The silent confidence killer

Academy member0:02

But like, I'm so presumptuous. I'm so like, they're probably like, we're talking to, like, does this lady know that we're talking to three other people? That's what I fear is happening in their head.

Leah Neaderthal0:14

Welcome to the smart gets paid podcast with me. Leah Neaderthal, I help women land higher paying clients in their independent consulting businesses, but I've never been a salesperson. My background is in corporate marketing, and when I started my first consulting business, I learned pretty quickly that it's about 1000 times harder to sell your own stuff than it is to sell someone else's. So I taught myself how to do it, and I created the sales approach that I now share with my clients so they can feel more comfortable in the sales process, get more of the right clients and get paid way more for every client contract. So whether your client contracts are $5,000 $100,000 or more, if you want to work with more of the clients you love, do more of the work you love and get paid more than you ever thought you could, then you're in the right place. Let's do it together. Thanks for tuning in, and don't forget to rate, review and share. Hey there. Thanks for joining me in this episode. I hope that wherever you are, wherever you're listening to this, I hope you're having a good week, making some good progress in your business, and also taking some time for yourself. So today I want to talk about something that is actually present in everything we do, in getting new clients. It's part of every strategy. It's part of every tactic. It shows up in how we market our business, to how we lead a sales process, to how we price our work, and ultimately, how we help our clients actually say, yes, it's something that we all have, but everyone's is a little different, and even though it's present in everything we do, it's something we have to get rid of to be successful. It's what my clients and I lovingly call head trash. Head trash is the stuff going on in your head that shows up when you're doing something new or something different. Head trash is like the beliefs, the feelings and the experiences that make you think you shouldn't do this, you can't do this, and on and on and on. So you know, when you go to send a follow up email and you think like, I don't want to be annoying, that's head trash. And when you sit to write down a proposal, and after you scope it, and you know, price the work, you think to yourself, like there's no way they'll pay that. And who are you to even think that you can get paid that much? And then, you know, you take some off the price. That's head trash. A business friend of mine described a time that she got some feedback from the client, and she immediately felt like awful. The feedback wasn't really even that bad, but she just felt so awful, and she started to sort of like shrink back. And she stopped herself because she recognized she said, is this 12 year old me responding? Or is this 45 year old me responding and those times that we feel or react from our 12 year old selves, that's head trash. And when we start to learn how to get clients into your consulting business, it brings up a lot of head trash. And actually, a client in the academy once told me in one of our one on ones, she was like, it's crazy how much time we actually spend, not just on the strategies, but on the head trash that gets, you know, stirred up when you learn and actually start to use the strategies. And it's totally true, because you know, to get clients into your business, you have to get visible in a way that you never had before. You know, you have to talk about your work in a way that's compelling. You have to lead a sales process and name your price, and you know all the things. But we can't just look at the tactics and the strategies to do that, and you can't just do it with tools and templates. We have to shine a light on and really uncover and work through the head trash so that you can actually implement the strategies successfully. Because if you don't address the head trash, then I mean just a few examples, like if you're not confident about the value that you bring to clients, it's really difficult to charge what you're worth if you don't go into client conversations with what we call a peer mindset, it's really difficult to avoid the opposite of that, which is what we call a one up, one down relationship with your clients. And if you can't confidently talk about the difference that you make to a company or an organization, it's going to be really hard for you to get yeses to your proposals. And you know, unfortunately, learning how to create a sales and marketing playbook that works for your consulting business isn't as simple as just installing a computer system, because we aren't robots. We have our own unique experiences and beliefs and things that we saw or heard growing up or early in our careers that shaped how we feel and how we show up today, and a lot of that shows up. As head trash. I actually talk about that in episode 43 called how our girlhood experiences shape our businesses with Rachel Simmons. That's a really insightful episode with author Rachel Simmons. So you haven't listened to that one, check it out after this. So we have to listen to and really address and rewrite some head trash, and that's what you're going to hear in the conversation today. So what you're dropping into is one of our Wednesday coaching calls in the academy. These are open calls with me, where Academy members can bring their questions, you know, things that are on their mind, or they can just soak up the collective genius and get some Mojo. So this is one of those calls, and what you're going to hear is a perfect example of how you can do something that seems sort of basic, something that seems small on the surface, and it causes so much head trash to rear its ugly head. So in this call, an Academy member starts by just talking about a phrase that she used in an email when she sent off a proposal, and how uncomfortable it made her feel. The line she was using was quote, I'm excited to help you. You know, dot, dot, dot, like solve this problem, right? Whatever problem that they were going to solve together through the work that my client was proposing. But that line I'm excited to, it seems so small, right? Like it's just three words I'm excited to and as you're going to hear, even just those three words unearth a whole world of head trash. But what you're also going to hear is that the Academy member who brought the question up. She's not alone in feeling what she's feeling, and she's also not alone in that, you know, with the tools she's learning and support she receives, she's not alone in working through it. So I want to send a huge thank you to these Academy members for allowing me to share this conversation with you. Take a listen, and at the end, I'll come back and share a lesson that you can apply to your business. So you might have noticed that with the economy being as it is, things feel a little shaky. Referrals are slowing down, budgets are getting cut, and clients, who you thought would say yes, are saying no or not right now. And here's the thing, in this economy, you can't run your business by waiting for referrals. Clients just aren't going to swim into your net. You have to be intentional. That's why the best way to protect your business today and for the future is to have the two systems that every consulting business needs, a marketing system to bring the right clients to you and fill your pipeline, and a sales system to help clients say yes and get you paid more. But it's not just about getting clients. It's about security and stability and making your business sustainable no matter what's happening out there, smart women are doing this right now, even in this economy, they're winning their biggest contracts, filling their pipelines, and their businesses are growing, which lets them do things like build up six months of family savings a lot sooner than they had planned. Or go from having one to two months of revenue booked to having eight to 10 months of revenue booked, or getting to the place where you're able to pick and choose your clients and say no to the ones that aren't perfect. These are real results from women in the academy, because this is what we do inside the Academy. We help you build the marketing and sales systems that make your business and your revenue more stable, more secure and more sustainable. So if you've been in business for at least two years, if you made at least 120k last year, and if you want your business to feel secure no matter what's happening in the economy, join us. Apply today. It's markets pay comm slash Academy. We get started on Monday, February 9, because you can't control the economy, but you can control what you do about it.

