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about the episode

Scared of Sales and How to Overcome Fear of Sales

In this episode of The Creative and Ambitious Entrepreneur Podcast, I (Elke) am doing a solo episode on why you may be scared of sales and how you can overcome the fear of sales. Being scared of sales might sound odd at first. 

Why would you be afraid of something you want? But being scared of sales is actually very common. Entrepreneurs are afraid of rejection if no one buys their products and also afraid of coming across as too “pushy” or “sales-y.” 

This mindset unfortunately hurts the chances of selling products and can keep people stuck. Today, I’ll unpack why this fear happens and what you can do about it so you can make more money!

scared of sales

But before we dive right in, let us introduce ourselves in case this is your first visit. Welcome to The Creative and Ambitious Entrepreneur Podcast. We’re your hosts, Jen and Elke Clarke. We are a mother and daughter team that started Zazzle e-commerce businesses over 10 years ago and have sold over 15 million dollars-worth and counting of products on Zazzle.

The Creative and Ambitious Entrepreneur Podcast is for you, the creative. We share actionable steps that you can take to make money in your e-commerce business. In each episode, we will take you one step closer to achieving freedom with your time, location, and finances.

We believe that a profitable e-commerce business is what opens the doors for you to start living your dream life if you work smarter, not harder, use the right tools and follow the proven roadmap. We’re here to give you the tools you need to make your dream life happen. Let’s get started!

And today, we’re showing you how to overcome your fear of sales. For all the details, listen to the ENTIRE episode of The Creative and Ambitious Entrepreneur Podcast on your preferred streaming platform.

What’s really behind the fear of sales.

At the core, the fear of sales is actually about the fear of rejection. You perceive your lack of sales and earnings as potential customers’ rejection of you and your products.

There are specific fears behind this overall fear of rejection:

  1. You are afraid that someone won’t like you because you are trying to sell them something. It’s hard to ask people you know for sales because it feels personal. 

  2. You are afraid that your image will be ruined because you will be considered too sales-y. You don’t want to come across to others as pushy or annoying.

  3. You are afraid that people will say no to the sale, and it will hurt your artist ego or your emotions. If you think of yourself as an artist but no one is buying your art, it can make you question who you are.

  4. You are afraid that if there are no sales then you are not good at designing. You might think that you’re not worthy of making money being creative even if that’s what you really want.

  5. If you are an introvert, putting yourself out there is already scary enough. If you’re trying to sell something, you have to put your image and brand out there too. Rejection from lack of sales can feel like a huge slap in the face!

These fears are valid, but I want you to remember that just because you think it doesn’t mean it’s true! This is the first step to letting those fears go.

Jen and Elke

Engage, LEARN, IMPLEMENT

Lies you tell yourself because of these fears.

If you feel scared of sales, your mind can begin to convince you of some beliefs that aren’t true:

  1. Your designs should sell themselves because they are good. If you believe this, it’s easy to grow resentful over time and not take action to make the selling of your designs easier.

  2. You are creative. Selling is not a part of being creative. I want you to reframe this and think about the fact that you need to be your biggest champion when it comes to the value of your designs. You’re actually the best person to promote your designs!

  3. You should focus on making more Zazzle products instead of promoting them. Cranking out more designs without strategy isn’t going to help you. Instead, you have to create products with a sales strategy in mind.

If you’ve believed any of these lies, it’s important to be really honest with yourself so you can start to make a change and stop being scared of sales.

scared of sales
scared of sales

What happens when you lie to yourself.

When you lie to yourself, you create a cycle of disappointment. 

You want to avoid the fear of rejection. So you generate excuses to convince yourself that selling is not necessary. Then, you have no or lower sales than what you want. And finally, this results in what I call “delusional disappointment,” meaning that you’re disappointed in the wrong thing.

You’re convinced that you’re doing the right thing and getting no sales, but you’re not. And you take it personally when you shouldn’t. 

Instead, you shouldn’t take it personally and should accept the fact that there are some things about the selling process you need to change. You’re not delivering properly on what people want to buy. But that’s all okay because you can do something differently!

How to overcome the fear of rejection and stop being scared of sales.

To stop feeling scared of sales, you need to first take actions that will decrease your chance of rejection: 

  1. Post original designs up for sale. You need to believe that you have unique things to offer rather than copying other popular designs (this is a copyright violation, and if Zazzle sees that your store looks too much like other people’s, they’ll take it down).

  2. Put organic (passive) promotion methods into place in your Zazzle business so you don’t have to sell. Let your titles, tags, and keywords do the work for you!

  3. Sell on social media with confidence using non-sales-y methods. Social media can feel overwhelming, but Pinterest is one of the easiest and best ways to promote your products in a non-sales-y way! Unlike other social media, Pinterest is more like a search engine, and when people are on the app they’re already looking to buy. I promise you that utilizing Pinterest is a game-changer! 

We have some amazing courses and coaching programs that can help you with this! The Profit by Design Academy™ guides you to set these actions up in your Zazzle business and The Creative CEO Mastermind™ provides more advanced techniques to accomplish these 3 actions tailored specifically to your store, brand and niche.

The other key part of how to stop feeling scared of sales is reframing how you interpret rejection. I encourage you to think about these few points:

  1. When you don’t ask for the sale you are receiving rejection already. When you think about it this way, you’ll realize that’s not any less painful than receiving rejection after you ask for the sale.

  2. Know that selling is the only way you will earn money and is part of the process to receive money. Think about all the products and services you are willing to pay for. It’s normal, not weird or uncomfortable!

  3. Replace the negative emotions associated with selling into positive ones through affirmations. When you catch yourself having negative thoughts about selling, tell yourself something positive like “Selling is easy.” This will help you form new, positive associations!

The Profit by Design Academy™ guides you to take actions that will help transform your situation to have a better experience with asking for the sale to create these reframes and The Creative CEO Mastermind™ provides advanced techniques to create a 6-figure passive online selling machine with a CEO mindset.

Scared of Sales and How to Overcome Sales Fear: The Bottomline

sell a million dollars on Zazzle

It’s so important to overcome the fear of sales because your mindset is the foundation for everything else in your business. The details of your business (e.g. how many products to make, what kinds of products to make, etc.) can all be answered. But you can’t handle the little stuff if you don’t fix the big stuff first. When you stop being scared of sales, you’ll have a solid foundation for everything else in your business!

To hear all my tips for overcoming the fear of sales, tune in to episode 42 of The Creative and Ambitious Entrepreneur Podcast!

Thank you so much for listening to The Creative and Ambitious Entrepreneur Podcast! 

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See you back here next week!

About your hosts

Jen and Elke Clarke are a mother-daughter duo that empowers women entrepreneurs to make money online. Through courses and coaching, Jen and Elke help women (and men) become successful creative entrepreneurs on Zazzle and e-commerce. Combined Jen and Elke have sold over 15 million dollars-worth of products, and earned over $1.5 million combined through their businesses on Zazzle. Jen and Elke have influenced and transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide with their free content, paid and private coaching.

They are international, award-winning authors. Click the links to purchase their books through Amazon: Earn Around The World and Create Online and Grow Rich.

Jen and Elke Clarke have been featured in Yahoo Finance as TOP 5 e-commerce coaches.

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