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Two core fears must be overcome to succeed in being in business
for yourself:
~ your visibility in the marketplace must be
as large as your desired bottom line, and ...
~ in the beginning you will need to be able to tolerate spending
more marketing dollars than you gain in client payments.
Some Degree of Visibility is Necessary
Marketing is the art of being attractively visible to your ideal clients.
Without visibility, how will your practice ever fill up? Even word of mouth referrals are a form of visibility.
If you are basically shy and reluctant to be noticed, if you have self-confidence
issues, if you feel you aren't good enough or struggle with feeling like a fake at what you do, your willingness to be visible
in the marketplace is likely to be hampered.
How can you address these emotional blocks to your success?
Perhaps you need a reality check from a supportive friend. Could be that you'd
benefit from taking a personal inventory of your strengths and resilience. Maybe the help of a coach would be just what
you need.
Once this resistence to being visible at a level equal to your desired bottom line
is overcome, you're likely to find yourself shining like a beacon and attracting the numbers of clients you need, provided
your other marketing efforts are in place and ready for that energy burst.
Calculated Risks in Strategic Spending Required
Lots of us are risk-avoidant. I personally feel punched in the gut when a
$20 bill falls out of my pocket, so high risk stock market trading isn't going to be an activity I engage in.
But, as business owners, we have to be able to step a little bit out of our
comfort zone with the attitude that it really does take money to make money. It helps to realize that much business
spending is for things that come tax time are counted as legitimate expenses that are tax deductible. Consult your accountant
or these internet articles:
Now I'm not well versed on the subject of taxes, but I can tell you as a very risk-avoidant
personality that it relieves a lot of pressure to know that all my spending on marketing and advertising expenses, professional
services (such as for a bookkeeper, tax consultant, and even for a marketing coach!), and for professional development (such
as the costs of home study programs and books on building websites, writing compelling ad copy, etc) will all help me reduce
self-employment taxes at the end of the year.
Business expense spending is what I call a calculated risk. (I'm sure the
more savvy financial wizards are laughing their heads off right now. LOL) The risk is in not knowing until the money
is gone whether it will result in bringing clients to your appointment schedule. But you know what? Money sitting in
a business bank account isn't working for us. It's just sitting there. We have to put it to work by spending it.
The calculation of the calculated risk of business expense spending is in being
very clear about what you need and want your spending to produce, and in knowing when you are getting good value for the bucks.
When you think about it, using our allowed business expense tax deductions is to
a business owner as using health insurance to pay for counseling or naturopathic medicine is to a client.
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Seven Self-Defeating
Habits of Potentially
Successful Solopreneurs
1.
Compulsive wheel reinvention
2. Holding onto income too long
3. Fear of visibility
4. Reluctance to change
5. Avoidance & procrastination
6. Lack of self-disciplined efforts
7. Need to over-control, no delegating
How many of these habits are part of your business persona?
What are you not accomplishing due to giving these habits more power than they deserve?
you need a
brief marketing consult
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