Academy member8:52

So I sent off a proposal, and I put it out, and I the note I wrote to go in, and I worked very hard on the pure yourself language and the stuff I think I'd been working on with you. Leah, in my proposal, in an email, like, I'm excited to do this work. I'm excited. I'm assuming I'm excited. And it was so uncomfortable not to be like, What do you think? Let me know what you think. Please let me know if you're going to hire me like it was. I'm I think my only word salad is just to speak out into the world that it's really hard. It was really hard for me not to be like, I hope you'll consider the proposal, and that was something that was sumptuous. I'm so like, they're probably like, we're talking to like, does this lady know that we're talking to three other people? That's what I fear is happening in their head.

Leah Neaderthal9:44

What else? What else do you feel like must be going through their head?

Academy member9:48

This price is insane, this they haven't said that. We know that it's just more of like, who am I to assume that I get this role and how stupid am I? Gonna feel if I don't get it after I'm all, like, looking forward to it.

Leah Neaderthal10:04

I mean, I'm seeing some nodding. There's like, some hard validating going on here. This was real. Yeah, say more.

Academy member10:14

I feel the same. I feel the same when I connect to people like, with this attitude of assuming the best that is what we should be doing. No, because it's the same. What you said resonated with me of, who am I to think that I will get this? Who am I to be charging this amount of money? Who am I to for these people to even considering working with me? And it's so bad to realize that I have those thoughts, you know, because it shows that, you know, like I have some serious work to do with my self image, with the image of myself that I have of myself, you know, like, but I think that's the part. This is one of the pains of growing. You know, we are stretching ourselves. We are trying something different, and you know, like when I can imagine that when you are growing some limbs or something, maybe it hurts, which doesn't make it less, doesn't make it easier, but at least we acknowledge that you are not the only one experiencing that. What you said has also run through my head.

Academy member11:19

Thank you, and I will say that I did not give into the temptation to do it the way I've always done it, like I did stand in that, like, Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do this, even though it's uncomfortable,

Leah Neaderthal11:33

yeah, well, and I think we have to first, you know, first you're, you're observing, right? Like, that's the first step, just like, observing. Like, whoa, okay, this is how I am feeling in this moment, right? Just like, and we can sort of watch that, you know, just and start to get curious. Like, why do I feel this way? You know, looking at all the thoughts that we think must be going through their head, right? Like, who is she to ask for this? This is a ridiculous price. Like, we're gonna say no and we're gonna humiliate her, and then this, like, you know, well, how will you feel if you don't get it? And I think that all of this is, it's like there's little growth at every stage, right? Like, just once you start to observe this in yourself. And I'm curious, like, what is this about? You know, like, because everyone has a different version of this, right? Like, what's that? You know, who is she to, you know, ask for this much, or assume the positive, or whatever. Like, if you have to guess, like, what's what's that about?

