#178: Believe You ARE Good Enough With Heather!

Come on this journey with me each week when you join me, we are going to chase down our goals, overcome adversity, and set you up for a better tomorrow. Fasten your seatbelt. I'm ready for my close up. Hi and welcome back. I'm so excited you're back here with me this week. I hope you had a fantastic holiday and are getting some time off to reflect on all that you have accomplished this year and what your goals are for next year. Big time to feel proud of how far you are you've come. And I will tell you, we have all come so far given the circumstances and conditions we've been living through over the last two years. It's insane. And I'm proud of you. So I hope you're proud of you too. Okay. I have a lot that I want to get into today. As you know, when I feel like I'm getting messages from the universe, I got to share them with you. So I was hit over the head with a message that I'm going to give you a little background on first. Okay. So I have a 14 year old son that is wearing braces and for whatever reason, I'm not sure why he had braces when he was younger. They took him off and now they're back on. Sounds a little bit suspect to me. But anyhow, he's got them on for a second time and he's been getting frustrated lately with them saying, you know, I have friends that are wearing Invisalign. I think that I should transition to Invisalign. Clearly I'm not an orthodontist and I'm just, you know, I keep saying to him, well, go speak to the orthodontist. You know, take it up with him. I am not an expert in whether you can have Invisalign or not. I have no idea how this works or why. I really don't even understand why you have braces on a second time. But, you know, this guy is the guy, so go speak to him. So for the past month, I had been shelving this whole conversation and said, take it up with your orthodontist. He had his appointment with his orthodontist and he said, okay, I'm going in to have the conversation. I want the braces off. So, you know, an hour later he comes back to the car, I'm waiting for him and he has his braces on. And I said, how did your conversation go? And he said, oh, gosh, you know, I told him that I wanted to have my braces off and transition to Invisalign, like a lot of my friends had. And he let me know, with no mincing of words that that was not happening and that I am not a candidate right now for Invisalign and that I've got a ton of work to on my teeth and that there is no discussion happening in the next foreseeable future about anything like that. And if that opportunity arises, you know, next year, he'll have that conversation with me. He said so, you know, I tried, but that was it. What I noticed about that situation was we left the decision up to the expert, right? The person who has expertise. That person came at him with a ton of confidence and conviction, made it crystal clear this is not up for debate. I am the authority on this topic and you need to defer to me as I'm here to help you achieve your goals of straight teeth. So it was interesting in that or. I wanna share with you the perspective that when he approached the orthodontist, I'm sure the orthodontist wants his clients to be happy and wants people to get what they want. But he didn't say, oh, okay, well, since you really want Invisalign, I'm gonna let you transition. Even though I don't believe it's the right move for you. But you know what's best for you, right? He didn't play this wishy washy. Well, whatever you want, he said, I am the authority. I am the one with conviction here. I know what is right for you. That is why you've hired me, is to execute on getting your teeth straight. And this is the right path. There was no room for question. It was crystal clear. He had ultimate confidence and belief in himself and what he was sharing. And he was doing it for his best. Good. Okay, cut to. You know, when people come to you for whatever it is that you're doing for work or advice, it's because they want your expertise. They want you to show up with confidence and give them the direction or answer they're looking for. It doesn't matter what business you're in. This is just fact. Right? So I have a friend of mine who has been getting into the speaking business and. And I'll tell you, the speaking business is just like any other business, really. You know, I spoke for 20 plus years in corporate America and in the professional speaking business, which I've only been in for the last few years, they don't care if you spoke for 20 years in corporate America, they call that