I am the type of person who can take a book into a crowded restaurant on a friday night and sit by myself and have no issues being alone. But, you should never close yourself off to other people. By meeting and talking to other people you are let in on their opinions and thoughts which could be drastically different from yours as they have probably had a very different background and have different life experience. These conversations quite often make you think and make you leave your comfortable safe zone.

RE: Monterey, I would love to come if I could. I actually lived there from 93-95 when I was in the Navy studying arabic and then again from 97-98. My husband and I met and got married in Monterey so it is some place we go back to every couple of years. Maybe this September for our 14th anniversary!

I know money hath no odor and the objective for most companies is to get some of the stuff in the bank but the strategy of exclusive marketing and targeting your audience has merit and is a long term investment.

What do you want your client list to look like in ten years time? If your objective is to sell to everyone then go for it personally I find this more risky and is certainly not the way we work over here. If you are trying to sell to everyone you risk selling to no one or at the worst spending inordinate amounts of time doing stuff which leads nowhere.

After it depends on your product/customer/demogragphic etc. but it’s a question worth ruminating.

But there is the other side: turning down money is not easy to do…

@ Shane: It makes sense not to sell to people you don’t like. Can you imagine working with someone you hate long term? Or continually having to smile at a client you’d rather strangle who repeatedly comes back to buy your products? You know the “I like you” is insincere, he knows it’s insincere… how is that a good thing?

@Terry – hey man hows life? been a little while! I love your perspective. By showing explicit acts of caring and awareness, you provide a platform for trust. Which is a foundation for friendship.

@Timothy – Welcome my man! dude you blog is sweet – 1 word titles. I bet you it takes more time for you to pick them than it takes me to figure out the perfect sentence. I sure hope this is the beginning of a community. The people commenting over the last few days have really inspired us and pushed us to think and explore. It is a total honor!

Don’t sell to people you don’t like? Gosh that’s a tough call. There is wisdom there. Though I have to wonder if that is always right? I mean, my first major client was the Learning Annex and Bill, their CEO pretty much freaks me out. But for 5 years they were fantastic and the company had many great people. I guess in the end both Paul & Quinn were there with me and that made it a very positive experience. On the other hand, I have worked with people I absolutely loved and it was a disaster. No stories for now.

What does everyone else think? Timothy sure asked a good one.

It’s a great post Shane and it touches me like everyone else because no matter how confident we feel there is always someone out there who makes us feel shy (unless you are schmoozing with the overbloated of this world then the shyness is not your problem your choice of company is).

Of coure you are correct – we sell to friends. I had this conversation the other day with a great salesperson. The sort of guy who makes you want to buy. He told me he doesn’t waste time selling to people he doesn’t like. It won’t work, and it won’t be long term if he manages to sell once. You make friends and then you ignore selling because it will happen by itself.

I’m happy I came to your blog (thanks Sonia) and keep up the good work.

I myself used to be extremely shy, and to this day, I’m still a quite ‘reserved’ person. But one thing that I do with coworkers, which I’ve discovered is a great way to make them into friends, is: I always pay them back.

Say, I may have occasion to borrow a quarter for the drink machine, or a hot chocolate, or something small. 9 times out of 10, no one’s expecting you to actually return their money. (In fact, it makes most people feel good just to be able to do such small favors for others.) And so I will purposely make a big deal of paying back quarters: “I don’t like owing people…”

If the person insists I keep the money, that’s fine. But they respect the fact that I respect THEM enough to care about a piddly quarter! A friend is made…

Lesson learned: Most people take small favors for granted. If you become one of the few who don’t, it will make people want to do that much more for you!