AP 0679: I’m an Introvert. How Do I Overcome My Fear of Speaking to My Potential Customers?

AskPat 679 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: What's up everybody? Welcome to Episode 679 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions five days a week.

We have a great question today from Rachell, but before we get to her question, I do want to thank today's sponsor, which is FreshBooks.com, an amazing company serving over three million other small businesses, and they've helped me in the past as well with managing my business finances and keeping track of expenses. They can actually do that automatically through connecting with your credit card services, which is great and super handy. Very, very much a time saver all around in this product. And also keeping track of your income, of course, which is great. Then you can look at what's working, what's not, and start to focus on that 20% that is bringing you 80% of the results, as we all know happens something. And then also with invoicing, so if you have any students, or do any coaching, or you have any clients of any kind that you bill, you should bill them with FreshBooks because it just makes it super easy.

Actually, I receive myself a lot of bills through FreshBooks from a lot of the people I work with., contractors and other services I work with. And man, it just makes it really easy for me to pay them. So, if you want to get paid and you're billing people, and you need to get paid faster and quicker, and look professional, FreshBooks is the way to go. So, check it out for 30 days for free by going to FreshBooks.com/AskPat, and make sure you enter “Ask Pat” in the “How did you hear about us” section.

All right, now here's today's question from Rachell.

Rachell: Hi Pat, this is Rachelle, and I'm reading your book Will It Fly. I'm at the part where I need to speak with at least 10 people regarding my target idea, but I have a big issue. I am extremely introverted, and I'm very shy, and going up to people to speak to them is such a difficult thing for me to do. It gives me anxiety, it gives me stress, and I know this is really ridiculous for other people to hear, who don't have this sort of fear as I do. I know I need to just do it, but it's really a serious problem, so I was curious if you had any recommendations or if there's anything you would do yourself if you were in my shoes? Any little information you could share with me would be great. Thank you so much.

Pat Flynn: Hey Rachelle, thank you so much for the question. Trust me, I know what it's like because I'm actually an introvert as well. When I was first starting out, I was exactly like everything you were saying. The fear, the anxiety, sweaty palms. Just the worst thoughts that are going through my head about the baddest things that could happen after going up to somebody, like just complete rejection, and it would just stop me from doing a lot of what I wanted to do, and stopped me from talking to people who were right there, who I know who could help me if I just asked them certain questions, and I stopped myself from doing it.

And really a lot of what makes an entrepreneur successful is what happens in the mind. I think this is a very obvious thing. And the other thing that we have to know is that we can't just snap our fingers and switch it up, and become just this extroverted person, immediately. There's absolutely nothing wrong with being an introvert. I still consider myself an introvert. I know of a lot of very successful entrepreneurs who are also introverted. I've spoken to Darren Rowse from ProBlogger.net who he himself has publicly called himself an introvert. But, he is out there putting content out into this world, talking to people, and I've seen him onstage. He's great. But then I know that when he goes back stage after he's done speaking, he just wants to just kind of be by himself for a while. And I think a lot of us could relate to that. And you're right, maybe some of the extroverts out there might not understand because they're not us.

But whatever the case may be, in order to succeed as a business owner, you have to go out there, put yourself out there and start to talk to people. Now you don't have to do the 10 people like I mention in my book, Will It Fly?, and talk to strangers at Starbucks or whatever, and ask them about your question. You don't have to go that far. But the purpose of those exercises is to get you speaking to people about your idea so you can get guttural reactions and understand what you can do to make that product better before, again, you start putting money and time and effort into it.

