Shari Levitin, Author, Speaker & CEO, Shari Levitin Group

1. Go for the standing ovation every time.

The ultimate downfall for most business people is their inability to handle rejection. But if you’re going to make it as an entrepreneur, you have to be able to take rejection… lots of it. My mentor told me a long time ago to count the number of “no’s” I get and realize that each “no” simply moves you closer to a “yes.”

“Give each pitch your best shot each time,” he told me. “Never take a shortcut.”

Ken Rutsky, Founder & President, KJR Associates, Inc.

In the late 1980s I had the privilege to attend IBM’s vaunted sales training.  We learned techniques for rapport building, need finding, objection handling, and closing, even including, and I kid you not, the highly praised “assumptive/alternative close” which went something like, “Do you want that mainframe cabinet in White or IBM Blue?”

But most of all, we learned and practiced the hallowed technique of  “NFAR”, or Need, Feature, Advantage, Reaction. The idea being – question until you understand need, then describe your feature and its advantage, then wait for the reaction.