I read a post recently that I haven't been able to stop thinking about.
Stijn Noorman shared that one of his clients chose him over four other coaches. Not because of his content, his branding, or his track record.
But because of his method.
Every other coach told this person the same thing: if you want to make money online faster, you need to do sales calls. That's the fastest path. That's how you close clients. Get comfortable with it.
Stijn was the only one who said: you don't have to.
His system is built around letting the audience come to you — slower, maybe, but without the part that makes most introverted creators want to crawl under their desk.
His conclusion: what you refuse to do is often more compelling than what you offer to do.
He's not wrong. But I think a lot of beginners will read that post and use it as permission to avoid something they should be running toward.
Why the idea is so seductive
No awkward silences. No pressure. No having to think on your feet while someone pushes back on your price.
The no-call approach promises all the upside of freelancing without the part that makes most people sweat. And for introverted creators who already dread the phone, it sounds like liberation.
I was attracted to it too.
It sounded elegant. Minimalistic. Hassle-free.
But elegant and effective aren't the same thing. Especially at the start.
Why it's still a bad idea for most beginners
Imagine you study criminology at UCLA.
Smart, ambitious, going places. Then a recruiter calls. They want you to head up a patrol division in LA County.
150 people reporting to you. Detectives, sergeants, patrol officers, the whole operation.
You'd quickly realize that no matter how sharp your theory is, you're completely unequipped for it. You've never walked a beat. Never handled a suspect at 2am when everything goes sideways. Never made a split-second call with lives on the line.
There's a reason police departments promote from within. You need to have gone through the crucible to lead it.
That's why you don't become patrol captain by skipping patrol duty.
Sales calls are the streets.
They teach you what your clients actually care about, where your pitch breaks down, what objections keep coming up, how to handle pressure in real time, and how to make decisions without a script. After 100 of them you know your buyer in a way no email thread will ever teach you.
You can't shortcut your way to becoming that person. You can only earn it.
Giving people what they want vs. what they need
Stijn gave his client what they wanted. That's not wrong — it's smart positioning.
But there's a difference between meeting your client's preference and building your entire business around your own avoidance.
Avoiding calls because you prefer it is a valid niche decision when made from experience.
Avoiding calls because you prefer it as a beginner is something else entirely.
It's self-protection masquerading as strategy.
What you're actually skipping
The real cost of no-call selling isn't the clients who prefer calls.
It's the feedback loop you never build.
Every call you avoid is a conversation you didn't have, an objection you didn't hear, a nuance about your market you'll never pick up from an email thread. Every awkward silence you skip is a moment that would have taught you something about how to handle the next one.
That accumulation of real conversations, real pressure, real human reactions to your offer: that's what turns a freelancer into someone who actually knows what they're doing.
Do the uncomfortable thing first
Stijn has 60,000+ followers and clients finding him through his content. He's earned the right to set his terms.
Most beginners haven't yet.
I still don't love the idea of sales calls.
But I've stopped using that preference as a reason to avoid them.
Do them first. Do them badly. Do them until they stop feeling like a threat and start feeling like information. Then, once you've walked the beat long enough to know the streets, decide exactly how you want your business to run.
Not from avoidance. From experience.
That's the only version of the no-call approach worth having.
P.S. If you're building a freelance business on the side and keep hitting the same walls, take the 9-5 Escape Quiz at uglyemails dot com.
In 3 minutes it shows you your exact bottleneck and what to fix first. I built it because I spent years being confused myself.
