In this conversational interview, the speakers discuss whether a shy person can successfully run a business and excel at sales. A personal story is shared about a chef who was unexpectedly thrust into a catering sales role, prompting the realization that expertise in one’s field is a powerful sales tool. The chef attended Dale Carnegie training, learning to leverage his authority as a culinary expert when speaking with clients. The speakers extend this principle to other businesses—credit‑card processing, web/digital marketing, car sales—emphasizing that the business owner should position themselves as the subject‑matter expert, not rely on employees to sell. By adopting this mindset, even shy individuals can overcome hesitation, confidently engage prospects, and grow their business.
Chapters
There's a lot into sales. Uh, my, you know, like we said, like if it, you know, real quick, you know, the social media guy was asking, you know, like, you know, do you, if you think if you're a shy person, do you think, uh, that you could still run a business and, you know, and be a good salesperson? And we, Allen and I both immediately said you're gonna have to break out of that mold.
Real quick. And I had to do that, you know, like— If you're a business owner, you're gonna have to do it. When I had my first chef job where I was the chef of an entire hotel, you know, all of a sudden one day they call me, they're like, oh Chef, you gotta come in the catering office. And I go into the catering office, you know, my nice clean chef uniform. The girls told me, change your jacket. Right. The woman in the office. So I come down there and there's people, you know, people in there. They're looking to book an event at the hotel. And, you know, all of a sudden, like, I didn't know what, you know, obviously she helped me a lot because she asked me questions. Oh, what could you do for this or for that? What kind of ideas did I have, you know? And then my boss was in there and afterwards he told me, goes, yeah, he goes, you know, you're the chef. You got to be a sales guy too. I was like, I didn't even know that was part of the job. And, uh, what helped me was I ended up— they paid, but they sent me to Dale Carnegie. And I went to Dale Carnegie, and that kind of— one thing you can always remember, this is the one thing I learned at Dale Carnegie that I take with me every single day. So I'm going to tell you what it is, and it's work for anybody. One of the things that they taught me is, is that I was the chef and I am the expert in that department, right? I'm the chef and I'm the expert chef, right? So when I talk to people, that you have to use that in your authority. So in this business, I'm the credit card processing guy and I'm the expert, right, on credit card processing. And Justin is the expert on web stuff, everything to do with the web and digital marketing. There you go. And you have to— whatever business you're going to go into, if you're starting a business, right, you have to remember that you're the authority, not— you run the business, not the employees running the business. And you have to use, use that, your knowledge of what you're going to go business. If you're going to sell cars, hopefully you're a car expert, you love cars. Right? So you have to, you have to put that in your mindset that you are the expert. Yes, agreed. Yeah, and that can help you get over your shyness, I think.
