hear no 950 times in order to get 50 people to come into my ecosystem.

Can you imagine if I had to do a lot of work on hearing no, but I think this is where coaching comes in. Actually, I think this is where coaching shines because if you want to succeed in business and in life,

then you have to learn to manage your mind around the nose because the only way to grow is to get more of them, not just handle them,

but go look for them more often. Figure out a way to handle the rejection because it's how you learn. When I offer elevate, many people say no,

but I will keep offering because I believe in our program and I believe that anyone, everyone has the capability to make this work, this being a photography business.

And also I can learn from the photographers that say no and it's all just data. And if I can keep my brain in check, questionable sometimes, but then it's just,

it just becomes a matter of making more offers and I'll get better making offers and I'll probably get more yeses because I'll be learning from the data from the people who told me no. So in my case,

rejection is a really good thing. If you want to grow faster, you have to increase your number of offers, which is going to increase your number of nos. So I came up with six ways to manage this.

And you really, really want to pay attention to number six, because I think it is the key to all of us. Okay. The first one is to reframe rejection. Rejection is really just a form of feedback and it is not failure.

If you think it's failure, then that's why it hurts. But if you can reframe it as feedback, then each no becomes an opportunity to learn and improve and you can also,

did you know this? You can just choose not to believe it, meaning if someone says no and your brain says you were just rejected, you do not have to believe what your brain just offered you because rejection sounds negative,

but if you say, Oh, I just got more data than it could be positive. Number two, I want to normalize rejection. It does not have to be avoided because it is in fact normal.

People are going to say no to you and that's okay. It doesn't have to mean anything about you. There's nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed about and I think you could probably benefit it from showing yourself some self -compassion when it happens and remember people saying no is just part of the journey it does not mean that they hate your soul number three I think it's important to set goals because it can actually

help reduce the pressure and fear of rejection for example if you know that you make 10 offers, so you talk to 10 people, you offer your services, five of them say no,

and five of them say yes, you have a 50 % conversion rate. And if you decide, oh, well, I want to get 20 clients, okay, then I just need to make 40 offers because I know I have a 50 % conversion rate.

And then it just becomes about the math. Business is really just math. And if you can separate the math from your thoughts, or in other words, keep the drama out of it,

you will win. Number four, keep in mind the client perspective. It's probably not about you. You could learn to understand and empathize with what the client is thinking or feeling.

Maybe it's more, maybe it is more about their needs than your skills. Maybe they don't need nor want a photographer that might have nothing to do with your photos and your skill set.

Maybe they truly have a budget situation and they cannot afford to do it. It doesn't mean anything about you at all. It's about them. Number five,

I want you to really seek support around this. You might want to join a group or a community where you can share experiences and gain encouragement from other people that might be experiencing this.

We have a six figure group inside of Elevate and we actually celebrate our fails and it's super fun. I wanted them, I wanted to encourage them to seek more failure so that they could learn more,

so that they could normalize it. And then it's just not a big deal. And the ironic part is that I started this several months ago, and when someone shares their failure,

it's so funny. They'll start to talk it out and we quickly realized that it actually wasn't a failure on our last call. We had several people share failures and then we were like,

well, wait, but that didn't actually fail. And wait, what is so funny? How much our brain spins on something that actually is not real.

And number six, this is the most important, this is the linchpin to all of this. If you ignored all of my other advice and just really sunk your teeth into this concept,

you would be winning. I'm going to go in detail, but I just want to say it's about shifting your mindset. I want to explain this through a story. In episode 320, I talked about my son, Evan, he had just started his own pressure washing business.

He is currently focused on concrete driveways while he gains more experience and he might expand to patios and houses but for now it's driveways. So last week he had a client with a small concrete driveway and he knew it wasn't going to take him very long.

He was in a neighborhood so his plan was to go door to door asking for jobs. Now I didn't suggest this But I'm actually pretty proud of how courageous he is and I didn't say anything you guys about Man door -to -door is gonna be rough.

