As a heart centered entrepreneur we often have difficulty in growing our businesses simply because we want to help as many people as we can in life. However, we often do this to the detriment of our business and, quite frankly, to the detriment of the very people we serve.
Why is this?
Well I have discovered five limiting beliefs that Heart Centered Entrepreneurs have and wanted to share them with you today.
1. You Feel Guilty About Making Money From Helping People
This is something I struggled with for such a long time and even with matters that were business related I always wanted to give my knowledge away free of charge. The only problem with that is the more I gave away the more people would come to me to ask for advice, and the more free advice I gave the less people would implement my suggestions –
WHY? – We don't attach value to free advice.
Your knowledge literally has the power to change someone's life and there's no value you can put on changing someone's life, but there is a value you can attach to packaging that knowledge with the time and effort you put into your products and services.
Picture this: You are looking for a weight loss product online and you come across 2 products, one is for $7 and the other one is for $97, they both have similar sales pages and they both have similar people selling them, which of them do you attach more value to?
Psychologically we attach more value to the $97 product, because we are secretly asking ourselves if someone has the secret of losing weight why on earth would they sell it for $7 when it has the potential to change someone's life?
Similarly, with coaches. If you're a coach and only charging $25 per hour for your services, guaranteed the clients you attract will not be as willing to put in the time and effort to change than the clients who pay $200 per hour.
So as a coach, you're hurting your business and your reputation by undercharging for services because you have 20 clients who are not getting the huge benefit from your coaching simply because they don't value your services as it's only $25 per hour and there is not enough pain for them to change, and they will tell other people that 'She's an okay coach' and only because they didn't do the work you advised them to.
The $200 per hour client has commitment and dedication because they want to get 'their money's worth' from you. And when they do the work and see positive change they will tell their friends 'She's a brilliant coach'
Ask yourself this: If you found a business program online for $997 that would potentially make you $10,000 in the first 6 months of you making some changes, would you buy it? AND would you implement the changes necessary?
It's exactly the same for everyone else, no matter if they're buying coaching to overcome anxiety, or a healing service that promises to cure their long standing back pain – You're not going to grow your business if you don't put a value on changing someone's life.
2. You Don't Believe You Are a Thought Leader
Most of the coaches, the authors, the healers and anyone else who provides a service to help people in some way, don't think of themselves as thought leaders.
The definition of a thought leader is someone who influences another in order to bring about change in that person's life.
If you are a coach, you are a thought leader
If you are a healer, you are a thought leader
If you are a writer, you are a thought leader
If you are an artist, a musician, a sculptor, a poet, you are a thought leader
What you do, and do so well, has the power to influence the way other people perceive the world and if you are doing that – You are a thought leader!
3. You Think 'Marketing' is A Dirty Word
I get it! I used to think marketing was something that only sleazy internet marketers did, the people who tricked you into clicking a link, the people who hyped up their sales copy to get you excited by their product only to fail in their delivery of the promise, the people who showed off their big fancy houses and sports cars in order to show you just how rich they had become with their methods.
However I discovered the true meaning of marketing when I discovered a few people who were doing it in a heart centered way.
YOU can change what marketing means and you can totally do it in a heart centered way.
Listen, you cannot change people's lives if people don't know you exist, so you have to become good at marketing yourself and your services and products, but you can do it in a giving way and in a way that supports people.
4. You Feel You Are Compromising Your Integrity by 'Selling'
I have spoken to hundreds of people who are helping others in some way and THE number one reason they are not helping even more people is that they 'don't feel right about selling their products and services'
The coaches who I have spoken to who are earning $1,000 per month are comfortable with that because they are not pushing their services, so they get 1 or 2 clients per month. When I ask them how much would you like to be making, it's usually a sum of between $5,000 and $10,000 per month to be able to live comfortably. When I sit with them and explain that they don't need to push their services onto others, but they can pull people into their services, almost effortlessly then they quickly sit up to attention and ask me – How do I do that?
When you travel by air to another country the first thing that the flight attendant says when talking about an emergency situation is ' “put your own oxygen mask on first, and then assist others” if the cabin loses air pressure.
That is simply because you cannot help other people if you don't help yourself first. It's exactly the same with your heart centered business. You cannot help more people if you are not making money in your business, and you cannot make a difference in other people's lives, if you are not promoting your services.
When you sell in a heart centered way, you don't necessarily care about how much money you make, you care about how many people you can help and when you sell with that mindset, trust me, you will make more money for your business that will allow you to make a difference in more people's lives.
5. You Suffer from 'Imposter Syndrome'
Imposter Syndrome is a term coined in 1978 by clinical psychologists Dr. Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes referring to high-achieving individuals marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a "fraud". Despite external evidence of their competence, those exhibiting the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved.
Many coaches, healers, writers and other service based individuals suffer from this syndrome and constantly ask themselves 'Who am I to start charging for my services?'; 'What gives me the right to call myself a coach?'; 'Why on earth would people listen to me?'
I felt this way when I started blogging, I felt this way when I started coaching, I felt this way when i started doing a Facebook live show, I felt this way when I set up my own Your Digital Formula event – But you know what got me over it?
Hearing from the people I had helped!
I receive hundreds of messages a week telling me how much my products, my services, my show, my quotes have helped people around the world. When I read them, I feel humbled simply because I see myself as an ordinary guy who has a little more knowledge that people want to listen to and change their lives.
YOU are not an imposter, you are someone who has knowledge in a specific area that will benefit the lives of others and I would say:
It is your purpose in life to share that knowledge in order to make a difference in the world.
And It Is My Purpose To Show You How to Do That!