Academy member12:32

For you, what's coming to mind immediately is a boss I worked for who, now, he wasn't even that much older than me, but he had this very like old school way of thinking. And when I would come to him and say, This is what I want in my career, he would tell me I was too forward, like it made him uncomfortable. And so to some extent, he there's, there's a little bit all the time, like, no matter how nice these men up here who the clients happen to be men like they could still not believe that you have a right to speak directly about what you want and and I've had clients that that prefer to be a given recommendations as a question or let them feel like it's their decision, like I have. I've worked with very nice men who don't want to be told what to do, and I feel like I'm telling them what to do.

Leah Neaderthal13:29

Well, I mean, you're telling them how you would solve the problem that they told you that they already have, right? And, you know, listen, I think there's a little bit of, like, there's always some reading the room, you know, like, if you got the vibe that these two guys would just like, not stand for this kind of thing, then either you would, you know, take that in and act differently. Or you would say, is this the type of working relationship I want to enter into? Right? Right? I mean, on some level, you felt safe enough to be like, Okay, this is how we're gonna do it, or this is how I would do it, and I'm excited to do it for you.

Brandy Zimmerman14:09

Yeah, well, it kind of was Joanna was here because I feel like she would have a really good soapbox on this. I'm gonna channel my inner Joanna, but I also like, like, legit. This is just how patriarchy treats women. And so you're running into conditioning the system working the way it's supposed to, which is problematic, and we're all here to fight that. I also speaking of like Instagram posts we saw recently. I saw one the other day that I almost screenshotted and shared to the academy, and now I regret not doing that. Next time I find it, I will, but it was like, along the lines of like someone out there is doing a mediocre job of what you do with no intention of doing it better, no plans for improvement, and asking for more money than you're asking for. So just do your thing. And so I think like it's important for us to recognize that we do. Live in a patriarchal, capitalist, white supremacist, heteronormative society that is designed to make us feel like whatever we're doing is not good enough and we have to beg for scraps. So that's all coming up when you have these moments, right? And I'm not saying that to excuse it, and it's not okay. It's super not okay. Um, but I think, like, when we have those moments where it comes up, I think it's important for us to recognize it as what it is. It's not you. It's a system that's been designed to tell you that you don't matter and that you don't get to the right to take up space, and we don't have to agree to that. And I think, like, you know, I don't I bet that if anyone read what you wrote, it would not sound aggressive, it would barely sound assertive. Some are not used to taking up space. We're used to being people pleasers. Say, can I please get a refill on my water? Feels like huge demand, right? And so I think, like when that comes up, just tell yourself that it's not you. You're okay. You're doing fine. That guy who told you you were two assertive all those years ago is a fragile man who is suffering from toxic masculinity, and he's in your past. So don't, don't assume that everyone's like that. I mean, unfortunately, it's way too prevalent. But you know, like, just remind yourself that this is rooted in a deeper, broader thing than you. And you know, ultimately, they're probably going to read it, and they're gonna be like, Oh, damn. They'll either be like, that sounds like great value for the work she's proposing, or they're gonna say that's at a scope or at a budget or something. And maybe they'll come back to you and talk to you about price, or maybe they'll go with another vendor, if they're talking to others. But like, ultimately, all of the stories that we tell ourselves probably not happening in their heads either. They're probably not reading it, being like you believe it. No one's, yeah, nobody.

Leah Neaderthal16:52

I mean, those guys are not clutching their pearls about this, like you're spot on. And so I will say, because this is, you know, a system. Then if this is not even just us here in this moment in our lifetimes, like, this is our legacy from hundreds and hundreds of years of conditioning and so, like, why can't you just get up the courage and like, do it and feel good about it? Well, I don't know. Probably because our great, great grandmothers, you know, acted in the same way that we feel compelled to act now, right? And so, you know, you can sort of give yourself a little bit of a break here.

