No Shame

Here's the single most useful trait I have as a founder, and it's not systems thinking, and it's not the ability to code.

I have no shame.

Not "low shame." None. If I'm trying to sell a website, I will go on Google Maps, pull up every HVAC guy and plumber and cabinet shop in a twenty mile radius, and call them one by one until they either tell me to stop calling, tell me yes, or run their card. Those are the three outcomes. There is no fourth one where I feel weird about it and quietly close the tab.

And if you're just starting out, or you're trying to scale past wherever you're stuck, I'd argue this is the whole game.

The question I hear more than any other

"What if I fail?"

I hear this constantly. From students, from people who just quit their job, from people who've had an idea for three years and haven't made a single call about it. What if I fail. What if they say no. What if I look stupid.

Okay. I'm on business number four. I've written about the first three, and one of them made exactly zero dollars. I've been told to stop calling. I've been hung up on mid-sentence. I've walked into a chamber of commerce meeting knowing nobody and walked out with nothing. I have failed at this more than most people will ever attempt it.

And here's what I've learned: nobody remembers. The guy who hung up on me in March does not think about me. The networking event where I fumbled the pitch has no memory of it. The only person keeping score of your failures is you, and you're doing it in a way that stops you from taking the next shot.

So stop keeping score. There's nothing to be ashamed of, because there's nobody watching.

What "no shame" actually looks like day to day

Let me be concrete, because "be shameless" sounds like a motivational poster.

It looks like opening Google Maps, searching "HVAC near me," and calling the first fifty results. Not the ones that look promising. All of them.

It looks like joining the local Facebook groups for contractors and just pitching. In the comments, in the DMs, wherever they'll let you.

It looks like showing up to every networking event in the county, including the ones that are obviously not your crowd, because the guy who becomes your biggest client is never at the event you expected him at.

It looks like bidding on Upwork jobs that are slightly beneath you, at prices that are slightly beneath you, because a paying client at the wrong price beats a perfect client who doesn't exist.

It looks like knocking on the door. Physically. With your feet. I built this company by knocking on doors, and I'd do it again tomorrow.

None of that is sophisticated. That's the point. The sophisticated stuff comes later, once the shameless stuff has bought you the time to build it.

The dating metaphor, which I'm leaving in

It's like dating. You are never going to meet the girl of your dreams if you don't fumble the occasional cold approach. Probably not my best metaphor, but I'm leaving it in because it's true.

The people who never get told no are not the people who are great at this. They're the people who never asked. And the people who get told no a hundred times are, almost without exception, the ones who eventually get the yes that changes everything. Not because they got better, although they do. Because they kept taking shots long enough for one to land.

Planting seeds

Here's the mental model that finally made this click for me.

Every call, every pitch, every awkward conversation at a networking event is a seed. Most of them do nothing. That's fine. That's the nature of seeds. But you have no idea which one is going to explode, and there is no way to find out except to plant all of them and wait.

I have met some genuinely wild people this way. People who became clients, partners, mentors, referral sources. I didn't find them through a strategy. I bumped into them at an event I almost skipped, or they picked up a cold call on the third try, or they were behind a door I almost didn't knock on. Every single one of those relationships started with me doing something a more dignified person would have found embarrassing.

The dignified person is still waiting for the right moment. I've got a company.

The part about God, briefly

I'm a believer, and I'll say plainly that I think God is the source of all provision. But He doesn't move unless we move. Every story of provision I can think of starts with somebody getting up and doing the thing in front of them. Nobody got fed by sitting very still and hoping. You plant, then you pray over the field. You don't pray over dirt you never touched.

The receipts

We're on track for a quarter of a million dollars this year. I am not saying that to flex, I'm saying it because I want you to know exactly how it happened.

It happened because I shamelessly hounded people on Upwork. It happened because I shamelessly worked the phone. It happened because I shamelessly went to every networking event I could find and introduced myself to strangers who had no reason to care. Not one dollar of it came from a growth hack. All of it came from asking, over and over, in front of people, without caring how it looked.

Do that for a year, seriously, without flinching, and you will have a six figure business. I'm not guessing. That's the year I had.

If you're stuck right now

1. Kill the scoreboard. Nobody is tracking your rejections but you. Delete the tally.
2. Define the three endings. They say stop, they say yes, or they pay. Until one of those happens, you're not done.
3. Go where it's uncomfortable. Google Maps, Facebook groups, Upwork, the front door. The channels that feel beneath you are the ones nobody else is working.
4. Plant more than you think is reasonable. You can't pick which seed grows. You can only pick how many you put in the ground.
5. Then learn the system. Once the shameless stuff is working, make it repeatable. Sales is a system, and it's the skill that beats every other skill. But the system comes second. The shamelessness comes first.

What if you fail? You will. Repeatedly. And then one day a seed you forgot you planted turns into a tree, and nobody will remember any of the ones that didn't.

Go make the call.