An important tip missing on the OP is: be persistent, fully knowing that you might be annoying, but never, under any circunstance admit that you are annoying, o

An important tip missing on the OP is: be persistent, fully knowing that you might be annoying, but never, under any circunstance admit that you are annoying, or act as you knew you were being annoying. You must sound totally naivee, act as all you want is your prospect to better and completely convinced that using your product would make him a better person/professional. Act surprised when the prospect act irritated. And always use the argument that the prospect himself kept that door open with you by not saying he didn't want your product. This was a great read to me, because now I know that I've been doing it right for the last few years. Before my "2013 startup year" I worked on a philanthropy advisory non-profit. 80% of my job was selling to wealthy individuals our service of being a guide to better donations. So I was basically a salesperson selling a service that almost nobody in Brazil consider a real need or problem - btw that's one difference between cause driven non-profits and market driven startups, you don't pivot if the market doesn't need your service, you persist. Mainly because the people you are solving a problem and the people giving you money are two separate stakeholders usually. That's kind of inevitable, because the social problem wouldn't be there to begin with if the market/society were really bothered by it. I can't imagine Watsi pivoting because people do not want to pay for medical anymore, but they would be willing to pay for a exotic tourism service to where the people they aid are from. They might get more money this way, but social tourism is another cause, solves another problem (maybe). It is not an acceptable pivot for a non-profit. Back on topic, I learned to be persistent to get to a no. People hate saying no to something that the society consider the right thing to do, even if they have no intention of actually doing it, so this was crutial to my job - get a "no" was always my objective. But I disagree with a reason to do it is getting feedback. I never got real feedback for why people were saying no - maybe because of what I was selling, there is a stigma in saying "I won't donate because I earned it by myself and I am antitled to spend on whatever I want, and giving them away to other people's benefit is not my idea of a money well spent".