Episode 203: Overcoming Fear of Selling: The #1 Reframe Every Small Business Owner Needs w/ Stacey Brass-Russell
What if the very thing holding your business back isn’t strategy or followers—but the fear of being seen? In this episode of the Gloria Chou PR Podcast, I sit down with Stacey Brass-Russell—Broadway performer turned transformational business coach and host of Passionate & Prosperous. With a career spanning show business, yoga, and entrepreneurship, Stacey has mastered the art of showing up unapologetically and teaching others how to do the same.
We dig into what it really takes to sell without feeling salesy, why confidence is a muscle you can build, and how to stop worrying about what everyone else thinks. If you’ve ever hesitated to press “send” on that pitch, this conversation is your permission slip to shine.
How Do You Sell Without Feeling “Salesy”?
Stacey breaks down the difference between bro-marketer tactics and authentic selling. Instead of cold DMs and pushy tactics, she shares how to build real relationships and show up in service of your audience—so selling feels natural, not cringe.
What If You’re Afraid of Rejection?
Rejection isn’t just part of the game—it’s proof you’re actually playing. Stacey explains why she encourages her clients to collect rejections as a measure of progress and why your job isn’t to convince everyone, but to find the right ones.
The One Habit That Builds Confidence in Business
Confidence doesn’t just show up. Stacey reveals the daily mindset practices—affirmations, reframing, and radical permission—that fuel resilience and visibility.
Personal Outreach: The Most Overlooked Sales Strategy
Forget obsessing over Instagram. Stacey makes the case for direct, human connection as the #1 activity that moves the needle in your business.
Why Nobody’s Thinking About You (and That’s a Good Thing)
One of Stacey’s most freeing insights: people aren’t scrutinizing your every move. In fact, most of the time, they’re not thinking about you at all. That’s why volume and consistency in outreach, pitching, and posting matter more than perfection.
✅ Final Takeaway: You don’t need to master every marketing hack or wait for the perfect pitch. What you need is:
A daily practice that builds confidence and resilience
The courage to connect directly with people
The willingness to be visible, imperfectly
When you stop worrying about what everyone else thinks and start leading with service, you’ll unlock the kind of authentic visibility that grows your business.
Resources Mentioned:
Join the PR Secrets Masterclass
Join the Small Biz PR Pros Facebook Group
DM the word “PITCH” to us on Instagram to get a pitching freebie https://www.instagram.com/gloriachoupr
Connect with Gloria Chou on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/gloriaychou
Join Gloria Chou's PR Community https://www.facebook.com/groups/428633254951941
Connect with Stacey Brass-Russell
Website: www.staceybrassrussell.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/staceybrassrussell/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/staceybrassrussell/
Additional Resources:
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TRANsCRIPT
00:00:00 Gloria: Hey, small business heroes. Welcome back to Small Business PR where we make PR and marketing super accessible for the everyday small business underdog. As you know, women. I'm a woman of color, I'm a daughter of immigrants. One thing that really trips us up is being seen. Feeling like if I promote my business, is that random person from high school going to judge me and all the stories that we make up. So today, I have my friend, Stacey Brass-Russell. She has many things, but she has this talent of harnessing people's brilliance and making them feel confident to spread their message. I have her on our show today. She's a life coach, a transformational business coach. Of course, all those things are related, so we're going to get into that as well. But welcome to the show, Stacey.
00:00:39 Stacey: Thank you so much, and thank you for having me.
00:00:42 Gloria: When I look at your career, right, you've been on Broadway. You have had a yoga studio. You've been featured in many places. What makes me drawn to you is that you just live a life by your own rules and you're just like, fuck this. I'm just going to do whatever it is that I want to do. Can we talk a little bit about that by introducing yourself? Because that's really the energy that you bring to everything that you do. And I'm just so magnetized by it.
00:01:02 Stacey: Oh my goodness. Well, first of all, I just got the chills when you were saying that. Thank you for that reflection. I am someone who's never had, like, a corporate job, or I never did anything that checked off any boxes. So I did start in show business when I was a little kid, and I think that kind of set me off on a journey of, first of all, being visible and needing to use your talent and your gifts to put yourself out there. I do think that that helped my journey of continuing to then be an entrepreneur and really make my own way.
