Have you ever needed a reminder to help you believe that the expert advice and professional services you provide are worth people’s time and money? Prepare to be convinced.
In this blog post I’m going to remind you of all you’ve walked through to get to where you are, and help you to believe that.
The single most important thing for your business, no matter whether you make and sell churros, work as a fractional CMO, or make your living singing from the stage, if you don’t have belief in your abilities, you cannot succeed.
Why? Because part of what you’re selling is the ability for people to borrow your belief in yourself and whatever product or services you’re selling!
Can you imagine how many clients I would get if I showed up to a meeting and said, “Hi there, I’m Kristin. Nice to meet you. I help business owners like you maybe use their words to sometimes get results and about 40% of the time, we get them on track for business growth.
Who would hire me?
No one.
And it might not seem like it, but if you show up without belief, that’s what you’re communicating. I have seen it so many times.
-A webinar I’ve been excited to attend starts and I can tell the person teaching it isn’t sure that their expertise is valuable to me.
-I hire someone to help me with something after a recommendation, but they put off doing what they know how to do because they lack belief. Then, it breaks my heart when I have to fire them because I believe they can do the job or I wouldn’t have hired them in the first place.
-I watch someone put out yet another video where they’re talking about their professional superpower, but they look miserable and sound unsure.
If you are doing any of these things, you need to pivot, now. And in this article we’re going to talk about how you can do just that. And all using something you know better than me: your story.
Inside your story, there are hints that will help you believe in your ability to get results for the people you sell to, if only you know which questions to ask.
And because I know how intimidating it can feel to try to answer a question without any examples, I’m going to answer these questions using my story as we go. Are you ready?
Question #1: What is it about your profession that you love most?
Think about the entire process you take people through. Not just the single moment you love, but everything that leads up to it. If you have this process in the back of your head, ready to be remembered at any instant, you can help people understand why you’re good at what you do. Systems are important because they are the only repeatable way to get results.
My example: The thing I love most about working with my clients is that I get to learn the amazing, impressive things that they know how to do while helping them understand how to better communicate to the people who really need their help.
Belief Hint #1: My favorite thing is getting my clients results. This means that I am practiced at getting my clients actual, real results. If I can do that, why shouldn’t they value my help by paying me? Right? The same is true for you.
When you think about your favorite part of your job, is it results-based? That’s proof that you can latch on to and turn into belief!
Question #2: When did you first realize this was what you loved?
When you are passionate about something, belief becomes evident. One of the things I hear often (and sometimes it’s me saying it) is “Obviously I’m not passionate about this at all.” When your passion clicks on, doubt clicks off. It’s that simple. So think about the first time you realized that you loved your job and felt passionate about it.
My example: When I was little, my parents were pretty strict. We were really only allowed to watch PBS and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was my favorite show. One of the things he talked about often was looking for helpers. The first time I helped a professional tell their story with clear, confident words, I was hooked. I realized that it wasn’t just my business I could help with my writing skills, I could help almost any business. And the people attached to those businesses inspired me with their varying skills and passion to help others. I felt like I was living the life I had always wanted—as a helper. Only now, I was getting paid to be one. It’s a thrill I still feel with each new business owner I help.
This part of your story proves that you are both passionate and persistent. Your passion shaped the professional experience and knowledge you pursued. Plus, you were able to dedicate yourself to one area long enough to become an expert in it, which proves your persistence—a wonderful quality that any serious business owner should have.
Belief Hint #2: Knowing that I am using the professional skills I have developed and have a talent to make the world a better place for my clients brings me joy. I love to help. And because of that, I am on a continual journey to learn new things that will allow me to help my clients even better.
Have you been on a long knowledge and skill journey to where you are today? Do you plan to stay on that journey as you learn new and more efficient ways to help the people who hire or purchase from you? That proves that you are invested in making the world a better place. This is something to remind yourself of when you need more belief.
Question #3: How does doing what you love benefit others?
In the last question, we did talk about helping, which is benefiting others. But to answer this question, I want us to be extremely specific. It’s time to answer the ‘how’ when it comes to what we do. This answer is just for you. If you’re talking to a potential client or customer and you get too far into the ‘how,’ you will make them think they can get the same results with or without you, and we all know that isn’t true. Right now, we want to look at the ‘how’ in relation to building belief for ourselves.
My example: I love to help people build consistent, clear messaging based on their personal stories and sales psychology combined with laser-focused offer creation. This helps people by giving them an opportunity to show up consistently, which helps them earn client or customer trust. I do this by making sure that they’re talking to the people who need their help in a way that addresses the problems, introduces one or more solutions, creates awareness of my client as the person who can help, and points directly to offers that let each of my clients exchange their services or products for money so that they get paid what they deserve.
When I know how I do what I do, it gives me confidence based on clarity, which is rare and precious.
Belief Hint #3: You have invested time in proving your methods. You know how you do what you do and why it works. This proves that you care about your business and clients or customers deeply, and this one fact will automatically set you apart from your competition.
You are working to help others get real results based on proven systems! And while you can’t control whether or not they listen, you’re giving them the tools they need. This is another reason why you should believe in yourself. Because you’ve put time into not just learning about your industry, but you’ve also taken time to create offers that create repeatable results. That’s huge!
Question #4: What big failure did you experience when you got really serious about what you do? What did you learn from this?
It is important to be honest about your failure because usually the people who need your help are actively failing at this exact moment. They don’t know what to change to succeed, which is why they need your help in the first place.
My example: When I first started my own business, I had high hopes but I didn’t know how to make those hopes into reality. My business focused on fiction-related book services, and was in the red for almost four years. What changed? I was willing to be more open about who was really willing to pay for my skills. That’s when I realized that business owners not only needed my help, but had been asking me for it all along. I pivoted my business, and we were profitable for the first time. Now when I work with clients, I can help them see who is really willing to pay them for their amazing professional skills.
Belief Hint #4: When you’re willing to make mistakes, it means you care. And when you’re willing to learn from your mistakes, it means you know how to turn those mistakes into lessons that not just you, but others can benefit from as well.
If you weren’t trying to always do better and be better, you wouldn’t be willing to fail, and you definitely wouldn’t be willing to talk about your failures in a transparent, authentic way. The fact that you are open to learning and changing means you’re already an amazing business owner. Add that to your belief bank.
Now that you’ve gone through your story mentally, it might help to write it down. That’s right, it’s time for an exercise.
Here is a quick list of the questions again, so that you can take your time and write out answers. That way, the next time you need to bolster your belief in yourself, you have a list of why you should absolutely believe in yourself.
Question #1: What is it about your profession that you love most?
Belief Hint #1: When you think about your favorite part of your job and it’s results-based, that’s proof that you can latch on to and turn into belief!
Question #2: When did you first realize this was what you loved?
Belief Hint #2: I love to help. And because of that, I am on a continual journey to learn new things that will allow me to help my clients even better.
Question #3: How does doing what you love benefit others?
Belief Hint #3: You’ve put time into not just learning about your industry, but you’ve also taken time to create offers that create repeatable results. That’s huge!
Question #4: What big failure did you experience when you got really serious about what you do? What did you learn from this?
Belief Hint #4: The fact that you are open to learning and changing means you’re already an amazing business owner. Add that to your belief bank.
You are amazing, I believe in you, and your business story matters.
Are you ready to learn more about how Literary Symmetry can help you communicate clearly with confidence to grow and scale your business? Awesome! Head here for two amazing, complimentary resources.
