Fear of Working with Clients

I. Hello, everyone. Good evening. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach. And I'm so excited. I'm actually going live in three different. Or. I'm sorry. And three different devices right now. So I'm coming to you live on the Facebooks and LinkedIn and YouTube and Twitter. On my computer over here on this Android that I forgot existed that I have for traveling. I'm going live on Instagram, and over here on my iPhone, I'm going live on TikTok. TikTok. Welcome, everyone. Okay, so something a little different tonight. So if you're watching anywhere other than TikTok, something that you can do, if you would like to ask an interactive question and get, like, 10 minutes of spot coaching from me, you can go and follow me on the TikTok app. My username is Katie KDHD. Actually, I'll just do a little banner. I'll just keep that up so you can go to Katie KDHD and ask me a question if you click the link in my little bio there. So, anyway, tonight I want to talk about something that happens a lot for new business owners, specifically those who work with clients like most of my clients do. Um, a little distracting. The Android is a little delayed. I might. I don't know, we'll see if I want to continue with Instagram tonight because it's being a little glitchy. Anyway, hello, welcome. So, anyway, so I want to talk about, like, the fears that come up when you work with clients and just want to normalize that when you haven't worked with clients before, when you're just starting a business, it is so normal to be afraid of your clients. It sounds so silly, but it happens to all of us. The only people it doesn't happen to, you are absolute sociopaths. Okay? So if you are starting a business and you're working with clients and you're nervous about it, I just want you to know, congratulations, you're not a sociopath. Okay, Good news all around. Now, here's the thing about being afraid of your clients or your potential clients is that when you are going into marketing yourself or into a sales conversation with someone and you. You're terrified of, like, them actually becoming your client, you are in a prime position to actually, you know, sabotage yourself. You know, you can very easily sabotage yourself from ever getting the client if you're afraid of this person becoming your client. And if you're just joining. Welcome. I am going live on three different devices right now, so if I'm Looking around, know that I am. I'm tracking the conversation everywhere. I'm over here on Tick Tock. I'm here on LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and over here on Instagram. Also, any questions you have, please do put them in the chat. I do love. Hello, welcome. Winter. Hi. Taylor's version. I love that. I do love this to be interactive. So any questions you have. Also, if you're just joining or doing something new tonight, if you want 10 minutes of spot spot coaching specifically around working with clients and your niche, then I want you to go over to TikTok, my username is down here, Katie KDHD and you can sign up to do a 10 minute spot where I will spot coach you on Tick Tock Live. Anyway, I will be staying on Tick Tock Live for longer than the rest tonight. But I do want to cover this topic because it's so important. You know, if you're working with clients, if you're speaking starting a business where you're serving people, it's really scary to start working with clients. But here's the thing, like you have this gift, you have this talent, this ability. And if you don't get over the fear of working with clients, you're basically robbing them of the experience of working with you. And that's really selfish, okay? We don't want that, okay? We're not selfish people here. So there are a few different fears and how they show up. So number one is that fear of, well, what if screw up with a client? Okay? That is the number one fear that I hear so often from new service provider businesses. And here's the thing, it's guaranteed, it is absolutely guaranteed that you're going to fuck it up with clients, okay? There is no way in the world that you are going to work with other human beings and have it go perfectly well the whole time. So one of the things that I train my clients on when they work with me, and this is something that I got trained on when, when I went to coach training school, is the designed alliance. It's that conversation you have in the very beginning of working with someone. And in that conversation you're basically planning for all eventualities, right? You're talking through what happens if you royally fuck something up. What happens if we have a disagreement? What happens if I say something and it offends you and I didn't mean to offend you. You're talking through how do we make this right, okay, because screw ups are going to happen, right? But if you are qualified to do the work that you're selling, I guarantee you that the screw ups, like it's not going to be anywhere near what you think it's going to be. I used to teach knitting, I'll start knitting in a little bit. I used to teach knitting, actually just start knitting now. And like, you know, there's so many ways to score screw up teaching knitting, right? Because not everyone's going to absorb it the same way. And yet you get to dance in the moment. Also your clients don't expect you to be like super person. It's not something that they expect. Right. So you are absolutely going to screw it up. Okay? That is a guarantee. But it's not going to be the end of the world when you screw it up. All right? Hi farm girl, welcome. So the second question or the second fear I hear a lot is what if this client asks something that I don't know? Right. Okay. So the best way for you to create distrust with someone is to answer a question. Bullshitting the answer, right? If one of your clients asks something that you don't know, the best way for you to build trust is to say, oh my God, that's such a great question. I actually have no idea. But you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to reach out to my world and I'm see if I can get an answer for you because that's, that is such a great way to look at this. Hello. Yes, welcome. And so yeah, like my clients ask me questions that I don't know all the time. Like, you know, what's the best email platform for me to use? What's the best this for me to use. And you know, for me like I know the best ones for me to use