Can introverts succeed in sales? We're gonna find out on this edition of The Inside BS Show. Hey now, I'm Dave Lorenzo, I'm the godfather of growth. And today, I wanna talk to you about a conversation I had with one of my clients.

Client claimed he was an introvert and he couldn't make sales calls because he was an introvert. And he was floored, he was absolutely shocked when I told him that some of the best salespeople I ever met were introverts. You see, being an introvert is not a disability.

Introversion is simply a personality trait that describes people who feel more energized by solitude and by deep conversations rather than by large social gatherings. So, introverts may face challenges in environments that are biased toward extroverted behavior like networking events or group discussions. These aren't impairments, they just have different ways of interacting with people or with the world in general.

Many introverts thrive in roles that require deep focus, creativity, strategic thinking. And sales is essentially solving problems in exchange for financial compensation. That requires creativity.

Getting in to meet clients requires strategic thinking. Solving people's problems in sales requires strategic thinking. There's a lot of deep focus that can be employed in business development in sales.

So, introverts can leverage their personalities to be highly effective salespeople. Now, I'm not discounting someone who has social anxiety disorder. That's something that's completely different from introversion.

If you have social anxiety disorder, if you have a legitimate issue where you go to a room full of people and you have a panic attack, and you can't bring yourself to enter a networking environment, you can't bring yourself to pick up the phone and call somebody because you don't know how you're gonna react to a stranger possibly having a conversation with you. If you have that issue, that's social anxiety. If you've been diagnosed by a psychiatrist with social anxiety disorder, that's a legitimate issue that needs to be addressed with therapy.

So, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about people who just have a personality that makes them more comfortable doing things by themself than doing things with other people. You can, as an introvert, be very successful at sales, and I'm going to give you five things you can do as an introvert to position yourself to be successful in sales.

Number one, spend time talking to your friends about what you do and who you wanna meet so you can be successful in your sales role. If you're the owner of a company and you have to sell, spend time talking to your friends about who they know and who they know in specific roles who could potentially buy things from you, and then ask your friends to set up a social event where you can break the ice and meet that person in a no-pressure way. If you have a friend who knows three or four people who would be good potential prospects for you, tell your friend you'll buy lunch for them and each of those people one at a time over the next three Tuesdays, and you want your friend to bring them to lunch and you'll meet them the next three Tuesdays, and it will just be a casual social lunch where you'll get to know each other.

This is a fantastic way to break the ice so that you will feel more comfortable reaching out to them and approaching them, and you don't have to cold call them to sell. When you wanna follow up to see if they're interested in your products or services, they'll take your call because they already know you, they've had lunch with you. The second thing you can do is reach out to people by sending handwritten notes.

This is something that I do every day. I pick three people, three people that I know, and I write them a handwritten note and I say something nice about them based on something that I saw on LinkedIn, something that they did or said in a meeting, or just when I saw them on stage presenting an award that I thought they were gracious, so I write a handwritten note card, three of them a day, to people that I know. I also write three handwritten note cards every day to random people that I don't know, and here's what happens, and here's how I do the three note cards to the random people that I don't know.

I will write down something based on something that I've seen either on TV, so if they're interviewed on CNBC or Bloomberg, I'll handwrite them a note, send it to their office. If I see them quoted in the paper, I'll track them down, write a handwritten note, send it to them. If they spoke at an event that I was at, I'll write them a handwritten note and send it out.

Or I just look up on LinkedIn and somebody will have written a comment and I will write them a handwritten note and send it in the mail, thanking them for commenting on my post, or I will send them a handwritten note telling them how much I admire the post that they wrote on LinkedIn. I'm looking for an excuse to do something that's out of the ordinary. Now, why is this a good tip for introverts? This is a good tip for introverts because about 60% of the time, the people that I know when I write the handwritten notes respond with a phone call.

They'll call me and they'll say, thank you so much for writing the note. About 25% of the time, that's actually pretty high, 25% of the time, the people that I don't know reach out to me and call me. And when they call me, I'm excited because I have an opportunity to strike up a conversation and potentially sell something to them.

The reason this is great for introverts is because both of those scenarios with the handwritten notes force you to have conversations with people. And when you're forced to have conversations with people, you're forced to get out of your comfort zone. So if you're having that conversation and it was initiated by the other person, they obviously want to talk to you, you might as well try and sell them something.

So handwritten notes is strategy number two. Strategy number three is connecting with people on LinkedIn, having either messenger conversations with them on LinkedIn, or developing a rapport by having conversations and comments on posts on LinkedIn, and then following that up with a phone call or an opportunity to get together in person. Again, the LinkedIn interaction warms the people up, makes you more likely to connect with them in person, makes you feel more comfortable because they're not a stranger anymore.

Number four, and number four is the one that will probably be the most difficult one, but number four is simply connecting to people from your network to each other. Now, these are two people you already know. They could be your friends, they could be people that you work with, they could be clients.

I love to do this with clients, introducing two people that you know to each other for the purposes of them to potentially do business. Now, why is this a great tip for introverts? Well, because you already know the two people. How does this benefit you? Both of those people are now going to want to reciprocate.

So you can do one of two things. You can look through their LinkedIn connections and pick out someone that you want an introduction to and ask them to make the introduction for you, or when they say, thank you so much for making the introduction, you say, I'm happy to do it. I know you'd do the same for me.

And when they say, of course I would, you talk to them about people they know and ask them if they know someone who looks just like your ideal client. Again, they're happy to make the introduction for you. That warms up the prospect and makes it easier for you to break the ice and have a sales call.

And then the fifth and final tip is for you as an introvert to do things that don't require you to necessarily be in front of other people. This podcast, for example, is me sitting in my office talking to you, but I'm really just talking to a microphone now. There are hundreds of you, maybe even thousands, who are going to listen to this.

And you and I have a fantastic relationship. And if you called me, I would take your call. But I'm not putting myself out.

I'm in solitude here. I'm in a room. I'm not putting myself out there.

Introverts can easily do this. Podcasting is the ultimate tool for introverts because you're not forced to connect with other people. You're not forced to interact with other people.

All you need to do is sit down and document the process of going about your day, building your business, and do it in a way that's interesting and entertaining. Maybe tell a few stories, but you could just as well be talking to yourself. It's really quite easy.

So those are my five tips for introverts to get things started in sales. Introvert prospecting, if you will. Five tips for introvert prospecting.

I really want to make sure that I'm clear about this. Introversion is just a personality type. It's not a disability.

Now, social anxiety is something different, but if you're an introvert, you can make things happen and you can be very successful in sales. In fact, your deep focus allows you to make sure you're doing your research to get in front of the right people. I encourage you as an introvert to push yourself and do whatever it is you can to connect with people so that you can also be successful in selling.

I'm Dave Lorenzo, the Godfather of Growth, and this is the Inside B.S. Show. We're here every day with a new show at 6 a.m. We'll see you back here again tomorrow for another edition of our show. Until then, here's hoping you make a great living and live a great life.