The last two weeks I have been waiting for an answer from a potential client on a large piece of business. While playing the waiting game I have been thinking a lot about the sales process. I realized I have not been turned down much lately. Before I got too excited I also realized I had not been asking for the business much lately either. My excuse was I had been busy with speaking, coaching and writing assignments and had taken my attention off generating new business. Ask yourself, are you asking for the business often enough? Are you too busy delivering your product or service this month that you have not been thinking about what business you will bring in next month?

If this rings true for you that would be about normal. Being busy is an excuse. The truth is it is easier to stay busy with any project than risk rejection. The biggest reason we do not ask for business, try to close the sale, or insist on taking an order, is because we do not want to be rejected. Especially if what you are selling is you. Think about it, you can sell 100 raffle tickets for your child's school, sell chocolate bars for your church, or ask people to write a check for a good cause, but when it comes to asking people to give you a check, a big check how do you do?

Often we do not ask because we project in our mind that the answer will be no, and for most people our biggest fear is rejection. Sure, it can be scary to get turned down. Here is an important secret though, the more you do it the easier it gets, and the less scary. To be successful we have to embrace rejection, know it is a part of the process of getting what we want, it must not be avoided instead it must be sought out.

This is not easy to do, in business there is always plenty to keep us busy or shall I say plenty to distract us from what is one of the most important aspects of business- selling. Instead of selling people will do just about anything, schedule meetings, organize their desk, respond to emails, take a longer lunch, go to a networking event, even write articles. While all these things are helpful to the success of any business they are less of a priority than the task of selling. Selling, let us define for our purposes as the process of qualifying prospective clients, identifying their needs, presenting our product to them and closing the business. This process must be completed with each potential client for any selling to be successful. To stop anywhere in the process is a waste of time.

Being successful in business is the result of finding enough of the right people and asking them to buy the products and or services they need from you. If you are not asking you can not get agreement to provide them with products or services.

If you realize that every no is closer to a yes and you are ready to embrace rejection, here are some things to do to help you start asking more.

• Write down or review your annual and quarterly income goals.
  Break that down further into monthly income goals.

• Then decide how many houses, policies, hours or consulting, cars or whatever, you have to sell each month to achieve that goal.

• Decide what is your Prospect to Client Ratio, ie: on average how many people do you have to ask for the business before you get a yes. In most cases depending on your product service and industry you may have to offer the opportunity to between seven to 25 or more people before you someone actually says yes and gives you an order.

• Once you know your Prospect to Client Ratio, you can calculate how many qualified prospective clients you have to ask for the business every week to achieve your goals.

For example if you need 5 sales a week and you have to ask 25 people on average before one person agrees to buy then you have to ask 25 people 5 days a week to buy.

When you do these calculations the number of people you must ask for the business could be up to five times greater than what you are doing currently. Do not be discouraged. Sales is like any business skill and like any muscle in your body, it takes time to develop and strengthen. If you hold steadfast to your goal and figure out how to generate the necessary number of prospects coming through your sales pipeline, eventually you will find it workable to meet with the number of prospects you need to achieve your goal.

Once you are asking enough people every week for the business, the next thing to look at is how are you asking. Are you asking timidly, can your prospects hear fear in your voice or do you convey confidence and enthusiasm when you speak to your potential clients? I hope you do the latter. Even if you are making 100 sales calls a day if you are conveying anger, confusion or frustration in your voice no one will say yes. You must make your calls with enthusiasm and confidence.

The only way to meet your goals is to successfully ask for the business as often as you can. Do not worry about who says no and who says yes, if you ask enough people you will definitely get some yeses. Focus on your goal, making your predetermined number of sales. When someone turns you down do not dwell on it, that depletes your energy and your self-esteem and makes it harder to ask the next time.

At one of my recent public speaking workshops a participant gave me a page from a calendar that said on it "Hurrah, I did the thing I feared the most. Excuse me while I cheer. Now here I stand a stronger soul and all I've lost is fear. " Embrace rejection, remember every no is closer to a yes and you will gain more success for yourself and all you will have lost is fear.