00:01:35 Stacey: Opening a yoga studio, being a yoga teacher. That was something, again, I just figured it out. When I became a coach, I first became a health and life coach because I thought it was the next level way that I could support the people that I had been building a community of in the yoga world here in New York City. What really was interesting was how many people started coming to me with their business because of what you just said, because they saw that I was getting clients and I was really putting myself out there, which is how I believe you have to start a business.
00:02:08 Stacey: And so many of my peers, colleagues, and even my students that I was training to be yoga teachers, one thing that they all saw was my ability to just be out there all the time, and they felt that that was scary for them or they didn't know how to do that. And that's kind of what led to helping people with their businesses. Essentially, I was really helping people figure out how to put themselves out there, how to overcome all of the obstacles that come up for us when it comes to putting our work, our stuff out into the world.
00:02:42 Gloria: I love that so much. So my husband is from Italy and he's not Italian-American. He's Italian Italian and he always gives me reflections of what he notices about American culture. And he always says that Americans are really good salespeople. Like to talk, you're loud, you're unabashed about talking about ourselves. Whereas in Italy, a lot of things that we do online, it's not customary. [Stacey: Right.] Now that he is starting his own consulting firm, he realizes that that's kind of his weakness in a way because he's not comfortable talking and promoting himself. So can we kind of unpack that? Because there's a difference between toxic bro marketers who are just the loudest people in the room and full of nothingness. And then there's showing up authentically and, yes, selling something, but doing it authentically and aligned. Can we just unpack the difference between that? Showing up and taking up space, it's not all created equal.
00:03:26 Stacey: Exactly. And I think that the whole fear of being salesy, which I talk about so much in my work and with my clients, it's something that comes up all the time. Some of it comes from that bro marketing when people are aware of how they don't like receiving those cold DMs. I call it vomiting their pitch and their offer all over you. They're just making an assumption that you're struggling and that you need help. So many people don't like that. Then they think that anytime you might be offering your services to someone or your product or what you have, that you're going to seem salesy or icky, that whole car salesman thing.
00:04:03 Stacey: One of the things that I try to help my clients with and then what I can share with your audience is authentic marketing and not being salesy is when you feel what you are offering someone is something, first of all, that you really believe in and that you feel is going to be of great value and service to them. You only know that if you've built a little bit of a relationship with them. I'm all about building relationships with people. Like, we'll give an example. Like, if we're posting on social media and we're providing value and we're sharing our services or we're sharing our product or whatever that we have to offer, there are ways to get in touch with your customers and with your audience in a way that builds conversation and relationship and where you can provide service and value and show someone that you actually are interested or care about where they are before you go ahead and say, hey. I think you might have something that you might really like or that could really help you or that I want to talk to you about.
00:05:04 Stacey: One of the things that I always tell people is, how do you like to be sold to? I ask this to all my clients when they're worried about getting on discovery calls or if they're going to seem salesy. I always say – this is one tip I want to give everybody listening, how do you like to be sold to? Instead of worrying about your fear of seeming salesy or what you're going to seem like salesy, how do you like to receive offers? What do you like when you walk into a store or when somebody is engaging with you and then invites you to a conversation or discovery call? I work with a lot of service based businesses who do consultations or calls. How do you like to be sold to? What makes you a buyer? What makes you happy when someone is selling to you?
00:05:52 Stacey: And I think it's better to focus on that than to worry about some unknown thing that you might be doing somebody else might not like. There's so much to unpack about our fear of what other people think, about us wanting to sell our services, but that's one thing that I just want to say. How do you like to be sold to?
00:06:12 Gloria: Oh, that is so powerful. Because a lot of times, we already go into any kind of sales conversation, even sales adjacent conversation thinking, oh my god. I'm going to bother this person. In order for entrepreneurship to work, we need to have so much tenacity and perseverance. We just need to just get out there so many times and be open to rejection. That's really a helpful tool.
