Hey Greenblasters!

Happy Hallowe’en! 🎃 (My daughter Ruhi is going as an elephant. It’s as cute as it sounds.)

This week’s Greenblast was inspired by Speaking Heroes member Leah, who told me on our call this morning:

“Now that my product is ready, I’m actually scared to put it out there.”

After a bit of digging, she told me:

“It’s because I have a distaste for the process (of sales and marketing).”

Man, did that hit me hard.

I felt the same way for years (and still do a bit).

You might feel the same way too, and have a hard time reconciling this fact of:

a) wanting to grow your business, but

b) disliking what it takes to do it.

So, what DO you do as an entrepreneur who hates selling?

Let’s find out.

Why we hate it

Selling & marketing a product, service, or yourself, require things that feel “icky”:

• bragging

• constantly talking about yourself

• repeating yourself endlessly

• pestering people

• learning about psychological “tactics”

• approaching strangers with something they might not want

• appealing to negative emotions like FOMO

• and convincing people to part with their money

Much of this, especially in Canada & the UK, goes against “politeness.”

Not to mention, we all know how it feels when someone is marketing or selling to us, and we DON’T WANT IT.

But, because of understandable instincts to be a decent human being, you shoot yourself in the foot by AVOIDING activities that would help you grow.

So, what can you do?

Put it in perspective

What I told Leah this morning is to imagine her values and her sense of self as a fortress inside a larger castle.

(Leah’s a fantasy nerd, like me. Sue us.)

Each time you have to do something distasteful, like:

• send an automated email vs a personalized one

• talk about your latest accomplishment online

• send a cold LinkedIn DM to someone you don’t know

• or add an element of FOMO to your offer to increase conversion

Imagine that these distasteful acts are not a breach of your INNER FORTRESS, but rather the OUTER castle walls.

Not ideal, but still ok.

All of the things you really care about (your values and beliefs) are safe inside the fortress.

The INNER WALLS will only crumble from things like:

• lying about your past success

• manipulating people on purpose

• using rage and clickbait for views

• using AI to write shit for you (that’s a big one for me)

Things that REALLY go against your core values and beliefs.

At least, these are ones like that for me. You may have similar or different values, and that’s ok.

In the end, every entrepreneur has to deal with this tension:

What can I let go of that is holding me back from success, while still keeping my integrity?

Unless you don’t care about integrity, in which case, I envy you.

So, as I told Leah:

“Let a couple soldiers scale the walls, burn some huts, get it out of their system. These enemies can’t really hurt you.

But keep your inner fortress safe.”

Alright, that’s enough of the castle-fortress metaphor for this week!

I hope this helped, please reply CASTLE if you hate sales & marketing but would like me to write more about it!

And with that, the Greenblast is… out 🚀

P.S. When you’re ready, I’d love to have you in the community. Check it out.