Here's a secret for you – I used to be terrified of self-promotion. I even blogged ANONYMOUSLY for years because I was too afraid that people in my real life would not care or be supportive. It's no surprise my first attempt at blogging (almost 7 years ago!) was not so successful because I DIDN'T TELL ANYONE what I was doing. Crazy right?!

I am not the type of person who can put a ton of hours into something “just for fun” so eventually I realized that if I was going to get serious about blogging, I needed to get over my fear of self-promotion. It was hard at first, because at the time I was basically a “lifestyle” blogger and I felt weird being self-promotional about things that were on my shopping wish list or photos from my recent vacation. But once I narrowed my focus to luxury beauty (I used to be a beauty blogger, in case you didn't already know), it was much easier to self-promote because I was reviewing products and actually providing value through my blog posts.

Now that I blog for my business it's actually easy to self-promote because I know that my blog posts are actually helping people AND because more people are finding my blog, I've seen a significant increase in other people promoting my content too!

5 Reasons You're Not Getting More Clients + More Sales

If you're a blogger or online business owner (which I assume most of you are!), and you're still afraid of self-promotion, you NEED to get over it if you want to grow. It's SO MUCH harder to get noticed online if you're not putting yourself out there and selling yourself, your products, and your services.

Yes, I mean SELLING. 

It's a skill – a very useful skill – and one that a lot of people aren't talking about.

I've heard a lot of reasons why people “hate” sales or don't feel like they can be good at it but I'm calling them out because most of these “reasons” are really just excuses. So if you've ever said or thought… 

I need to focus on getting followers / subscribers before I can sell anything

False. Do you interact with humans on a daily basis? Then you're good. The truth is – you don't need a HUGE audience, you need an engaged audience. One of my clients is a photographer who has booked clients through Instagram with less than 100 followers. I had ZERO people on my email list when I booked my first consulting clients. I've also had people with over 1,000 people on their email list hire me to help them find clients. You don't need a large audience to provide value and just because you have a large audience doesn't mean you'll make any money – ok?

I'm not saying numbers don't matter at all (they do). And it WILL probably be easier to get more clients/sell more products if you have more followers/subscribers – but everyone starts somewhere. And you don't have to wait until you have an audience of X number of people before you can start offering your services!

Selling feels sleazy / cheesy / uncomfortable

It doesn't have to. Seriously.

It's sleazy if you're trying to convince someone to buy something they don't need at all. It's cheesy if you sound like a robot or infomercial when you're doing it. It's uncomfortable if you're never done it before or you don't believe in yourself or whatever you are selling.

But you SHOULD believe in whatever you're selling and since that's the case, you can have genuine conversations with prospective clients that lead them to invest in a relationship with you <– that's selling.

I don't want to annoy people

THIS. We all know that person who is ALWAYS trying to get you to like their page / read their blog post / buy their thing – the one who you want to unfollow / unsubscribe / unfriend because OMG SO ANNOYING. The reason this person is so annoying is because they are constantly asking you to do things without providing something in return.

For example, I subscribe to get daily emails from Need 2 Know because I want to know what's going on the world but also just want the important headlines in an easily digestible format. I don't get annoyed when I get their daily emails because they are providing something valuable to me. And when they occasionally include ads or promotions in their emails, I'm not going to unsubscribe because I WANT those daily emails!

If you are providing real value, people won't be annoyed even if you're in their face every day. And to be honest, if you're worried about being annoying – you probably won't be. 

[click_to_tweet tweet=”If you are providing real value, people won't be annoyed even if you're in their face every day.” quote=”If you are providing real value, people won't be annoyed even if you're in their face every day.”]

I hate self-promotion

Been there, done that – it's a waste of time. If you are creating valuable content and offering services that ACTUALLY HELP PEOPLE then why wouldn't you share that? People will not just come to your website because you have one. People will not read your blog posts just because you publish them. People will not hire you for your services just because you have a contact page. You HAVE to put yourself out there. 

This doesn't mean you have to go around telling everyone, “look at me! hire me!” – but it does mean you need to BE VISIBLE. Regularly show up wherever your potential customers are and build relationships. Be helpful. People will notice.

