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In today’s fast paced world we have access to more information than ever before, be it books, media or opportunities for education. And while it’s great to have all this information and learning at our fingertips, it can sometimes be a detriment to us. In fact, for some people, it can be an excuse for them not to move forward in their business.
Two reasons like this I’ve heard recently include: “I’m just not sure I can be successful. I know I help people, but I need more experience.” And “I need to get another certification [take another seminar/get another degree] before I can be an expert and really put myself out there.”
My friend and client Michele PW was held back by these specific reasons. Michele is an example of someone with great expertise – she is one of the hottest marketing strategists around, writes copy and creates campaigns for very well known people that get results (www.MichelePW.com).
Michele started out as a freelancer, selling services. She got into infomarketing and had some really big successes, but she always had trouble doing it for herself. She came up with a couple of products, but none of them sold as well as what she did for her clients. Her belief was that the real money would be in copywriting, not her expertise.
“I knew people could make a lot of money selling products. I knew that in my head, but I didn’t believe it for myself. I guess when you’re doing copy for people, even though you’re out there in the spotlight, you feel like you’re still the support and behind the scenes,” Michele says.
“The problem for me was that I was the expert who always needed to read one more book before I could call myself an expert,” she explains. “I was so stuck on that and I think that’s why I really didn’t value selling my knowledge. I had people pushing me to do some sort of copywriting product and all I could say was, ‘There are plenty of good products out there, what am I going to add to the mix?’ Working with Lisa pulled me out of that and now I’ve had some very successful products. Now I see that I didn’t value my knowledge. Then I wouldn’t have said that was the reason, but looking back I see that now. A big part of working with Lisa was her support and being able to call her in my moments of weakness and angst about change. If you don’t push through and have a number of people who support you, you’ll just start spinning your wheels and never get out of it.”
There will always be another book or blog to read or another degree or certification to be earned. There will always be another seminar to take or conference to attend. But at some point you need to realize that you ARE an expert in your field and you are holding yourself back – and not helping people you could be helping – by not allowing your expertise to shine through.
Entrepreneurs fail. It’s as simple as that. Every single entrepreneur out there, no matter how successful they look on the outside, has failed. Yes, they are very successful, but for all those successes, they also have failures. There were things they tried that didn’t go anywhere. But if you don’t own your expertise and take risks, you’re never going to have the big successes. Granted, you’ll never have failures, but you’ll never have success either.