different. Well, I call BS on that. Right Practice is practice and practice builds competence. Competence builds confidence. With over 20 years of speaking, I was an expert. Even though people wanted to tell me I wasn't because I wasn't deemed professional professional until the last couple of years, I didn't believe it. So from day one, I stepped into this position of power that I'm an expert professional speaker. Regardless of calling myself professional speaker, I am. I've got the man hours in, I feel entirely confident. And so I approach the speaking business like the orthodontist with okay, this is what you need. This is why you're hiring me and this is why you need to do that. A ton of conviction, a ton of confidence, and even so much so that when the pandemic hit and I had to reinvent myself as this weird virtual speaker, I didn't even know what that meant. I had seen online that people were calling themselves virtual speaker. I didn't know if I would be good at it. It was a new position, a new spin on speaking, and I didn't know if I could connect through a computer initially. So instead of doubting myself or sharing doubt with my customers and companies that were looking to hire me, I would be very honest. I'd come at them with a ton of conviction and confidence that I am absolutely the right person for the job and they should absolutely invest in me and, and get clear on their expectations. And I assured them I would deliver the deliverables they were looking for. However, because I hadn't done it, I did explain to them at the end, I will also offer 100% money back guarantee since I have 20 plus years experience speaking, but I don't have that level of expertise or experience with virtual. I'm just going to be completely transparent with you. Yes, I'm the right person to hire. Yes, there's no doubt you're going to get what you want, but I'm just going to, I'm going to let you know that if for any reason you weren't happy with it, in the end, I'll offer you 100% money back guarantee. Didn't mean that I didn't proceed with confidence. Didn't mean that I didn't proceed with my expertise or my conviction. I did. And every single one of those I closed, I got all of those people on as customers and every single one of them was happy and wrote me a raving testimonial and paid me for the events. After a few of those, I had a few of those under my belt, I felt much more confident and with conviction that I didn't need to offer 100% money back guarantee any longer. I knew in my mind I had checked the box on virtual and I felt solid, that I could move forward the same way I had with regular speaking, I would now do with virtual. The irony is because I had so many reps, so much practice at virtual speaking because of the stupid pandemic and being stuck at home so much that I was doing some days, five and six virtual speeches a day from my apartment in Miami Beach. And if you do anything at that level, you know, constantly, day in and day out, you become really good at it, right? So I became great at virtual speaking. So much so that when I had my first big in person event a couple of months ago at the Gaylord Palms Resort in Orlando, which is a huge venue, I was a little nervous to go back in person, something I had done for over 20 years at a really high level and had total confidence in. I was starting to let that doubt creep back in because I had gotten really good at this other version of it. And I thought, how am I gonna go back to the way I used to do it? What was a cool experience for me, and I wanna share with you, is I took what I learned from this virtual world of a year and a half of virtual and becoming really proficient at virtual, and I blended it with what I used to do back in 2019 with in person. And I have had my most powerful, most impactful events since I've been back live again. Even though I'm still doing a lot of virtual, I've had some pretty big in person events. And every single time I've gotten up, I get a standing ovation. And, and I believe it's because of this whole weird thing, developing this confidence and this competence in another version, stepping into that fear. Right? Like in some ways, starting over as a virtual speaker gave me that much more confidence to go to the next level as an in person speaker. Okay? So that's just more to remind you that the more you step into that fear, the more that you believe in yourself what's possible, and use that past experience as future proof of what can be and will be. You'll step into it, make it happen. Okay? It's that time of year again.

