Last week the person I was coaching mentioned something about limiting beliefs that reminded me of a limiting belief that was holding my business back a few years ago.
Although when working for a large company, I was accustomed to, and comfortable with, negotiating sales of hundreds of thousands of dollars, this comfort zone contracted rapidly when I left the safety of the corporate world and struck out on my own as an independent export trader.
My own limited financial resources played a role, but the biggest limiting factor was my own nervousness of the big numbers. My small company’s turnover did increase, my individual sales did get larger but every time I got into negotiations for large shipments, the fears held me back. Moving from $50 000 shipments to $100 000 was a big leap, but once I had finalised the first $100 000 it became easier to look at even larger deals.
It’s worth noting that most of my sales were for low margin commodities, and I was frequently putting everything I owned on the block to finance my business, so the risk factor was high.
How did I get over my fears? Well, because of the low margins, exposure to currency fluctuations, uncertainty in some of the markets where I operated, the nervousness did not entirely disappear – and that’s a good thing, because it kept me focused.
What I did was to look at the numbers as just that, numbers. Some deals had more numbers than others, some had less. A $500 000 compared to a $100 000 deal just has a 5 instead of a 1 before the zeros. As long as all the other factors; financing, insurance, costing were in place, it was just a different number.
What has this got to do with Network or Internet Marketing?
Everything, I believe it is exactly the same fear that holds so many people in Network Marketing back from approaching prospects that they think are “too advanced” for us to talk to about our business. It is also what holds many of us back from taking the action we know we must take in our online and offline marketing.
Most people I know of all have similar characteristics, I have yet to come across someone who really does breathe fire. So the difference in that persons status is really only our perception. For all we know, that well dressed business man or woman having a coffee at the next table might just have been laid off from his or her high paying management position and be open to hearing about a business opportunity that can be started today.
Perhaps it’s another, may be a disguised, fear of success.
So do you have a limiting level? Either in the “level’ of people you are comfortable approaching or in the scale of marketing campaigns you are comfortable executing?
Wishing you success in all your endeavours.
Identifying our fears and moving through them is an important topic. Thanks for raising it and coaching us. Would love to hear more about our fears of success.
Interesting and informative. But will you write about this one more?
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