It’s that time of year when a lot of us get spooked with Halloween masks, trick or treaters and ghoulish products, but what about being spooked when it comes to building your business?
Are you afraid of marketing? Marketing can be scary. We make it into this huge scary monster that is going to bite us if we go anywhere near it! It can be really scary putting yourself out online. Lots of fears can come up for you.
It can make us feel icky and ask ourselves things like..
- What if they think my service/offering isn’t good enough?
- What if I market and nobody wants to work with me?
- What if people don’t like little old me?
- What if I’m successful?
- What if I’m a failure?
- What if it’s not perfect?
Self-doubt, fear, concern, procrastination – All normal signs of an entrepreneur
Let me ask you; What if the opposite were true?
What if it is good enough, people do want to work with you and they do like you? What if you do become a success? What if not perfect is actually ok?
So what are your fears?
Scared to fail? You already are failing if you don’t put yourself out there. Zero marketing is going to give you zero results. You need to bite the bullet and do some. You will be amazed once you start marketing – it’s actually ok after all.
One way to overcome the fear is to view you and your business as a separate entity. You could put yourself in the place of an employee working on behalf of a company. You may believe in your product but it’s the ‘putting my name to it’ thing that makes it nerve-wracking. What would you do if you were just an ‘employee’ promoting your service/offering on the company’s behalf?
3 Top Tips To Marketing
1. Get your 10-20 second ‘elevator pitch’ nailed
(The ‘This is why I’m amazing and you should work with me’ phrase). If you can answer really quickly about who you are, what you do and how you can help people, you will find it a lot easier to get people wanting to work with you.
2. Put together a plan of action
Don’t leave your marketing to chance. As you would with any goal set a deadline, put some milestones in and stick to them. Put them in your diary so they happen.
3. Do something every day
If you put a date in your diary, for when you are going to take action on marketing your business, you are much more likely to do it. Push through your comfort zone.
A great strategy for goals is to get the biggest, scariest goal out of the way first. If marketing is your big, scary thing then schedule 10 minutes at the beginning of your day to get it done and out of the way.
Keep ‘marketing’ in your diary as a daily event, BUT don’t just leave it as ‘marketing’ as that’s not specific enough – that’s a huge topic. Break it down into small tasks, like ‘schedule 2 tweets a day’, ‘share my blog post link in 3 groups’ etc.
Don’t worry that it’s overkill. People that are interested in what you have to offer will want to hear about it from you. We all know what it’s like – we see, read or hear something and think that sounds good and then we’ve forgotten about it as we’ve gone about our daily lives. Mention it again and again. You will be amazed at how many people turn up at the last minute or say they hadn’t heard about the event, therefore you hadn’t over-marketed after all!
Think about the payoff/benefits
What’s the payoff for you not putting yourself out there to market? Less work/no chance of rejection? Challenge: Do you want to stay where you are?
What about the benefits if you do market yourself?
More fun, more clients, more business etc. Hmmm I think I’m liking the benefits more, aren’t you?
“But it’s just little ole me, I hear you cry – Rubbish! You are fabulous! You are running your own business – get out of your own way and make this happen! Know who you want to work with (your ideal clients), what benefit they have in working with you and most importantly BE 100% YOU! People buy from people – Don’t be someone you’re not – Be you and proud of it!
Here’s some tough love…
How can you make others do things they are scared of if you won’t do things you’re scared of yourself? That’s not being authentic and you need to step up! You cannot let this fear of ‘marketing’ be a big monster – it is simply a way of telling the world you’re there and by not doing that you’re doing a disservice to all the people you could be helping, and more importantly to yourself. You’ve worked hard to get where you are – don’t give up now at the last step!
Do you know what.. Once you’ve cracked this fear you will start to earn more money, have more fun and help more people.
It is completely natural to feel scared but to grow your business you HAVE to push through this. It doesn’t mean you won’t get objections, it doesn’t mean everyone will like what you offer or want to buy from you or that you will be an overnight success, but it does mean that you will feel empowered, in control, living without regret, without those ‘What if I had just….’ moments. You CAN do this. Hey, I’m an introvert and I’m doing it.
Treat this marketing malarkey as if it’s just another task on your to-do list – drop the label and start helping people because that’s what these sessions are all about.
If you want to, hold each other accountable, share what you’re going to do with the other coaches in my Facebook Coaching Rocks support group – “I haven’t seen you marketing anything this week’ and that includes me! Let’s get marketing together.
What are you waiting for …
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