This week’s question from our portal “Ask Us Anything” comes from Caitlin.
My problem is a weird one. The opportunities that are showing up for me are helpful, but they’re not what I want. I want MONEY, so I can pay things off and be able to have freedom and comfortability. The opportunities I’m receiving are things like a free ticket to a social media event, a free 1-year subscription to Adobe Creative Suite, etc.
I’m appreciative of these tools, because they’re things that I need. But I feel like they’re not actually getting me where I want to be, as far as money goes. I’m not making money. And I guess I’m nervous to make sales. I don’t feel like I’m worth the rates that I want to charge. How should I think about this?
First off, those things have nothing to do with making money. They’re just tools you can use within the activities that DO make money.
The only two things that make money in a business are marketing and sales.
If you want to increase the money, you have to increase the amount of sales you’re making. That’s the bottom line.
Nothing changes with your income until you increase your sales.
If you’re nervous to make sales, that’s a good thing to know about yourself. So, the question becomes:
How can you become NOT nervous? How can you become confident at making sales?
Many people are afraid of sales, because they don’t believe they’re worth being able to charge the prices they want. If you don’t believe you’re worth it… how about your customer being worth it?
I think you should take the focus off yourself and focus on your customers. Do you have something that can help people?
The value is in the end result for the consumer.
If you take the focus off yourself and put it on, “How can I help these people?” I think you’ll get the courage and confidence to move forward a lot faster.
That’s exactly what I did. And that’s what I’ve taught hundreds of people to do over the last 23 years.
Get the focus off yourself.
It’s a catch 22. If you focus on, “I’m not enough,” and you procrastinate because you’re not enough—then you keep reinforcing the idea of why you’re not enough.
If you change your focus to, “I have something of value here, how can I help this person?”—and you go out and help someone—now you’re getting feedback.
Now you’re like, “Oh, I AM enough. I did something very good. I helped someone. Not only did I help them, but I raised my own self-esteem.”
That’s how you raise your confidence. You get better at your skillset in what you’re doing.
