The Safe Choice Is Not The Safe Choice
She wants to sell to coaches- the more woo woo the better- but she’s been messaging to traditional talk therapists.
They want to sell tickets to their bold, original shows- but they’re messaging as though only the most conservative of tenured professors are their target audience.
She opened her business daydreaming about offering astrology to solopreneurs to help them plan launches- but she’s been selling clean, sterile web design to mainstream doctors who don’t believe in that stuff and might judge her if they knew she did.
I wanted to work with queer, BIPOC, radical, feminist small business baddies- but designed my services as though I still had to appeal to apolitical, diversity-free tech mammoths.
… WTF. Why, when we finally get the chance to do our own thing in our own businesses, free from The Man- do we not actually do what we want to do?
It comes down to this: our misconception about what the “safe” choice is.
In all of these examples, we didn’t do the thing we actually wanted to do because we have been trained to believe that what we want to do can’t possibly make us money. So we settle. We pick from choices we’ve already seen other people make.
But that is a mistake.
Here’s the attitude that is actually the safe choice:
Why The Safe Choice Is Not the Safe Choice
Everyone else is doing it.
It’s harder to sell something you’re not passionate about.
Let’s dive in.
Everyone else is already picking the “safe” choice.
We’re wired to seek out certainty in order to feel safe. We equate certainty with the familiar. The predictable. The things we’ve seen done before so many times they’re considered “normal”. And we think we’re “supposed” to be normal, or the herd might reject us and we’d be abandoned to the dangerous wilderness to fend for ourselves.
But, this evolutionary impulse hasn’t kept pace with the rapidly changing markets of the digital age.
(Hey, fellow millennials, remember how we were all told we just needed a college degree and our financial future would be set? Ammirite?)
Here’s the thing: just because other people have done it before does not make it a safe choice for you. Just because other people have enjoyed financial success in this field does not mean you will.
Remember, the more crowded the field- the more you have to stand out.
Conversely, just because you don’t have an example of someone succeeding at the exact specific thing you want to do does not mean you won’t. Hell, maybe you’re daydreaming about it because you’re meant to be the first! The trailblazer. The shining, hope-giving inspiration for those who come after.
When you make your own niche, you’ve got no competition. Your marketing will stand out no matter what. Cuz you’re doing your own thing and no one else can do you better than you do you.
It’s harder to sell something you’re not passionate about.
If you don’t actually want to provide what you’re offering, you’re going to have a really hard time selling it.
Rather than warm and welcoming, you’re likely to come across as defensive, desperate, or just plain off in your sales and marketing.
You’re more likely to interpret innocent questions from clients and leads as pushback or criticism.
If you’re undercharging, you’ll start feeling resentful of your customers and they’ll definitely notice.
You’ll start to despise selling. You’ll dread marketing and serving your customers. No matter how “safe” the offer is. No matter how moneyed the market for that product or service is.
Trust me, you don’t want to be in this position.
Like, for real for real. The energy is real different when you’re trying to sell something you don’t actually want to provide.
But when you’re telling an aligned customer you know you can help about your soul-purpose-work? You light up. In a way that’s really hard to fake.
Let’s look at it from the customer’s perspective.
Take the example of buying clothes.
You walk into a store and the attendant seems stressed, harried, or indifferent. The vibe is “Sigh. I GUESS I can help you. The stuff you might want is over there. K. Ready to check out?
Next door is another boutique. The attendant welcomes you enthusiastically, offers you a glass of champagne, asks what you’re looking for and helps you find the absolute perfect ‘fit. She lets you know why the cut is flattering on you, how great you look, how the materials are eco-friendly, and how the store donates a percentage of the proceeds to your choice of three charities.
Which store are you spending your money in? Which store are you coming back to? Which store are you telling your friends about and leaving a nice Yelp review for?
Obviously: the place you feel welcomed. The place that is thrilled to serve you with warmth and enthusiasm.
So here’s a quick, 3-part vibe check.
1 You sell your offer tomorrow. You’re:
A. Thrilled. You can’t wait to get started.
B. Exhausted. Wondering how you’ll summon the energy.
2 You sell your offer tomorrow. You’re:
A. Bursting with ideas on how to f%^*ing DELIVER the best ever customer experience
B. Following an arduous template you’ve borrowed from someone else when it comes time to fulfill that order
3 You sell your offer tomorrow.
A. The money you’ll receive in exchange is an amount that brings you emotional ease and excitement.
B. You’ll still be freaking out about money, even if you sell it tomorrow.
As you probably guessed, you want to have answered “A” to all of the above. If you answered “B” to questions 1 and 2, you’re selling the wrong offer. If you answered “B” to question 3, double your price and see if it changes your answer to questions 1 and 2. (Yes, I said double. I don’t know a femme entrepreneur who didn’t wildly undercharge at some point in her business.) If you still feel “meh” about it, it’s the wrong offer.
