This is something I need to work on...
Seriously, stop stalling.
Do The Risky Stuff First
Have the hard conversations early in the week. Make the cold calls early (10 before 10?). Send that proposal on Monday. Put your neck out there as early as you can. That gives you as much time as possible to react and recover from how they turn out. It answers those lingering questions that are pulling on the back of your mind.
Best of all, it gives you instant feedback. The sooner you ask, the sooner you get an answer. The sooner you get things signed up or off your list.
This article is great as well:
The Danger of Crocodile Sales | Both Sides of the Table
http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2010/02/03/the-danger-of-crocodile-sales/
1. YOU Selling – My wise old friend & mentor, Ameet Shah, once told me after a meeting we had with clients (when I worked at Accenture), “there are two ways to run a meeting: asking or telling. You’re a persuasive guy but be careful not to always be telling people the answer. Nobody likes that. You learn much more about how other people think when you’re asking. And you get to better results.”
I try to do that as much as I can during meetings, though it's not always that easy to build rapport with certain potential customers. Clearly, "presentation mode" is way less effective than "discussion mode".
(via Instapaper)
If you dissect the model, you'll see that the one time effort of building something is something many software creators are willing to do for free. But the ongoing time and effort of supporting and maintaining the software is not something that can be done for free.
But it does mean that the free model is very powerful and should be considered by anyone who like to create things but does not like to deal with hard work of maintaining and supporting the work. It is the model behind this blog in fact. You get the content for free. Anything else, you have to pay for with equity in your company.