Answers for: Fear/Procrastination
Public Speaking, Your Business and You
Have you ever considered using public speaking as a way to get noticed and get clients? Does the idea of standing up in front of a group, even a small one, strike fear into your heart? Or maybe you love it, yet haven’t explored using it in your business. And what is public speaking, anyway? Read more
Direct Contact = Good Business
Have you ever thought about calling someone to offer them your services, or invite them to coffee, or some other business-y thing, only to put the phone down and get distracted doing something else? When I think about drawing a straight line from my activities to making money, direct contact is the #1 thing that comes to mind. Which leads the question, what is direct contact, why is it sometimes so hard to do, and why does it strike fear into the hearts of so many of us? Read more
What is a Sales Conversation?
Recently I talked with a professional who is thinking of leaving her corporate job and going out on her own. As this was an introductory conversation to see if she and I might work together as coach and client, we quickly covered some of the basics: Did she have an idea of what her business would be? Who would she target as a client? How would she find those clients? We went on like that for an hour; it was a delightful conversation, with her sharing her vision and us looking at ways to create that for her. Read more
The Art and Skill of Follow-Up
If I had to name one thing that causes more independent professionals to fail at marketing than any other, it would be lack of follow-up. Every day, I see entrepreneurs do a fabulous job at filling their marketing pipeline with prospective clients, and then fail miserably at following up with them. Read more
Rejection: It’s Not About You
One of the most persistent barriers to success for self-employed professionals is fear of rejection. Sometimes this fear is quite conscious. You know that you are avoiding marketing and sales because you’re afraid your prospects will say no.
Other times the fear is lurking in the background, making an impact you’re not always aware of. You may find yourself procrastinating about making a phone call or setting up a sales appointment, and blame it on laziness or poor time management. Or you may avoid following up because you “don’t want to bug people.” Or perhaps it feels pushy to ask directly for a sale. Read more
What Do You REALLY Want?
Lately I’ve been struck by how people answer the question of what they really want. When I ask, they give me an answer that sounds more like what they’d be OK with rather than their bigger picture desire. If I probe a little deeper, they usually say something about how they’re just trying to be realistic. Read more
Life Is What Happens While You’re Busy Making Other Plans
It seems like I sat down just yesterday to write an article — I had a great idea and everything — then I looked up and more than a month had gone by. What the heck happened, I asked myself? Short answer: LIFE. Read more
Asking for Help Is Not Cheating
A desperate entrepreneur contacted me recently. “I need to get clients immediately,” she said. “I’ve been trying for months with no success, and I’m almost out of money.” When I asked her how she had been marketing herself all this time, she gave me the following list of what she had been doing: Read more
Can You See Your Comfort Zone from Here?
I’ve been thinking a lot about comfort zones lately, mostly because I can’t seem to see mine very clearly anymore. Or more accurately stated, I can see it, I just haven’t spent that much time there recently. Read more
Habits and Your Business
Have you ever stopped to notice what habits you’ve gotten into, especially around work? Habits have been on my mind lately, in particular how to develop good habits. My fascination began when I read The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, and I recently learned more about habits when a colleague introduced me to the work of B.J. Fogg, a teacher at Stanford and an expert in business innovation and habit formation. Read more
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