Rejection Autopsy: Proactively Seek Out Improvement

The most infuriating part of being an independent consultant can also be the source of your best growth - but you have to do it right.

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The Most Infuriating Part Of Being A Consultant

It happened again!

A prospect engaged me in a conversation about our services. Over several months, we worked with him to develop a detailed proposal tailored to his organisation’s unique situation. Then, he vanished for a few months.

He later re-appeared with a colleague to advance the discussion to the next level and create a proposal he would take to leadership — ideally with us presenting it.

Then, I got a two-sentence email explaining that they no longer have the budget and will not pursue the project.

That’s it? A three-sentence rejection without any explanation? After spending hours on calls, investing days working on the proposal, and investing even more hours preparing for the senior stakeholder pitch?

Don’t we deserve a little more than that?

Handling Rejection

There’s a lot of advice about handling rejection. A lot of it is telling you how to feel. But you can’t really change how you feel. It’s probably going to make you angry and frustrated. What you can control, though, is three things.

1. How you respond. Do you respond negatively to the client out of anger? You can be absolutely furious internally yet see it as a personal challenge to respond in a way that is amazing to these kinds of messages. If you choose the latter route, you open the door to future opportunities with that prospect in their current and future organisations. I’ve had prospects in the past who felt determined to make something work for us because of the way we responded (in my earlier years I’ve also responded so badly that I’ve burned bridges forever). You can also turn lost prospects into advocates and a key allies you turn to for feedback.

2. Whether it leaves a scar. Will the rejection leave a lasting mark on you? Will you find the process so demotivating that you don’t put as much effort into future proposals? Can you handle being rejected xx% of the time to secure the clients you want? It’s key to know this is part of the process. You’ve probably requested quotes from people in the past and changed your mind about working with them.

3. What will you improve next time? This is the key step - what could you have done differently? You will always be vulnerable to forces beyond your control - but even considering those forces, was there anything you could have done? This is where the rejection autopsy comes into play.

Telling a client you’re angry about how they rejected you is clearly counter-productive. A far better approach is to take a breath, wait a few days, and then begin a rejection autopsy.

Questions To Perform The Rejection Autopsy

It’s not easy, but if you treat every lost prospect as a clue to improving your sales process, you will improve much quicker.

1. How could I have better qualified the prospect was a right match? Yes, you used the ‘Zero In’ technique to ensure you were aligned on the budget, but did you check the budget was approved for this project and ready to be deployed? Was there any chance the budget might suddenly disappear and be assigned to another project? There’s a big difference between thinking the budget is reasonable and actually having that budget to deploy.

2. How can I better understand their needs and pain points? If the budget vanished, it meant another project took priority. What could I have done to make this project a priority? In this case, I didn’t do enough to ask about their competing internal priorities and to help build the case as to why this project was more important to the client than other priorities. I can add that to my list of questions for future clients.

3. Where could I have been quicker? Time kills all deals. Every day, you delay responding to a client, setting up calls, sending a proposal, etc.…reduces the odds that you will make the sale. What systems can you put in place to be quicker? For example, can I deliberately hold back time in my calendar to set up meetings faster? Can I begin writing parts of the proposal based on earlier calls to save time for later?

4. How can I better convey the unique value I/we bring to this project? It’s rare that we lose a prospect to a competitor; it’s far more common for prospects either not to pursue the project or decide to do it themselves. We need to connect our unique expertise and experience to better outcomes. This doesn’t seem relevant in this situation, but it’s always worth considering where we could have better highlighted the connection.

5. Could I have better surfaced concerns and addressed potential objections? It’s easy to think that if the prospect doesn’t raise any concerns they don’t have any. The reality is interpersonal dynamics and personalities come into play. Sometimes, people are just polite or reluctant to share what they really think. This is why building a trusting relationship where a prospect feels comfortable sharing concerns is important, and you can prompt them to do so. You should be able to smoke out at least one concern in your interactions. In this case, I didn’t smoke out the reality that their budget could be reapportioned elsewhere.

6. Where can I improve my stakeholder relationships? There were clearly influential stakeholders in this scenario with whom I didn’t connect. I need to do a better job of getting introductions to more senior stakeholders and understanding their needs. I need to be more proactive in asking for this and being able to win over potentially sceptical stakeholders.

This isn’t a comprehensive list so feel free to add and adapt things to suit your situation.

Remember, too, that you won’t get a rejection most of the time - the prospect will just go quiet. You should perform the same autopsy in this scenario.

Not only does it feel better to treat a lost prospect this way, but it is also the key to defying stagnation and constantly improving.

Constant improvement is the key to hitting the $1m+ revenue level. You have to force yourself to improve, and reflecting on failures is a critical part of that process.

Good luck.

Thanks for reading.

Richard Millington