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My Bloody Shyness

By pavan srivastava on 41 Comments / 5676 views

Hi,

This is my first post on Rodinhoods.I  really loved the concept of this site.I actually spend more time on this site than I do on Facebook these days.

I am an aspiring entrepreneur ,we are currently busy working on our plans and we will soon be posting our idea on this forum for everybody’s review and feedback

Yesterday I had gone to an office for market research.But I felt very awkward  while approaching the possible customers for asking a few questions.there was a certain shyness in me that was holding me back from approaching them .

I being an IT guy had never approached someone thinking of  them as my possible customers for our business(hum IT wale kya kre  computer aur code hi hmari girlfriend ban chuke hain :P) .I am a very talkative guy and I can usually talk pretty well to strangers and I make friends very easily,but yesterday I was not able to approach any random stranger as i was thinking of them as my possible customer.

I really want to improve my sales and marketing abilities.Please everybody suggest some ways on how to overcome this shyness.

Regards,

Pavan Srivastava

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Well guys I have been able to overcome this Bloody Shyness,I thank you all for your help, without which I would not have been able to overcome this DEMON.

Please read a followup of this post in  How I overcame ‘MY BLOODY SHYNESS’ where I tell my learnings and what I did to overcome my shyness.

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41 Comments

  1. hi pavan,

    well the fact that you were able to ask 4650+ rodinhooders for help has solved half the problem! you’re not shy at all 🙂

    a few suggestions for market research (having an advtg background, we were expected to do focus groups/vox pops, quick surverys, etc etc)

    i) try to practice asking q’s to someone you know

    ii) wear your best smile and just be your normal friendly self 

    iii) wear clothes you feel comfy and confident in (so you are not self-conscious)

    iv) approach the most friendly/warm looking person 

    v) try to catch people when they look like they need a break

    vi) don’t be discouraged – and don’t take it personally if things don’t go your way. people are unpredictable and come in all shapes & sizes. simply move to the next person!

    all the best!

  2. hahahhahaha asha I’ll let you a secret, I had actually thought about posting this about 50 times before i’ve actually posted,thinking how will people react ,what will they say……But then I said to myself….damn to all the thinking lets speak it out,my people shyness is much bigger than online one and  I have to get a solution to this 😀

    Now coming back to my problem……

    Thank you for your valuable suggestion.I had actually caught people in their lunch time..when they were chatting outside their offices,but I didnt know what to say first up…will they give me their 5 minutes..will they give an honest opinion..etc etc

    One more question,should i join some part time sales job for overcoming my people shyness. 

  3. you know what – why don’t you ask the expert???!!!!

    https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/if-you-have-queries-regarding-sales-i-d-be-glad-to-help

    jerson james is the ppt dude! why don’t we ask him to make a ppt on this topic???!!!

    sounds good?

  4. excellent thought asha …

    jerson sir

    We’ll be so glad if you help us……(desperate cry for help … :D)

  5. pavan,

    pls comment on this thread – https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/if-you-have-queries-regarding…

    i’ve already shared your link with jerson – feel free to pose questions in your comments on his thread as well…

  6. Hi Pavan, congrats on takin the first step. I think you represent a lot of us. Yes me too. Vl look forward to the ppt and advise from some experts 🙂

  7. thanx sheetal for the encouraging words…we’ll fight out this shyness together,with some expert help 🙂

  8. Amen 🙂

  9. Background – I am MAD ANIMAL. I speak to anybody, anywhere, anyhow. I go to conferences, purposely sit on the last seat and then loudly announce me name, my company name and ask a question JUST TO GET attention. Its what I call ‘hijacking someone’s event’.

    Something very interesting happened at the DSN course of Art of Living that I did 2 years back.

    On the second last day, the instructor said, “Ok, now go out and tell 5 people “Mein Paagal Hoon” ( I am MAD)!!

    EVEN the brashful me felt SHY!

    Anyhow, I gathered the courage and went out. The first person I met was a Taxi Driver. I told him, “Mein Paagal Hoon”

    He looked at me, laughed and said, “Arre Sir, Mein bhi pagal hoon!!” and then he gave me a PHILOSOPHICAL lecture on how we all are mad etc etc, and how we had come from a nice village to live this stupid life as a taxi driver etc.

    I had to escape him!

    Lesson and guidance:

    – The hesitation or shyness you feel IS WITHIN YOU – NOT IN the other person

    – People accept you the way you are and what you stand for – the DON’T  think ‘why’ is this person asking me or talking to me.

    Just observe how handlers at airports shout for passengers to board flights etc – they are so normal doing their job.

