How can a shy, insecure person with no contacts or money start a successful business?
As you finish yet another self-help book, you feel excited and energized about finally taking that first step and living your dream life, running your own business, and leaving the drudgery of work behind you.
When Monday comes around, and it’s time to start finding those first potential customers, you freeze and have no clue what to do.
Starting a business as a shy, insecure person with limited contacts and resources is very challenging.
You will quickly realize that it takes a lot of persistence, motivation, and a strong personality to make it through the first few months when you still have no customer reviews or success stories to help you sell yourself.
If you are shy and have some insecurities, it probably will be tempting to just give up and just go back to your life as a miserable employee.
Unfortunately, the desire to have more control over your life will eventually come back and, once again, you will repeat the cycle of excitement followed by despair and resignation.
Is there a Way Out of This Discouraging Cycle?
If you truly have a strong enough reason for becoming a freelancer or starting your own business, there are techniques you can apply to make it through the first few months of starting a business.
Remember, the discomfort you will feel will only last a few months, until you reach the point where you have successfully closed a few sales, and have the reviews and client list that prove you are a true business owner.
Getting Started as an Introverted Business Owner
The following suggestions have helped many self-employed business owners manage their shyness and insecurities and achieve their dreams:
- Business Mindset and Confidence: Begin by working on your self-confidence and mindset. Understand that many entrepreneurs have learned to manage or overcome their insecurities and limiting beliefs.An effective way to build up your self-esteem and confidence is to create hypnotic autosuggestion audios that include binaural beat frequency sounds. These types of self-help sessions allow you to become relaxed by listening to the calming sounds, while at the same time listening to suggestions on how to think and behave more confidently.Listening over and over to these audios will help these new thoughts to enter your unconscious mind, creating more helpful thinking patterns.
- Develop an Energizing Routine
If you are naturally introverted, it may be hard for you to feel motivated and excited about marketing and promoting your business.An interesting way to get yourself excited about creating blog posts and other promotional materials is to spend a few minutes watching segments of your favorite music videos, movies, or TV series with the sound muted, while listening to binaural brainwave audios.
This combination of sounds and images can help activate your creative side, making you more enthusiastic about going out and getting some attention for your products and services. - Visualize and Practice
Visualize yourself interacting with potential customers. Make a list of the objections they will probably say to you. Practice how to respond to their concerns.
This may seem unnecessary, but being well prepared will help you to sound more confident and persuasive. Remember, you will only have to do this for a few months until you have learned the best way to sell yourself to others.
Buy templates containing the most common questions and phrases used during sales meeting. Use them as scripts to help you perform more confidently.
- Identify Your Strengths: Determine what talents and skills you possess and enjoy using. A successful business often results from doing something you genuinely enjoy and excel at.
Promoting and selling is a lot easier when you have no doubts about your capacity to deliver what your customers want.
- Target Clients You Are Comfortable Working With: Analyze your target audience, their needs, preferences, and pain points. Then focus your marketing to attract potential clients who have personalities and values similar to yours.
- Decide What Makes You Unique: Create a unique value proposition that sets your business apart from competitors. Focus on solving a specific problem for your target audience in a way that no one else does.
Doing this will increase your confidence, since you will be able to explain to potential customers why they should work with you. - Start Small: You don’t need a lot of money to start testing your product or service. Promote to a small group of potential customers and see how they respond to your offering.Send them online surveys to fill out, and use their suggestions to improve your offering.
- Make Direct Contact with Prospects:
When you have no professional contacts, friends, or colleagues to help you get clients, the most effective way is to directly contact them.
While most marketing experts suggest creating educational content, social media, and advertising, these strategies are not very effective for a new business with no presence on the internet and no track record.Direct contact (warm emails or messages) allows you to go after the prospects you want to work with.This method works best if you initially interact with a prospect as their client /customer. If you buy from them or sign up to their email messages, you can interact with them by making comments about their product, or making suggestions for things they can improve.
If a prospective customer believes that you really do want to help them, they are more likely to respond to your contacts, and possibly become your customer. - Guest Posting:
Contribute guest articles to blogs or websites in your customers’ industry or interest areas. This can help you gain exposure and credibility.
- Get Some Easy Wins:
Try to sell your products and services at a discounted price to a handful of customers. Offer gift cards to customers who post positive reviews online.
Doing this in the beginning will help you to rapidly gain the confidence and motivation to continue refining and growing your business.
At this stage, don’t worry about charging too little or giving away too much free advice.
Your main goal is to get the credentials and social proof you need in order to build your confidence and momentum as you begin to pursue bigger clients.
- Do Some Online Networking: While you may dislike interacting socially and promoting yourself, building online relationships will make your life much easier.
Once you have some loyal, paying customers, and know that your methods work, try to push yourself to engage in conversations and share your ideas. Doing this will eventually attract people who either become your customer, or who refer high-quality customers to you. - Keep it Simple and Inexpensive:
If you want to avoid getting overwhelmed and stressed while starting up your business, try to keep everything as simple as possible. Invest in simple marketing software, automate routine tasks such as sending emails, work with inexpensive virtual assistants or freelancers instead of hiring employees.
Only spend money in highly targeted short-term advertising campaigns.
Don’t spend too much money on fancy, complex websites. - Get Some Help: If you feel that running a business while dealing with your shyness or insecurities is overwhelming, you might consider finding someone to help you during the initial stages of your business.
Consultants, mentors or coaches can provide valuable insights, guidance, and support. - Persistence and Patience: Building a successful business takes time, especially if you are introverted and struggle with sales.Keep in mind that once you get a few positive reviews and successful customer case studies, your business will start to expand a lot faster.Conclusion
Remember, there are millions of shy, introverted people in the world who deal with the same insecurities and challenges as you. Despite these difficulties, many people are able to build successful, profitable businesses that allow them to enjoy the lives they want, their way.
Also remember that you can find customers who are similar to you in personality and values. You don’t have to work with people who make you uncomfortable or defensive.
If you feel a little discouraged, keep in mind that the techniques and skills you learn as a business owner can also be applied to job interviews and other aspects of your life.
Learning how to manage your shyness, your insecurities, and other challenging aspects of your personality will open up many possibilities beyond the world of business.
If you would like to learn how to manage other challenges faced by self-employed freelancers and small business owners, please visit my website and download 26 Marketing Mistakes & Simple Ways to Avoid Them.
You will also get a free binaural beats confidence booster audio download as a bonus!
Mark Bellini – WritingConversions.com
If you are interested in career coaching or general life coaching, please go to https://coachbusinessbuilder.net