Being your own boss is something that many dream of but few dare to do because it can be insecure and lonely.
There’s often a feast or famine situation for the small-business owner. Either you’re overloaded with work or in a long dry patch where the cashflow slows to a trickle, and there’s a strong temptation to wish you had a steady job again.
You must be your best salesperson and that takes courage. You must project an air of confidence in yourself and your product, even when your stocks are low.
To do this you need to develop your pitching identity. This is the authentic version of you, that has a good idea/purpose/service to offer and is the side of you best equipped to tell the world about it.
This is not a ‘fake it till you make it’ strategy because that way, by definition, you’re a fake, and your inner critic will have lots to say about that.
Accessing gravitas is a skill that can be learned.
Step 1
Develop an awareness of your body language and the status messages you’re giving off. Stakeholders feel more trust in someone who, without being arrogant, exhibits high status. High status or power:
- Holds eye contact.
- Uses expansive gestures.
- Speaks low and slow (speaking from the belly).
- Takes up/assumes space.
- Understands stillness.
Step 2
Connect with your breath. The corporate world has embraced mindfulness, and its breathing techniques, in a big way because you develop executive presence by being present. Your breath can be a great ally here.
When you’re on the spot, about to give a presentation or a pitch, the adrenaline is flowing. Your fight/flight system is activating to give you energy for a major physical action but you must stand still and look ‘normal’.
If you don’t know how to slow down your breathing and ‘ground’ that energy into the lower half of your body, you’ll tend to display some kind of fidgety, displacement activity that makes you look nervous and inauthentic.
If in doubt blow out. Make sure you know how to breathe deep into your belly and blow out. It’s like telling your body to give a sigh of relief, which calms the autonomic nervous system.
Step 3
Find your power voice. This is an authentic part of you that perhaps has been suppressed. You came into this world with a big voice and then various shocks and shames made you cautious about speaking out freely.
When you work on recovering the power in your voice, you’ll often bump into the barriers that prevent you from making a powerful sound, because it’s embarrassing or ‘too much’.
These barriers are a very good indicator as to where you keep the lid on your personal energy in other parts of your life. Finding the true power in your voice will do wonders for your self-confidence.
Step 4
Get help from a colleague/mentor/coach to interrogate your Impostor Syndrome; that voice in your head that tells you that you don’t really know what you’re doing.
Be ruthlessly honest with yourself about shining a light on these beliefs. Get someone outside of you to quiz you on these beliefs to see how much of it is true and how much is just a manifestation of your fears.
Practising mindfulness meditation helps us let go of anxious or traumatic thoughts. Another solution to this is to bring this deep dark secret out into the light.
Talk about it with colleagues and get them to tell you how it shows up for them. We need to break the conspiracy of silence.