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So I have this friend who is new in the speaking business but has, I mean, all the skill sets, all the talents. I've seen her do it virtually. She's been great. You know, I've been working with her for over a year. She sends me a note and I know she's gonna be listening to this, which is hilarious, but she sends. She also knows I was very upset by this note. She sends me a note on text that she had just gotten off the phone with a potential client and the potential client had some reservations. Okay. So I'm gonna share with you, not the entire thing, but a little bit about what she sent to me. And I want you to apply this to your life. Okay. In your situations. Okay. Hey, I just had a call with a potential client and there was a bit of hesitation on their end, which I can understand because I don't have speaking experience as far as social media proof. P.S. i don't even know what that means. Also mentioned that I didn't have their specific industry experience either. I told her that I been leading teams of, you know, salespeople, et cetera, et cetera. She spoke about her strengths, her very specific strengths on the topic, which is the topic they wanted to hire her for, and that she's worked with me for a year. She's worked, she's done a lot of virtual and so on and so forth. She said she wanted to think about it. So here is what I'm asking you for advice. Do I email her back and tell her that if she's thinking about it, maybe I could adjust the price for her? Okay. I have so many issues here. Okay. Number one, if we're negotiating something, I don't ever want to do it over email. It's always either over the phone, over zoom, or in person. Okay. I'm very easy to say no to on email. I am very hard to say no to in person. And I bet you're the same, right? So if something's important to you and you're launching this new business and you're negotiating A deal for your company. Yeah, that's important. And that needs to happen in real time, not via email. Okay. So that's number one. Number two, when you lower your price. And I want you to think about the orthodontist. When my son went in to negotiate switching to Invisalign, the orthodontist didn't say, well, it sounds like you really know well about this Invisalign thing. How about I knock some money off of the braces that you're paying right now and then maybe you'll feel better about it. No, he wasn't about to bring price into any of this. That. That wasn't even part of the discussion. And it was about the outcome. Right. And so as I look back on this text message and what I want you to understand is the person had some hesitation around this individual's expertise, experience, and proof. That's what I read in the message. Right. That person was looking for this potential speaker to share the confidence, the competence and the expertise in the conversation and put her at ease. The same way my son needed someone to really directly tell him, this is what I do for a living. Here's why you hired me. And I'm going to tell you, absolutely not. We're not taking the braces off. We're moving forward. And if in the future an opportunity comes up where I can do it, I'll absolutely re engage in that conversation, but with total confidence and conviction. No. Right. So this person needed to lean on, you know, hearing someone out. So we're going to have people come to us with objections or concerns. You know, we don't have the social proof. And that's why I'm always sharing with you. Please build on your testimonials of your work. Every time you speak, every time you have a client who's happy with you, ask for them to put it in writing on your LinkedIn wall or via email, because then you can. You have that social proof available and handy if someone offers you that. Objection. Right. So if someone says to me on a call, hey, Heather, really would love to bring you on as a speaker. However, your price is a little bit out of our range and you really don't have our industry expertise. I'm not sure you're the right fit.

Right.

I'm not gonna lower my price. Right. But what I'm going to do is I'm gonna say, I hear that you have a concern with me not having industry specific experience. We'll use. I've been speaking a lot for MLMs lately. I haven't gotten this objection, but if I did, I would say I hear you loud and clear that I actually haven't been in the MLM industry myself. However, I have been in sales and sales leadership for over 25 years. I've been identified and recognized as a thought leader. I, you know, I'd go through all my accolades, or at least a few of them to put them at ease and I am an expert in sales and sales leadership and then I would re engage them in isn't the MLM industry really an industry about sales and sales leadership specifically? And were, you know, relevant to women? And they would say yes. And then I would say so to that end, while I haven't been an mlm, I I really do feel confident that I can deliver on your needs around sales and sales leadership. Would you agree? Right. And I'd re engage them in that fashion. I would not say, oh, it sounds like you're concerned with my price. Let me lower that price. When you become a commodity, when you're only looking at price as a means to get a deal done, you're lessening your value, you're cheapening your product or service. I'm not in the business of doing that right. Instead, what I want to do is I want to say, hey, you know what? Unfortunately, I'm not sure how this happened, but I don't think I've conveyed the value at which I deliver. You know what, let me share a couple of testimonials my work with you or you know what, let's revisit again. What were your ultimate goals for this event?

