Written By
Sarah Shade, COO & Co-Owner of The Empire Method.
Sarah is a life-long copywriter and marketer passionate about ethics, business building, customer experiences, and so much more! She’s co-inventor of Empire Websites with her business partner Sam Duncan.
Why It Feels Weird AF to Sell Yourself
& 8 Tips to Overcoming It!
You know that feeling, you’ve spent weeks/months creating an awesome package, course, or service. You’ve created your promotional content, graphics, emails and social posts… heck, you’ve even told your audience to keep an eye out for this awesome launch and they’ve show excitement for the release! The thought of finally putting your work out to the world seems SOOOO right!
You eagerly count down each day while making tweaks until it’s just right – testing your funnel, and doing ALL the things a business owner does before a launch! The day of launch arrives, you wake up excited as all get out to finally start promoting this baby, so you hop online ready to wow the world, and BOOM…you CHOKE…and you choke HARD!
Sitting at your desk you obsessively read over your promotional post and start editing it to death! Oh this is too fierce, I might trigger someone with this, that’s WAY too “salesy”, my mom definitely won’t like that part, this part makes me sound cocky….on and on you go until you’re left with nothing but a statement about some random thing and a shitty call to action!
You are NOT alone. Seriously every single entrepreneur has gone through this including myself!
Reasons You Resist Selling Yourself
One of the biggest reasons it feels weird AF to sell yourself is because it kinda is, or at least that’s what we’ve been programmed to think. We’ve all grown up in a society where success means you have a stable job working for someone else, supposedly it’s the “right thing” to do in life.
Think about it, how many people (including yourself) questioned you when you first started your business…
- Are you SURE you want to do this?
- Maybe you should reconsider.
- This is a great idea but it’s not realistic!
Even if you’ve worked through the pushback, your subconscious still holds this residual resistance.
We’re human after all, it’s just how we roll!
This drastically affects your own feelings and behaviours around sales, including sales with other entrepreneurs. If it feels weird to be pitched by an entrepreneur it’s because you believe the only “real” businesses that exist out there are corporations, which means you don’t feel like your business is real enough to be taken serious, and to admit all the passion and determination you hold inside isn’t real, and that maybe everyone else is right, and this just isn’t realistic …well, that’s a heartbreaking notion isn’t it.
Sadly these fears rub off on everything you do, from your own ability to sell yourself, to how you react to others trying to sell you!
How Fear Of Selling Yourself Shows Up
Think back to the last time someone jumped into your messenger and invited you to check out their product/service. As a business owner you probably noticed they were pretty confident, they most certainly didn’t mind “bothering” you with their sales pitch and you probably even thought to yourself – don’t pitch me if we don’t have a relationship… it’s RUDE!
But I urge you to consider the fact that you buy from retailers every day of your life! Commercials and ads are exactly what brings you to them, in essence this is no different! You wouldn’t tell the Starbucks barista not to sell you that Caramel Macchiato until you both got to know each other’s favorite color, or the details of one another life story, so why on earth do you expect that from someone else? Can you imagine a life where you had to have an intimate relationship with every single person you did business with?
To be clear relationships are VERY important, but if you demand it for any and all business related interactions, you’re in for an emotionally exhausting ride. As entrepreneurs we need to give each other a break and start looking at business from a logical point of view, it’s perfectly ok to purchase something you need without a full on relationship, the key is to allow yourself to see other entrepreneurs and their offers the SAME way you want yourself and your business to be seen by others…aka, a valuable product/service WORTHY of a glance!.
Business or Bust
However, this isn’t about relationships, like I said before, this is about your own feelings about business. The above is simply a result of not feeling confident that your business is real enough to be taken serious, therefore anyone else outside of a commercial entity can’t possibly be real enough either. However, If you’re not a real business than what are you?
I firmly believe that taking up space when our society is hurting is irresponsible and actually quite damaging. Think about it. What if what you do could significantly impact someone’s life, and their life impacts their family & friends, and they go off and impact others? Not OWNING that is irresponsible. Not allowing space for another coach to do what you won’t is damaging!
It’s time to own yourself, your gifts, and the ramifications of your work – or lack thereof! You’re either a legitimate business or you’re not, It’s really that simple. You get to decide, but decide you must!
Additional Reasons
Of course, there’s other reasons that pop up here and there. For instance, some people say it feels “slimy”, or they just don’t have the confidence to ask for the sale. Maybe they fear rejection or feel bad about earning an income off of spiritual /healing work.
These emotions can sometimes feel like a physical barrier, but I want to remind you that they aren’t. These emotions aren’t mountains, and just as you can shift from a bad mood to a good mood, so too can you shift your emotions about business. In all honesty, it’s more about how willing you are to feel uncomfortable – that’s it.
As with anything new you’re going to feel vulnerable and out of sorts until you do it enough to feel comfortable. Fear is only the unknown, but the good news is, you can’t fear something you know how to do! SO yes, you’re going to just have to push through. Tapping into the tangible logical aspects of your work will help you do this.
For instance, a real business is one that solves a problem, if you solve a problem you don’t need confidence, nor should you feel bad or slimy about earning money for providing that solution. It’s ok to leave the emotions behind sometimes, it’s not all about you and your feelings anyway, it’s about serving others – so serve!
Uncertain Who Your Ideal Client REALLY Is
You’ve got a rough idea about who your ideal client is, but you haven’t spent any time really honing in on WHO they are or what mental/emotional experiences and challenges they face.
When you aren’t specific about who you serve, your brand won’t reflect the clientele you want to bring in and it won’t get the people you love to serve knocking at your door, essentially you’ll be trying to sell to a complete stranger, and that is no easy feat!
For instance, if you can’t tie your services to why someone may lose sleep at night, or get them to connect their struggles to your solutions then you’re going to have one heck of a time getting them to buy from you.
It’s so important to understand who your ideal client is so when you speak to them, you’re job is already halfway done! You’ll know exactly what they struggle with, what solutions they need, and what motivates them. If you haven’t taken the time to figure out your ideal client, be sure to spend some time figuring it out! It’s essential to your success!
No Tangible Program
The last reason you may be struggling to sell yourself is because you don’t really have a tangible program to sell. You know you can help others, you have an idea of how you’d do it, but you have no structure or plan of action. If this is the case it would be wise to invest the time and energy into creating a repeatable coaching program in your business.
If you’re struggling to create your coaching offer, check out our class on “How to Create Your Signature Coaching Program”, this 2-part class is filled with practical, simple to digest instructions that will help you gain massive clarity over your business, and then gently lead you step-by-step into creating the meat of your Signature Coaching program! Day 1 you’ll create your business blueprint and day 2 helps you nail down the exact steps to creating a powerful signature coaching program you can feel confident about offering to your audience!
Plus, if you join the class now, you’ll also receive our free “Launch Your Signature Program Checklist”, it’s packed with valuable tips to ensure you’re adequately prepared to create your sales funnel and launch with ease!
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