Is the Fear of Visibility Keeping You From Growing Your Business?
The Top 8 Reasons You Might Not Be Putting Yourself “Out There.”
You’ve spent a lot of time honing your coaching skills, figuring out your niche, and creating a compelling offer.
You know the power of coaching, you know how much people could benefit from it. Now, you just need to tell them about it. Gulp. You feel your chest tighten at the thought.
I didn’t sign up to be in sales, you think.
The truth is who wouldn’t want to have an endless stream of clients without having to go out and look for them? Where you could focus on what you do best and enjoy most—coaching.
BUT as soloprenuers, we usually have to take care of every aspect of our business, including marketing, which means putting ourselves “out there.”
That ubiquitous term that can bring up so much fear that we do everything else in our business EXCEPT the thing that’s going to bring us more clients.
What does putting yourself “out there” even mean? In short, it’s having an online presence where you share what you do, who you help, and your point of view about it. (At least, that’s how I see it).
You might also feel the need to pepper your emails and social media posts with personal details because you’ve heard that’s the way to connect with your audience.
As an introvert and someone who values privacy, I’ve struggled with this.
I know what it’s like to wonder… Will I feel foolish after sharing this? Will I regret having posted that video of myself talking about my new offer?
Having a strong community of coaching friends and colleagues, I knew I wasn’t alone in my fear and I wanted to understand it.
I examined my own experiences and interviewed over a dozen coaches to discover why we slink away from putting ourselves “out there.”
The Top 8 Reasons You Might Not Be Putting Yourself “Out There.”
1. FEAR OF REJECTION
I think many of us can see ourselves in these scenarios… We’re about to post on Instagram and think… What if I don’t get any likes? Or worse… What if people unfollow me or post a nasty comment?
Or, we imagine sending an email to the list we one day hope to create, but quickly decide not to even start a list as we imagine the rejection we’ll feel if people unsubscribe.
The fear of rejection runs deep–we have a deep-rooted need to belong that stems from our evolutionary history.
Rejection can feel especially piercing at the beginning of our coaching journey when we haven't gained the confidence to counterbalance it, and possibly haven’t done the inner-work not to take it personally.
2. FEAR OF JUDGEMENT
Some of us are people-pleasers and spend lots of time worrying about what others might think…What if my aunt sees it and criticizes me, again? What would my old college friends think?
On top of this, there’s our own inner-judge to deal with: that seemingly relentless inner-critic that gets in the way of us taking action in the first place.
3. FEAR OF FAILURE
These thoughts might look like.. What if no one wants what I offer? What if I spend weeks creating a workshop and no one signs up?
Several coaches revealed to me that by having an online presence they thought others would see them “fail.” They would see that no one follows them, shows up to their events, or signs up for their offers.
It’s bad enough that one feels like a failure, but to imagine that others are witnessing it as well feels… painful.
4. PERFECTIONSIM
There’s an excessive worry that you have to do things the “right way,” that your content has to be “perfect,” and that you need to know a lot more than everyone else to be seen as an expert.
This might lead to overthinking, indecision, and ultimately not putting your work out there.
5. COMPARISONITIS
It’s so easy to compare yourself to other coaches and their big following, polished videos, and professional websites and think, I’ll never get there.
Comparing the beginning of your coaching journey to someone who’s been coaching for years can feel like jumping on a runaway train, and it doesn't feel good at all.
As Mark Twain said, “Comparison is the death of joy.” I couldn’t agree more.
6. IMPOSTER SYNDROME
This often happens when we’re just beginning our coaching career, or anything new for that matter.
There’s a widespread fear that we won’t meet client expectations, or even worse, that we’re hiding what we believe to be our incompetence from them!
7. SOUNDING SALESY OR INAUTHENTIC
Various coaches remarked on feeling like a sales person when they talked about their coaching, and not liking it at all. They wanted to be authentic, but felt they needed to fit into a certain marketing mold to be successful.
8. FEAR OF SUCCESS
This seems counterintuitive, right? I mean who wouldn’t want to be successful in their coaching practice? But this fear is twofold:
1. There’s a fear that if you’re successful, you won’t have control of your time and you’ll feel overwhelmed and burnt out.
2. We can have a big emotional response to success. It can feel overwhelming.
Have you ever felt really good, when out of nowhere a string of worrisome thoughts pop into your mind? In his book, The Big Leap, Guy Hendricks calls this the “Upper Limit Problem.” The premise here is that our brains are hardwired to look for danger, so we have trouble feeling good. The solution? Building our capacity to feel good, which usually takes time and practice.
Now that you have a better sense of what gets in the way of putting yourself “out there,” in “8 Ways to Boost Your Confidence as a Coach,” I share what helps give us the confidence to market our business, so you can start bringing in clients that are a true fit for you and your work.
