- Do you need a little bit more confidence
as a new entrepreneur?
Good news, we're gonna talk about
that here today on the Journey.
So as an entrepreneur, confidence is everything,
and sometimes it doesn't come natural for all of us,
which whenever I think about entrepreneurs,
I would automatically think, hey, you're confident.
You're going out there to start your own venture,
but the good news is if it doesn't happen just naturally,
there's a lot you can do to get
to that place of high level confidence.
- Confident leaders are typically a lot better
with persuading clients, partners, and they're also seen
as more authoritative and trustworthy.
So that's why it's so important to make sure
that you're exuding that confidence.
- And when you are more confident, you're more assertive
in your negotiations and you're more confident
in your decision-making.
- But if you've never ran a business before, it's natural
that you might feel a little bit uneasy, a little anxious
about everything, and you don't necessarily have
that confidence to go forward.
So here are some confidence-building exercises
that you can do.
- So step one, one of my favorites, fake it til you make it,
and there's a lot of truth behind this and psychology.
I know when you smile, it automatically triggers
more confidence in your brain.
It also makes other people feel better.
So if you are having one of those days
where you're feeling down and not confident,
fake it til you make it.
Put on a smile.
Maybe stand up a little bit more straight.
- Yeah, one piece of advice from my manager
that was a really cool perspective was
whenever you're calling someone, even if you're at home
on the couch or if you're downstairs at a desk
in your garage or basement, pretend like you are
in a corner office, you've got downtown views of the city,
your assistant just patched that phone call through to you,
they want to talk to you, and you're super important.
All of a sudden, you feel like you matter, what you say has
to matter, and you're feeling a lot more confident
because you're someone that is important.
- Yeah, and I can totally relate to that.
I do a lot of webinars for GoDaddy, and while the attendees
do not see me, they hear me, and it's really important
that I come off as actually an expert in what we do.
So there's certain ways I dress that day or start my day
and even how I am presenting myself, while they can't see me
but it's that nonverbal, the mannerisms
that are triggering the brain to think,
hey, I am an expert, and therefore I do feel confident
about this information I'm relaying to you.
So the next tip to help you with confidence,
admit your failures and let go.
Don't dwell on it, don't let it fester,
and I know just avoiding blame is a waste of time.
Take ownership of this, be accountable of this, and relate
to other entrepreneurs that also have failures and mistakes.
We're human, after all.
One of my favorite quotes, Wayne Gretzky,
you miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
- Yeah, I mean, look at Michael Jordan.
He didn't even make varsity at first.
He had to be stuck on JV, and look at him now.
- Another great tip to boost confidence,
celebrate your wins.
We do this in my marketing meetings every Monday.
It's a great way, one, to start the week,
but also just to reflect on, hey, within our team,
what are some of your individual wins that week?
And it not only gets us more pumped, but it just feels good
to share, which is a little bit what we talked
about earlier, just the actual like body mannerisms
or getting your headspace into a good,
positive spot, that positive thinking.
Celebrate your wins.
- Yeah, and it can feel really uncomfortable at first.
Like you don't want to seem like you're bragging,
but who cares about that?
Do it.
Own up to all of your successes.
I know I'll go and get a cookie
if I had a really good day at work.
I'm like, I deserve this.
- Yeah, I definitely do that too.
I like to have these, if I reach this goal at this time
in the week, I'm gonna treat myself to this little nugget
of joy, and that helps motivate me for sure.
Celebrate your wins.
Another way to boost confidence, seek ongoing education.
This is a great tip.
I know one way I do it for webinars is I follow
a few different marketing blogs, and this allows me
to not only stay an expert in my field, but it also gives me
more confidence because, believe it or not,
you talk about something like Instagram every week,
you do feel like you know it all, but when the platform
like Instagram that changes all the time,
it's easy for an attendee to pop in
and ask you a question and you're like, oh,
didn't know they might get rid of the like button.
So in order to prevent that from happening, I was like,
I need to start educating myself
across more than one blog and consistently.
- Yeah, that's a really great way
to combat that impostor syndrome.
We all have it sometimes.
