How to Banish the Fear of Marketing and Selling4 min read
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One of the marketing practices I strongly encourage my clients to implement is to reach out to people, make connections, get meetings, and have conversations.
If you can learn how to do that, you can attract as many clients as you need to your business.
So, then why is it so hard for you to attract more clients? What is standing in the way?
Ultimately, the biggest thing standing in the way of attracting more clients is FEAR.
Are any of these familiar to you?
1. The fear that you may be rejected or appear foolish if you reach out to someone.
2. The fear that you’ll say or do the wrong thing and embarrass yourself.
3. The fear that you’ll fail and that all your efforts will be a waste of time and energy.
4. The fear that they’ll discover what you are offering doesn’t have the value you think it does.
5. The fear that you’re not as competent as others perceive you to be, as if you are a fraud.
6. The fear that you will be seen as imposing on someone, or worse, seen as “trying to sell” to someone.
7. Add your own particular fear, aversion, or terror of reaching out here:
If you have none of these fears, count yourself amongst the very rare and lucky.
If you’re fearless, you’ll simply learn the marketing and selling strategies required, implement them, and get consistently great results. Yes, these strategies take work, but they are not rocket science!
So, it follows that if you can learn to banish the fear of reaching out, it can help your business substantially.
But what DOES it actually take to banish fear?
It’s all about getting CLEAR about what you really want and what you can offer to your clients. Here are three key steps.
1. Get clear about what you really, truly want.
Do you want to attract new clients and make a difference while you earn a good living? Great! Then declare that. Not halfheartedly, but wholeheartedly.
Write down exactly what you want, what you want your business and your life to be like. Imagine working with great clients and providing a service that makes a real difference and a solid income.
2. Get clear on the Ultimate Outcome you deliver to your clients.
You provide consulting, coaching, or training, but what you’re really offering is the Big Result or outcome that your clients receive from your work.
So, articulate your Ultimate Outcome as clearly as possible: “I help these kinds of businesses/people get this One Big Result.” Keep working on it until it resonates with anyone you say it to.
Nail it down until you are confident it is what you can really deliver on.
3. Get clear about your clients’ most pressing challenges.
Identify three big challenges or problems your prospective clients are facing that are negatively impacting their business or life.
Again, articulate these clearly and concisely. What exactly are those things that are irritating them enough to keep them up at night? (See this article for more details.)
And then write down your specific solutions to those problems. Nothing vague or general. Real, doable solutions that will produce the results your clients are looking for.
The truth is, most people won’t take these steps.
They keep their intentions, goals, and plans vague and hazy. But they need to be crystal clear. Keep working on these until you start feeling excited about what you can truly offer in your business.
How these three steps will help you to banish fear.
When you know what you want, what your clients need, the challenges they are facing, and how you can help them, you’ll stop looking at marketing as bothering someone and facing possible rejection.
No, instead, you’d see yourself as an extraordinarily valuable resource that they would regret not knowing about.
If you noticed a neighbor’s house on fire, would you say, “I don’t want to bother my neighbor, he might think I’m trying to sell water!”
No, you would rush over and say, “Your house is on fire. Let me help you put it out!”
If you know with certainty you can help a company improve their company’s cash flow and profits, would you say, “I don’t want to be an interruption, he’ll call me if he needs me.”
Well, unfortunately, that’s exactly what most people would do! Because they suffer from some degree of “I’m not good enough.”
The Fear of being inadequate is banished by knowing and owning your TRUE VALUE!
And when you are crystal-clear about that, nothing can stop you.
Then getting out there and connecting with people will be relatively effortless, not overwhelmingly hopeless.
Yes, it will take some time, yes you’ll make some mistakes and you may even embarrass yourself once in a while.
But it won’t matter. Because you know that even if you are not perfect, your True Value trumps your fears, your, problems, your complaints, and your fragile ego.
As you send out those emails, your hands will tremble and your stomach will be tied into knots.
You’ll have those first conversations while your mouth is dry and your palms are perspiring.
But when you land a new client, none of that will matter.
You will have conquered your fear.
Cheers, Robert
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