If you want to start with people that you know, that you're more comfortable with, that's actually what I would recommend doing. So do that, but I would also say that you might want to practice starting to reach out to people who you may not know very well too. You don't have to do it in person. You can actually do it via email, which is what I would recommend, or you could even do it via Twitter, which is a great way to be social without having to be face-to-face, and it's great practice for us introverted people. And then working your way up to getting to the point where you're actually having a conversation on Skype. Again, you're not face-to-face, and it's very low impact, and especially in the beginning parts of this Will It Fly? validation process, you're not asking them to buy anything. You're just having a conversation about what their pains and problems are, and you have to realize that some of those people are going to feel the same way. They're going to be shy opening up to you. So, you know, it could go both ways.

But at the same time, I want to challenge you Rachell, and let you know that you've already taken a huge step here. You've asked a question on a very public podcast, and that took some guts so you have it in you. And you can take those baby steps. You'll just get more and more comfortable with it. And I'm not saying that you'll ever be comfortable with it, more more and more comfortable with this is what I'm trying to say. Every time before I go on stage and speak I still want to throw up because I get completely scared, but I now know that that is just something that happens and I go and do it anyway, because I feel great on the other end.

With the information that you could potentially learn from these conversations…It's really, really important for this business idea that you have, whatever it might be, that you're validating, because man, they're going to tell you the honest truth about this so that you don't guess anymore. That's what this is all about. So yeah, I would keep encouraging you but I think you're doing a great job. I mean, you called in and that takes guts. I know some people who have sent emails to me saying that they were even too shy to do that, so ever though you might say you're extremely introverted and maybe the most introverted person in the world, you're not. And so just keep going.

And then one other thing that I learned in the past that has helped me with speaking to people and just doing it, is this thing called the three-second rule. So this is more relevant if you're in person at a conference or something, and you see somebody you want to speak to, or even in a more social kind of party setting, or whatever. If you see somebody you want to talk to or somebody that is next to you and you just want to strike up a conversation, don't give yourself more than three seconds to do it. Do it within three seconds, because after three seconds your brain starts to psych yourself out. You start to consider, well what if he says this, or what if she says that, or just what if they give me this weird look, or they move away. You know, again, what's the worst that can happen?

Well, maybe those are the worst things, and that's it. Typically the worst thing that can happen is not the worst. The worst thing that can happen in reality, is not even close to the worst thing that we think that can happen. So that's another trick. So beyond the three-second rule, it's just asking yourself that question, well really what's the worse that can happen? And that has often made me feel more comfortable, but again, I'm always nervous. And that's never going to go away, but you can learn to see that A, as a sign that whatever you're doing is actually important to you, but also B, that you're going to continue to grow as an entrepreneur and learn to get more comfortable with it, even though it's never going to go away.

So Rachell, thank you so much for the question. Truly, honestly, thank you. And we're going to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show. And I want to wish you the best of luck, and again thank you for checking out my book, Will It Fly.

If y'all want to check out my book, Will It Fly?, you can check it out at WillItFlyBook.com. You can also download it on Audible, and if you don't have Audible and you don't listen to audiobooks, which is crazy because you're listening to this podcast, it's the exact same kind of thing, you can listen to my book instead. You can go to Audible.com and you can actually, when you sign up, you can download your first book for free. So you can actually get Will It Fly for free if you don't already have an Audible account. So, yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much, I appreciate it.

And again, I want to thank FreshBooks for their awesomeness. Offering a 30 day free trial for those who are really interested in using that software for their bookkeeping and managing their finances. You can again check it out at FreshBooks.com/AskPat, and make sure you enter “Ask Pat” in the “How did you hear about us” section.

As always, I like to end with a quote. Today's quote to finish off the week…And again, just thank you so much for listening and I appreciate you. This is from somebody unknown, actually. And that is, “When you feel like giving up, remember why you held on for so long in the first place.” I've actually remembered that quite often, because I've wanted to give up many, many times. But I'm so thankful I didn't, and I'm so thankful for you, for listening in. Please subscribe to the show on iTunes, or Stitcher, or wherever you're listening to this if you have a chance, because I'm not stopping it anytime soon. So, thank you so much. Have a great weekend, and I'll talk to you soon. Bye.