EPISODE 102 OF THE MARKETING SOLUTIONS PODCAST: ARE YOU PLAYING SMALL IN YOUR BUSINESS?

Sonya:

Whether you're starting a side hustle or diving head first into the world of entrepreneurship, the first few years of any business can be a bit scary. Can you afford to hire help? And if you do hire help, can you afford to make payroll? What if you fork out a load of cash and nobody wants to buy what you're selling? And what if, worst of all, everyone hates you and makes fun of you online? These are all valid questions, and if you've been in business for a few years, I'd like to add one more to the list. If you're not seeing the growth you wanted to, could it be that you are playing small in your business? Welcome to the Boom Your Biz Podcast, a podcast for the movers, the shakers, and even bigger action takers in business. I'm your host, Sonya McIntyre-Reid, and each week I'll be exploring the question of what really makes businesses and organizations thrive. I'm on a mission to educate and empower and inspire business owners and myself along the way.

I remember the first time I heard the song Flawless by Beyonce. One part stood out, an audio grab from a speech by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. She says, "You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful, but not too successful." Now, she was referring to feminism, but it got me thinking about growing up in Australia where Tall Poppy Syndrome is definitely still alive and well in how this relates to running a business. You can be talented and successful, but don't you dare be proud of yourself or anything less than humble. Don't get too big for your boots, as they say. For me, personally, this year has been a massive period of growth in my business, and if I'm really honest, I haven't felt comfortable advertising to the extent to which my business has grown. We've gone from me and two freelance contractors to having two directors, five full-timers, a part-timer, and a whole team of contractors.

I'm going to let you in on a secret. I hate bragging about my business so much that I don't actually write the posts that celebrate our wins. My team does it for me because they can articulate far better than I can how significant and how amazing our results for our clients have been this year. Why am I not shouting from the rooftops? Partly because of small town politics, partly because I don't want to appear arrogant, and partly because I still feel like I'm playing small. There are so many things I want to do when it comes to my business and I finally have the team in place to make things happen, but it'll take time and money and it will require me being more visible and potentially a little more vulnerable, and that is scary. Sure, it's fun to dream about all the things you could do in your business. Build an online course that generates passive income. Do a podcast. Launch a new but slightly cheeky range. Offer a service that nobody in your industry currently offers.

But when it comes time to actually doing the things you need to do in order to make these dreams a reality, that's when the resistance sets in. The resistance is a term that was made popular by Steven Pressfield in The War of Art. If you haven't read the book or his follow up, Do The Work, I highly recommend you do. As he says, you will never, never achieve your dreams until you learn to recognize, confront, and overcome that voice in your head that is your own resistance. Resistance tells you that your idea is stupid. Resistance tells you nobody wants to buy what you're selling. Resistance tells you that those mean girls from high school will ridicule your you behind your back if you try to build your online profile. Seriously, why is it that we still care what they think, no matter how long we've been out of school?

Resistance is a dream killer, but you can overcome it. Who are you serving by playing small and, more importantly, who are you not serving by playing small? When you make your business results about you, you limit the potential of your business. You are restricted by your own ego. And I'm not saying this is an expert in all things business. I'm saying this as someone who's had to learn the hard way that a business failure is not the failure of me as a human. It's hard to get to the stage where you can remove yourself from the outcome. It's taken me years and even now I still struggle with it occasionally. But playing small serves no one, least of all you as a business owner. So what are the practical steps you can take to overcome resistance and start thinking bigger? Here are three of my favorites.

Number one, look at your business as if it were a client. Would you tell a client to not try something new, to not launch a new product or offering? Of course, you wouldn't. Put together a plan as if you were advising a client with all the things you would tell someone else to do. Then just do it. Chip away at it until it's done. Number two, create an alter ego. Beyonce has Sasha Fierce, her alter ego for when she's performing. A friend of mine calls her inner mean girl Ursula and tells her to rack off, or words to that effect, regularly. Creating characters for your most confidence self and your least confidence self is one of the first steps to removing yourself from the equation. What would your Sasha Fierce do? Do more of that. And if you're hearing your own inner Ursula nay saying all your ideas, tell her to rack off. Three, break those big dreams down into manageable milestones. Want to get 30 new clients by the end of the financial year?

At the time of recording this, we're getting towards the end of September, so let's go October, November, December plus six months of 2023. That's nine months to get 30 new clients. That's just over three new clients a month, not even one a week. When you look at it like that, one new client a week is pretty manageable. Why not create a referral program where your existing clients get a bonus for bringing a new client on board? Why not shorten that deadline to the end of the calendar year? Too often we make things bigger in our heads than they would be if we simply sat down and did the math. Finally, I'd challenge you to really think about what would happen if you hit your goals, the good and the bad of achieving your big business dreams. Often, the things we're worried about such as hiring more staff or having to delegate end up being the best things to happen to our businesses.

I'm proof of that. I thought that hiring more people would be incredibly stressful financially. And, sure, there've been stressful moments, but the bigger your team, the bigger your earning potential, and if you take the time to hire the right people, they could open your business up to even more potential streams of revenue if you're willing to listen. Business is hard. There's no denying that, but it's just as hard if you're playing small as it is if you're playing big. So why not try to play a little bit bigger? As always, I'll be continuing this conversation over in the Boom Your Biz Podcast Facebook Group. It's free to join and we're building a lovely network of business owners and leaders over there. Just search "Boom Your Biz" and request to join the group.