What to do if you run your own business and you hate sales

A few years back I took the decision to switch from being a software freelancer to running a software agency. I was tired of working on my own and I wanted a team around me, people to talk to, people to bounce ideas off.

So I started hiring and I started looking for larger projects.

Getting those larger projects was difficult. I'm very confident about my skills, both at development itself, and explaining to people what they need to know. But I'm not a sales guy. I have no confidence on that front. In fact, I actively avoided selling.

Now most weaknesses can actually be strengths. I hated sales. How could I use that to my advantage?

The answer was simple. Find a way of getting these jobs that didn't involve selling.

Which is where my proposal template, and whole "sales process" came from.

There's nothing revolutionary about it. It just takes your classic sales formula and tweaks it a bit for people who don't like selling. For people like me.

Ask questions. Understand why. Figure out what it's worth. Write it all down and then show it to the client. That's all there is to it. All I did was add some structure to it, so I couldn't go wrong.