Crushing Shyness in Sales
I used to be a shy noob who didn't ask people to pay for 2 years. Fear of rejection held me back. 😟
But when I started selling and faced my fears, magic happened! 💰 I've sold over $100k worth of contracts!
Rejection isn't failure; it's valuable feedback! It guides you to the right product and audience.
Examples from other founders:
- 😮 A college dropout made a fake landing page to test a product. People paid! Then he actually built it & MADE $3m!!!
- 😮 A YC solo founder made a fake demo on powerpoint. Got 5 paid LOIs in Enterprise. Raised $1.5m, built it, and got in YC!!
- 😮 A Harvard founder said he can convert Figma -> React. Got 10 customers in 1 day. Fulfilled requests manually, then later, built a tool to actually automate Figma -> React. Raised 1m+
The goal? Find out if your value prop is worth it to customers. Don't waste a year building something no one will pay for!
Watch more tips: Video Link (this helped me a lot)
Best of luck from founderscafe.io 😄
For any shy person who needs to start doing sales (✋) I strongly, strongly, strongly recommend “The Introvert’s Edge”. I’ve read a lot of sales books, and that has been the most helpful to me in breaking my false belief that I couldn’t “do sales”.
Also strongly recommend “Never Split the Difference”, which, in addition to being a good foundation for negotiating, gives a very straightforward framework for building trust and rapport in conversation. If that doesn’t come naturally to you (✋) it’s great to have a roadmap.
Shyness and fear is something that will kill you and your dream. And if you want to achieve something in life sooner or later you will need to overcome it.
My suggestion is start small. One step at the time. Sell to one person first, take your time to feel the water. But the most important thing is consistency. Over time you will be comfortable with selling and this will help you tremendously.
And the most important thing is avoid the "maybe next time" mindset. JUST ONE. It will not hurt you.
Here are some other tips if you are shy and fear : Overcoming fear and shyness when selling
I agree that testing something first helps. I always talk about programs and courses I haven’t even started to create a framework for just to see what people need for solutions.
I used to be just like that, afraid to take the plunge.
But when I faced my fears and started my own venture, the results were amazing! It's true, rejection is just a stepping stone to success, and it helps us find the right path to our goals.
Keep pushing forward! 💪💼
We got this!
a good question would be how to test retention when it is at this stage? it feels encouraging at the start but i reckon a lot of churn is due to minimal use of the product. what would be a good way to extrapolate retention with a demo-style presentation?
"Don't waste a year building something no one will pay for" ... but what if your primary goal isn't money like an open-source project ?
Pedro
Guess same rule applies- pay for is a metaphor for use