The “B” word

I rarely find myself at a total loss with any of my clients but I got caught off guard by one of them not so long ago!  We were talking about her reluctance to market and she almost whispered, “I just can’t bring myself to use the “B” word about myself.”

“The “B” word?” I thought ( …and I bet your mind and mine jumped to the same first guess!) but the word that first came to my mind seemed particularly inappropriate in the case of this polite, friendly, middle-class woman who wanted to start a professional organizing business of her own.  “Which “B” word?” I asked cautiously.

“Business person,” she replied, as if the words left a bad taste in her mouth.  “I am totally happy seeing myself as a Professional Organizer but I just can’t picture myself as a business person.”

Hearing this admission, I felt myself back on solid ground.  You might be surprised at how many small business owners I come across who are comfortable thinking of themselves as practitioners of a particular profession… but feel totally uncomfortable thinking of themselves as business owners, marketing professionals, or sales persons.    Usually this is because these roles have activities associated with them that my potential clients don’t feel comfortable doing.

Sometimes, however, there is a sense of guilt or shame attached to the concept “business person.”  One of my recent clients came from a family who had all been service professionals for generations… doctors, nurses, lawyers.  She herself was a social worker.  For her, the “M” word, was a hard one… “Money.”  For twenty years, her services to her clients had been paid for by a non-profit organization.  She had never had to think about how much time she spent with her clients.  They got as much of her attention as they needed – she wasn’t paid by the hour.  The idea of asking someone to pay her for her time was appalling to her.

If you are like either of these two business people and have strong feelings of aversion to some aspect of business you cannot “avoid and still stay in business” here are a six tips for addressing the problem:

1. First you have to recognize that your feelings are acquired and not “Reality-with-a-capital R.”  How can you tell?  Because if EVERYONE on the planet felt as you do there would BE no businesses.  Clearly business is happening all around you and by good people!  So the problem is INSIDE you, not outside.  This is very good news because if a problem is “yours” there is a much better chance that you can actually do something about it!
2. This still may not make you feelany better.  The second step is to just give a little thought to where you picked up this belief, attitude or feeling.  Did it come from your family?  Did something happen to you in the past?  Did you pick it up in response to some cultural archetype?  (For example, many people have strong, negative associations for the word “sales person” but don’t think twice about the fact that they meet good, helpful, informative sales people all the time – many more, in fact, than the few “sales alligators” they may come across.)  If you can identify WHERE you picked up this limiting belief, it may help you in starting to unravel it.
3. Here is another eye-opener:  Get a piece of paper and fold it in half lengthwise.  On the left list all the good things that will happen if you change this belief to it’s opposite.  On the right list all the bad things you believe will happen.  Take a really good and careful look at the negative side.  Are all those things really true?  I once had a client who strongly believed that he would lose the respect of all his friends if he really did sales for his business.  As a result he had become so obscure in his efforts to talk about his product that very few people even knew what he was talking about, much less that he was sounding them out to gauge their interest in buying.  Four weeks after our first sessions, with a professional sales dialogue under his belt and new marketing activities up and running, he had changed his mind.  His friends showed a great deal of admiration for his courage at starting his own business and were delighted to hear about his success.  Much to his surprise, they even expressed a little envy!
4. Have the courage to check your belief out with a few trusted business colleagues.  I bet you are going to find other people who felt reluctant at first to do marketing and sales, or had trouble really embracing the fact that they were now business people.  Realizing that you are not the only one who has felt this way can help a lot.  And, in addition, you may come across someone who shares a good tip with you about how to overcome your fear.
5. Try this sentence on for size, “If I have to do xyz (marketing, networking, sales, whatever you dread!) for my business then I am going to find some good way to enjoy doing it, and I’m going to get good at it!”  What comes up for you when you say that aloud?  Do you immediately know what your first steps should be?
6. Finally, (and of course I WOULD mention this being who I am) get some help if you need it.  It can be really hard being a sole-proprietor and working on changing your own unconscious, negative beliefs or work to overcome the things that hold you back in your business. Sometimes a little focused help with a business consultant can move you through this problem more quickly than you can do it on your own.

