What if selling didn’t feel like selling? Never Ask for the Sale reveals how to stress less, price confidently, and make selling a natural extension of who you are. Perfect for solopreneurs, founders, account executives, and professionals, this book introduces Sue’s “passionate ambivalence” technique—caring deeply about new business while letting go of individual outcomes.
Sue encourages sellers of all kinds to be as deeply passionate about a project, engagement, or new business partnership as they are while staying unattached to whether the sale closes. Passionate ambivalence is the optimal outlook for a seller who wants to optimize closing the best deals with the most desirable customers at the best available price.
Sue is a gifted, passionate, and conscious seller. Making connections, spotting opportunities, and growing businesses all fall into her zone of genius. This book helps sellers align their work with their greatest gifts and genuinely offer themselves with candor, optimism, and a healthy level of detachment around outcomes. This recipe resonates deeply with me.
In a world noisy with hacks and hustle, Never Ask for the Sale offers something quietly radical: a return to self. Sue Heilbronner has crafted a refreshingly honest guide for anyone who sells themselves—coaches, consultants, creatives, and solopreneurs alike. Her concept of ‘passionate ambivalence’ is a deeply grounded philosophy that honors authenticity over persuasion and presence over performance. This isn’t a book about selling. It’s a book.
Never Ask For The Sale is a game changer. After reading it, I was immediately inspired to respond to an indecisive coaching prospect with radical candor (and confidence)—telling him I’d not prefer to ‘sell’ him on me as a coach, and, if he didn’t give a full body ‘yes’ to work with me, to move on. The next day he signed a six-month coaching engagement with me.
Never Ask for the Sale sits at the intersection of coaching, personal growth, conscious leadership, and sales and combines the financial savvy and relatability of Rich Dad Poor Dad with the humanity of Dare to Lead and the growth mindset of Grit and Powerful.
It provides an authentic and actionable guide to supercharge your selling prowess with heart, guts, and intention. Packed with compelling anecdotes from Sue’s personal selling journey and inspiring stories of fellow entrepreneurs, it delivers both insight and inspiration. Each chapter features at least one practical exercise, transforming the book into a hands-on sales “workbook” and a personalized “coaching session.
Beginning the inside job of looking at yourself as the center of your business growth is a bit of a leap for some. This section of the book gives you the tools, exercises, and mindset shifts to take that leap with conviction.
YOU are your USP. Discover how to align your unique talents with your offerings. Craft a standout two-minute bio, assemble your personal board of directors, find your “zone of genius,” and set game-changing goals that fuel your sales success.
Build a strong foundation for authentic marketing and sales with Sue’s six transformative principles. Discover how to align your true self with your market presence, crafting strategies that resonate and build trust from the start.
Get your business into the spotlight with actionable steps to create your digital and brand presence, launch your outreach efforts, build visibility in your community and across your network, and create referral relationships –all while staying true to yourself.
Master the art of selling YOU. Learn to qualify the right prospects, handle responses with tailored templates, conduct a “fit call” with the right tone, and know when to say “no.” Refine your approach to pricing, scoping, and closing deals through proven strategies and pathways.
Sue Heilbronner is a sought-after speaker, startup CEO, adjunct professor of entrepreneurship, strategic facilitator and advisor, conscious leadership coach and program leader.
Sue has been selling since she was five years old, when she loaded up her Radio Flyer with books, marked the prices with crayon, and marched around her neighborhood, shilling. Later, she sold cases to juries as a prosecutor for the U.S. Department of Justice before pivoting to a series of sales and CEO roles in technology companies. She co-founded one of the first venture capital firms focused on companies with at least one woman in leadership. Then, she became a solopreneur, launching an executive coaching, facilitation, and speaking business at HeySue.com
Sue has worked with leaders and teams at GoogleX, Meta, Apple, Salesforce, Microsoft, Techstars, YPO, G2, Teach for America, and more. She earned a BA from Oberlin College and a JD and master’s of public policy from Duke University. She lives in Boulder, Colorado.
