Business Owners Must Conquer Their Fears

I’ve felt like an entrepreneur as far back as I can remember. I used to sit in the tub during a bath and sell shampoo to the sinks. I would rave about their quality ingredients, do the Price is Right hand flick and pull, and swing my long, wet hair back and forth demonstrating its cleanliness to the cabinet audience.

As a child, I sold jewelry, shirts, and one year I even sent for this reward catalog program, like what the schools use for fundraisers now (I was homeschooled), and went door to door seeing if I could offer some fine wrapping paper or popcorn to the neighbors. And I was full of new ideas and grand inventions I desperately wondered how to bring to life.

But as I got older, life got harder, and I began to find criticism more readily than support. I shrank into my shell and feared being seen or heard. It was much easier to support others to be great than it was to do so myself.

My first official business was website design and development, but then I learned that I really didn’t have the skills to have good boundaries with clients, and I grew tired of the creative confines of their design preferences. Why conquering this seemed less desirable than working for someone else, I’ve no idea.

Yet, the safety of an employer allowed me to just do my job and sit quietly behind the scenes, out-performing the requirements of my role much to my employer’s delight, but too small at this point to climb any ladders and reach successful heights beyond what I’d already achieved.

When I made the jump from a 14-year engineering career into my own parent coaching business, I was again confronted with the fact that a business owner is as much a salesperson as they are an innovative entrepreneur.  We must know how to speak to our clients and explain why what we do is the perfect remedy for their problem. We must be able to share openly about ourselves and be as authentic as possible. And we must also be able to do all of this within the parameters of trust-building boundaries.

For so many coaches, the fear is too great. Yet knowing we have the skills and tools our clients need is not enough. We must overcome our fears of being vulnerable, seen, and appreciated. We must be willing to take action, fail, and start again.  This is what owning a business is all about.  It is about understanding the needs of our clients so intimately that we can provide exactly what they need and articulate that fact so clearly that they don’t hesitate for a moment to sign up.

Business today in 2019 is built on connecting with others and forming a relationship, and that can’t happen if we hide in our shell. We must be willing to go out and speak our truth as well as provide a safe space for our tribe to speak theirs.