Welcome to day three! By now, you have a clear understanding of how to come up with a niche statement to communicate your value and you know how to think about pricing your services to potential clients. Today’s video is all about Imposter Syndrome. Everyone has it to some degree and it’s totally normal. We’re going to talk through what it is and how to overcome it to win your next big client.

Going out on your own is scary. It’s filled with potential rejection, fear of the unknown and just not knowing if you can actually do this. I certainly was scared a lot on my journey. I questioned whether I could do this. I faced a lot of rejection and even once I had clients, there wasn’t much feedback. There wasn’t feedback like I had when I had a manager and so I had to constantly reassure myself that I was doing a good job. This is totally normal. It’s to be expected and hopefully that part makes you feel okay about it.

The first part is really recognizing what Imposter Syndrome looks like for you. It could be procrastination, it could be not doing that next thing or it could be as you get in front of potential clients, you’re more timid, maybe, and the first part is recognizing that this exists and it’s something that you want to overcome and challenge for yourself.

The first part is really recognizing what Imposter Syndrome looks like for you. It could be procrastination, it could be not doing that next thing or it could be as you get in front of potential clients, you’re more timid, maybe, and the first part is recognizing that this exists and it’s something that you want to overcome and challenge for yourself.

You are taking a leap. You’re taking a leap outside of a traditional path, the one that we are taught growing up or that society may expect us to do and that’s going to come with its share of unknowns, uncertainties and fears. So embracing that maybe, non-traditional path that you want to explore is one of the most important parts of overcoming Imposter Syndrome.

One thing you can do to help overcome this is think about the successes that you’ve had previously in your career. I’m sure that you’ve had new roles that you didn’t know how to accomplish. Projects that were thrown on your plate with no idea how to do them and my guess is you figured it out. You used your resources. You asked questions. You learned what you needed to learn and when you did make mistakes, you took feedback, you learned from your mistakes and you grew from them and you accomplished things in these roles that you probably never thought was possible.

For me, what helped a lot was going through those accomplishments. Those accomplishments that I wrote up when I was working on my niche statement, I detailed them out even more because I did some incredible things in my career and seeing them down on paper was just different than having them in my head. The next thing is being prepared. When you go into a client conversation and you’re prepared with your niche statement, your verbal pitch, a proposal ready to go, knowing what your rates are going to be - you can project this kind of confidence that sure you might have still have some fears and uncertainty but you’re going in prepared and that preparation gives you the confidence to pitch your services, ask great questions and eventually close that client.

The other component is surrounding yourself with other peers doing a similar thing. You’re not in this alone and it’s important to find those other people to collaborate with, to learn from, to share your wins and share your learnings and know that you’re not doing this on your own. 

The most important takeaway I want you to have from this video is knowing that Imposter Syndrome is normal and you’re not in this alone. If you didn’t have any kind of fear or uncertainty, you wouldn’t be human. Know that it’s normal. Know that it’s totally expected and it’s how you respond to it is everything. Going out on this journey to grow and legitimize your consulting business, that is the win. The win is breaking the norm. Going away from the traditional w-2, 9 to 5, that we’re all told to have - that is a win and you should be proud of yourself for embarking on that journey.

From these three videos, you now have essential ingredients for your consulting business. You have your niche, you have your rates and you have a way to handle that fear, that uncertainty, that manifests itself as Imposter Syndrome. The question to you is now what? What is the next step that you’re going to take?

We built Mylance so that a community of professionals could come together, learn from each other, partner with each other and access the resources, templates and playbook that’s needed to actually launch and grow your consulting business. We manually review every person that applies and limit the enrollment every month. We invite you to apply, to join the Mylance community and work alongside talented, experienced, like-minded professionals that are all pushing the boundaries of work, launching and growing and sustaining their consulting businesses.

This is what you’ve been looking for to get your consulting business to where you’ve always wanted. Come join us!  I’ll see you in there!