I Hate Sales

Fool's Gold: a?brassy?yellow mineral, especially?pyrite, often?mistaken?for gold. In March 2024, I closed my first "big" client for what is now I Hate Sales. After 5 months of scooping up little $1k deals and taking whatever I could get, I closed a $15k deal and they even agreed to pay 50% upfront. FINALLY, I thought. I took my foot off the gas pedal, celebrated the deal and thought "Oh man, a couple more of these and I am SET for the year." Y'all already know where this is going: It was Fool's. Frickin. Gold. 2 weeks later this client FULLY GHOSTED 2 weeks into a 3 month engagement, and I never got the other $7.5k. ?? I wish someone last year would've told me "whatever you do, do not mistake this one client for traction. Keep grinding, and keep selling." This is one of many reasons why Thrive is launching Breaking Through in April. Whether you're a founder who realizes you're stuck, or you just found some Fool's Gold, we should chat. We'd love to have you in our first cohort! P.S. The client I'm referencing knows who they are and it's totally possible they see this. If so, ?? ! No hard feelings, I appreciate the lesson I learned last year ??

Spam Stories 032: Scotty doesn't know (how to write cold email) When I first opened this email from Scott, I absolutely loved it. Poking fun at automation fails and presenting yourself as a real human is a *GREAT* strategy- I highly recommend trying it yourself. The problem? THIS CRAP IS STILL VERY CLEARLY AUTOMATED. Sorry for shouting, but I think my stance on this subject is clear at this point. If you absolutely *must* fake personalization at scale- do better than this. P.S. If you're doing under $1m in revenue (I promise Scott's company is nowhere near that number), you're wasting your time trying to skip ahead and automate like this. Reach out to your customers, learn from them, and repeat. P.P.S. If you laughed at the title of this post, get ready to feel old- Eurotrip came out 21 years ago ?? ********************* ?? I'm John, Founder of I Hate Sales where I help sales-phobic founders fall in love with sales. Follow me to catch #spamstories on Tuesdays and Thursdays!

Early-stage founders: stop rushing to automate your sales process. You're trying to avoid getting to know your customers, and it will. not. work. That's it. That's the entire post. ********************* ?? I'm John, Founder of I Hate Sales where I help sales-phobic founders fall in love with sales. Follow me to catch #spamstories on Tuesdays and Thursdays!

Spam Stories 031: Toddler-approved cold email Thanks to the flu, everyone's fave special guest is back today! ?? So what impressed Jo so much about Ali's email? (Screenshot below) 1?? Adam Robinson- Ali knows I follow Adam, which means I'm probably a rabid fan boy who will read anything mentions his name. Guess what? He was right. 2?? Specific- Either Ali is using a sophisticated automation tool that FULLY tricked me, or he really saw a comment I made and referenced it here. Either way, score one for Ali. 3?? Concise- No long bullet point lists I'll never read, no blocks of texts that make my eyes glaze over. He got my attention, made an ask, and kept it moving! Nice work Ali! ********************* ?? I'm John, Founder of I Hate Sales where I help sales-phobic founders fall in love with sales. Follow me to catch #spamstories on Tuesdays and Thursdays!

Spam Stories 030: The ?? to attention-grabbing cold email? Do less. Cold email still works. Does it work if you use endless AI and automation to send 5,000 poorly-targeted jargon-filled emails? Nope. Well-targeted, authentic cold emails can still be incredibly effective, especially when they come straight from a Founder. The key is doing the exact OPPOSITE what Janice did- do less. 1?? Problem-focused subject line- Prospect's name or the name of their company, and a simple question like "Struggling with (Insert problem here)?" 2?? Short, sweet email body: If you got them to open based on the subject line, briefly explain how you solve that problem, and for whom you solve it. 3?? Clear CTA: If you want to jump on a discovery call, ask them if they want to get on a discovery call. If Steps 1 and 2 worked, they'll be eager to do so. P.S. Use a PS at the end, like this. A P.S. is a pattern interrupt- thought this post was over? Think again! This is a great way to grab attention in a cold email. ********************* ?? I'm John, Founder of I Hate Sales where I help sales-phobic founders fall in love with sales. Follow me to catch #spamstories on Tuesdays and Thursdays!

Spam Stories 029: You have a PhD and your customer is in Kindergarten. If you're a Founder bringing something to market, chances are you've spent years, maybe even decades, becoming an expert in your field. You know exactly why someone should do business with you. Sometimes (often?) you have days where you are SHOCKED they don't "get it." Pretend for a second you had a PhD in Astrophysics and I told you to walk into a Kindergarten classroom and explain to the class how Black Holes work. Would you use words like Event Horizon? Gravitational Pull? Supermassive? Nope. You would probably say something like this: "Do you guys play with magnets? Well a black hole is kind of like a really strong magnet. It's so strong that NOTHING can run away from it, not even light. So it's dark FOREVER" Pitching your business is no different. Explain it to your customers like they're 5. Stop speaking in PhD-level jargon, meet customers where they are, and watch the money pile up. P.S. Shoutout to the NASA website for teaching me about black holes ?? ?? ********************* ?? I'm John, Founder of I Hate Sales where I help founders fall in love with sales. Follow me to catch #spamstories on Tuesdays and Thursdays!

