Today we’re talking about 10 Toxic Thoughts You Secretly Believe About Yourself (And Why You're Wrong)
Have any of these thoughts ever entered your mind?
- Why would anyone hire me if I’ve never worked with anyone before?
- How am I going to get clients when I don’t have a portfolio or testimonials?
- I can’t charge someone for that – they could figure out how to do it themselves for free online.
- Will people really pay for this?
- Someone else is already doing what I want to do, I can’t compete.
- I can’t afford .
- I don’t know enough yet. I need to learn more, take more classes, get certified, get a degree.
- What if my client asks me to do something I don’t know how to do?
- I’m too old.
- I’m too introverted.
I was having dinner with my older sister last weekend (hi, Karen!) and while our husbands were chatting away about sports or whatever it is they talk about, Karen and I were talking about my business and her job.
Now, Karen and I are very different. She has kids. She’s left-handed. Math and logic and spatial awareness come easily to her. She likes pineapple IPA (ew). She loves her day job.
Both of my sisters and I are very similar in other ways, like how smart and driven and creative we are. And how oblivious we are to how valuable our strengths and talents are to other people.
And while I can’t always see it in myself, I can always see it in my sisters – and I can also see all the things they believe about themselves that aren’t true that hold them back from what they truly desire.
So Karen and I were talking about her job, and how she finally feels like she’s found her niche, but she still just doesn’t know enough yet to be able to move up in the company.
Okay, sure, fair enough. Except for if you know Karen, you’d know that this is something that she says all the time.
When she got me my first job at the law firm where she worked – she never felt qualified to have the position she had. “I didn’t go to school for this, I was just a legal secretary. I was just the one who never called the helpdesk so they figured I must know what I’m doing and asked me to join the IT team.”
Or when she was hired to be a developer for a legal software company. “I’m self-taught from building all those systems at the firm. I didn’t go to school for this. I’m not sure why they hired me.”
And now at her position at a global legal services company. “I’m finally working for a company where I see the opportunity for advancement, with strong female leaders as role models and mentors. I’m in the right place. I just don’t know enough about the company yet to move up.”
So I took a sip of my non-hoppy wheat beer and replied, “Stop saying that about yourself!!! It’s not true! They didn’t hire you because they expect you to know everything. They hired you because you know how to figure out what you need to know, you’re self-motivated to learn it, and then you go out and do it, all without being told what to do every waking moment. You’re never going to know enough. It’s not possible. You just need to know that you can find the answers.”
And then I told her she needed to hire a mindset coach and watch my webinars about overcoming imposter syndrome because I’m the middle sister and I know everything and I’m always right. 🙂
The thought that has been the most damaging to me is, “I can’t charge someone for that. They could figure out how to do that themselves online for free.”
That’s the real reason I started the Free 5-Day Website Challenge. If you can learn it online for free, you might as well learn it from me and I’ll earn some affiliate commissions along the way.
But when people started asking me to build websites for them, this thought held me back. I remember telling my business coach that there’s no way I could charge more than a thousand dollars to build a website.
Here’s why I thought that:
- They could learn how to do it themselves online for free (from me).
- I didn’t value the expertise I had spent over 10 years developing because I learned it online for free myself. Or the 10 years of working in marketing and IT.
- I’ve never coded an entire website from scratch, and I hate writing CSS. Karen would be great at that. Me, not so much.
One of the reasons I stopped doing one-on-one client work and started the Free 5-Day Website Challenge is that I didn’t charge enough, which resulted in me feeling burnt out and resentful – a totally misplaced feeling because it wasn’t my clients’ fault that I totally underestimated the value of my services.
It wasn’t their fault that I dismissed the value of 10 years of learning, research, trial, error, and success because someone else didn’t teach it to me. Um, that’s messed up.
It wasn’t their fault that I didn’t believe that it’s not necessary to custom code an entire site from scratch when there are companies out there (where the coders work) whose sole mission is to create WordPress themes for people like me to take as a foundation and customize for our clients.
