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In the coaching business, there are few worse feelings than when a one-on-one sales call ends in rejection.

It’s a major blow… and we’ve all experienced it! If you’ve coached for any significant amount of time, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Sometimes, the prospect doesn’t come right out and say ‘No’ (which makes you feel a little better), but they haven’t said ‘Yes’ either. At the end of the day, it’s the same result: no new clients.

It’s incredibly frustrating, especially when you think of all the time you put into preparing for the call.

When that happens, a lot of coaches decide to take on a positive mindset and look ahead. Oh well… can’t dwell in the past. Onward and upward! When’s my next sales call?

There’s nothing wrong with positive thinking, and we definitely shouldn’t let a few bad sales calls ruin our self-confidence. If we just plow through the rejections and use the same approach again and again, we might actually get lucky and sign some new clients, right?

Well, I’m personally not convinced that the “onward and upward” approach is really the best way to go about improving conversion rates. As the most overused cliche of all time says, the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing while expecting different results.

What if, instead of stubbornly charging forward into the next appointment, we took off our blinders and had a look around with a different mindset?

What if we could use the same performance-improving approach that world-class athletes and salespeople use to boost our own conversion rates by 20 to 30%?

Well, we totally can. Here’s how:

1. Audit Your Performance

The first key is to audit your performance. Instead of hanging up the phone and erasing the sales call from your memory, do a little “post-game” analysis.

When Tony Robbins first began his career delivering presentations for Jim Rohn, he decided he wanted to be the best in the company. Rather than doing just two or three presentations per week, he decided to run three presentations each day.

He realized that in just one week, he’d gain a month’s worth of experience. In one month, he’d get gain an entire quarter’s experience. And in a single quarter, he’d gain an entire year’s worth of experience.

Within just three months, he was the best. It wasn’t because he was naturally good. He was just obsessed with doing it and reviewing it.

Those two words — “do” and “review” — were key. After you do a sales call, review it.

We see this all the time in every televised sport you can think of. After a play, the sportscasters and analysts pull up the instant replay, watch it back in slow motion, and draw their conclusions. We need to do the same thing with our sales calls.

2. Look Upstream

When a sales call ends with anything but a ‘Yes’ from our prospect, we tend to think it’s because something went wrong at the end.

Even though the problem shows up downstream (at the end of the process), it probably began to go off track upstream (at the beginning of the sales call). When reviewing the instant replay of our sales call, we need to look as far upstream as possible.

I once heard Wyatt Woodsmall talk about his experience with the US Olympic diving team. One of the coaches he worked with was extremely successful and actually held the gold medal record. So, Wyatt began to dissect his methods.

It was easy to tell when a diver failed to execute the dive perfectly — there was a larger than normal splash at the end. By default, most people would assume the problem was in how the diver entered the water… but not this coach. After every single dive, the coach watched the replay and asked, “Where did the dive begin to go off track?”

This particular coach knew that to fix the dive, you have to start at the beginning, not the end. In other words, what’s the earliest moment that something goes wrong? Finding the earliest mistakes often corrected the rest of the dive sequence.

When we take a moment to get honest with ourselves after a sales call that ends poorly, we know there’s something we did up front that caused our performance to go off track. To really fix the “splash”, we need to identify where we began to go astray as far upstream as possible.

Fixing those early errors often has a ripple effect throughout the rest of the sales process. As you do your post-sales-meeting instant replay, look upstream and figure out the root cause of the performance deviation.

3. Watch Your Language

When auditing our sales-call performance to figure out where things started to go wrong, the first thing to look at is our language — both the words and tone we use when talking.

A great friend of mine, Ari Galper, says that when talking to a prospect, never be too friendly or enthusiastic.

It’s a little counterintuitive and most of us probably think that being friendly and enthusiastic is the first thing we need to do on a sales call, especially with someone new.

But, Ari makes the point that the only people who are friendly and enthusiastic are family, friends, and salespeople. If we’re friendly and enthusiastic with a prospect and we’re not their friend or family member, we must be a salesperson!

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So, during the sales call you want to have a really particular kind of energy about you. You don’t want any kind of forward motion, pushy-ness, or momentum in your voice. Think about it like a balloon that you’ve inflated and released. It zooms around the room for a second and falls limp to the ground.

You need to have the same energy as the deflated balloon — not the zooming, frantic, noisy balloon. That doesn’t mean you need to be a drag, but you shouldn’t have any forward motion about your voice. Just be there.

Why does this work? Have you ever been on a sales call and felt like the prospect is pushing back on you? It’s usually because, on some level, they believe you’re pushing them — with your words or your tone. Then, rejection is triggered.

When looking back over your sales meeting, watch for early language and tone that may be too friendly and enthusiastic or suggestive and pushy.

4. Clean Your Come-From

The second thing to look for when auditing your sales-call performance is your come-from, or intent.

I once heard Frank Sugars ask, “When you sit down with a potential client, are you there to make money or are you there to help them make money?”

Take away the “evil” intent and think, “I’m not here to get more money. I’m here to help them get to the truth and decide if I’m the right fit for them.” If they’re a good fit, they’ll sign up with you, and if they’re not, then they won’t! It’s that simple.

If you can get the intention right in your sales process, the right words will naturally come to you and through you.

5. Apply the Simplest Fix

Once you’ve reviewed your sales-call and discovered the earliest moment where your language or intent took you off track, apply the simplest solution possible to fix the issue.

Often, you might have a conversion problem and realize there’s just one small piece that needs a little tweaking, and once you fix that piece everything else gets better.

In other words, you don’t have to overhaul and over-complicate the entire sales process! Find one problem that’s holding you back and apply the most simple duct-tape/coat-hanger-antenna solution.

Once we’ve reviewed the problem with instant replay, gone as far upstream as possible, looked at our language and intent, then we can diagnose the issue and apply the simplest fix possible to get the outcome we’re after!

Here’s my question to you: Which one of these tips is most useful for you? I’d love to hear from you, so make sure to leave a comment below!

P.S. Whenever you’re ready… here are 4 ways I can help you grow your coaching business:

1. Grab a free copy of my book

It’s the roadmap to attracting prospects, signing clients, and scaling your coaching business. — Click Here

2. Join the Coach Dojo and connect with coaches who are scaling too

It’s our new Facebook community where smart coaches learn to get more income, impact, and independence. — Click Here

3. Join our Implementation Program and be a Case Study

I’m putting together a new coaching case study group at Black Belt this month… stay tuned for details. If you’d like to work with me on your client-getting and scale plans… just send me a message with the words “Case Study”. — Click Here

4. Work with me and my team privately

If you’d like to work directly with me and my team to take you from 6 to 7 figures… just send me a message with the word “Private”… tell me a little about your business and what you’d like to work on together, and I’ll get you all the details! — Click Here

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