00:06:32 Stacey: Yeah. And we have to know that everybody buys stuff. You can't have a business or make money in your business unless you're selling. That is what economy is, and that's how you make money if you don't want to work for someone else and get a paycheck. In my opinion, that's a little bit of a passive approach to earning money. When you work for someone else and you get a paycheck, you get to relieve yourself of all of the burden and fear of having to be the seller of your own services, of your own product, of what you really believe in.
00:07:04 Stacey: When you have the mindset of that, the only way anyone makes any money is someone's paying for something, then you have to own your place in the marketplace, which is you're not going to be able to have a business unless someone gives you money, and they're giving you money in exchange for something. And that's what the whole economy is based on. You could either be a part of the economy and own it, or you can constantly be afraid to sell and also, therefore, probably feel like you're not making enough money or the money that you want to make in your business.
00:07:34 Gloria: There's a lot of these coffee mug mantras, selling a serving, connect with people first. When it comes down to it, what are some other actionable mindset strategies for someone who just… maybe they're an introvert or maybe their English is not their first language. They have all these barriers even before anything, so they feel like the odds are stacked up against them, but they know that this is the one thing that's keeping them from making more sales.
00:07:54 Stacey: Yeah. I think that your confidence in your selling begins with you really feeling deeply connected to your why and your message and your belief in what you are selling. That's whatever you're selling. I know you work a lot with product based businesses. I work a lot with service based businesses where the people are selling something intangible, but that's what I help people create is offers. What your offer is, what your product is, it starts with you being deeply connected and confident in your mission, your message, and your why. Not just why you want to have a business for yourself because that's important, but then your why this is important for you to put out into the world.
00:08:39 Stacey: I wake up every single day and do some mindset work. We don't wake up every morning in a high vibration where we're thinking, oh my god. I am incredible. Everybody wants what I have to offer. There's so many clients out there. I don't think most people wake up thinking that. I think we have to elevate our mindset every single day. And I have a joke. Well, it's not a joke. I always say like, your brain works like Groundhog Day. If you remember the movie where Bill Murray wakes up and every day is the same. Your brain is like that. You can do your affirmations, you can do some visualization, you can do your practices that really raise you up and even saying things like, I know that what I have to offer is of value. Waking up every day and reiterating that to yourself. I have something of value. People want what I have to offer. I'm great at selling. All of these things that we can say to ourselves, but we might have to do that every day to start the day.
00:09:37 Stacey: You mentioned mug. An affirmation mug, we can write it off as being, like, silly. But the truth is is that when we wake up in the morning, what mindset really is is it's not a permanent thing that you do a couple of mindset practice, and then now you have a new mind that's perfect every day. It literally means set your mind. How do you want to set your mind up each morning to be a high vibe, powerful business owner that believes in what you're offering, that believes in yourself, and most importantly, believe that there are people out there that want what you have to offer?
00:10:12 Stacey: As far as the language barrier or even the idea of offering their services might feel uncomfortable, I do think that it's really important to just recognize the most important thing is thinking I'm matching my service or my offer or my product with someone who needs it or wants it. And anybody who doesn't need or want my services is not my ideal client, and I shouldn't spend my time thinking about them. That was one of the things that I wrote down onto this episode with you and talk about, which was you're not going to be for everybody, and that's okay. You need to focus on who is for you, who does want what you're offering, who is into it, and the people that are not. There are always going to be people that are not.
0:11:00 Gloria: I always think about the people in high school that you care so much about their opinion, they're probably not even leading a life that you want to lead anyway. So why are we letting them judge us? Is there anything else that we can do? Because I do think affirmations only go so far because of the realities of life. Is there anything else we can do in our day to day business just to hone in on those skills so that at the end of the day, for me, for PR, how do we get ourselves to keep pressing that send button? And I have this email that's titled I wrote an email to thousands of people with a spelling error in the first sentence and nobody gave a crap. What are some exercises we can do to build up that tenacity, that mental resilience?