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Another thing that I do, I do a lot of research into companies so that I do know the challenges that they're up against. I do know past speakers Dave hired and I've asked the people on qualifying calls what are some of the events that you're happiest with and or not happy with and why? The more you can get someone to empty their glass to you and give you the information, the better job you're going to be able to do. Here's another great example. I had a huge bank that reached out to me at the beginning of 2021 and wanted me to do a virtual employee engagement event to get their employees engaged. And I don't even remember what the other. There were some other outcomes they were looking for. Oh, some takeaways to build a brand on LinkedIn, I believe it was. So we, you know, we qualified everything that they were looking for. Then I had a call with them where I asked, what are the events that you've already had, you know, in your tenure that you're happy with and what are the ones that you're not happy with? And she mentioned a very famous speaker who swears that they had invested in. And they asked him not to swear at the event. And he did. And so I said, all right, so it's really important to you that I don't swear at this event. Correct. She said, extremely important. So that was an important thing to figure out. I don't typically swear, but, you know, I was even gonna be more conservative and more cautious in my word choice because she emptied her glass to me and empowered me, gave me that knowledge. So again, I wouldn't have lowered my price. I would have gone to and addressed what the potential challenges were, what the potential objections were, and led with confidence and conviction that I absolutely am the right person, address the objection that they have and move forward. So to my friend that messaged me this, again, I would do it face to face on zoom or on the phone, not via email. And I would go back and say, I'm not sure exactly how I missed this on our last call, but I want to address your concerns. It sounds like what I heard from you on our last call was that because I don't have your industry specific experience, you felt that I might not be able to deliver. Is that what you were saying? They are gonna say yes back to you. And then I would come with confidence and conviction that, you know what? Well, while I haven't been in your industry, some of the industries I have spoken for successfully or some of my expertise and my track record that really distinguish and separate me from other speakers are blah, blah, blah, like why you are qualified to do it. And then in the end, if you are a little bit more green and not as seasoned as you believe you should be, or as the client thinks you should be, that's where I would come in. With 100% money back guarantee, I still Feel like there's a little bit of hesitation. I have zero hesitation here. I am 100% confident I can deliver for you and that you are going to be exceptionally happy with it. However, if for any reason that you're not, I want you to know how certain I am I'm the right speaker. I would offer you 100% money back guarantee. That's how sure I'm the right hire for you. Right. It's very hard to doubt someone when someone leads with that kind of conviction and confidence that the way the orthodontist did with my son. He didn't doubt himself. He didn't question. Oh, you sound like you really want the Invisalign. Let me think about it. Let me see what I can come up with. It was absolutely not. This is what we're moving forward with. Here's why. And if there is an opportunity in the future where that might be a fit, I'll let you know. Right. So leading with that confidence and conviction with your customers, that's what they're looking for. And if you do feel like you're not seasoned and you do feel like you don't have the expertise, but you know you can deliver on it, offer 100% money back guarantee. I have never done that and had someone ask for their money back ever. Because if you're like me, you're going to find a way to make it work. You're going to practice, you're going to put the time in and you are going to deliver and over deliver for your customers and clients. Okay. I had another experience that I wanted to share with you that was interesting. When people reach out to me online to speak for their companies and for their events, one of the first things I do before I jump on a zoom call or a phone call with them is I go online to see who they are connected to, that I'm connected to. And so first thing I'll do is I'll connect to that person so that I can see their circle of, you know, who's in this, who we share in common in our network. And sometimes it could be a hundred people, sometimes it could be two. But there's always a chance we might know someone in that same arena or I might see in their profile or resume that they worked at another company where I have contacts. There's. I'm always looking for that point of connection with someone and it really helps with credibility when you're able to find it. So the other day, a huge, huge. One of the largest companies in the world, we'll leave it at that for right now until I have the contract signed, reached out to me. And I went immediately to LinkedIn to see. To link with this woman and then see who she was connected to that I was connected to. And I saw a good friend of mine that we had in common who was a speaker. So I had a good assumption there that they had probably hired my friend as a speaker before. And knowing my friend, she's a great professional, she probably did a great job. Right? I really felt very confident in that. I didn't have to call her. I know her. And so we get on our zoom meeting and I led with that commonality. I said, oh my gosh, I was just checking out your profile and looking at the people we know in common. I saw, you know, my friend. I have a feeling she probably spoke for you. I didn't have a chance to call her ahead of this, but did she ever speak for you? Well, of course. This woman starts raving, yes, she did. She was fantastic. It was so great working with her. Immediately, in 30 seconds on that call, I gave myself instant credibility by referencing this woman that I've spoken at countless events with virtually over the last year and a half that I have a friendship with that I know in real life and in person. And the credibility she had created with a company was translated to me in that moment. So it's really important to take the time to do your due diligence ahead of time, ahead of meetings and inquiry, phone calls to see where a point of connection or commonality may lie. Because when you can even just mention it, that can really bolster you for a much better successful call. Because it's a warm call suddenly, not something where someone just reached out to you online and you have nothing in common. So as we are at the end of the year and looking towards a new, amazing year to come, definitely take this time to write down everything that you're proud you accomplished this year and what some of these specific, measurable, timely goals are for 2022, which really is giving yourself some deadlines, getting really specific with yourself on what you want to achieve. And I'll tell you, so many people say, well, I'm afraid to go big. I'm afraid to write down that I wanna do A, B, C or D. Cause what if it doesn't happen and I let myself down. I would rather you look at it like this. Be afraid to be in the exact same position a year from today that you are in now versus being afraid of trying to go bigger, trying and Failing, trying and making mistakes, you know, figuring out that it wasn't the right thing and pivoting and doing something differently. Since I've left corporate America and gone to work for myself, I've made countless mistakes making them all the time. 2021's been a big. A lot of mistakes, but I continue to grow as a result. I continue to see fear as a green light that I'm stepping into on the ones and twos, and it's really launching me forward. So, you know, they also say that people underestimate what they can achieve in 10 years and overestimate what they can achieve in one year.

