Did you go to your high school prom?

My daughter handed me a cost estimate for going to her high school prom- Whoa! An easy $600 when you include the:

Prom Dress
Shoes and Accessories
Hair
Tickets
Limo
Dinner
Flower Corsage

Not to mention the therapy that happens months before when feelings of inclusiveness and rejection may set it. No I didn’t go to my high school prom, and yes I sometimes regret not going. My daughter and I seem to have the same conversation every day:

“You just don’t understand because you never went to your prom”
“You’re right, I didn’t go to my prom but I understand what it feels to want something and wish for it and hope it happens”
“Things are different now- my friends and I don’t operate like you did in the past”
“Feelings of courage, anticipation, worry, excitement, social pressures never change”

Some of this relates to sales-especially when you work so hard for a deal only to find you lost it. The feelings of rejection, not being included, frustration hits the same faultline as prom emotions.

Sales takes trememdous courage- each day we put ourselves, our product, our company out there and risk rejection. And once we’ve been rejected, we never really know why. There are so many layers of rejections from the unspoken rejections to the hidden objection to the legitimate objection.

Once we have been rejected, do we ever really want to know why? We may scramble out so fast, we never really hear it or we are so angry we never really catch it. Learn from your objections because they are golden opportunities to learn and grow.