When I started my business I had zero experience. I’d been employed by somebody else since the age of 15. So I spent a lot of the first 17 months finding my feet and making mistakes. The early days of running your own business is pretty much spending most of the time worrying about whether you’re doing the right things and panicking about where the client is coming from. Here are the two things that I did in my business that made the biggest difference to my income.
1. I chose my mentors carefully and worked with the people who I most wanted to be like
I spotted a guy on LinkedIn who said the only way you could work with him was if you were earning at least £10k a month. He’d worked out that his fee would be no more than 10% of his clients monthly income in order to be affordable TO THEM.
He also stipulated that he didn’t accept payments on credit cards. His rule was that if you couldn’t afford it and you couldn’t sustain it so you couldn’t have it. And he didn’t want to be anyone’s “last chance saloon”. He was not prepared to take responsibility for the success or failure of someone else’s business. He made it clear that he wasn’t in the business of saving struggling businesses. He worked with businesses that wanted to create sustainable income, change their business models or become more profitable. Not businesses that were looking for a silver bullet. To me that said more about his integrity, his methods and his own personal success than shouting as loudly as possibly about how much money he was making.
I liked the way he worked and I liked his messaging. He was saying what he wanted. Not what everyone else was saying. He was actively encouraging his audience to do what made sense business wise not to follow the latest trend. I liked his style. The way he showed up unapologetically. The fact that he was more concerned about making a difference to his clients than he was about being liked. I wanted to borrow some of his courage and attitude.
I also wanted to be able to get to a point in my business where I could confidently charge a higher amount. Where I didn’t need to seek out permission for my prices or have to charge what everyone was charging.
He also scared the shit out of me (intimidated me) and I know that if I’m intimidated by someone it usually means I could learn a lot from them.
If you want to learn from someone and you’re choosing a coach my mentor ask yourself these questions first….
- Are they getting the results I want?
- Are they where I want to be?
- Do their values align with my own
- Would I be prepared to hustle as hard as they are? The reason I think it’s important to ask yourself this is because if their success depends on them being super visible., creating reams of content or doing copious amounts of videos and you can’t ever see yourself doing that, then you aren’t likely to be able to replicate their results. If you’re willing to get out of your comfort zone and push yourself to do the work then great. But remember, you are responsible for doing the work and your results, not your coach or mentor.
I don’t believe there’s only one way to be successful. I don’t believe it’s my way or the highway. No one knows all the answers, they only know what worked for them and you should be highly sceptical of anyone who says they know the BEST way. How could they possibly know?
2. I stopped responding to other people’s triggers
I studied NLP right at the start of my entrepreneurial journey and it was one of the best investments I’ve ever made. I now know that whenever I’ve felt triggered by someone it’s got nothing to do with them, it’s because of what’s going on inside me. If you get upset by someone doing well, someone selling, someone talking about money, someone putting their prices up……that’s a YOU problem. Not a THEM problem. Own your own shit and work it out. Don’t expect other people to make themselves small or hold themselves back to accommodate you. Likewise, you are not responsible for other people’s fears or limiting beliefs.
I used to get a lot of DM’s along the lines of “oh I’m not sure if you should say that”
“oh I just thought I’d give you a bit of friendly advice about your last post”
“I wouldn’t do that as a course, your audience isn’t big enough”
I don’t run my business according to what other people feel, think or need. I’m a one woman band If I wanted to run my business by committee. I’d form one and share the profits. If I haven’t asked for your opinion, it’s safe to assume I don’t want it. That doesn’t make me a dick. My business exists to serve a particular type of person and solve a very specific problem. If you aren’t that person and you don’t have that problem your opinion has very little bearing on how I run my business.
Other people’s fears, judgements or beliefs about what is or isn’t okay or what is or isn’t possible are theirs to carry. And it is unreasonable for them to expect you or I to carry them on their behalf.
My biggest fear around running my business was always around how I showed up. I was afraid of saying something stupid or that someomne who was more of an expert in my field would read my content and think “what the hell is she talking about”. I was afraid of being criticised, saying something wrong or being disagreed with. Not because I think I’m perfect but because I wasn’t sure if my confidence could cope with the knock.
This manifested in a number of different ways.
- I was never sure what to say. Because I was so afraid of saying the wrong thing, my confidence was completely undermined and I had no clue what the “right” thing was. So very often I’d end up either saying nothing or saying something really bland and wondering then if that was just too obvious. Am I telling people what they already know? Leading to a rabbit hole of imposter syndrome and self doubt.
- I tried to sound like other people. I’d think “oh she’s doing well I’ll try and sound like her” but I wouldn’t sound like her, I’d sound like a watered down copycatt. Then I would worry if it was completely obvious that I was trying to imitate someone else.
- I’d think “fuck it” I’m going to say what I really think, and then panic that I’d alienated my whole audience by showing my true personality and I’d go into hiding for days.
None of these ways of showing up helped me attract clients, create a consistent message or reach a bigger audience. Finding ways to put your goals above your fears is the key to successful digital marketing. Understanding what was important to me, important to my clients and then finding a way to create that as a message that sounded like me was the key to changing everything.
If you want help creating a clear and confident message I can help. Get in touch to find out how I can support you to create your own, stand out marketing message.