I have a marketing strategy so I don't have to be good at sales

Also not true. Marketing does not equal sales. Marketing is the stuff you do to build awareness for your brand and reach potential clients. Sales is the process of converting those prospects into actual paying clients. So if you feel like you're getting lost in a saturated market and no one is noticing you, you probably need help with your marketing strategy. If you are getting traffic / followers / subscribers but no clients, you probably need help with your sales strategy. They are two completely different skills – and if you want to grow your business, they're BOTH essential. 

The good news is, it doesn't have to be hard. If you're overwhelmed by marketing you probably just need to cut out the noise and focus on the the strategies that work for YOU. And if you're uncomfortable selling, you just need to reframe the process so it feels more like friendly conversation.

I typically tell people I have a decade of sales and marketing experience because that essentially dates back to my first “grown up” job at Merrill Lynch in 2005. But to be honest, I had “sales” jobs even before that. In high school I applied for this program that involved working for Macy's as basically a teen brand ambassador. At the time, I thought I wanted to work in fashion – and Macy's is basically the only department store in Memphis, Tennessee – so it was kind of exciting. Little did I know, some of my “ambassador” duties included being that annoying girl shoving perfume samples in your face and begging you to just tryyyyy it.

It was – in my typical over-dramatic teenager life – the worst.

Trying to sell stuff to people who aren't interested is bad enough, but being an awkward, introverted 16 year old girl trying to sell (overwhelmingly smelly) perfume to people who aren't interested is a special kind of awful.

I am NOT naturally good at sales.

I am naturally good at shopping when things are on sale, but that's an unrelated skill.

If you are a blogger / small business owner the most important sale you'll ever make is yourself. 

Whether you are selling a product or service, you need an audience to sell it to.

That audience is made up of real people, and if people don't know, like, and trust YOU, they won't buy what you're selling. You have to be able to sell YOURSELF before you can sell any of your products or services.

I'd love to tell you that if your product or service is really amazing, people will buy it anyway… but that would be a lie.

I'd also love to tell you that selling yourself is really easy… but for many people, that's not the case.

I mentioned earlier, I'm not naturally good at sales, but I can sell anything I believe in – to pretty much anyone – because I can sell MYSELF and I'm good at figuring out what people want. 

Full disclosure, since my days pushing fragrances at the mall, I've actually had years of formal sales training. And over the past decade, I've sold everything from multi-million dollar investments in long-short hedge funds to $10 costume jewelry. I've sold products, services, and myself more times than I can count, so I promise you, it's not that hard – IF YOU BELIEVE IN YOURSELF AND YOU BELIEVE THAT WHATEVER YOU ARE SELLING CAN HELP PEOPLE.

I tried to re-write that last sentence for maybe 20 minutes because it sounds so touchy feely – and I hate touchy feely – but there's no way to get around it in this case. Believe in yourself. If you are going to let your self-doubt issues prevent you from putting yourself out there, you will absolutely have a hard time selling anything. Get over it. Seriously.

So here's the thing. I know the idea of “sales” makes people feel icky. No one likes telemarketers. No one likes product pushers. No one likes the cheesy car salesman. (I've never even bought a car and I'm not a fan). But if you are reading this blog post, chances are, whatever you're selling isn't lame. Whether you provide a service like coaching / consulting / photography / design or you create digital or physical products, YOU have a serious advantage when it comes to sales:

You are in control of what you are selling and who you are selling it to. 

That's HUGE.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”That audience is made up of real people, and if people don't know, like, and trust YOU, they won't buy what you're selling. You have to be able to sell YOURSELF before you can sell any of your products or services.” quote=”That audience is made up of real people, and if people don't know, like, and trust YOU, they won't buy what you're selling. You have to be able to sell YOURSELF before you can sell any of your products or services.”]

Most people who are out there selling stuff are selling someone else's products and services – and they are selling it to whoever their employer tells them to sell it to. That kind of sales is not so fun unless you really like selling.

But if you are creating YOUR OWN products or services to sell – even if you hate the idea of “sales” – YOU GOT THIS.

You're not selling products, you're solving problems.
You're not selling services, you're serving your clients.
You're not selling, you're helping.

Remember that.