$50 No Value

Shaan shares a story about how his uncle handled rejection while selling textbooks door-to-door.

"My uncle told me about how he used to sell textbooks door-to-door. I asked him how many he actually sold - you're knocking on a hundred doors, walking through hot Atlanta neighborhoods sweating - how many do you actually sell? He said one or two or three would be an amazing day.

The way he did it was very simple. He just did the math and realized he had to knock on a hundred doors to get two sales. So he didn't just count the revenue from the two yeses - he assigned a price to every no. He'd say a no is worth $50. Every time he collected a no, that was $50.

It was a psychological trick that allowed him to see the nos still as progression because he was just getting closer to that yes - the one or two out of a hundred that were going to happen.

I've actually used that in fundraising where when investors reject your company, it's a very personal thing. People don't raise money, and when you ask them how many calls they made or meetings they had, they just have a funnel problem. They haven't had enough conversations because they're afraid of rejection or avoiding it, or they tasted some rejection and it scared them off. But it's a numbers game, and the way to do it is put a dollar value even on those nos."