How to Master Sales with Dipesh Virji | Facing the Fear of Selling

Dipesh Virji – mastermind behind The Mindful Creator podcast, in-demand global sales consultant and all-round top bloke – has been through some tough lessons in his time. He’s been told to f**k off more times than he can count, forced to sit in cold water and compelled to spend years of his life studying for a career he didn’t want to do.

But like a lot of successful entrepreneurs, these experiences have proved massively valuable in the success he’s built today.

So what does Dipesh actually do? “You know what? I’ve done so many things that I’ve never felt like I fit into a box of just one thing. But to sum it up, I’d call myself a sales guy. And I hate saying that, because the first thing you think when you hear ‘sales’ is the typical American movie where the car salesman tries to push a car onto someone who doesn’t want it. I never wanted to be that person.”

“I literally just wanted some money…”

Ironic, then, that he’s forged such a formidable career doing exactly that. Because Dipesh quickly learned that to get the things he wanted, sales were not only inevitable but crucial. For lead generation, for business growth, for everything.

And it all started outside a train station in his native Harrow, on a mild afternoon in the early noughties. Walking home after school with his mates, Dipesh saw a ‘staff wanted’ sign in the window of Anglian Windows – still one of the biggest window and conservatory brands on the market today.

The deal was simple; £15 for every appointment booked for their sales guys. For a teenager in an era where penny sweets were literally just that, £15 was serious cash. Motivated by nothing more than a desire to actually have money, Dipesh and his mates signed up on the spot.

Three evenings a week, they’d cram into the boss’s van (totally different era, right?) – kitted out in school uniform because it was the smartest thing they owned – and head out knocking on doors. There was no contract, and no script.

“Ever thought about replacing your windows?”

“We knew absolutely nothing about what we were selling,” he says. “The goal was to simply to get into a conversation by pointing out basic observations about things that could be improved, then to book an appointment for the sales guys to go over.”

To his surprise, Dipesh managed to book four appointments in his first week, then six, and kept the momentum going. When cash payout time came at the end of each week, he felt like an absolute boss. And the feeling was addictive.

That job gave Dipesh a taste for the sales game, sparking a passion that has stayed with him ever since. He’s embraced the role, transforming the rough-and-tumble world of door-to-door sales into a successful career that’s a million miles away from the used car salesman stereotype.

So for those of you out there struggling with business growth and lead generation, or cringing to your core at the thought of approaching new prospects, here are our four biggest takeaways from today’s podcast to get you into the growth mindset and help you smash through those barriers.

Four fear-busting tips that will make you a better salesperson

#1. Learn not to give a f**k about rejection

In that first job, Dipesh learned that people really don’t like kids knocking on their door between 6 and 9pm at night. He got told to f**k off. He had doors slammed in his face. He had people literally open their letterbox and just start screaming at him to get off their property. We talk about rejection in sales, but you don’t really know what rejection is until you’ve had someone screaming at you.

For Dipesh, the rejections stung to begin with. He’d smile and go to the next door, yet he’d still be thinking about his experience at the last door. But the more you do it, the more you’ll began to realise that you’re just doing the job you need to do. If someone has an adverse reaction to that, it’s probably got nothing to do with you. You’re not the main character in this story.

Whatever happens, smile and move on. That’s the lesson. You’re already in a position of rejection when you first approach someone, so why not just go out and see how many times you can get rejected? Because at some point, someone will say yes.

#2. It’s not about being smarter, it’s about selling harder

Here’s the thing. If you’re thinking about getting into sales or you want to run a business or even just go for a promotion, you’re going to have to sell yourself to the person who’s responsible for making that decision. A lot of people fail to see that.

You might see colleagues getting promoted or competitors doing well, and get frustrated because you know you’re smarter or have a better product. But most of the time, they’re just selling themselves a lot harder than you do.

You know that phrase ‘there are people a lot less smart than you making way more money than you’? It actually has nothing to do with whether someone’s smarter. It’s about whether they’re able to sell themselves better. You need to be willing to put yourself out there, and like we said, being comfortable with exposure to rejection to get to the big ‘yes’.

#3. Make yourself do the stuff you don’t wanna do

Dipesh dropped out of Uni because electrical engineering wasn’t for him. But when he went back to study accounting, he made himself stick it out and graduate. Did he want to be an accountant? No. He did it to prove to himself that he could pass. It ended up being a sound investment because now when he works with a business, he understands the financial side, too.

The lesson here is that no matter what you do in life, there’s gonna be stuff that you absolutely do not want to do. The more you do it, the more you prove to yourself that you can do it. Take the ice bath analogy. Literally no one wants to get into an ice bath. It’s like being stung from a thousand places, and that temperature can knock the breathe out of you.

You have to force yourself to do it; then you realise the mental benefit it has for you. You realise that actually, if you can do that thing that’s excruciating and difficult, if you can put yourself through it and get to the other side, then what else are you capable of doing? If you want to be successful, that’s a skill you have to master.

#4. Believe it’s working for you, even if you doubt it is

Sticking with the ice bath analogy, there’s a lot of debate right now about whether there actually are health benefits from cold water exposure. But you know what? It doesn’t really matter. Because if you can get into an ice bath every morning for two minutes when it’s literally the last thing you want to do, the only way is up from there.

You can benefit so much from just the idea that something is working. The placebo effect is powerful. And you can use that in business, too. It’s a mindset thing. If you go around then believing every single day that something’s working for you, then that’s how you start to see things. It’s a huge part of the growth mindset.

You’ll find Dipesh over on Instagram and LinkedIn or via his site. You can also check out the awesome Mindful Creator podcast on YouTube, Apple and Spotify to find tonnes of inspiration from other business owners to help you succeed.

Don’t miss the next episode of Stay Hungry – we’ll dive into straight-talking insights on business marketing, growth mindset, and the realities of running a business. And if you want to take the hassle out of your marketing, we’ve got you covered with our done-for-you service.

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