You want so badly to land your first client for your new business. but your fear of putting yourself out there is preventing you from making it happen.
It frustrates you, because you know once it does happen, that you can make it happen again, and in doing so, you’ll be validated as the business owner you’ve always wanted to be.
Every day that passes that you haven’t landed this client is a painful reminder… you don’t truly have a business if people aren’t paying you yet.
It’s incredibly difficult to break into the market as a brand new business owner. Because people don’t know you, they don’t trust you.
This could easily be solved by showing client testimonials, but you can’t even get people to interact with you on social media, never mind hire you yet!
You want your first client, and you want them fast.
As I shared in my prior post, at one point, I was at the same place as you when I started my business. If I can land my first clients within a few months of starting, you can too.
The secret is taking your focus away from building assets, like websites, content, and ads, and instead focusing on building relationships instead.
Building relationships is scary. What’s even scarier? Putting yourself out there.
What really fuels this fear is if you put yourself out there and don’t get the response you want, you blame yourself. This makes you feel like a failure.
If you instead put your time and attention into building assets, like a website, content or ads, when it fails, then the asset is at fault. So therefore you didn’t fail… yet.
Ultimately, even if someone does (eventually) find you online, you’ll still need to speak with them about what you do, how you do it, and what it costs. If they don’t buy from you, it still falls back on you.
So you’re honestly better off learning how to have effective, pro-active conversations about your business than wasting a bunch of time and money generating conversations you’re simply not confident enough to convert.
Learn this skill… and you’ll never feel like an entrepreneur imposter again.
In fact, I’ll go so far in saying that you will never feel more confident and empowered than the day you share with someone what you do, and they answer with “how do I work with you?!”
The most certain path to failure as a new business owner isn’t putting yourself out there and doing the wrong thing. It’s avoiding putting yourself out there all together.
@iamcorrielo
Breaking down the three most common roadblocks to putting yourself out there…
Not knowing what to say
Most people avoid it because they’re not confident of how to explain what their business actually does without rambling and losing the other person’s interest.
The way you become more confident is by having a pre-planned, easy to remember explanation (I like to call it a “positioning statement”), already prepared and ready to go.
When you have this ready, it’s one less thing to worry about. It’s also something you use regularly, so it’s already been tested. When done right it can actually create additional questions and further pique the interest of whomever you are speaking to.
Not knowing where to start
When you are unsure of where to even start, more than not you wind up taking no action at all.
In this series, I’ve been sharing how the first step is changing your focus from asset creation tasks, to instead focusing on building relationships.
In order to build relationships, you need to start meeting people. To get started with this, using your cheat sheet from this post, start hanging out in all these places.
Engage, have conversations, and invite anyone you meet who is either your ideal client, or may know your ideal client, to a separate meeting or call to get to know each other better.
Whether it’s over coffee, or over zoom, you’ll feel so accomplished having taken this first, important step.
Dealing with rejection
Another major fear preventing new business owners from putting themselves out there is the fear of rejection.
They not only want to avoid having people say no to their offer, but they also want to avoid hearing people aren’t even interested in speaking to them… period.
The simplest way to get past this is to stop thinking a business conversation has to be a “sales” conversation. In fact, the exact opposite is true!
Instead, when you frame an invitation for a discussion as one in which you can learn more about who they are, what they do, and how you can support them, it makes the conversation in service to the invitee.
It also takes the focus off of you. People rarely ever turn down a discussion focused on themselves… ever.
Everything I’ve shared here so far is not unheard of, or even revolutionary.
It’s an old school marketing strategy called networking.
In this modern, internet-connected world, it’s easier to get caught up in new and exciting trends like social media and content marketing than reverting to tried and true business practices.
They worked then and can work even better now when leveraged along with modern technologies.
What are you waiting for? Get started today by networking.
Grab your cheat sheet from this post and start hanging out where your clients hang out. Then introduce yourself using the free positioning formula template below.
Remember, you have to put yourself out there. The formula will make it easier and you’ll feel more confident when you do.
You also need to know where to start. Hang out where your ideal clients hang out, and invite anyone who may be, or may know, your ideal client to a meeting or call to get to know them better. This is how relationships are built. It’s also how you start to become “known” for what you do.
You then need to get people to talk to you when you invite them. Switch the focus from you… to getting to know them. What do they do? Who are they looking for introductions to? Maybe you can connect them with someone that can transform their life!
No one says no to that. If played right, many of these folks may answer “how do I work with you?”.
Grab your Positioning Template and get started.
When you do you’ll be notified when I share post #3 on this topic, with the final step to landing your first client without a website.
In it, I’ll be sharing with you exactly what to say on your networking meetings to turn relationships into your first, actual, paying client.