Spam Stories 028: Be better than "LinkedIn Member" Last week one of my favorite things happened. Andrew Kissh ?? DM'd me some spam and said "I've gotten a few messages like this and usually just report them as spam and delete. I don't think you've covered it yet in your Spam Stories series but figured I would send it over and maybe give some inspo ??" Great inspo indeed, thanks AJ! As AJ pointed out, this type of outreach ain't it. But there are a few mistakes here that Founders can learn from, even if you already know better than to list yourself as "LinkedIn Member": 1?? Be Yourself: It's literally impossible to be worse at being yourself than having no picture and no name, so be better than "LinkedIn Member" here. Have an up to date picture and talk like yourself- our AI radars get more and more honed by the day, approach prospects like a human and you'll see results. 2?? Be Specific: I have no idea what in the hell this person wanted from AJ, which means AJ didn't know either. Tell me why you're messaging me and why I should care FAST, and you've got a chance at continuing the conversation. 3?? Ask for a meeting, not a number: Jumping straight to Whatsapp is a huge ?? and I assume something nefarious is coming. If you want to book a meeting, ask to book a meeting. If you want to harvest my kidney, ask for my Whatsapp. P.S. Be like Andrew Kissh ??, if you see some egregious spam you think deserves a roast, or a great sales pitch in your DMs you want to show love to, send it my way! ********************* ?? I'm John, Founder of I Hate Sales where I help founders fall in love with sales. Follow me to catch #spamstories on Tuesdays and Thursdays!

Spam Stories 027: Something > Nothing Sales is a contact sport. If you're a Founder out there pitching your product, there will be days you feel like an NFL linebacker in Week 18. Bruised and battered. There will be days you feel too tired to try and find to new customers. You won't want to send that proposal out of fear that they might say no. If you want to build momentum for your business, do *SOMETHING*. Every day. Every. Single. Day. On a related note, I didn't have time to record a video today so here's a video of my sweet angel singing "Hot To Go" with her doll. ********************* ?? I'm John, Founder of I Hate Sales where I help founders fall in love with sales. Follow me to catch #spamstories on Tuesdays and Thursdays!

Spam Stories 026: Authentic Targeted Perfection ?? Last week, Amanda Brown showed up in my LinkedIn DMs and put on a masterclass in cold outbound. Her message has got it all: 1?? Authentic: "Health insurance is my jam!" is certainly not a phrase I've ever heard before, but it's something a real person would say and clearly not AI-generated. Be yourself with prospects, they can tell when you're not. 2?? Targeted: Amanda knows insurance is one of the many challenges self-employed people face, and she knows I'm Self-Employed. Done and Done. 3?? Succinct: She identified the problem and told me she might have a solution- no dancing around the subject, straight in for the close. Unfortunately for Amanda, I am proudly mooching off of my dear wife's benefits, so I'm one of the lucky solos who doesn't have this problem. Nonetheless, this was such an awesome pitch that I wanted to help Amanda get the word out- if you're a Founder and you need help navigating the insurance process, give her a shout! Thanks Amanda for exemplifying some fundamental sales building blocks and showing all sales-phobic founders a thing or two! ********************* ?? I'm John, Founder of I Hate Sales where I help founders fall in love with sales. Follow me to catch #spamstories on Tuesdays and Thursdays!

Spam Stories 025: The Lateness Epidemic It's never been easier to show up to meetings on time. Even if you're in an office, chances are the bulk of your meetings are happening on Zoom, Google Meet, or the like which means being on time is one click away. Despite the ease of showing up on time, lately I feel like at least once a day someone in my network is complaining that they're sitting on a Zoom waiting. A few days ago it finally dawned on me- salespeople are never late. If you're in sales, missing a meeting means less money in your pocket, plain and simple. As a result, good salespeople are very punctual by nature. So let's do a little experiment- tag someone in the comments who is always late. It could be your coworker, your spouse, your friend, your sibling, anybody. I'll go through the comments and check everyone's LinkedIn to see what line of work they're in, and my contention is that *no one* who gets tagged will have a sales background. Late people ?? to give excuses for being late, so let's see what y'all got! P.S. If you're in sales and you get tagged here...YIKES ********************* ?? I'm John, Founder of I Hate Sales where I help founders fall in love with sales. Follow me to catch #spamstories on Tuesdays and Thursdays!