How do you feel when you hear a “NO,” or get ghosted by a client?
Before I developed the Ethical Sales Process (ESP) it used to make my heart ache.
As a relationship specialist and a neuroscience researcher, I wanted to find out why!
As a salesperson, I needed to understand WHY.
This led me down a fantastic path of discovery.
I’d like to share it with you!
Why My Heart Hurts When My Brain Hears NO:
Rejection actually activates in the same part of your brain as pain.
When you hear a NO in any part of your life it can be painful… But when you’re trying to help people and make a living at the same time, it’s especially painful.
Rejection hurts even more when you need a yes.
This is why “Traditional Sales Systems” actually sets you up for pain in almost every sales situation.
Think about it: if your mindset in your current sales system is based on getting a “sale” or a “Transactional Yes,” and you don’t get one… it feels like a punch in the gut.
It’s painful.
Rejection happens when the outcome does not meet your desires or expectations.
This is why many of us avoid sales altogether, or asking hard questions in our sales conversations.
Here are a few references and explanations:
How Your Brain Processes Rejection
No matter who you are, rejection hurts.
Scientists are able to map the very real processes behind our social aches — and learn how similar they are to physical pain.
- Being cut from a team.
- Learning on social media how a friend hosted a party and didn’t invite you.
- Seeing your ex-partner across the restaurant enjoying a romantic dinner with someone new.
All these forms of social pain are hurtful, and scientists have found the ache is indeed real.
Studies have identified that the brain processes social pain similarly to physical pain, and they believe it’s an evolutionary response.
- For early humans, being part of a group meant having access to increased safety and resources.
- Being rejected by the group left a person alone and vulnerable.
- Thus, humans evolved to seek social acceptance while perceiving social rejection as a threat to well-being. Associating exclusion with pain served to motivate humans to avoid threats to their social ties.
That means pain from a break-up, firing, or dissolution of a friendship is very real.
Similar to instances of physical pain, the same regions of the brain register social pain, and scientists have identified a clear overlap between physical pain and social pain.
Pain activation is meant to elicit our own escape, or — in the instances of self-induced pain — to stop the harmful behavior. Then, the memory of pain serves as a warning against repeating the risky behavior in the future.
And although the memory of physical pain can fade, studies have found it’s not the same with social pain, which can linger over time and reactivate with memory triggers. [1]
Rejection And Physical Pain Are The Same To Your Brain
We all know that rejection hurts… and neuroscience has concluded that it does in fact, literally, hurt. [2]
While the brain does not process emotional pain and physical pain identically, the reaction and cascading events are very similar, and a natural chemical (painkiller mu-opioid) is released during both events.
For example, when someone feels physical pain, opioids are released in the brain so that the significance of the pain is inhibited.
We now know this same experience occurs when an individual feels slighted or rejected by others.
Ongoing research has found it doesn’t take much for those hurt feelings to ignite.
A person doesn’t even have to exist in real life to be able to spark hurt feelings.
In a 2003 study in Science, researchers connected participants to a fMRI to see how they would respond to a virtual social snub. [3]
Their brains fired in the same location as physical pain.
One of the things we do at the Ethical Sales Institute is help our students accomplish two things regarding rejection:
1. Teach you how to build your client communications for clarity and authentic trust relationships.
2. We do that by embracing the Trinity of Ethical Sales and using 5 specific tools and techniques to reframe rejection.
Reframing rejection means:
- You practice curiosity.
- Your goal is clarity.
- You are willing to hear a no OR a yes with equal ease.
- You understand a no means the potential client is open to saying yes to something else.
- Clear Choice is the celebration.
Resources:
[1] Lucchesi, Emilie Le Beau. “How Your Brain Processes Rejection.” Discover Magazine, Discover Magazine, 10 Jan. 2022, www.discovermagazine.com/mind/how-your-brain-processes-rejection.
[2] Roberts, Nicole F. “Rejection and Physical Pain Are the Same to Your Brain.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 28 Dec. 2015, www.forbes.com/sites/nicolefisher/2015/12/25/rejection-and-physical-pain-are-the-same-to-your-brain/?sh=34ad1dcc4f87.
[3] KD;, Eisenberger NI; Lieberman MD; Williams. “Does Rejection Hurt? An FMRI Study of Social Exclusion.” Science (New York, N.Y.), U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2003, pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/14551436/
Marla Mattenson in collaboration with ESI team
With a 25+ year career, Mattenson is a trailblazer in transforming sales paradigms from transactional to relational for professionals who prioritize the integrity & fulfillment of their services. She is a champion of consent-based sales.
www.instagram.com/marla.mattenson