00:11:34 Stacey: First of all, taking action. I know you're going to say it, but I'm asking you how to take action. We have to have a regimen. Owning a business, even though there's this freedom and it feels like it's this loosey goosey thing when you have your own business and it's you get to wake up and do whatever you want. But on the other hand, I call it building the muscle. You need to build the muscle. Resilience is a muscle. Confidence is a muscle. Remember that taking action is what builds the muscle. When we take action and what we're most worried about is the result of the action or the outcome, usually, that's what prevents us from wanting to take action. And the action is what? It's putting yourself out there. The way you said press send on the email.
00:12:16 Stacey: What I teach is your very first order of business every day when you wake up and you think, what should I do today in my business? It's always who am I one degree away from connecting with? It's asking yourself, is there anyone I should be doing personal outreach to? I'm going to say it's not only about clients and selling. It's like what you said. You wake up every day and it's like, is there somebody I'm supposed to send an email to? Am I supposed to be replying back to someone? Is there anyone who I've started a conversation with and I should do a follow-up? You always wake up and ask yourself, who's one degree away from either being my client or something in my business that's going to move the needle?
00:13:00 Stacey: Because I think one of people's biggest fears is social media, posting on social media. A lot of people think they don't know how to use social media. And yet, social media is this free platform that's available to all of us that we can use as marketing in our business. And there's a part of you that knows if you're not using it, you feel bad. You feel like, uh-oh. I should be on social. So many people wake up, and if they don't feel like they're good at social media or they're not good at Canva or making reels or they don't know what to say. They think that that's the only thing that they should be doing in their business. And I always say it's not.
00:13:34 Stacey: The first thing you should be doing in your business is how can you reach out to someone directly? Who's the personal outreach for you? That's the practice of your business. Every day, you wake up and you go, what are the actions that I need to take today in order to just go to sleep tonight knowing that I didn't just fit behind my screen, behind my computer, and do busy work. Therefore, I'm working on my business. But the truth is is that the only thing that's going to move the needle in your business is when you actually do something that involves connecting with another human being.
00:14:13 Stacey: And look, sending emails to your whole email list, that kind of counts, but I get it. It's scary to press send on an email. But then you have to be willing to know that every unsubscribe or every unfollow, if you look at those things, which I don't recommend that you do after every email, but if you look at those things that you have to know, that just means that that person is not your ideal client. And you know what? You have no reason to have an email list other than for your business. No one needs to have an email list on a platform to connect with their friends and family. And even though sometimes your friends and family are the first people that support you and they sign up for your email list and whatever, the truth is is that they're not your ideal client.
00:14:50 Stacey: Anybody that's on your list that isn't really someone that's interested in what you have to offer or your message, if they don't want to hang around, you have to build up a little thick skin and go, you know what? They're not for me. They're not my ideal client, and that's okay. I'm going to focus on the people that are. And so I believe in personal outreach as your number one activity in your business.
00:15:13 Gloria: Oh, so many things there. I always say, I'm not a McDonald's. I'm not for everyone. And we all know this. As we grow in our business, the more that people say no, the more we're like, hell yes. We finally are getting clear on our niche and our messaging. So that's actually a good sign. Asian Tiger Mom, I actually want my students to get five rejections a week because I think that there's so much inertia in remaining where we are that we don't even let ourselves get the first or second one. And as you know, to build a business that lasts, it is not for the faint of heart. You know this. But we need so much energy and tenacity that if we're not even okay with getting five rejections a week, we're not even nearly where we need to go to push our business forward.
00:15:49 Gloria: I also want to talk about what you said about the one thing you need to do just to give it oxygen, just to keep it going is make a connection. And what a beautiful reframe of sales and content making. I think a lot of times people are like, oh, I got to do this content or, oh, I got to get on this sales call. But if you just reframe it as I'm going to connect with this person through a call or I'm going to connect by pitching, if we all just see it as a connection, then it just sounds so much better. I love that so much.
