Four Tips in Overcoming Your Fears About Business

Isn’t it amazing how animals adapt to their environment, they always seem to wrangle up food, instinctively know when good and bad opportunities arise, and most interestingly enough…they have an incredible sense of smell. So good, in fact, that they can actually smell fear.

Well, we surely don’t know what fear smells like but we know what it looks. And if we as Distributors do, it’s a sure bet our potential customers, do too.

So do I really mean by all this? I’m saying that an entrepreneur’s fear gone unchecked is the uncooked spaghetti of any business venture. And no matter how many times we throw a seemingly courageous business move on our bright-ideas-wall it never seems to stick.

As a practicing entrepreneur numerous times over, I have definitely been director, and headlining actress of, “When Business Fears Attack”. Putting my own needs in the forefront of my mind rather than on my customers is really focusing my message from that crouching position of fear. The fear of failure, rejection, not meeting financial obligations…leading with these emotions always inhibited my own success I so badly wanted.

"Power S.U.I.T., power steering, power moves, people!"

I learned no one ever becomes a client to someone don’t have not confidence in. What prospects smell doesn’t even have to be the fear we would openly share with them. When they get a sense we’re not confident in what we’re telling them, they’re natural instinct kicks like the scent of an ambush. And there we are, left with only the 1976 Eric Carmen hit single, “All By Myself” chorus looping in our brain.

So how did I break out of my own cycle of fear besides hyperventilating into a brown paper bag? I made a decision to stay alert to the Seven Common Fears featured on CEO TV “Overcoming Fear Series”, as well as putting on my Power S.U.I.T.  Yes, Power S.U.I.T.

It’s an acronym for the four tips I use in sharing with prospects, coupled with my own success stories in actively using the You Are a CEO product.

Overcoming Business Fears by Putting on Your Power S.U.I.T

S=Simplicity: Simplicity goes a long way when making a sale. I don’t make my prospects learn a new language. I always remember what Terry Fulton, Lifeskills411 CEO once said to me. “Can you make people feel intelligent?” If people don’t understand my solution to their own problem chances are they won’t feel ‘smart’ enough to do business with me, either.

U=Usability: It takes a village to raise a child but it shouldn’t take a village to learn about a solution to a problem. I stay respectful to those I talk to by making sure this is something that could benefit them and use immediately. The product should be an easy-to- use solution that won’t be frustrating or time consuming.

I=Ingenious: I’m not the ingenious one for bringing them a solution; they are the ingenious one for welcoming the solution in their life. Always think about how what you are selling will make you customer shine in the areas of concern in their personal life or business.

T=Time: Our customers are looking for opportunities that integrate, not aggravate. I look for way this solutions will save them time, which really translates in to money. The fact that it’s online learning 24/7 is a huge value-added bonus.

My job as a VCS Inc. Distributor is to share value. What I add to others was only what was added to me from others. After all, much of the value I can give was from what others we’re willing to help me overcome.

CEO TV: The Seven Common Fears of Most People

I sat there just glued to my computer screen. Yes, another episode of CEO TV is on. Armed with bunny slippers and a Chi Tea in my new You Are a CEO mug (I know, I'm such a groupie), I listened to the ta-to-ta with Michael E. Parker and the cast of guest speakers.

I enjoy watching because as a dewy-fresh, newly budding entrepreneur, well, I have to know what I'm up against. Any armor I can get against fetal-ishly sucking my thumb under a desk while serving my soul on a silver platter to the twenty-one year old loan approval officer would definitely be the gravy.

Understanding fear at a deeper level could be the key to my release, after all.

This is a compiled list of some of the most common fears I learned on CEO TV. The "aha" list is here to help us all recognize when to take action and overcome these critical roadblocks.

CEO TV's "aha" list of The Seven Common Fears

1.     Fear of embarrassment or humiliation
2.     Fear of rejection
3.     Fear of consequences
4.     Fear of what people think
5.     Fear to do something different
6.     Fear you are missing something better
7.     Fear of failure

"Take that!"

I've decided to tackle a few head on. After all, what does this twenty- one year old loan officer have on me besides the key to my business' financial future?

Ahem...

As for the rest of those pesky fears, I must channel Scarlet O'Hara and say, "Oh, I can't think about that now, I'll think about that tomorrow."

You Are a CEO: How to Overcome Your Fears

Channeling Susan Powter and just say, “Stop the insanity!” If only it were that easy, right? But, what would your life really look like with no fear?

What would you do, create, and allow simply allow yourself to experience? It would be a huge sense of relief, wouldn’t it? Your shoulders wouldn’t get tight; your palms wouldn’t get sweaty. It would be complete and utter freedom, wouldn’t it?

It’s those fears that keep us chained to limiting beliefs, paralyzing insecurities and  it holds us back from expressing the inherent power that’s within us all.  After all, if we didn’t believe the fear, it wouldn’t hold power over us. It would lose its shining momentum in our reality.

But what would that say for courage? Courage would no longer exist. And what would give us all that peculiar sense of needing one another?

But, what if we thought of our fears more like a ‘courage compass’? That uncomfortable texture of doubt would now be an indicator of where our true north resides. Perhaps, looking at fear right between its squinty eyes isn’t such a showdown after all.

So, what does it take to overcome the heckling fear that is forever twisting its mustache and hatching an evil plan? Perhaps, if we took it time to face it head on those answers would come a bit easier.

To me, that’s freedom. For me, that’s the beginning of the courage more of us will have woven into our soul.

Top 5 Fears of Being Your Own Boss

“Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be fearless when facing them.”
~Rabindranath Tagore

It's normal to feel a certain amount of fear when trying new things. The best thing we as entrepreneurs can do is be honest and face the fears we do have. Conquering fear is a way of life, but you we still have to know what we are battling. Most of our battles come from within.

Here is a Top Five List of Fears that can come from being our own boss.

1. The Fear of Failure

Find out more on CEO TV

Nearly 80% of businesses fail within the first year. I have to admit, this is a big one for me. I tend to analyze and look at everything. It can be good, but it can be bad. I had to make a decision. Am I going to press past my thoughts or am I going to go for it?

I don’t have to be a statistic, but I also know that giving this new way of life the ol’ heave-ho will but me one hundred percent ahead of those that never were never willing to try.

2. The Fear of Not Knowing

Armed with a business plan or not I can’t possibly know what the future will hold. The truth is, this life is all about life the endless struggle to find its way. I can go on a path that was created or forge ahead and create my own. Making a decision to move ahead is not only exhilarating, but I had so many people rooting for my efforts. What I didn’t know I was willing to be teachable and find out from others.

3. The Fear of What People Will Think

Most ideas are really good ones. The problem is no one willing putting great ideas out there. Most ideas I had needed defining, I never would have known if I hadn’t shared and bounced ideas off people. It was a decision I made not to feel self-conscious. After all, it was me that walks in my own shoes and no one can do that for me. What I believe to be true about myself is most important, even critical to my success.

4. The Fear of Choosing the Wrong Business

Most entrepreneurs have a list of ideas for business they would like to try. I have found that entrepreneurs have a number of interests in so many things. We are natural learners and do quite a bit of risk taking. You can never go wrong with doing something you are truly passionate about. When a passion and love for what you do is involved you are simply willing to stick to it.

5. The Fear of the Competition

There should always be a healthy concern about what the competition is doing. After all, even if you have none, once word gets out, you defiantly will. One of the first things I did was research my competition. Being able to learn from others experiences should be a thought of more as a driving force behind your business rather than something we would shrink from.