When you were growing up, did you receive any of these messages?
Don’t be arrogant.
Be humble.
Be modest.
Don’t say anything that will make someone else feel bad about themselves.
Don’t get a big head.
Let go of your ego.
Don’t brag about yourself.
Don’t take yourself so seriously.
I heard these messages a lot. In fact, so many times that I started to believe that being modest (and hiding my greatness) is what actually made me a good person. I was an AWESOME soccer player, but when people asked if I was good at soccer I’d say, “I’m okay.”
I spent many years dimming down my greatness and playing modest.
And it worked. Nobody could say I was arrogant!
But when I first started my coaching business, my "be modest, hide my greatness, don’t take myself too seriously" gig didn’t work so well.
I couldn’t get even one paying private client. I couldn’t even almost get a client. Why? Nobody was taking me seriously as a life coach because I wasn’t taking myself seriously.
And so, after a year of trying, I gave up.
The bummer was that I was just missing one skill...
Had I mastered this skill, my potential clients would have taken me seriously and I would have had a full thriving business.
What's that one skill?
It's the skill of Positioning yourself. In our Client Attraction Mastery Program, we call “Positioning” the 6th Element.
Like it or not, every time you meet someone new, they are judging you.
Are you a potential mentor? A potential friend? A potential client? A potential date? 🙂
You may feel that you are subject to the whim of their judgments, but you actually co-create their judgments. If in the first couple of minutes of the conversation, you say something impressive about yourself, your potential client will look up to you and respect you.
If you don’t share anything impressive about yourself or even share something unimpressive about yourself, they will not view you as a potential mentor, no matter how great you actually are.
Now this sharing something impressive about yourself crap may bring up a lot of your old conditioning...
Be modest. Be humble. Don’t take yourself so seriously. Don’t say anything great about yourself and risk making your potential client feel bad about herself, right?
Wrong.
If you are trying to help someone get to the top of a mountain, would you rather get underneath them and push them up? Or stand above them and pull them up?
It’s a LOT easier to stand above them and pull them up to your level.
When you share your impressiveness and then--- wait for it--- acknowledge them for their greatness, your acknowledgment goes in much deeper because they are being acknowledged by someone they have classified as impressive. You become the best kind of potential mentor. A great person who is committed to helping your potential clients see themselves as great.
If on the other hand, in the first few minutes of the conversation you withhold your impressiveness and even share things that "de-position" you or have you look bad in their eyes, they will not see you as a potential mentor and you’ll have to exert a LOT more work to get them as a client and you'll almost certainly fail.
Does this mean you have to hide all of your insecurities?
NO!!!!
Your insecurities make you human. They make you likable. They make you approachable.
In order to position yourself without sounding arrogant, you share your Expertise AND your Humanity.
But the time to share your humanity is AFTER you’ve positioned yourself in a way that makes your potential client say “WOW!”
Here’s a short positioning template:
Even though I ______________(share something impressive about yourself) I still ____________(share a vulnerable insecurity you have.)
For example:
"Even though Sharla and I have led about 200 events and have taught over 25,000 people how to attract more clients, I still get nervous before I first walk on stage at one of our events."
You may be wondering what to say about yourself that would position yourself as an expert.
Next week, we’ll share with you 3 ways you can position yourself (information that we have never shared before except in our Client Attraction Mastery Program).
In the meantime, leave us a comment and let us know how you feel about Positioning.
And please share this article if you think it would support a friend or colleague who is looking to attract more clients.