00:16:16 Stacey: Thank you. When I said it's not only about the potential client, some of that outreach or connection is also with adjacent business owners or relationships that you're building for collaboration. Because so much of what we need in order to really grow our network, grow our audience, grow our email list, grow all the ways that we can get in front of enough people… because the percentage of people that actually pay us, the percentage of people that buy something from us, that invest in whatever we're offering is so small compared to the amount of people that we need to be in front of.
00:16:53 Stacey: If we don't learn these things from mentors and other business owners, if we walk around thinking 100% of the people that see my post on social media are going to like it, and I'm going to use that as a measuring stick for whether or not I'm successful or people like me, then I'm really going to feel shitty every single day because that is never going to happen.
00:17:15 Stacey: And so having a realistic understanding, compare and despair, looking around at other people and thinking that somehow they've got the magic formula because you look at them and you think, oh my god, they have so many followers and it looks like they get so much engagement on their posts, and they're constantly talking about how successful they are… if you internalize that and then use that as a measuring for yourself, compare yourself, you are going to be spending so much more time focusing on other people than you are focusing on your own business. And that's why we all need to have, I believe, in transparency. You and I have talked a little bit about this, about how important it is for the people that are successful or whatever to be transparent.
00:18:00 Stacey: Those of us who know stuff about the industry, we need to share that with our clients, and that's why everyone needs coaches and mentors and whatever is because your clients hearing from you, you should expect five rejections. If they didn't have you and they sent out one or two pitches and they got rejected, they would crawl back into bed and probably not send another pitch for, like, a month until they recovered. Having this information and knowing 1% to 4% of your current email list is going to take action on something that you offer them. If you've got 2,000 people on your email list and then 20 to 30 people click on a link in there, that's actually a good industry standard. But someone needs to tell you that or you're going to be in a bubble and you're going to be thinking that things aren't going well because you're making up stuff about how it's supposed to be.
00:18:52 Gloria: Yeah. And it really is a numbers game. I have a friend who's been perpetually single. She really wants to start a family. And the first question I ask her is, are you going out? Are you going on dates? And she's like, no. Not really. I get it. It's not easy putting yourself out there, but it truly, the way you said it, it's a volume game. And a lot of times, we're just not doing enough of what it is. Whether it's posting enough, emailing enough to, A, get good at what we're doing because that only comes with experience in doing. And B, to be a really good curator of what works and what doesn't for you.
00:19:22 Gloria: I think a lot of times, we just stop because either we lose momentum, we're afraid of all these things when we realize we need so much volume of doing before we can get that critical mass. And so hopefully, you've given us a lot to think about. I think this is very helpful for us to get there. Do you have any other mindset things for us to just reach that top of that hill, which is we all need to do to get that critical mass, to move something in our business?
00:19:44 Stacey: I'm going to go back to what I said about that confidence in your mission and your message because the volume of sending the emails, of showing up on social, the volume of content is really what you're referring to. So many business owners go into business and all they really want to do is sell their thing, get to do the amazing work that they do with their clients and they come in and they don't really have a grasp on the marketing and the promotion. And what ends up happening is we start realizing, oh my god. There's so much content to create. There's so much copy I have to write. And it can get really overwhelming, and you could get in your head and start thinking, well, I'm not creative. I'm not a good copywriter. I'm not good at messaging, especially because there's so many people out there who are saying, I'm a messaging expert. You start thinking, I'm not good at any of the things that I'm supposed to be able to do for my business.
00:20:40 Stacey: Here's what I want to leave everybody with. The more that you can root in and ground into your expertise, the value that you know that you provide, the feeling like you're showing up in service that you're coming from the heart and you're coming from this authentic place where you feel in total integrity with what you're sharing with the world, you'll have an a never ending source of content because you don't have to sit and try to think of how to sell or think of how to market. You might eventually want to get better at that stuff, and there are ways to get better at it. But you don't need any of that to grow your business because all you need is to keep rooting in to what you know you are really great at.
