Maybe you know someone who has no fear but I can’t think of any solo business owner who hasn’t got some resistance somewhere when it comes to their business:
- Asking for payment + being paid.
- Putting themselves out there
- Hitting send and publish
- Speaking about prices
- Networking
The two that will ensure don’t have a business for very long is speaking about prices and asking for payment of services, or in short … selling.
For many they would rather run-away to hills and hang out for bit, they are what I call Stuck in Production Mode (or staying safe and bankrupt) with only doing the free creation rather than ask for payment.
Production Mode all depends on you and your business activities but I’ve seen it include: only offering free services, only offering free content, creating content (blogging, articles, guest posts) if online but missing or ignoring selling, no calls to action and marketing of services, doing things for people to help them out (while at the same time wishing they could be paid for their work), tweaking a website when it doesn’t need done, taking course, after course, after course when you already have the skills and resources your need but you would rather stay a learner than a seller.
Let’s face it, the excuse of ‘I’m not ready yet‘ is better than ‘I’m really fecking scared!’
Usually people stuck in Production Mode will have all the reasons and excuses not to sell: the website isn’t ready, the product isn’t perfect, I need to do this first (when they don’t), I’ve not done it yet because. Sometimes what they say is accurate but those resisting and stuck (I believe) 100% know the difference and when real reasons are just bullshit.
Look, we all need time to produce. We all need space to work out what the market wants and create it. But you haven’t got a business unless you take it to market and people buy it.
Even us, the people who don’t want selling and marketing to be like that guy, who want to stay close to our core values and not become slimy, sleazy, unethical beasts we still have to eat and pay the bills. Otherwise we don’t have a business, we have a very expensive hobby.
Many of the people I meet would rather throw up rather than ask for payment, sell or market. They would rather reduce all their prices with the mindset this will be cheap enough for people to say yes/come/take part. They only thing that happens when you keep changing prices, offering reductions, bargain offers, specials is people don’t trust your own pricing structure and you.
How can they? How can they really know what value and benefit your product or service is if you don’t have faith in it or keep it consistent?
Hate Asking for Money/Payment?
First, awareness is good. So you’re on track here. Second, it’s a confidence issue. Yours. I’d suggest you work through the issues you have about money and asking for payment of services.
I’m going to assume you are genuine and sincere about your work. You believe that what you do helps people and changes lives, and you are confident about your ability to deliver it. Am I right?
So can you see the faulty wiring needs repaired in you? You can see clearly when you know what you do is a solution to many folks headaches, yes? You aren’t selling a pile of old crap – what you do isn’t shameful, it’s not embarrassing, you have no need to feel any guilt about offering solutions to peoples headaches or nightmares.
You are helping people. That is the mindset to start with.
Next, the more you ask for payment of services (for what they are worth) the easier it becomes. While you waste time playing and dancing with resistance – the quickest way over it is to break it, you could be two-stepping around it for years otherwise.
How?
You need to communicate with the source: with the people who want or are interested in your services, your audience or ideal client.
It’s a waste of time asking everyone because they aren’t your market.
Ask them for feedback: offer a limited amount of free session each month. Ask people to comment on what you are working on. Only give people what they want to buy.
I can’t tell you how many solo business owners I know who are totally frustrated – having spent months creating a product only for no one to want it at the end. You can get out of Production Mode quicker if you know people are waiting on what you are offering.
Listen to your audience: ask them ongoing questions about what they want, perhaps ask them to take a survey, offer a space for them to tell you their common fears, frustrations, and solutions they want achieve.
Test the market: tell people what you’re working on, ask them for feedback, ask them to contribute their thoughts. offer beta products at a reduced cost.
Find out what they want: then produce it (assuming it is something that people pay for!)
Mention money somewhere: if you offer everything for free don’t be upset when people are bit peeved when you start asking for money. You set the tone, you raised that expectation not them. Have something to sell with the value of what it’s worth on your website, materials, marketing information – talk money. If you say you are business owner people know you sell stuff.
Offers/Reductions: you may be tempted to reduce everything, and give offers for everything you do. Or worse use language that isn’t yours but borrowed from someone else because you haven’t dealt with your own resistance: this is a steal, it’s a great offer, for today and Friday it’s only…
You are training your own audience that you are the ‘offer and reduction’ person. Worse (again) it may not be what the value is. It could be worth a lot more to the person who is going to get the results. Getting into the ‘cheap and free rut’ is really hard to pull yourself out from. If you don’t know the value and benefits to what you are selling, neither does your audience. On that, are you selling to the right audience?
Take action: resistance is like a rusty door. It’s not locked but it’s hard to open, almost impossible at first. But the more you push and scrape away at the old rust it gently begins to push. Get comfortable. Lean in. Work away at it.
If you’ve ever had resistance to asking for payment, how did you overcome it?
