OVERCOMING YOUR FEARS WHILE BUILDING A KICK A$$ BUSINESS

Top: The Red Closet Shop || Jeans: The Red Closet Shop || Sunnies c/o: Ottica || Heels: Old || Hat: Old || Lips: LipSense || Photos: The High Pines

Hey! Let’s have a real talk about how to overcome fear and achieve your business dreams!

Everyone experiences fear at certain times in their lives. Ever walk into a room and feel intimidated and extremely unqualified to be there? As an independent distributor or a sales person you might find yourself "walking" into these situations every day. How do the small guys reel in big sales and grow big teams?! Well, the first step is to fake it till ya make it, get over imposter syndrome and remove fear! If you don't know what imposter syndrome is, it's basically feeling like you are going to be viewed as a fraud as well as being unable to internalize your accomplishments. Fear is the number one issue I see in my girls just starting with direct sales or even 6 months into being a distributor. Even when women are inquiring about the opportunity to join my team, a lot of them give excuses (fear) before they even take the leap to join.

Some of the fear you might be familiar with is fear of bugging friends and family, fear of not being successful, fear of not being able to sell, and fear that no one will join your team. If fear is there, so are the excuses. When someone doesn't believe in themselves and is scared of failure, the excuses come out. "I'm too busy" or "I have talked to everyone" are two popular ones I hear alllll the time. But like I said, they are excuses.

Fear feeds off of feelings of unworthiness, indecision, negativity, feelings of impossibly, lies, excuses... and here is the cold hard truth... 

When fear is present in our lives, it can kill more dreams than failure ever will.

Expert advice for overcoming fear:

Ash Armbridge, fearless founder of The Middle Finger Project, has TONS of articles on this topic. She clawed her way up from the trailer park to owning her own business and living the good life in Costa Rica as a self-made woman. Basically, she knows what she’s talking about.. 

Ash says that “all fear comes from not knowing.” You’re afraid of the unknown, of the question they might ask that you don’t have an answer to, or the unknown reaction they will have to your pricing…. So if the fear comes from not knowing, then the antidote to that fear must be knowing. And according to Ash, knowing comes from studying. 

“We love to think that the things we’re afraid of are actually scary, because it gives us an excuse when we don’t follow through.

It was too hard. Too complicated. Too confusing. Too __________.

But the truth is, most of the time we just aren’t making the effort.”

Everything you could ever want to know is right inside Barnes and Noble. So is it the thing you’re really afraid of, or is it the work?” 

The moral of the story is that knowing your crap is the answer to being confident in selling and gaining more confidence overall. Knowing your worth, knowing your product offering, knowing what your time and money are worth. It all comes down to being prepared. 

Overcoming Fear Prep:

• FIRST: WRITE DOWN YOUR FEARS (every last one of them, even if that includes using a public restroom to spiders to talking to people)

• Learn about your potential customers. Who are you selling to? What is the best way to approach them? Are they moms, are they going to college? Find out who they are!

• Do your homework - know your product inside and out. The more confident you are, the more excited you will be to sell sell sell!

• Use your company resources. Most companies provide conferences, trainings, webinars... participate in them ALL! Even being one of the top distributors in SeneGence, I learn something every time I participate. There is something about being involved and being a part of those that gets me excited and motivated all over again!

• Ask a lot of questions. If you have them, ask! It's never a bad thing to ask questions. 

• Every person you talk to about your product and is planting a seed. My girls hear this from me all the time, but those seeds will bloom. It could be weeks, it could be months, heck, it could even be a year! Tell everyone that has ears! 
• Say "I can" and "why not"? instead of "I can't" and "I won't". Say "anything is possible" instead of "This is not possible".

What about getting turned down?