00:21:29 Stacey: Oh, here's one more exercise. Remind yourself of all of your successes. Go back and remind yourself of your wins, of all of the people who have bought from you, of all of the times that you have helped someone, that you've served, milestones that you've made in your business, revenue that you've generated. And if you haven't generated any or a lot of revenue yet, what are the actions that you've taken that have yielded something good for you? Someone responding and saying, wow, that was such a great email. You will get that every once in a while. It's not that every email you send, you're going to get 10. But for every time someone says, wow, that really helped me today, or somebody comments, you've got to remember those things and use them in those moments when you're having that self doubt and when you're feeling unsure and when you're feeling afraid and you're afraid to put yourself out there and be visible.
00:22:23 Stacey: I want to leave everybody with something that I talk about a lot, which is people are not thinking about you nearly half or even at all as you think they are. The other thing I say is most of the time when people are afraid of what other people will think, they're not even afraid that they're going to make a nasty comment on social media. They're literally afraid that they're just thinking it. And I'm like, you're never going to know. You don't even know what they're thinking. But the truth is is that people are not thinking about you nearly as much as you think that they are. That's just a neuroscience. Don't forget, everybody's thinking about themselves. Everybody is asking themselves, but what's in it for me? That's just the way we work as humans. We do it ourselves. You got to try to remember those things. That's science, baby. Remember the science and use that for yourself.
00:23:15 Stacey: Whenever you find yourself going down that rabbit hole and you start worrying about what other people are thinking, stop yourself, take a breath. And you could even say to yourself, no one is thinking about me nearly as much as I think they are, and that's a good thing. And that's why we say you need a volume. That's why we say you got to email and you got to post because you have to stay top of mind. Because if you don't, trust me, no one's thinking about you. And no one's remembering your last email or your last social media post, and there's a good chance they didn't even see it.
00:23:48 Gloria: I always think about we live in New York. It's like you could walk down naked on Fifth Avenue and nobody would even care.
00:23:53 Stacey: Exactly.
00:23:54 Gloria: Think about the craziness of New York and how no one gives a fuck. They're really not thinking about you. I love that so much. How can people find out more about you and your work? This has been so beautiful reminder of not only connection, but tapping into that self love. I think at the core of all of this is self love.
00:24:07 Stacey: Totally.
00:24:08 Gloria: Do I give myself radical permission to mess up? Do I give myself radical permission to do something imperfectly? And that's really at the root of all of this.
00:24:15 Stacey: Yeah. Do I give myself radical permission to experiment? As long as you know that what you're doing is not intentionally harming anyone. If you know that you're not harming anyone, then put your shit out there because you've got to get your voice out there. You've got to get your message out there. The world needs you. Your voice matters. You must shine your light. And if that's what you're doing, you're shining your light, there's no way that you're doing anything bad, harmful, or wrong. And so if someone else doesn't care, see you, like it, want it, who cares? Because you know where you're coming from. It's like your birthright. It's what you're here to do.
00:24:53 Stacey: How can people find me? I have a podcast also called Passionate & Prosperous. I have episodes on mindset and all this kind of stuff in addition to business strategy, and my website, www.staceybrassrussell.com. And I will say that I wanted to create a little special takeaway for your audience. So by the time this episode comes out, in the show notes, you'll have a link to something of a resource that your listeners can download that'll touch on some of these things about selling and authenticity and not caring about what other people think.
00:25:28 Gloria: Awesome. This was beautiful. Thank you so much, Stacey.
00:25:31 Stacey: You're welcome. Thanks for having me.
00:25:35 Gloria: Hey, Small Business Hero. Did you know that you can get featured for free on outlets like Forbes, The New York Times, Marie Claire, PopSugar, and so many more even if you're not yet launched or if you don't have any connection? That's right. That's why I invite you to watch my PR Secrets Masterclass where I reveal the exact method thousands of bootstrapping small businesses use to hack their own PR and go from unknown to being a credible and sought after industry expert. Now if you want to land your first press feature, get on a podcast, secure a VIP speaking gig, or just reach out to that very intimidating editor, this class will show you exactly how to do it. Register now at gloriachoupr.com/masterclass. That's gloriachou, C-H-O-U, pr.com/masterclass so you can get featured in thirty days without spending a penny on ads or agencies. Best of all, this is completely free, so get in there, and let's get you featured.