    DO JUSTICE TO YOUR PURPOSE AND CAUSE – the courage will come. DONT do justice to your ego or mind 🙂

  10. Asha – Where is the LIKE button for this Comment?? 🙂

  11. 🙂

  12. Hi, Pavan

    If I will talk about myself, I am a very shy kind of a guy who does not speak with strangers, who takes time to become friendly with people. But you know, when it comes to sales or marketing, you can’t stop me doing that When I talk about my company or services I talk a lot. When I go for technology meetups I find a completely different personality of mine, I talk to new people share my ideas listen to theirs and get involved in healthy discussions. What I believe is; If you know your business well, if you have confidence in your idea, you can pitch it in front of anybody out there. Being shy is natural, you cant change it to the core, but you can develop an attitude that will help you talk to people without any hesitation whenever you need it.

    I am not trying to be a Gyaan Guru here but sharing my personal thoughts. so its my personal opinion that I have felt from my experiences.

  13. @Alok: Last Line can motivate a dead person….Hats Off!!!

  14. Dear Pavan

    I understand that when you have to ” sell yourself ” you go Crazy….t is perfectly natural.

    I suggest the following :

    Start calling your linkedin , Facebook network ( people whom you have not met) .Ask them things ,which is not written on their profile …..then …..Describe yourself,tell your story

    Talk to more of your friends

    Then go out and meet some of them physically …….may be in their offices,homes,etc

    Reach out to more people…..if your problem does not get solved, send me your mobile no and i would call you up what your next action should be  ( Alert – do not fall to prey to Theories )

  15. Many people feel the same way around you. I was very shy. I have improved a lot though. Not perfect yet.

    Over the past years, i have approached unknown people many times and did not get a rejection ever. People like to talk to new people and know what you are doing.

    You must remember what steve jobs said in the stanford lecture – “You are already naked”. You are actually born naked. And you are going to die. Nothing so tragedic is going to happen. 

  16. Pavan – Congratulations on the post. You have won half the battle already. I have reached out to strangers, often times CEO’s and asked them for time. Here are a few things that have helped me.

    1. Focus on the positive experience – Think that the other person will love you, will love your idea and will be more than happy to contribute and help. When I approach with this attitude, a smile comes naturally and you are a lot more yourself

    2. Focus on the negative experience – If the above thought process does not work for you, try this one. What is the maximum that will happen when you approach somebody – shoo you away, think you are not worth their time. So what? I remember Nithyaji magical statement at a Rodinhood event in Mumbai last year. 

    Some will, Some wont, So what, Someone’s waiting!

    Good luck! You are already more courageous than more than 95% of the population so please don’t hold yourself back.

  17. DO JUSTICE TO YOUR PURPOSE AND CAUSE – the courage will come. DONT do justice to your ego or mind- Nice one alok.

  18. thank you for your tips Alok sir …will implement it the next time i go to meet my prospective customers…and then update how that sales pitch went…

    And also one more thing…..we definitely need a like and superlike button 😀 …on theRodinHoods….what say friends on this

  19. many many thanks for your kind gesture and tips Sanjay …will try to implement it now try to improve upon this and if nothing works i’ll definitely call you 🙂

  20. thanx sudarsan for the encouraging words and the wonderfull insights 🙂

  21. Pavan: tonnes of good advice from experienced people. I am not going to give you any. However, I will tell you I know what that feeling is. It’s called nervousness. Usually occurs when you are trying to do something you haven’t done before or if you are too conscious of what other people are thinking about you or that you are afraid of rejection.

    It’s totally normal, dude. Everyone’s got the jitters at some point or the other. I remember (and it happens to me even now) that whenever I have to speak to a large audience, my heart paces faster. Whenever, I address some personality, my speech becomes slower. Though I have not been able to pin point why it happens, I have figured out it’s mechanism on me. And guess what, the feeling evaporates after sometime… just like it came… it goes away and I find myself composed and confident again.

    My two cents (sorry, couldn’t resist!) is that the next time you feel nervous, wait. Don’t fight it… don’t run away from it… just wait and observe it. Maybe it will last for 30 secs… maybe 5 mins… but eventually it will subside and you will find yourself normal again. That’s when you should make your move. The more you are patient at this time, the easier it will be for you to be in control. In the end… it’s practice, just like everything else. 🙂

  22. thank you Nirav, may be waiting will fade away my nervousness and then i’ll be my usual self and then will be able to talk well….i’ll try this definitely…. 🙂

  23. Pavan, all these are great tips to overcome your shyness but if you are doing product research then absolutely wrong way to go about it.  🙂

    I’ll give you the short version.  

    First, those you accost on the street care nothing for your product idea.  When you ask them depending on their present mood they’ll answer.  Some will say positive things, others negative.  BUT both don’t mean one word they say.  Their actual behavior at the moment of purchase or engagement with your product will be totally different.  Wouldn’t be surprised if all the negative feedbackers actually love your product.  

    What to do? One is listen to Steve Jobs who famously said – We don’t do product research.  Not true.  Steve Jobs had a finger in the psychic pulse of innovation fueled by sci-fi and spiritualism  He also had a handle on popular culture where some corollary already existed….  The first apple computer was a rip off out of research done by scientists in Xerox’s Palo Alto labs… and it was a brand new industry back then… anyway thats another story … you don’t need product research if you are taping into the psychic pulse and have the technical prowess to back it up.    

