How to Deal With Rejection in Networking
Maria Reyes-McDavis asks: Got any good advice for newbies on how to deal with rejection? Our stance is to leave it and move on, or engage further. But I’ve seen some people actually delete the cross-blog-convo-post… Thoughts?
Maria posed this question in a Cross Blog Conversation back in July – 6 months ago. How ironic that I missed it altogether until now, considering that is exactly what she was asking about!
Maria,
My apologies for missing your question, and the opportunity to engage in a Cross Blog Conversation with you and your readers. For some reason I just now received the trackback this week.
Technology is awesome – when it works right, eh? 
It’s a great topic, so I decided to respond – even if I am quite late with it. Very timely even as I was just reading Be Realistic About Time by Chris Brogan this week. Excellent article – definitely food for thought.
So what do we do when we feel like we’re being ignored, blown off or “rejected”?
First, I think it’s important to realize that’s usually not the case. We’re far too quick to take things personal, when they’re usually not. And I agree with Chris Brogan on the fact that expectations have become somewhat unrealistic, with most people expecting responses to come in near real-time fashion.
The fact is, most of us are overwhelmed with requests and with various ‘communication pings’. Earlier this week I was feeling a little flustered myself between buzzes, vibrations, rings and dings. My points of communication include: 8 email accounts, Tweets, Twitter DMs, forum messages, forum PMs, Skype, Facebook, Myspace, blog comments, mobile phone & landline.
To make matters worse, people will often send at least 3 messages using any combination of those points to reach you. An email to ask you if you got the private message, and then a tweet to ask you if you got the mail.
It’s a lot to keep up with! 
I don’t pressure myself to answer every single message. It’s not even humanly possible. I often turn off the ringers on both my mobile and landline – and also turn off notifications from social networks ocassionally. This has nothing to do with the people who are trying to reach me. It has to do with me, and my need for personal downtime, time with my family, time to focus on a project, etc.
I’ve seen people get completely bent over a week going by without an email response, or not getting a return call/message from someone they wanted to speak with. All sorts of assumptions might get made. But more often than not, its just not personal.
I’ll tell you straight up that I have thousands of emails – and there is no way I’m going to be answer or even read every single one of them. I have somewhat of a system for dealing with priority messages, but things do fall through the cracks from time to time.
Your blog post being a good example 
To answer your question about Cross Blog Conversations specifically, I would leave the blog post up. Especially once it gets indexed in the search engines, and if your readers have left comments on the topic.
It’s good measure to send your blogger a note where you think they will see it. If they are active on Twitter, tweet them a message and let them know you’ve invited them to a CBC. But after that, leave it and move forward. If they don’t respond, it’s not the end of the world.
And maybe they will – 6 months later 
The bottom line is not to take it personal. Don’t consider it a sign of rejection. Your request may have been overlooked, filtered out, or otherwise ‘caught in the noise’ of what has become an unrealistic wave of communications coming from every direction. Follow up once, and then don’t sweat it after that.
I’m curious to hear your thoughts on current expectations of response time, in regards to social media and social networking. Obviously it would be ideal if we could all respond to everything in real-time, and never miss a message.
As for me, I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. And I certainly hope nobody ever loses sleep over a delayed – or even lack of – response from me. Of course, I’ve received enough “hate mail” to know that people do take it personal…
Your thoughts?
Best,
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I totally agree. I think that “Don’t take it personally” should be a mantra for life. You usually don’t know where someone is coming from or what their circumstances are. If you do take some time to discover the pressures, influences they are under, you can understand their actions better.
That also applies to the original question, how do you deal with rejection. It’s not personal. It’s “no for now”. Things might change, attitudes might change – or not. But if you form a deeper relationship, you can understand their “why” and respond to it.
Great post.
I agree with you there, Adrea. You MUST approach this as a business and should treat it as such. You really can’t it personal, otherwise you will blog yourself up.
When I was still single and a guy I liked would turn me down (Yes it did happen from time to time. Imagine that?) my mom taught me this important word: NEXT! That’s the attitude that I use with networking. If I feel like I’m being rejected by one person, I just say NEXT! and keep on rolling. Someone always says Yes after someone else says no. You won’t get to yes if you stay hung up on the no (as this blog post so clearly shows).
Follow me @deannatroupe on Twitter.
I was just talking with Kelly the other day about cross-blog conversations. How ironic!
We can’t respond to everything that’s thrown at us 100% of the time – it’s just not humanly possible. (Maybe I should put that as a disclaimer on my email signature! lol
I would agree: don’t take it personally. It is helpful to hear your perspective as someone who is very busy and successful. There are many very successful people who never respond at all to any comments, so I consider it great when anyone does respond. Also, comment consistently, add value, and the host blogger will eventually take note.
Follow me @steveborgman on Twitter.
