I Love Sales. I Just Can't Stand Being Sold To.

A small-business owner's guide to selling without bad demos, fake urgency, or chasing people into submission.

Let me get something straight right from the beginning: I love sales.

I love getting sales for my clients. I love watching a campaign work. I love figuring out why someone buys, what makes them click, what makes them convert, and how we can make more of it happen. There is nothing better than watching the numbers move and knowing something you did actually drove revenue.

Sales matter to me. A lot.

But being sold to? Entirely different experience.

And now that I am an entrepreneur, I get to be on both sides of it. I have to sell my company, explain what we do, and convince people we can help. Meanwhile, I am also the person getting cold emails that begin with, “I noticed you could use help with your online presence,” from someone who has apparently not noticed the entire internet.

The irony is that sales is one of my least favorite parts of entrepreneurship. Not because I do not believe in what I am selling. I absolutely do. It is because I cannot stand so much of what we have decided selling is supposed to look like.

And if you own a small business, you probably know exactly what I mean. You have been pitched software you do not need, ads you do not understand, a miracle system that will “10x your pipeline,” and a guy named Tyler who wants 15 minutes of your time but somehow needs 45.

Do a tiny bit of homework. Please.

For starters, why does almost no salesperson look me up before getting on the phone with me?

You got the meeting. You got 30 minutes on my calendar. That is the hard part. Then we get on Zoom and the first question is, “So, tell me a little bit about what you do.”

You called me.

We have Google. We have LinkedIn. We have company websites. You can learn a pretty decent amount about someone in five minutes, which is less time than it takes to order a sad desk lunch.

I do not expect anyone to know my life story or understand every corner of my business. But know something. Know what my company does. Know what I do. Have some idea why you think I might need what you are selling.

That goes for us as business owners, too. Whether you run a medspa, a law firm, a home-service company, a boutique, or an agency, your prospect can tell when you are reading from the same script you used on the last 20 people. A little preparation makes a conversation feel like a conversation, not a hostage situation with a calendar invite.

Show me the useful part. Then stop talking.

If you are looking for someone who wants the long-winded demo, I am not your person.

I do not need 45 minutes about your company history, your founders, your mission statement, and every feature you have ever built. Tell me what you do. Tell me why it matters to me. Show me the part that solves my problem.

Then stop talking and let us have a conversation.

Small-business owners do not have an extra afternoon lying around, waiting to learn how many tabs your dashboard has. We are answering customers, making payroll, dealing with a printer that has developed a personal vendetta, and trying to remember whether we ate lunch. Get to the point.

When you sell your own service, remember that a short, clear explanation is not less impressive. It is more respectful. The goal is not to prove how much you know. The goal is to help someone see whether you can solve a problem they actually have.

Fake urgency makes me want to lie down

Please do not tell me I need to sign today.

The second I hear, “If you sign today, I can get you this price,” something happens in my brain, and it is probably the exact opposite of what you intended. I go from interested to suspicious faster than a dog hearing a cheese wrapper open.

Maybe there really is a deadline. Fine. Say what it is. But I do not need manufactured urgency to make a business decision. If what you are selling is valuable, show me the value. If it solves a problem I actually have, I will pay attention.

This is a useful rule for selling your own thing, too. You do not need a flashing countdown clock and three exclamation marks to make a good offer. Be clear about the result, the price, and the next step. The right client will appreciate it.

Follow up, but do not become a recurring notification

I am going to follow up. I want the business. I am not going to pretend otherwise.

But I am not going to email you every three days for the next six months. I am not going to “circle back” 14 times. I am not going to manufacture some reason to land in your inbox again tomorrow. And I am definitely not going to chase you until you finally say yes just to make me go away.

Good follow-up says: “I am still here, I can help, and here is a useful reason to keep talking.” Bad follow-up says: “I have automated my persistence and now we both have to live with it.”

For small-business owners, that distinction matters. You should have a system that makes sure real leads do not get forgotten. But your system should not make you sound like a robot who found a thesaurus and a CRM at the same time.

The part of sales I actually love

Maybe that is what I am starting to understand about sales. I do not hate sales. I do not even hate salespeople.

I hate bad selling.

I hate selling that starts with what you need instead of what the customer needs. I hate when someone is so focused on getting the signature that they forget there is an actual person sitting across from them.

I have spent a huge part of my career thinking about sales: How do we get someone to notice? How do we get them interested? How do we turn that interest into action? How do we get one customer, and then another?

That is sales. And I love that part.

Entrepreneurship is teaching me the other side. I have to sell myself. But I do not have to become the kind of salesperson I cannot stand in order to be good at it.

I can do my homework. I can listen. I can ask good questions. I can get to the point. I can tell someone when I genuinely think we can help, and I can tell them when I do not.

I can follow up without harassing them. I can want the business without acting like I need to close every person I meet.

Because maybe the goal is not to sell everyone. Maybe the goal is to find the people you can genuinely help and make it really easy for them to see why they should work with you.

I love sales. I just do not think sales should always feel like someone is selling you something.

The small-business version

If your sales process feels awkward, do not add more pressure. Make it easier for the right people to get a clear answer: What do you do? Who is it for? What problem does it solve? What happens next?

That is enough to start a real conversation. And real conversations close better than tricks.