    Next best option? Online surveys feed into a db which you can then number crunch to your heart’s content.  Aaah did I hear your geek gland perk up? :))

    This is what you do:

    1. I assume your product idea is some solution to some pain and people are using google to search for a solution.  Entrez Google Adwords.  Use the keyword tool to identify the keywords that closely matches your product idea, the pain, or the solution.  

    2. Create a survey using survey monkey (gdocs spreadsheet will also do! + it is free!) that asks your target audience relevant questions.  The big questions you should ask are:

    – why is this a problem for you?

    – how important is finding a solution to your problem and why?

     – how hard has it been to find a solution to your problem?

    Ask these questions and have them respond in a free form text.  Those answers will tell you more about your proposed product idea than random stranger interviews on the street.

    3. Run an adwords campaign targeting these keywords and send them to the survey.  For reasonably reliable data you’ll need at least 30 responses.  There are free coupon codes for adwords floating around.  So you can actually get the research done for free (though that’s only notional since time is also money in a certain sense).

    Set the keywords to exact match so that your ads only appear in front of the people who are searching exactly for your product related idea/pain/solution.  By doing this you exclude everyone who is not interested in your product idea at this moment in time.  This will give you an accurate gauge of your audience much faster and cheaper than you would on the street. Adwords is a dangerous beast so do read up on best practices of running a campaign before doing this.  

    The survey results will give you solid dependable info that can help shape/validate your product’s feasibility.

    Of course if you can’t find enough keyword volume for your product on Google it doesn’t mean that your idea doesnt stand a chance but it is a good indicator that there is not a very large market for it.  However, given that 900 million+ Indians are still on the internet you cannot take that for granted too.  

    Next best option? Use all the shyness overcoming tips and tricks recommended in the thread and identify people/situations where your product will be of use and then accost them while they are in the middle of that activity.  You will get the same responses as with the online survey.  Plus visual and tactile feedback that will further validate/invalidate your product idea.  

    For a double whammy do the online survey and follow that up with deeper questions for the in person survey.  

    By the time you have wrapped your head around your product idea and gone in this deep shyness will be all forgotten… the mind and ego thing Alok talked about….

  24. Wow Abey sir that’s a ton of information on marketing, thnx for invalueable suggestions and time .I would now do my customer validation both online and also in person with my target customers.

    One more thing can u tell me how many in person responses would i need, to have a reliable data as for online survey u’ve already told its minimum 30 responses.

  25. The number remains the same.  30.  There is some statistical survey math behind that which I am clueless about.  But 30 is the number that’s quoted by many different marketers as the minimum sample size from your target population.

  26. ok Thank u sir 🙂

  27. all this reside in brain.

    You must , read , study and understand , what are the attributes of successful ent…..

    one of them is THICK skin, Strong self believe, clutter free brain, risk taking abilty on sleeve, can see in eyes of a person and can make him stand and listen to your talk with just your energy and passion, content comes later.

    Get ur basics clear, ur bus idea USP clear, R u convinced ur self ? if you dont have any doubts left, You wont feel shy at all while talking to even obama .

  28. Abhishek, could you translate please: “Dhandhey ka pehla usool hai, “Jisney ki sharam, uskey footey karam”  

    Don’t fully get it.  Sounds like an interesting saying! 🙂 

  29. LOL – so true.  Pavan, I think you should take your shyness out to lunch and eat it.  :))

  30. this comment of yours made my day alok sir! hats off!! 

  31. thnx Abhishek for your wonderful suggestions

    I have actually given many demos to my frnds and I have improved pretty much and now I am giving demos to frnds of frnds and in the next week I am going full on 🙂 and in the meantime I am also implementing Abey’s suggestion of survey and then let’s C what will be everybody’s responses 🙂

  32. Yes Abey now I am gonna dissolve this shyness and drink it in one go 🙂

  33. :))

  34. At Alok sir, I am wondering that is it Guruji who’s surprising me at rodinhoods these days, marking the AOL presence here or Is it rodinhooders. 

  35. i love you sir

  36. Abey Sir you just rock every discussion with your comments. Great Insight!

  37. Bhawana, please don’t call me ‘sir’ just plain ‘abey’ will do. :))  

  38. At Pavan, to add to Alok sir’s points : I’ll say What you resist, Persists! So stop Resisting and Move on! ATB!

  39. Ok- So you are talkative and make friends easily but when it comes to the customer you are shy…

    Why not make your potential customers your friend first?? 

  40. Tanuj 

    the problem is I cannot get their som uch time so as to make them my frnds ,they will not give me more then 5 minutes if they are  standing somewhere in their free time

  41. Well guys I have been able to overcome this Bloody Shyness,I thank you all for your help, without which I would not have been able to overcome this DEMON.

    Please read a followup of this post in  How I overcame ‘MY BLOODY SHYNESS’ where I tell my learnings and what I did to overcome my shyness.

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