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What does it feel like to be a Marketing Introvert?

Often the dread of marketing and sales activities comes as a surprise to people. Many of my clients tell me they never expected they would have such strong feelings when they started their business. Those who are service professionals (helping and healing professionals, lawyers, etc.) have often done very well in their extensive training programs including presentations and speaking up in class. Product providers are so excited about their product they don’t anticipate they will have problems talking about it. Some even did sales for other companies and didn’t expect doing sales for their own company would be a different situation… but it is.

“I’m a very friendly person,” one client told me, “I can speak to anybody about anything, but when it comes to talking about my business my throat closes up and my mind becomes a blank.”

Some people are afraid when someone asks about their business that this is their one and only chance to make a good impression. The fear of saying the wrong thing or not doing it “right” chokes them up. Others question whether they are qualified enough. They communicate their doubt about themselves to everyone they meet. This is like doing marketing with a big “I’m afraid I’m not the right person for you” sign across your forehead. Others don’t want to see themselves as business people. They feel like a fish-out-of-water in business groups. Some report to me that they feel so “out of their body” that the event takes on the quality of a nightmare.

My own favorite symptom, which took me a considerable amount of time to get over, (but I did!) was the fear of calling people on the phone to see if they were interested in my programs. I even struggled to call people who had already expressed interested and had invited me to call them! On mornings that I planned to do calling I would wake up in a panic attack which felt like someone had punched me in the stomach. NOT a good way to begin a business day!

Here are descriptions Marketing Introvert clients have given me of how they feel:

• I suddenly feel as if I am walking through cold molasses and it takes soooo much effort to move forward
• It feels as if my very life is being threatened and all my senses get heightened. Things become unnaturally sharp and over-stimulating. This is accompanied by a “foot on the gas” and “foot on the brake” feeling with alternate waves of thought crashing through my head: “I HAVE TO do this! I DON’T have my rent for next month!” combined with “I CAN’T do this! I HATE doing this! I DON’T WANT TO do this!”
• My palms are sweaty. My mouth is dry. I have a lump in my throat.
• I can’t think. No words come to mind. My mind is a blank.
• I don’t feel “like myself.” It feels as if I am trying to be someone I’m not.
• I am drowning, swimming through this aweful situation and the horizon never gets any closer.
• My resistance level gets so high it becomes like a wall that looms ever higher the more I try to force myself toward marketing situations. It is like being pulled in the opposite direction by a magnet.

A Marketing Introvert can also have milder symptoms like:

• I just don’t feel like doing marketing today, I’ll do it tomorrow (except tomorrow you feel the same way and make the same choice.)
• I get fuzzy or cloudy when I try to think. “I can’t seem to think straight when I try to do marketing.”
• I make myself so busy there is never enough time to do marketing. (This person didn’t have many billable hours so she kept busy working “on” her business – building a better website, writing new materials for her classes, writing articles that she didn’t ever submit anywhere, spending hour and hours working on her portfolio, etc.)
• Thinking “If you could just hire the right person they could do marketing and sales FOR me.” (Usually people think “If only I could find someone who will work on commission!)

There are lots of ways being a Marketing Introvert can manifest and there are as many reasons for it as there are people who feel it. The bottom line is that your feelings keep you from doing marketing and sales and that is adversely affecting your business.

The GOOD NEWS is that YOU created this situation and these feelings… and you can undo them. Being a “marketing introvert” is not “who you are.” It is a behavior and feeling pattern you created because something about being out in the world, in this way, scares you. It is possible to make another choice about how you feel and you can learn a new way to be out in the world; (REALLY!) especially if you get a big reward for doing so – like having the job you love, no boss but yourself, and lots of adoring clients.

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