I remember when I first started this journey of making a name for myself and getting my brand out there, less than a month after leaving my former employer.
My first networking event as a business owner was nerve-wracking to say the least – Would anyone take me seriously? Will they give me a chance? Am I sure I can hack this? Am I good enough?
I felt really out of my depth and had to deal with the fact that I wasn’t going to become a ‘superstar’ overnight. I wasn’t used to how much self-promotion this new phase of my career needed, and I wasn’t clear on my niche and pitch yet. I had no prior sales training and no relevant blueprint to follow.
But I continued to push through and one year on, with a growing client list and my association with other credible platforms, I learnt may tips and trick to building that much needed confidence I needed to grow personally and in business.
Before I share these, let’s look at some of the common concerns young new business owners generally have:
“Where will I find my first client/customer?”
“How can I improve and show my credibility?”
“I need decent exposure for my business”
“Self-promotion feels so sleazy and awkward.”
“I can’t compete with the experts out there already!”
By no means is this an exhaustive list but I certainly felt these over and over again in my first few months. I’ll look to cover some of these in other posts, but I want to share more generic confidence boosters in this post that will push you closer to addressing the aforementioned concerns.
- Start working towards relevant qualifications (where relevant): Despite having started coaching in my final year at University and using it as key part of my leadership and management role in my former job, it wasn’t until I started exploring coaching as a full-time career that I enrolled onto a Diploma programme. Doing this, not only helped me put structure around an already natural skill and gift but also, helped me begin to establish credibility in this field given that my primary professional background was in External Auditing. It also exposed me to other professionals in the industry who also aid my professional development.
- Practice your Pitch: I spent all of the Christmas 2016 Holidays refining my pitch, practicing how to answer the “What do you do?” question. It caused me to really think in-depth about my target audience, niche and the problem(s) I wanted to solve. The trick was to increasingly get better at simply stating what I do in a captivating way that made people want to know more. I still tweak mine a little till date but overall, I’m much more comfortable and confident in clearly saying what I do, who I do it for and how I do it. If you’d like a resource on perfecting your pitch, I’ll be sending one to my mailing list. You can sign up here to get it once it’s ready.
- Challenge yourself to tell 3 new people about your business EVERYDAY: The only way to adjust to your new identity as a business owner is to start acting, talking and moving like one. Once you’ve crafted a pitch, find ways online and offline to let people know what you do. If you don’t, those who need your services won’t be able to find you. if they can’t find you, you’re not making sales and you know how the rest of the story goes…
- Identify your strengths and play to them: Many people don’t know their strengths and what they can actually bring to the table. When you start running your business, you have to know what you’re really good and great at and how you can exploit those strengths in pushing your business forward.
- Identify your weaknesses and mitigate their effect. You may find it easier to list your weaknesses and strengths and that’s okay as long as you’re not wasting precious time trying to fix them. Knowing what you’re not so good at is important because you can create strategies to ensure they don’t hold you back such as delegation, planning etc. If you’d like to learn more about figuring out your strengths and weaknesses, and how to maximize and mitigate their effect, check out this free resource.
- Hire me as your Coach: Well, it doesn’t have to be me but I’m an awesome cheerleader and I want you to succeed. I also know my onions, given my extensive business experience as well as being a Chartered Accountant. Let me help you get to your vision, a LOT quicker.
If you have other confidence boosters that have worked/are working for you, I’d love to know them. Please share as it might help others too!
Here to help,
Stephanie