Here’s the most important question:
If money weren’t a problem, what would you actually want to provide?
The Real Safe Choice Is The Thing You Actually Want To Sell
When you sell what you actually want to sell, it’s so much easier to stand out in a memorable and attractive way. It’s so much easier to welcome in new customers and serve them well without burning yourself out.
This is why my favorite business coaches preach that you should be literally horny for your offer.
So, please do not let anyone convince you that it’s smart business to just do what other people are doing.
The smart business choice is to be authentically you. And being authentic requires you to offer what you actually want to offer. Don’t sell shit you don’t truly want to provide. People won’t buy it.
Why Are We Like This?
So, why is this a thing? Why are so many of us pre-settling by selling an offer that stops short of what we really want to offer?
I have a few theories.
A lot of us were trained to believe our safety depends on our ability to people please. So, we try to anticipate what other people want from us rather than checking in with ourselves about what we want. We struggle with codependency in relationships and in designing our own businesses.
When we weren’t our own bosses, we were hit hard by the gender and/or racial pay gap. We were punished by The Man for asking for what we needed, wanted, and deserved. We learned to ask for less.
We haven’t quite accepted that we’re allowed to have what we want. And that we’re allowed to want.
We haven’t deprogrammed the harmful belief that money only comes from hard, unpleasant work.
When that’s the belief system we’re operating with, we define “safety” in a very unsafe way. We think to be safe is to:
Please anyone we come into contact with in order to avoid any potential conflict… even if it means violating our own boundaries.
Do what we have to do to get that money in a conventional way… even if it means accepting far less than what is fair.
Dissociate from our desires so that we never have to feel the pain of not getting what we want, or being told we don’t deserve it.
Accept without question grueling, draining, and unpleasant work as the best we can hope for to make a living.
That doesn’t actually sound very “safe” to me.
You’re Going to Have to Redefine “Safe” For Yourself
Honestly, my busines wouldn’t have made it 2 years if I hadn’t redefined what “safe” means to me. Here’s what “safe” now means to me:
My needs are met.
My boundaries are respected.
I’m free to enjoy my unalienable right to pursue happiness.
And let me tell you, my life, business, and bottom line are soooo much better since I’ve done this healing work.
I know that I am safe within myself no matter what. I know I always have my own back. I trust myself to handle any challenge thrown my way with grace. I trust myself to learn the lessons I need to from the mistakes I make. I know I will love myself no matter how many times I fail or fuck up. I know I’m allowed to offer what is fun for me to give and to receive an abundance of money in return.
Really, THIS is what changed the game for me. THIS is what made it so I didn’t become one of the 30% of businesses that fail by year 2.
Your New Sense of Safety Will Confuse (Some) People
And let me tell you, this new way of defining safety confused and freaked out a lot of the people around me, because now I felt safe even when:
Going into debt because I didn’t want to split my focus between my business and a part-time job
Doubling my prices
Cutting popular services I no longer enjoyed providing so I could concentrate on offering my unconventional Marketing Confidence Cheerleading instead
Referring leads to other businesses when it was work I “could” do but didn’t want to
Trusting my marketing expertise despite having a small social media following & other vanity metrics that people think are more important than they actually are
And you know what? This is the confidence of a future millionaire. Of an entrepreneur who is going to make it. Of a business that is going to get bigger and better and bigger and better.
This is the confidence of someone who people beg to pay to learn a little of that confidence. This is the confidence of someone who makes money with ease and utterly rejects the grind.
This is the confidence of someone who can’t be rattled by concern trolls, nasty trolls, or the anxious but well-meaning Negative Nancies. This is the confidence of someone who knows what she wants. This is the confidence of someone who goes and gets it.
Don’t you want that for you? I want that for you. And I want you to have the support you need to develop this unshakeable sense of inner safety, this brilliant, unwavering confidence no matter the naysayers in your life or your inner critic says. If you’re ready for your whole life and your whole business to rocket into the upper stratosphere of your dreams, sign up to work with me 1:1.
With Season of Support, we’ll make sure you’re stoked -not settling- in your business. Learn more here.