I don't agree.

I think that for a long time, for a decade, I was just underestimating myself left and right because I was surrounded with villains who wanted to hold me back. The minute I overcame that villain in my life, I was able to tackle the one in between my own two years. And when that happened, I achieved more in a one year window. My first year after getting fired, I wrote and self published my first book, Confidence Creator, which trumped Donald Trump for number one on the business biography list. The first first week it came out and it took five other number one charts that first week. That book killed it and still killing it in just a couple of months ago, I believe it was October of 2021, Forbes named my first book, Confidence Creator, one of the top five business books every woman needs to read in 2021. Didn't see that one coming. Okay. That next year, 2019, I launched my podcast that you're listening to right now, Creating Confidence with Heather Monahan. Had Gary Vaynerchuk as my first guest, had so many amazing guests, it was mind blowing. And that show went number one. The first or second week it came out on the Apple podcast charts and continues to be top 50 on the Entrepreneur chart every week. So proud of that. Then in 2019, I got the opportunity to interview Sarah Blakely live on stage at the Drift Marketing Conference, which opened my eyes to the real revenue in the speaking business. And I leaned in and gave my first TedXTalk, which was promoted to Ted and translated into six different languages. Didn't see that one coming, you know. So the point of all of this is, and we can keep going, I'll give you 2020 and 2021, but I had been selling myself short for a long time, and you may be selling yourself short too. Raise the bar on your expectations. All right. So when 2020 hit, I lost everything overnight. I reinvented myself as a virtual speaker. And in 2020, real leaders named me top 40 female keynote speaker of the Year. And that was unbelievable because I had just really started my speaking business a year before. Then I was appointed to the Board of directors of HealthLink. That was my first board seat. I got that in the beginning of 2020. And I had wanted to be on the board of directors for the company I'd worked for for so long and had never been appointed. And it was just such an important moment for me. I remember I was just so grateful in 2020 is when I signed with HarperCollins leadership for my new book, Overcome youe Villains. Fast forward to 2021. I launched, I wrote and published and launched my new book, Overcome youe Villains, which took number one in the workplace culture charts on Amazon when it came out. And the reviews have been amazing. I'm so grateful. If you haven't left a review yet, please leave a review. It would mean the world to me if you haven't bought the book yet. Oh, my gosh, you so need this to get your 2022 off on the right start. And I'll tell you, I'm reminded by this when I look at my son in school. He got off to a rough start at the beginning of the school year, and instead of getting ahead of it, we got behind it, which made the last few months so hard to, you know, getting out from under something when you're behind is so much harder than starting on the right foot, you know? So as you go Into January of 2022, I want you to go big. I want you to run at a fast pace. I want you pushing the dominoes ahead to push you further. Don't get behind out of the gate. So definitely grab. Overcome your villains now. It will help you build that momentum and take off, which is what everybody needs right now for sure, because we have no idea what we're walking into. All right, so wishing you and yours the best New year. I hope that 2022 is our best year yet. Until next week, keep creating your confidence. I decided to change that dynamic. I couldn't be more excited for what you're gonna hear. Start learning and growing. Inevitably, something will happen. No one succeeds alone. You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it. Come on this journey with me.