You feel like you don't know what you're doing at all,
but once you start to really increase your education,
you know a lot more, you're gonna feel more confident
because you actually do know what you're talking about.
- Next tip, create and master your elevator pitch.
Can't stress this enough, and it gets its origin
from, well, an elevator ride.
30 seconds, how can you share what you do
in 30 seconds in the most powerful way?
One way I mastered this, and I also saw this work
for local businesses, chamber events.
You go, you network, and you are doing
elevator pitches the whole time.
So it's a great way to find out, one,
if you need to fine-tune yours, but also practice.
How can I put what makes me interesting,
what am I passionate about, how do I go about doing that,
what are my goals into a 30-second little pitch?
- Yeah, and we've actually done an entire video
on how to create an elevator pitch,
and you can click on that right up here.
Our next way to build confidence is
to find a supportive mentor, like a hype man.
That's who is gonna help you connect you
with supportive resources, they're gonna be able
to give you advice and help guide you along the way.
- That actually brings me to a little memory I had
where I used to spend a lot of time, like I said,
the chambers of commerce, but also SCORE,
and SCORE was super rad because they had a bunch
of entrepreneurs that had already had successful careers,
many years of being confident, and they're retired now,
but what they did is they'd come in and have office hours
for you to go and receive their mentorship,
and some of these programs were free.
So for these new entrepreneurs that are getting out there,
what a great resource to sit down with someone at SCORE
who can be a mentor and tell you like, yeah, you know,
had that same failure, or, yeah, this is definitely
a hurdle I experienced, and that mentor
can really help you boost that confidence for the day
and for years to come in your business.
- Yeah, and keep in mind, you get what you give.
So if you feel like you have a lot of advice to give along
to other people, maybe you should become a mentor,
and I know sometimes even helping others
can help you feel more confident in yourself.
- And one of my favorite things to remind new entrepreneurs,
don't forget to have fun, and I know it can be tough
because there's a lot going on to make sure your business
stays afloat, but it's really important to pick up a hobby,
and that way you don't get burnout on what you do.
Maybe do an intramural sport with your family.
- Yeah, there's a ton of things you can do.
I know on my way to work every single day,
I like to turn on a pump up playlist.
Whatever's gonna get you hyped and ready for the day,
whether that's Lizzo, some Eminem, whatever.
- I knew you were gonna say that.
- Exactly, it's anything it takes to really boost
that confidence and get you ready to go.
- And while I love that routine,
I do want to remind the new entrepreneurs
to get out of your comfort zone as well.
Routine can sometimes lead to that lack of confidence,
also what we talked about earlier, getting burned out.
So make sure that you're mixing it up.
- The next thing you can do is seek feedback.
You don't want to completely obsess over the opinion
of others, but it is really important to get
that honest feedback from other people
'cause it helps put things into perspective for you.
- Absolutely, so don't be afraid of what the outcome
of that feedback will be.
Use it in a constructive way to help you grow
and also gain more confidence and you might not like this,
but get used to rejection.
It's going to help you to grow and also feedback
that you receive can be constructive.
I actually talked about this a lot with Yelp reviews.
While some business owners hate reading them,
it could be the feedback you need to actually improve
at your business.
- One of my favorite quotes is,
every no gets you closer to a yes.
So just keep that in mind.
Our last strategy is make sure you're using current
and updated technology and professional tools.
If you don't feel confident in your equipment,
then you're not gonna feel confident in yourself.
- I know, I had this experience recently.
I've been working on a 2015 Mac, which it's still alive,
shout out to Apple, but there has been times
where my technology failed me, and I lacked confidence
in my next event, and therefore the people on the other end,
the attendees, lacked confidence in me.
So I needed to, and I am in the process of doing this,
updating my software and my technology.
It's important to note that, look,
this isn't gonna happen overnight.
Confidence doesn't just happen in 24 hours.
So it's gonna take some time, and you do need to give it
that time to nurture and grow, but hopefully
with these steps and strategies in mind,
we'll get you there as a confident new entrepreneur.
That's a wrap.
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with your favorite strategy, and--
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This is the Journey, we'll see you next time.