Anthony Iannarino, a sales blogger and international speaker, has this to say about rejection: 

"Your request is being rejected, but you are not personally being rejected. If you are dating someone for years, and you believe that your relationship is going to continue, and the person you love refuses your marriage proposal, you have been rejected. It’s personal. "

But if you get turned down after a sales pitch… 

The "no" you hear isn’t personal. It is simply feedback. If someone isn't interested in your product, you move on to the next person. As a commonly known statistic, you have to hear ten no's before you hear a yes. Instead of looking at no's as rejection, look at it as one step closer to getting your yes!! If you get a no, in your mind you should say "YAY, now I only need 4 more no's to get my YES". I know, crazy way of thinking right? When you always have that positive outlook, nothing is going to get you down. Every yes or no is an opportunity. Those are the people that are successful. Direct Sales in my opinion is 90% mental. If you think you can do it, you can!

One Thing That Has Helped Me Overcome Fear When Starting a Business

Earlier I mentioned writing down all of your fears, which for me is the first step to just about everything—goals, fears, daily planning, etc. Step 1: Write Down All of Your Fears. When you have a list, you have something tangible in front of you and you can't make it appear bigger than it is—the paper and size of the list can't change dimensions, it doesn't get bigger unless we write down more fears and it only gets smaller when we overcome fears. We often take things and make them bigger than they are, ESPECIALLY WHEN DEALING WITH FEAR! 

Now, look at your list. Prioritize what scares you the most vs least—most likely the fears at the top of your list are what are currently keeping you up at night. The next step is to choose one fear for you to focus on—JUST ONE. I like to start with the fear at the top, because that fear is usually the one thing that is holding me back the most; but you can start with the bottom, middle or bounce around. 

Take that one fear and write it down as big as you can on whatever paper you're using. Put it on your fridge, take a picture of it and put as your screensaver/background on your computer/phone!!! Chances are you already know what your fear is and don't necessarily need reminding of it. BUT what you do need reminding of, is you are bigger, better and stronger than the fear in front of you!

How do you combat the fear of not knowing what to do? GO OUT EVERYDAY AND CHALLENGE YOUR FEAR! For example, if your current fear is talking to people, you may start small by just talking to someone about the size of the line while waiting at the post office. The next day could evolve into talking to your UPS guy for a few minutes and giving him a water. Then in a week's time you notice the cashier at Starbucks is wearing lipstick and you decide to talk to her about LipSense (or whatever product you are selling). Just get out and do it, everyday, multiple times per day. And yes, you may have some fears like public speaking (that was mine, like, BAD) where you may not always have daily opportunities to challenge yourself, but that's an excuse. Use Facebook Live, Periscope, take a course about public speaking, create a MeetUp, etc.—you can do something everyday that challenges you or makes you better.

Buddy System for Overcoming Fears

Find a person who also wants to improve! Share your fear with them and text each other frequently to followup and share wins and new ideas!

As an introvert this was one of my fears when I first started in direct sales. Talking to adults. Luckily I got over it very quickly when I realized that no one pays my bills except me. No one is going to help build my dreams except me. Once you realize that, you are set. I had to face my fears head on. I thought to myself that I could build a massive multi-million dollar team all while hiding at home. WRONG. My husband laughed and told me if I wanted to be at the top, I have to progress, conquer my fears, and move forward. Are these fears still fears? ABSOLUTELY! But, from a year ago until now, there is a night and day difference!

Important Note: Don't set a timeframe for when you need to overcome your fear. Some fears may take doing something once, while other fears may take weeks or months. You don't want to limit yourself and you don't want to get discouraged with lofty goals. Just have the girl boss mentality, that you're going to kick this goals butt!

I want to end with one of my FAVORITE quotes: 

F.E.A.R has two meanings. 1. Forget everything and run OR Face everything and rise. The choice is yours.

I hope a few of these tips help you on your path towards fearlessness and better self confidence!! If you found this useful feel free to share with your teams or anyone in the process of building a kick a$$ business. ;) Last, comment below with your fear and let's help each other out!!

XO

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