
Giving a name to my sales anxiety - mitko
https://dimitarsimeonov.com/2019/06/06/giving-a-name-to-my-sales-anxiety
======
skrebbel
I think a lot of sales anxiety among geeky folks is driven by the stereotype
"alpha male smooth talking sales guy". I sure did, but then I learned that
that's actually a very bad salesperson in many cases.

If you sell technology, then the last thing you want is to convince people to
buy something they don't actually need. You shouldn't really want to convince
people of anything at all - you should want to learn what they need and, if
they're sufficiently interested in what you have to answer that need, answer
their questions about it.

I run a service ([https://talkjs.com](https://talkjs.com)) that makes it easy
for developers to build a chat feature into their apps/sites. We do a lot of
sales. Nearly all sales we do is "warm" \- people find us, show interest (eg
by signing up for a free trial) and then the process starts. I found that this
sales is _a lot of fun!_ , because:

    
    
        * I get to talk about code with other engineers
        * They have a problem our product very well may solve
        * There's no convincing. Just clarifying, exploring
    

I did, sometimes, make the mistake of going down the "smooth talker sales guy"
road. It's an easy trap to fall for because it's so deeply culturally
ingrained that that's what salespeople do. I got excited and started
overselling, or bragging, or both. None of the companies I did that with
became customers. My guess is that by doing the smooth talk and not the nerdy
engineering talk, they lost trust in us as a technology provider. And fairly
so.

~~~
toyg
You have the benefit of _being_ your target market, though. Your problems are
your customers’ problems, you speak the same language, you get excited about
the same things. That’s not always the case. Sure, there is an element of
passion for your product that must be present in the conversation, but how it
gets conveyed might have to change pretty dramatically depending on target
audience.

Think about selling a federated IM solution to regular users and to privacy
geeks: two completely different crowds talking in different ways about
different problems, even though the product might well suit both camps. If you
get nerdy with regular users (“it’s federated pubsub with e2e crypto!”), they
will ignore you; if you get product-y with geeks (ala Apple - “you can send
emojis to each other! Best ever emoji system!”) they will ignore you.
Switching between these two modes is effectively a “slimy salesman” technique,
and it’s unavoidable.

~~~
skrebbel
I'd wager that most successful products and services are made and sold by
people who are (roughly) in their own target market.

Pebble was made by a guy who wanted a Pebble. Twitter was made by a guy who
wanted everybody to know when he ate a sandwich. Dropbox was made by a guy who
wanted to be able to share files with his sister without a hassle.

This is also why I believe that the fediverse will never take off unless the
general population starts taking privacy seriously (which someday they might,
who knows!)

In fact, we didn't start doing TalkJS. We started out with a totally different
kind of chat app, pivoted 4 times (!), and, suprise, only when we started
shipping a product that we were in the target market for, things took off.

~~~
ghaff
You're talking sales to individuals though. The typical enterprise sales rep
is probably not the customer for a a manufacturing process control system or
retail POS.

With some exceptions. Enterprise sales reps are sometimes hired in from
industries where they've been a buyer or user of the type of product that
they're selling--which helps them speak the right language and understand the
pain points.

But I can guarantee that _many_ enterprise sales reps, including good ones,
have never gotten hands on in even the most cursory way with the products they
sell.

------
0898
I saw a talk from Megan Macedo recently where she suggested a new rule to
apply when promoting something:

"You aren't allowed to persuade anybody of anything".

It's great advice because you can't really convince people of things anyway
unless you have a lot of time or a lot of money.

When you don't have to worry about changing people's minds selling becomes a
lot easier.

~~~
wccrawford
I have a co-worker that I regularly talk to about stuff that he has some
interest in, like games. Quite often, he'll be uninterested in a certain game,
until I start talking about it. Afterwards, he's very interested in it. He has
repeatedly remarked on this situation and how it affects him.

That leaves me with a moral dilemma: Am I influencing him too much? My goal
has _never_ been to get him to buy something. I've only ever talked about my
interest in it and why I want it. But I feel bad whenever he ends up spending
money based on my interests when he already has his own.

~~~
0898
It's natural to be influenced by the people around us. "Show me your friends
and I'll show you your future."

------
graphememes
I love sales, especially when the product isn't what they are looking for. I
will never try to sell someone something they don't need but I will find out
what they do need and how to help them get it. Even if it isn't what I have to
sell.

You never know, they might need what we have or tell someone else about the
experience.

At the end of the day, it's about the experience.

------
softwaredoug
For me, realizing sales is part of the honest value I’m providing was a real
game changer. It’s not about closing the deal. It’s about having something of
real value, and honestly educating potential customers on when they should
consider buying and when they would not be a good fit for the product.

This is just as important service as building the product itself. And what the
article describes as sales anxiety can be an asset. Introverts are more likely
to be in a position of listening and not just pushing the product to do hard
sales.

The book “To sell is human” really changed my perspective, as the author makes
the point that the best sales people primarily want to serve others, not just
trick people into buying something they don’t need. Good sales is about
communicating and matching up needs to value in an honest fashion. Not “ABC”

~~~
mitko
I'm grateful you mentioned the "sales is part of the value I'm providing"
aspect - totally agree.

To add to it, we now know that "build it and they'll come" is a fallacy and we
have to "make people something want". Yet, "make something people want" is not
enough. We have to first make it, ensure it's something they want, and find a
way to _bring_ it to people.

And that bringing to people is part of the package. Can be done through sales,
or digital marketing, or outsourced through affiliates, or it can rely on
advertising. Or a combo.

I feel that the proof is in the pudding, and without people actually "buying"
our products, we haven't proved that they want it, not at the price we're
selling it at.

------
antisemiotic
>it’s like social anxiety, but for approaching strangers with a request

So... the same as regular social anxiety? The underlying "rationalization"
(guilt for bothering people, fear of rejection) together with the proposed
solution also seem pretty much the same to me.

------
lasky
According to my inner arm chair psychologist, at the root of all anxiety is
fear. What do you think you’re afraid of? Shining a spot light on whatever the
beast is that your mind has created, is usually a good way to deflate it. But
don’t be mad at your mind for doing this, it’s only trying to protect you.

You nailed it when you alluded to there being people who your product can
truly help, and therefore appreciate your reaching out. By focusing on
whatever innate desire you truly have to help your customers, you can silence
the self-doubt.

I have a lot of opinions on this as I work professionally with developers to
help them “figure out sales” and sell their product into companies. Feel free
to reach out if you want to talk.

nick@validsignal.com

~~~
Vagantem
This comment is very meta

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nerdbaggy
When I was doing cold calls my Rejection Sensitivity Dysphoria was so
overwhelming. Once I figured out what it was it really helped me overcome it.
Kudos to the author for finding his

~~~
mitko
Thank you! I feel closer to you for mentioning this. Dealing with rejections
is still hard, and it compounded my sales anxiety. Bringing the rejection rate
down over time (through improving the product as well as the messaging) helped
me a lot with the anxiety

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_hao
It's nice to see a fellow Bulgarian on HN :) Good luck with your product!

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xena
I think you got the markdown formatting for links backwards in paragraph 3.

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_Codemonkeyism
My wife founded a startup and in the beginning had "sales anxiety". Then she
became and outstanding (B2B) sales person and recently sold her startup
successfully.

She now helps other founders with (B2B) sales anxiety.

