Overcoming Marketing Fears

I just did a teleseminar all around how your marketing mindset affects your business success, the number of clients you get, the amount of money you make, how good your feel about yourself and your business, and so on.

One of the questions I was asked at the end of the call was what do I do to help my clients get a positive mindset about marketing.

My answer was it's all about taking action.

Many of us experience fear of being ridiculed, fear of being judged, fear of making a mistake and fear of looking foolish. These show up in our businesses at different times and in different intensities - but mainly around our marketing.

We need to do the best we can to keep moving forward in spite of these all-too-common fears. A negative or fearful attitude towards our marketing can lead to inertia, inaction, saying no to great opportunities - and generally doing little or nothing about marketing our business and ourselves.

If your business is being affected by fears around marketing, then below are some actions for you to take to help you move more confidently forward.

1. Be aware of your fears

Recognize when fear may be impacting the decisions you are making and the actions (or lack of) you are taking. When you can be honest with yourself and others about your fear of public speaking, writing articles, networking face-to-face or whatever it may be, then you've freed yourself to take the next step.

2. Realize the impact of your fears

When you can see what your fears are costing you, then you'll be much more motivated to move forward despite your misgivings. When fear raises its ugly head, take a step back and be honest about what not doing some specific marketing tactic is costing you. For example, you're missing out on signing someone up for your workshop, or procrastinating only makes it harder, or you're missing out on a great testimonial to add to your website.

3. Set some simple goals

Don't encourage fear by setting goals that are impossible for you to complete. If you set small doable tasks, every time you complete it quickly and successfully you build your confidence and beat that fear back a little bit more! So start writing a monthly ezine instead of publishing it every week.

4. Increase your marketing know-how

Fear can run rampant when we don't know what we're doing. If we don't feel we know what we're talking about, then it's pretty hard to feel confident - makes sense doesn't it! There are so many free resources (articles, reports, videos, ezines) that you can use to educate yourself about different marketing tactics you want to use. As your knowledge increases, your self-confidence increases and your fear diminishes.

We all deserve to have success, enjoyment and less stress in our businesses. Fear can put up roadblocks to getting what we want and deserve. Don't let your fears (many of them imaginary) stop you from doing marketing and increasing the number of clients you get, the money you make and the impact you make.

The next time fear around marketing shows up, do the steps above and you'll feel much stronger about your ability to successfully and effectively market!