The new book from Dr. Shane Smith
How to Sell When You Hate to Sell
The N.I.C.E. Way to Start the Conversations You've Been Avoiding
If you're good at what you do but uncomfortable selling it, this book gives you a practical way to have sales conversations without scripts, pressure, manipulation, or pretending to be someone you're not.
Available now on Amazon.
For people who never wanted to be "salespeople"
You don't have to become pushy to become profitable.
You started a business because you were good at something. You had expertise. An idea. A service that could genuinely help people.
Then you discovered an uncomfortable truth:
Entrepreneurship requires selling.
Maybe you hesitate before following up. Avoid the call. Keep improving the website. Post more content. Work on your offer one more time.
Anything except the conversation.
The problem may not be that you can't sell. It may be that the only version of selling you've ever been shown feels completely wrong for you.
This book starts somewhere different
What if selling isn't about convincing someone?
What if your job is to help another person understand their own situation clearly enough to decide whether what you offer can help?
No performance
You do not need a "sales personality," a rehearsed persona, or the confidence to dominate a conversation.
No pressure
You do not need to manufacture urgency, overcome every objection, or steer someone toward a yes.
No persuasion contest
Your goal is not to win an argument. It is to help the buyer think more clearly about their own situation.
The N.I.C.E. Sales Method
A framework for helping buyers reach their own conclusions.
This is not simply "be nice and educate your customer." N.I.C.E. uses strategically placed questions to create self-discovery.
N
Notice
Understand the buyer's world before talking about yours. Ask. Listen. Notice what is actually happening.
I
Illuminate
Help the buyer recognize what may really be happening instead of simply telling them they have a problem.
C
Cement
Help them see the real weight of staying where they are without manufacturing fear or artificial urgency.
E
Exhale
Open the door to a solution and give the buyer control over whether they want to take the next step.
The seller doesn't need to become more persuasive. The buyer becomes more certain.
Why it works differently
The buyer discovers the problem instead of being handed a diagnosis.
A traditional salesperson may tell someone what is wrong, explain why it matters, present the solution, and then try to overcome whatever resistance appears.
N.I.C.E. takes the opposite path.
You learn how to ask questions that help the other person recognize what is happening, put the problem into their own words, understand what it is costing them, and decide whether changing it matters.
You are not creating the buyer's conclusion. You are helping them reach their own.
That makes the conversation easier for the buyer. And for the entrepreneur who has always hated selling, it makes starting the conversation easier too.
Who this book is for
You may see yourself somewhere on this page.
The new entrepreneur
You finally started, but now realize that getting customers requires conversations you are uncomfortable having.
The experienced expert
You know your craft, profession, or service extremely well. Selling that expertise is the part that feels unnatural.
The reluctant salesperson
You can sell when you have to, but you dislike scripts, pressure tactics, and the feeling that you are manipulating someone.
What you'll learn
A sales method you can actually use.
- Why so many capable entrepreneurs avoid sales conversations
- How to stop confusing selling with the performance of selling
- How to become genuinely curious instead of preparing to pitch
- How to build Notice questions for your actual buyer
- How to help a buyer discover the underlying pain themselves
- How to make the consequences of the status quo visible without manipulation
- How to use the Exhale question to transition naturally toward a solution
- How to recognize when the right outcome is not a sale
- How to build a repeatable N.I.C.E. question set in your own voice
This is not theory from someone who has always loved selling.
Shane developed the approach after discovering early in his own sales career that the traditional version of selling simply did not fit who he was.
Over the decades that followed, he combined real-world selling, teaching, entrepreneurship, and consumer psychology into a framework designed for people who care deeply about helping clients but dislike pressure-driven sales.
Available now
You don't have to love selling. You do have to find a way to do it.
If the way you've been taught to sell has kept you from having the conversations your business needs, start with a different framework.
Bring the idea to your audience
Book Shane for a workshop, keynote, or entrepreneur program.
How to Sell When You Hate to Sell began as something Shane taught in rooms with entrepreneurs. The book captures the framework. Live programs give participants the opportunity to experience it, practice it, and build questions for their own businesses.
Interactive Workshops
Hands-on sessions where entrepreneurs learn the N.I.C.E. method, work on their own sales conversations, and begin developing questions for their buyers.
Keynotes & Talks
A high-energy, approachable look at why good entrepreneurs avoid selling and how changing the conversation can change their relationship with sales.
Accelerators & Organizations
Programs for chambers, incubators, universities, economic-development groups, entrepreneurial organizations, and teams supporting small businesses.
About Dr. Shane Smith
Salesperson. Professor. Entrepreneur. Reluctant seller.
Dr. Shane Smith has spent decades working with entrepreneurs, business owners, students, and sales professionals.
His approach grew from a simple problem: traditional selling worked for other people, but it did not feel right to him. Instead of becoming a different person, he learned to build conversations around curiosity, questions, and helping buyers understand their own situation.
That approach eventually became the N.I.C.E. Sales Method and How to Sell When You Hate to Sell.
His goal is simple: make entrepreneurship, and especially selling, feel more approachable for people who never saw themselves as "salespeople."
Questions
Before you buy or reach out
Is this only for people who are brand new to sales?
Is N.I.C.E. just about being friendly?
Can Shane teach this to our organization?
Start the conversation
You don't have to become someone else to sell.
Learn a way to have the conversations your business needs while still sounding, thinking, and behaving like yourself.
