I know this feeling so well. You don’t want to be an asshole or come across as greedy or heartless. The reality is this business is your livelihood, whether friends, family, or anyone else recognizes or respects that. Prioritize your business first and let others decide how they want to interpret that. Ironically, as soon as you start doing that people will respect or at least accept it.

She is not dumb, she knows she’s taking advantage. If she recognizes that she’s benefitting from the flow of traffic in front of your store, then she has to recognize that she’s taking it from you. If she doesn’t recognize it or acts like it’s not a big deal then she can’t complain about moving from your store front as it is a big deal to you. Any motivation she has to specifically post up in front of your store is also acknowledgement that she is taking business from you.

Again, I really feel for you on this. Some of us are not trying to be selfish and want to try to be generous and fair. Remind yourself that this is not a trivial thing. Regardless of how big the business is, it’s cost you a lot of your time and other resources. It is not a joke or a hobby for you, so protect it. If others fail to understand that, fuck them. They will not be paying your bills.

Everyone who is new/inexperienced to sales will swear cold-calling is dead. They want so badly for a reason not to have to do it. Understandably so.

Everyone who has had significant success/experience in sales and business will tell you otherwise. Cold-calling is redundant, stressful, and draining. The biggest mistake one can make is underestimating the cold-call. It can mess with up your mentality very quickly if you don’t take it seriously.

However, cold-calling is a learnable, trainable, and repeatable skill that offers a rare and valuable advantage: if you master cold-calling you can go out and get sales at will instead of waiting for marketing to bring them to you.