It never occurred to me that there are people that would rather pay someone else to do it for them, even if they could do it themselves for free. Tech isn’t their passion. They aren’t online marketing experts. It takes too much of their valuable time, it drains them, frustrates them, and keeps them from doing the work they love.
They value their business, their mission, so much that they’ll invest in the right person to have it done for them. Those type of people end up becoming my awesome clients!
And the more I intrinsically value what I bring to the table, the more confident I feel in raising my prices.
So, let’s pretend that you’re my sister and we’re having this conversation over a couple of cold beers, and you tell me that you really, really want your business to work out, but…
- Why would anyone hire me if I’ve never worked with anyone before?
- How am I going to get clients when I don’t have a portfolio or testimonials?
- I can’t charge someone for that – they could figure out how to do it themselves for free online.
- Will people really pay for this?
- Someone else is already doing what I want to do, I can’t compete.
- I can’t afford .
- I don’t know enough yet. I need to learn more, take more classes, get certified, get a degree.
- What if my client asks me to do something I don’t know how to do?
- I’m too old.
- I’m too introverted.
Here’s what I’d tell you:
You don’t have to be an expert. You don’t have to know everything there is to know. If your client asks you to do something you don’t know how to do, first, ask yourself if it makes sense to your business to know how to do that. If it does, you’re smart, you can figure it out. “Let me do some research on that and I’ll get back to you.” Maybe you need to subcontract it to someone else, or even refer your client to someone else that can help them. You don’t need to know it all. If you’re a solution-oriented person who is capable of finding answers, you’ll be fine.
You’re not trying to serve or prove anything to the people out there who know more than you. They are not your customers. It’s the people who are just a few steps behind you that need you, not the people who are ahead of you.
You are the only one who brings your unique life experiences and perspective to what you do, and you’re not for everyone. Be your authentic, vulnerable self and you’ll attract clients you’ll love to work with and repel those that aren’t right for you at this point in your journey.
It doesn’t matter if you’ve never worked with anyone before or if you don’t have a portfolio. Everyone starts from scratch, and the way you build trust and credibility is through content marketing. Blogging, guest posting and email list-building freebies are just a few ways that you can position yourself as an expert in your niche without having clients.
People don’t buy products and services, they buy solutions to their problems. And you’re right, they don’t really value what you do. So when you position what you do not as what you do, but as a solution to your ideal client’s problem, that’s when it’s seen as having value in the minds of your ideal customer. It’s not about what you do, it’s about how their life will be better after working with your or buying your product.
If you won’t invest in your business, why would anyone else invest in your business? It’s not about spending money you don’t have, trust me, I’m not all about that, but it is about truly valuing what you do, believing in yourself you will find success, that you’re smart and capable and have value, and putting your money into building a strong foundation for your business, or helping you develop the mindset or the skills you need to get where you want to be, or putting your best foot forward with your photos and branding, or making real connection with your peers at conferences. Your potential clients can tell when you’ve just dipped your toe in the water vs. when you believe in you’re doing so much that you’re investing in it too.
And you’re not too old, or too introverted, or too anything. That’s your superpower. There are tons of other people out there just like you who think they’re too whatever to have their dream life, and they need someone like you to stick your neck out take a chance and lead them and show them that yes, it’s possible to have the life that you want.
You just gotta decide to believe it, and then you’ll be unstoppable.
Want to go behind the scenes of my freelance web design business? Register here for a free webinar where I’ll share:
- What led me to start my business and why I almost quit before it really took off.
- What it's really like to work full time while growing a business on the side.
- My history with WordPress and how I learned to build websites (hint – it wasn't formal training).
- What skills I think are most important for a freelancer to learn.
- What advice I have for someone that wants to become a freelance web designer and is starting from zero.
- How to know if you're qualified to start a business or if starting a business is right for you.
- What to do if you're really interested in starting a web design business but you're dealing with some imposter syndrome and not sure where to start
- How I make money when I give away all my WordPress knowledge for free
- What one thing about starting my freelance web design business I would change.
- What it's like being fully self-employed as a web designer.
