I understand how frustrating it can be when you feel like you’re showing up all the time but all you hear is crickets. In the beginning of my business, I was seeing people share huge wins of starting their business and signing clients instantly. I set myself up with huge expectations and so when I was showing up for 3 months and I was still yet to land a client, I almost gave up. Self doubt kept creeping in, I kept changing my strategy and honestly felt like what is the point, nothing is working.
It was at this moment, I hired a business coach and invested in my mindset and self belief and so I wanted to share 3 lessons that I learnt throughout this time in the hope that if you feel anything like I did, like you’re talking to a brick wall, or that nothing is working, this can help provide guidance, show you how to hold faith and also zoom out and look at the big picture because often times we are so focused on personal success that we’re so hard on ourselves and lose perspective.
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Lesson one: you need to be sold on your service before others will invest
If you don’t believe in you, why should they? You need to know your business, service, skills, knowledge and value better than the back of your hand. You need to know who you help and how you help them. You need to hold the belief that your service is valuable and that the right people will come, and will pay you regardless of your price.
You will always be too expensive to some, but you will also be cheap and amazing value to others. That’s why being sold on your service is so crucial. Otherwise anytime someone tells you it’s too expensive or that it’s not a good fit you’ll turn inwards and think it’s a reflection on you, you’ll devalue yourself, reduce your prices and think that you’re not worthy, knowledgeable, capable enough to charge those prices. Having self belief around what you offer and being able to back yourself will help you attract clients who are all in, rather than clients who are full of objections, want to pay the bare minimum, yet expect the world.
Alongside being sold on your service, you need to be sold on your vision. Because let me ask you this, if you knew you couldn’t fail, that ideal clients were coming, that they were already there, it was a done deal, how would that change the way you showed up in the world. If you believed that wholeheartedly, I can guarantee you wouldn’t be putting so much pressure on not only yourself, but also any leads you have, because your worth, your capabilities, your value and success wouldn’t be based on the outcome of that conversation.
lesson two: Everyone sucks, they just aren’t showing it
If you’re someone who is feeling like a failure because you are struggling to land clients, or you’re not seeing the social media results you want, I want to ask you a question. How much time have you actually given yourself before you give in to the idea that you’re a failure? Everyday you’re exposed to to success story after success story. Your instagram feed is filled with highlights, and bold statements about how every online business owner went from rags to riches in a matter of weeks or months. The truth is that everyone sucks, they just aren’t showing it. Everyone feels like an imposter, they just aren’t showing it. Social media is about attention and what gets more attention than outrageous statements that preys on the dreams and fears of beginners? Now whilst i’m not saying they’re making their success up, because a lot of the time they have gotten those results. But what I am saying is that they’re strategically leaving things out. Because I promise you, it’s not as simple as it seems. Often times these people have had other things that have contributed to their success. Perhaps they have a team, have had other businesses, a different mindset, a different upbringing.
So next time you look at someone wondering why you don’t have the success that they do, I want you to think about a traditional career path and how long it would take to have a $100K year for example. Often times you would go to uni for 3-4 years, maybe get an internship, then you’d start at the bottom, and then work your way up year after year. Yet here you are, in a completely new industry, because let’s face it social media manager, virtual assistants, influencers, none of that existed 10 years ago. So the industry is still evolving and changing, you’re still learning and yet here you are putting all this pressure and expectations on yourself to make 6 figures in your first year just because “Susan” did. Give yourself a break. Stop being so hard on yourself. Even if you’re thinking, “yeah but that’s a traditional path, I went into business so I could make more money quickly”. I get it, but I’ve got some statistics that can help you zoom out and hopefully might make you realise, you’re doing a lot better than you think.
According to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, approximately 20 percent of small businesses fail within the first year. By the end of the second year, 30 percent of businesses will have failed. By the end of the fifth year, about half will have failed. And by the end of the decade, only 30 percent of businesses will remain — a 70 percent failure rate. Yet you’re still here.
And if thats not enough, if you look into other business industries where you need to invest in stock or storefront, etc before you can turn a profit, On average it takes small businesses 3 years to actually start making profit.
So by those statistics, odds are you’re not actually as far behind or as close to failure as you might have originally thought based off the success stories you see plastered all over your feed.
Lesson Three: Hold Space for Lurkers
If you currently feel like you’re talking to a brick wall and that no one is engaging, liking, commenting, following or purchasing from you. I want you to be open to holding space for lurkers. Often times the people who are most interested, can be most challenged by your content and when you feel so seen and so understood before you are ready to admit you need support, you may become a silent spectator, hanging off their every word, but keeping your distance until you are ready. Pride gets in the way a lot of the time and I speak from experience, I’ve done this with my own coaches and my students and clients have done the same to me. So often I have people reach out seemingly out of no where to me, but as we begin working together they share that they had been following me for 3, 6, sometimes 12 months as a silent spectator before they’ve reached out.
I wonder if this is something you find yourself doing also… Additionally, when you are scrolling, do you engage with every piece of content? Probably not. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t consuming and it doesn’t mean that that piece of content wasn’t valuable, so hold space for lurkers.
These lurkers can also be better leads than the people who are regularly engaging because often times I engage with content from friends and people I have no intention of purchasing from, sometimes I like it without even watching or reading, and then other times I read a piece of content, scroll past it but 3 days later i’m still thinking about the message or the value. Vanity metrics don’t determine the value, or whether people are interested, so hold space for lurkers and trust that the right people are already in your sphere.
So knowing that, I wonder what would happen if you decided that your post was valuable and that you had ideal clients already in your community. I wonder what would happen if you didn’t need more likes, more views, more followers to validate that. How would that change the way you show up?
Now if you’ve found a lot of value from this and are interested in exploring the ideas around building and sustaining belief, I’d like to offer you a complimentary strategy call to help you identify the blocks that may be getting in the way of your success and to help you carve a path so that you can start to build the business of your dreams and feel really confident with where you’re going. Send me a message here and book a call here.
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