You cannot take anything personally that happens on the internet whether on a blog, Tweet, e-mail, or even facebook, unless you actually know the person you are speaking to and have met them in person they don’t really know you nor you them. Not only do people get overwhelmed with information many folks forget that they are dealing with real thinking and feeling people on the other end of those e-mails and blog posts, unlike a phone call or a snail mail letter where you can hear and read emotion and sometimes feel the person on the other end, the internet doesn’t convey feeling like that, especially a busy website. You are just another post or e-mail, nothing personal.
I dont know, Bob – that’s taking it a little far in my book. There are a lot of people that I only know online, that I havent had opportunity to meet in person (yet) that I still consider “people I know”.
It actually helps me a lot to think of the people I’m writing for and to – not just considering them or their response “nothing personal” – but to actually hear what they are going through, as it helps me to write more content with those things in mind.
I think without the personal aspect of it, I wouldnt enjoy my work anywhere near as much as I do.
It also helps us to realize that we’re all merely human. If I dont get an email response from you right away, I shouldnt assume you are blowing me off – but realize that perhaps you’re away from the computer, sick, on vacation, busy with other things, etc.
We’re all real people, with a life outside the computer & internet.
Follow me @lynnterry on Twitter.
Hi Steve,
Not every business model runs on feedback, or requires a response from the merchant. It would be impossible for Brittany Spears to personally respond to all of her fan mail with a hand-written letter for example.
Its interesting that with the popularity of social media properties, people have come to expect a personal response in almost real-time, regardless of who it is. From your best friend or your mother, maybe. But not from Pink or Bill Gates for example.
For most companies you have to use a ticket system or contact their support team. That free’s them up to do what they do best (which is not “respond to emails/comments”).
Follow me @lynnterry on Twitter.
Speaking of which, someone made the comment on Twitter this past week that they didnt know how they felt about Barack Obama not writing his own tweets – about having someone designated to “tweet” on his behalf at Twitter.com.
Seriously. Do you want the man to focus on running the country – or sitting in a corner replying to tweets & DM’s 10 hours a day??
Follow me @lynnterry on Twitter.
if you fear rejection, then social networking is not for you …
I think we send a lot of mixed messages. We tell people that it’s important to build relationships in order to succeed online, and to use social media marketing, but then we say “it’s business, don’t take it personally. ”
We gather friends on sites like Facebook and carry on both business and personal conversations on Twitter, but then we say it’s not personal, it’s business.
The bottom line is that communication has changed and people do expect more immediate responses. Why else are all those people putting everyone in danger by talking on the cell while driving?
I wholeheartedly agree that everyone should have reasonable expectations about how long to wait for a reply, but I also think that if you’re in business, you have a responsibility to reply in a reasonable amount of time. The timing depends on what the request is.
I’ve always had a rule of thumb to wait 3 days for a reply (whether it’s a phone message to a friend or an email to a business). But that’s for questions about products, the status of my order, or support for an issue with something I bought. If I email you for free advice on running my business, I don’t have any expectations that you’ll ever reply, so any response even one months later is appreciated.
If you engage me; if you ask me for information or express an interest in a joint project, I do expect the courtesy of a response within a reasonable amount of time (and weeks isn’t reasonable to me). Even if that response is a simple, “Sorry. I got swamped. I’ll have to back burner this for months.” If you don’t response at all, then yes, I take it *personally*. I’m a bit put off by the lack of the courtesy of a response. Do I let it bother me any more than that? Absolutely not. I simply note it in my mind and move on. But I am left wondering if my last message actually go through….
To make a long message longer…. One final note…. Lynn, if you have thousands of emails to sort through, isn’t it time to hire someone to sort through and prioritize them for you? It will save your sanity if nothing else.
Lynn, want to thank you for using that Aweber blogblast!
Personal time, Face time, Online time, Connection time. It’s all timing. I’ll just say here that I’m learning the ropes with this social networking, barely doing the most important connective tasks. Making mistakes is all par for the course.
I’m finding that there is a vibrant community of online people that I can connect with at any time I choose. I drop in and out and want to challenge myself a bit more by engaging in conversations consistently and purposefully.
It’s good to know that the rules aren’t so cut and dried that we all can’t be learning the ropes together and helping each other improve!
best for now,
Mary
Follow me @marygallagher on Twitter.
Lynn,
If I took every delayed response as a rejection or even a ‘No Thank You’ as a reason to get my feelings hurt – holy cow – I would be the #1 user of anti depressants.
Some people even get upset if they get a response from a person’s assistant. Geez – no one can do it all!
This is crap. When someone on facebook does not respond to a first email, it’s a rejection. Period. Why bother to accept someone as a “friend” if they won’t even respond to a short email that says, “hi, nice to see you again…. You look great.”? If they are trying to spare your feelings by not rejecting your friend request, you’ll get the message that they aren’t interested in you when they ignore your email. It’s just as much as a rejection.
Hi Lynn,
Great post. However, sometimes I have trouble not taking it personally since it is an instant reaction. What I have realized is that if i have something to say, I have to say it (to the person) or I will be replaying in my head what I should have said over and over again
It’s okay to wonder why, but then again~ don’t take it personally. Reaching out is a part of work, and as I’ve read on the other blog ‘more action, mere friction’ which could equate to resistance.