6 Mindset Pitfalls, and How to Overcome Imposter Thoughts as an Independent Consultant

When it comes to running your own business and continually finding new clients as an independent consultant, mindset is everything. It’s no secret the journey of entrepreneurship is filled with challenges, and one of the biggest hurdles is overcoming the imposter thoughts that creep in. 

You have doubts? Of course you do. It’s normal. In fact, the more successful you've been in your career, and the more success you’ve achieved, the more you expect from yourself. And that expectation can lead to fears of failure when venturing into new or unfamiliar territory.

Whether it’s fear of rejection, fear of the unknown, or fear of putting yourself out there in a new way, it’s important to recognize that these feelings are normal. Awareness of imposter thoughts is the foundation of overcoming them. Before anything else, you need to understand that these fears are not unique to you—they’re common among everyone, especially those who have experienced success in the past.

You might wonder, "Why do I, with all my experience and success, still feel this way?" The reality is that the more successful you are, the higher your expectations of yourself become. You’ve set a high bar based on your past achievements, and now, the thought of putting yourself out there in something new, different, or unfamiliar is scary. 

What if you hit a road bump or get rejected by a company? That concept might be completely new to you, and thus a really jarring experience. Sometimes, the fear of these potential setbacks can be so overwhelming that we avoid taking action altogether, especially in areas that are unfamiliar or new (like putting ourselves out there to find new clients!).

You’re almost never good at something new

If you never wrote before, would you expect your first article to be world-class? Likely, it will be a draft that requires work, iteration, and feedback before it’s ready for “prime time” and even then, your 50th article is likely to be way better than your first.

Selling Yourself is Not About Being Humble

In business, whether you’re advocating for your company, your personal brand, or your experience, it’s not a time to be humble or modest. It’s about sharing your past successes, the transformations you’ve delivered for clients or past companies as a W2, and the value you bring to the table. If you don’t do it, no one else will. Sure, you might have the occasional friend or colleague who vouches for you, but that’s the exception, not the rule.

Whether it’s through a blog post, a newsletter, social media content, or even how you talk about yourself on the phone with a potential client, this is the time to share genuinely and honestly what you’ve done in your past. Don’t downplay your experiences or your contributions to a company. If you’ve made a significant impact, own it. Your successes are what make you valuable, and if you don’t communicate that, you’re missing out on opportunities to grow your business.

Think about the real value you bring to a company

Another area where mindset plays a crucial role is in pricing your services and asking for money. This can be a really uncomfortable thing for a lot of people. It’s not just about asking for money—it’s about asking for the amount of money that’s truly going to make a difference for your business. For instance, maybe asking for $15,000 or $20,000 a month feels crazy to you, but at the end of the day, if you want to earn $40,000 or $50,000 a month for your business, you need to be comfortable asking for that.

To hit your revenue targets, you’re not just looking for one client; you need to find three or more of those kinds of clients. And the real truth is, that amount of money for a business isn’t that much. In fact, it’s probably a tiny amount compared to the value you bring to the company. When you start to think about the value you bring, most times when I ask clients this question, they answer that the value they bring over the course of months or a year is in the millions of dollars.

Imagine bringing millions of dollars worth of value and then only asking for five grand a month? That’s what most people in the market are doing—they’re bringing tons of value to companies but asking for an incredibly tiny percentage of that money. 

They’re leaving money on the table, not standing up for themselves, and not getting even close to the true value they bring. Usually, it’s the fear of being told that they don’t bring that value, or the fear of rejection, that holds them back from doing that.

You have to ask yourself: if you ask for that kind of money and someone says, "No, you’re not worth that much" are you going to be okay? Are you going to be able to sit with that emotion and overcome it? 

Hopefully, the answer is yes, because it’s just one person, or two, or three, or four, and it actually doesn’t make a comment at all on the actual value that you bring—it’s just their perception of it. And it’s a good learning experience that you can grow from and use to do it better next time.

Your Unique Experiences Are Valuable

Another common concern is whether your content will stand out from what others are sharing online. You might think, "Am I going to be different than the other people sharing their thoughts online?" Right there, you’re setting yourself back and putting yourself in a big group with a lot of other people where you frankly don’t belong. You’ve had a unique set of experiences, unique learnings, different training, feedback from different managers, and you’ve worked at a different combination of companies. You’ve learned completely different skills than everybody else.

You have a genuinely different experience set to offer an audience, a company, or even just an individual. So if you think about adding value to people by sharing your own experiences, that in itself is a unique experience you will be sharing. You won’t just be blending in with the masses on LinkedIn or sharing content that somebody else has already shared. It doesn’t need to be a novel insight; all it needs to be is your experience in your professional career and how you’ve helped companies or clients in the past. This could be from a W-2 role; it doesn’t have to be from a consulting client.

Overcoming the Fear of Spamming and Selling

A lot of people are hesitant to expand their network or reach out on LinkedIn because they don’t want to come across as spammy. And let’s be honest—there are a lot of people who are incredibly deceitful and have poor selling techniques on LinkedIn, which contributes to this feeling. There’s a lot of spam in direct messages, but you don’t have to be one of those people. There’s a way to expand your network with the right contacts—those who could hire you—where you’re building your network through genuine relationships.

Get to know these people, get to know their company, and get to know their challenges. At the end of the day, you’re not selling them anything. You’re actually introducing yourself and, over time, seeing if there’s an opportunity to solve a problem for them. 

You can think about expanding your network as actually doing them a favor because you are giving them an opportunity to have their problems solved and help their company get to the next level—whether that’s from a scale perspective, an operations perspective, a marketing and growth perspective, a technology perspective, a financial acumen, or a financial organization perspective.

If you think of it more as putting yourself out there to help another company, that might make it a lot easier for you because you’re not selling, harassing, or being disingenuous. You’re adding to your network and helping others by giving them the opportunity to benefit from your expertise. In fact, if you don’t do this, it’s actually a disservice to them because you can add immense value to these companies, and you’re not doing it.

Actionable Steps to Overcome These Fears

It’s easy to talk about overcoming fears, but the reality is that our business’s sustainability depends on it. If we want our business to thrive and be successful, we have to go out there and get it. We have to recognize these fears, acknowledge them, and put them to the side to do the hard things anyway. This might look like the night before when you know what you need to do, but you don’t want to do it. What you do is you put it on your must-do list.

There’s a to-do list and a must-do list. Your must-do list only has two items on it, and the first thing every single day is to do your must-do list—those things that are hard to do but your business requires to be successful. Maybe you get into a habit of every afternoon writing things on your must-do list for the next day, and by noon, both of those “must do” tasks are done so that your business has moved the needle, no matter what else happens after 12 p.m.

Lastly, every business requires some kind of investment in order to propel it forward. That investment could be in yourself, such as paying someone to be an executive coach for you, paying someone to do your marketing and lead generation for you, or paying someone to do your SEO for your website. You need to think about investing in your business from a place of abundance, knowing that if you make good investments, they will pay back 10, 50, or 100 times over. I’ve never made an investment in myself that I’ve regretted.

Mylance

This value-added article was written by Mylance. Mylance takes your marketing completely off your hands. We build the marketing machine that your Fractional Business needs, but you don't have time to run. So it operates daily, growing your brand, completely done for you.

Instead of dangling numbers in front of you, our approach focuses on precise and thoughtful input: targeted outreach to the right decision makers, compelling messaging that resonates, and content creation that establishes trust and legitimacy.

To apply for access, submit an application and we'll evaluate your fit for the service. If you’re not ready for lead generation, we also have a free, vetted community for top fractional talent that includes workshops, a rates database, networking, and a lot of free resources to support your fractional business.

‍