Academy member17:30

I was gonna say yes to everything that's already been said. And I mean, really simply that that I think you had said something like something that sounds so presumptuous to say looking forward to it. I mean, that's just, that's the truth. You are looking forward to it, right? Like, wouldn't you want to work with somebody that's, like, excited about the opportunity, versus, like, yeah, I don't know if I feel like actually even doing this work. I mean, you're not lying. It's not presumptive, like, that's the actual truth you are looking forward to, the opportunity,

Leah Neaderthal18:06

I love that reframe. You're You're just telling a different truth, you know, like, I love it. Thank you, and thank you for bringing this to the table. Because you're not even like, you're not even alone in this room feeling this way. And you're definitely not alone in this program, and with all the women out there who are struggling with this. And so one thing I just want to add, because just to sort of take this through, like the full arc, right? So the client, they might look at it and be like, Great, let's do this. Or they might look at the proposal and say, I have questions, or they might look at it and say, I'm not, you know, we're not going to do this for some reason, right? You know. And, you know, I guess the whole, like, the finish line on this is that their decision yes or no doesn't have any bearing on whether or not you did the right thing in ending your email this way, right? And so it's not like, you know, like the last thing I'd want, but this, let's see. The first thing I want is for them to say yes, of course, but the last thing I'd want is for them to say no, and it causes you to shrink back, right? All right. So there were so many little nuggets here, but first, what I want you to do is just take a second and remember that conversation, that whole conversation, you know, the woman who spoke first, like the way she felt, and how long she had felt that way, and how other people had felt that way too, all of that, that whole conversation, was because of three words, I'm excited too, and even if that phrase doesn't really stir up something in you, you know, as you're listening to this, although I will say it's probably different When you're writing it in one of your own emails to a potential client, and you've attached like a big proposal. But let's just say, even if that specific phrase doesn't stir up something in you, when that much head trash can be stirred up by three words in an email, just imagine what's going on in your head when you raise your prices. Work or follow up with someone who hasn't gotten back to you, or reach out to someone who hasn't paid you, or talk about your business on social media. I mean, is it any wonder like, why this process of getting consulting clients can be so hard to do, and it's why the process of learning how to get consulting clients isn't something that you can just sort of flip a switch and then you just do it. It isn't something you can do in a weekend or in just a few weeks even. That's why in the academy, we don't just give you some templates and tell you good luck, because it is about learning, of course, right? And as you learn and try new things, head trash comes up. So we have to listen to that and get curious about where it's coming from, and we have to shine a light on it and rewrite the stories that your head trash is telling you. And that is very hard to do on your own, because your head trash comes from your experiences. It's deep seated, and so without support, to explore it and rewrite it in the context of your business, your head trash will win. And I think our natural reaction, you know, as Type A over achievers, is to sort of get frustrated with ourselves for having these thoughts or feeling this way. You know, you can say like, why should this be so hard? Shouldn't this be easier? Why is it so hard for me? But having head trash is normal. It doesn't mean you're doing something wrong. It just means you're human. And in fact, it actually means you're doing something right, because you're pushing to a new edge. And so to overcome it so you can actually build your consulting business. It's not about just learning the skills you have to address the head trash. And that's why, in the academy, you know, we teach you the system. We help you understand and implement it. We explore the head trash and help you rewrite the stories, and then we stay with you to make sure it works and that you can do it. Because you can have all the templates in the world, or all the YouTube videos, or you can have all the, you know, well meaning advice from folks in your women's business community. But none of that will work without shining a light on the head trash so that you can actually use the tools you're learning how to use and you can be successful. So what I want to leave you with is this head trash is normal. When you're learning how to get consulting clients, it will come up and it'll come up even over what might seem like the smallest things. And if it comes up over the smallest things, then of course, it'll show up over the biggest things too. So don't be afraid of it. Don't be hard on yourself about it. Have compassion and shine a light on it and get curious about it and talk about it with women who are experiencing the same things in their business, because you won't feel alone with it anymore. And over time, as you shine a light on your head trash and you practice using the tools to grow your business, one day, you'll find you're no longer subject to that same head trash, and you'll feel free,

Leah Neaderthal23:06

hey, everything we're talking about in this episode is part of the system. Women like you are learning in the academy. In the Academy, we help women consultants install the two systems every B to B consultant needs a marketing system to consistently attract the right clients and a sales system to lead a sales process to a yes and get paid more for every contract. So even if you've only gotten clients through referrals or word of mouth in the academy, you'll learn how to attract and sign clients outside your network, how to lead a sales process with confidence and how to get paid for your value, not your time. And There's no cold calling or cold emailing involved, no changing your services or making a course, and you won't use any pushy sales tactics. That's just not our vibe. So if you like what you've heard here, the academy may be your right next step to learn how you can get these two systems in your consulting business and make progress faster and with fewer roadblocks. Head to smart gets paid.com/academy and apply and we can chat about next steps. All right, see you over there. You. Transcribed by https://otter.ai