I said just be prepared not everyone's going to be happy to see you And when he came home, he was Lamenting a little bit he knocked on the doors of six point five houses He said I'm not sure what the point five is about but he did not get any new clients." And he was like,

"Oh man, that was a lot of work." And I said, "Yeah, but you did it. I'm so proud of you." And what if you knocked on, say, 10 doors and you got one yes, one client,

would it be worth it? And he's like, "Yeah." And I said, "Well, then you just have to figure out what that number is, like how many doors you have to knock on to get that one client." And if you knew that, like you knew that would happen,

then it happen, then it wouldn't be as challenging. You would just have to hurry up and knock on the doors. This is what door -to -door salesmen knew when they were selling the Kirby vacuum for $1 ,000 back in the,

what was that, maybe the '60s or '70s. They knew they had to knock on whatever number of doors to get one sale, and so they just did it. But then I asked him, I said, "Okay,

you did this today, "It's great, but what is the worst thing "that happened or could happen?" And he said, "Well, they just say no. "Then we don't get a customer,

then we don't make any money. "We move on to the next door and we waste all of this time." And I said, "Yes, but if we look at this factually, "you're not gonna door someone says no, "and you do that multiple times,

"you then have a thought about what that means." And that thought might be this isn't working I don't know what I'm doing people hate me no one wants my services they hate my photography they hate my heart they I mean whatever it is we just you know go on and on with this you have these thoughts people say no you have thoughts and then you feel something what is that feeling what do you feel when people say no to

you let's say For Evan, it was 6 .5 times, but let's say you make your photography offer to someone 10 people and 10 people say no.

So 0 % conversion rate. What is your thought? Let me be clear. What are your thoughts? And if you are in photography, I would recommend you get a sheet of paper and do a thought download. What would all of your thoughts be on that?

And then how does that make you feel? You'll come up with a one -word emotion. It will probably be pretty negative, like sad, rejected, stupid,

embarrassed, ashamed, worthless, whatever your emotion is. That's the worst thing that can happen. The worst thing that can happen is a feeling.

How would you feel if you were rejected? Because the next question becomes, can you handle that feeling? Can you allow yourself to feel that feeling? Because if so,

if you can master this, you are off to the races. Nothing can stop you. If you know that the worst thing that can happen is a feeling and you are willing to feel that feeling,

then what would stop you? Nothing, you would knock on doors all day. So number six is this mindset shift. Instead of, you know, what's the worst that can happen? You know that the worst thing that can happen is a feeling.

For the most part, I don't believe you will get physically harmed. You will just feel something that will be very, very unpleasant. My coach always says that the reason she's so successful is because she's willing to feel anything.

What if you were willing to feel stupid or embarrassed, or worthless. Whatever the emotion is for you. You understand that emotions are also temporary.

So if you're willing to feel it, it will pass, which means it's not forever. I've gotta tell you, this is brilliant. This unlocks like next level ninja selling because I'm willing to look like an idiot and I'm willing to feel stupid and embarrassed,

which means nothing stops me from putting anything out there. It's exactly why I started my photography business, my YouTube channel, a podcast, a program. All of the things I've started were because I was willing to feel like I didn't know what I was doing.

I was willing to feel like, oh my gosh, nothing is working. Who do I think I am? All of that. I was just willing to feel it because the result I was trying to create,

the outcome was more important to me than protecting my poor little feelings and trying to make myself comfortable. Okay, I'm being funny. I'm not making light of this because these feelings can feel very,

very heavy and serious. And but what if you were willing to feel them? I'm pretty sure that my son is willing to feel these things because he doesn't want to go back working for the man.

He had a job at Chick -fil -A for a few years, which he really liked, but he enjoys his freedom. He now has his driver's license. So I think he also wants to make more money.

He appreciates cash. Those reasons are more important to him than his ego. And he has somehow connected with that without me teaching that to him.

It's just kind of who he is. And I have to wonder if teenage boys in particular are more willing to experience that I don't know That's just a hunch I have because my daughter would never have been willing to do that and he would I don't know I don't really have any data for a study.

That's just a theory. I have What if the word rejection? Just was not a thing for you. It just wasn't in your vocabulary It's like I'm going to ask people to do something or to purchase something and they say no.

And I'm like, okay, next. And I don't make it mean anything about me. I maybe study it in order to get more information. But besides, so it only gives me data. It's only good. It only helps me.

Therefore, I'm willing to seek it out because I want to learn more about my clients and or myself. Nothing can stop you if you are willing to feel a feeling.

I hope that you found this useful. I'll see you in the next episode.