and I know the best ones for some of my clients to use. But you know, it's so subjective because a lot of that stuff. So like, I mean email platforms, I always tell people, go with the one that's the most intuitive to use. Right? Especially if you're just starting out. But you know, case in point, you're not going to have the answer to everything. Okay? No one has the answer to everything. Even chat GPT doesn't have the answer to everything, has an answer, but it's not always correct. Right? Okay, so that's fear number two. And like I said, we're talking about the fears because, and hi Anthony, welcome. Because we don't want you accidentally sabotaging your marketing efforts or your sales efforts because you're actually afraid of getting this client. Okay? That can happen. So easily when you're starting a business. And I don't want that happening for you. I want you making money. I want you surprising and delighting the people that you work with. And I want you building your confidence so that you can just become an absolute badass at making lots of money and having major impact in the world. Okay? So the third fear that I hear a lot is, what if I'm not actually much of an expert, as I thought, right? And I think this comes from that, like, imposter syndrome part of us, right, where we kind of assume that, yeah, sure, like, we know some stuff, but, like, we're not the penultimate experts expert in the entire world, right? I want to remind you, your clients, unless they're paying you like a million dollars to work with you, they know that you're not the penultimate expert in the world, okay? They don't need the penultimate expert in the world. They need you. They need someone who is good enough, you know that, who's. Who has the capabilities to take them from where they are now to where they want to go. I want you to imagine. I use this example a lot, but I want you to imagine that, like, something really bad happens to you and you have to get, like, heart surgery, open heart surgery. And imagine you're wheeled into the. The operating room and, you know, you're on the gurney and the cardiac surgeon comes through and they've scrubbed and they're holding their hands up and they look down at you and they're like, oh, my God, I'm not the best. I'm not the best cardiac surgeon. I can't do this. Sorry. I'm peace and out. Right? That. That's ludicrous. Like, right? They're. They're a cardiac surgeon. They've done this before. They're trained. They, you know, are board certified, hopefully. And yet if they were to hold themselves back from operating on you because they're not the best, you would die. Okay? Now, hopefully your clients don't have, like, a life or death situation, and that, you know, is going to require you to help them. But how crazy would it be if you just were like, well, I'm not the best, so I'm just not going to sell my stuff. That's crazy. Don't do that. The fourth fear is how do I impress them so much that they want to keep working with me? Well, you know, you don't really have any control here. You know, when. When you think about impressing people, you know, being impressed is in the eye of the beholder, right? And your client can be impressed for a whole bunch of reasons. They can be impressed that you're a great listener. They can be impressed that you solve their problem. You. They can be impressed that you stood up to them, that you called them on their bullshit. You will not know what will impress your clients. And actually impressing them is not the goal here. The goal here is helping them. Right? If you help your clients well enough, they shouldn't need you. Right? So if you're that concerned about getting repeat business, I would ask you, what's your offer? Have you designed an offer that will actually make you sustainable money? Because usually when that question gets bandied about, it means that you have not made, you have not designed an offer that's actually going to make money. Oh, you too, farm girl. Thank you and welcome, everyone. If you're just joining, we're talking a little bit about the fear around actually working with clients. And then I am going to be taking questions over on Tick Tock, which I'm doing on my phone over here, where I'm diving into what your niche is and if your niche is actually scaring away clients. So if you want to go and follow me there, I'm Katie at KDHD or Katie KDHD over on TikTok. Anyway, so, yeah, so you get to help your clients. You get to design an offer that will help them and make sure that you have sustainable income. Beyond that, you really don't have any ability to control what they're impressed by and what they like and what they don't like. Okay. All you can do is show up as you and do the work and help them as much as you can and go from there. The fifth fear that I hear, and this is not a complete list, just to let you know, I'm just going over five. The fifth, Nikki, doing things. Hi. Hold on. I'm going to decline for right now. So what if they don't get anything out of working with me and want their money back? This, this is a big fear. Okay? You know your clients, you're going to attract the, the clients that you charge for, right? So like if you're. And you also can't promise anything, right? Like, I don't care how much work you're doing for them. If you're a copywriter and you're doing all the copy for their website, you genuinely cannot control if that copy actually converts to clients, right? Hello. Welcome, Jacob. So you, you get to do your best. You get to do your best, you know, you know, clients hire you, they hire all of us, because they know that we have knowledge of the parts that they don't have. Right. They don't know what they don't know. Right. So, like, I'm not saying this because I'm saying you should, like, you know, if you know like, one thing, you should go and sell that and say that, you know, all this other stuff. Don't do this with integrity. But if you're three steps ahead of your ideal client, those are three steps that they don't know how to deal with. Right. Them getting guidance from you on those three steps is going to be transformational for them. Okay. Like, forget, like, don't forget, like, what it felt like to be three steps back, you know? Three steps back. Oh, my God. I was struggling. I was unhappy. I was frustrated. Everything just seems so difficult in my business. You know, you. You absolutely will have clients who are absolutely delighted to work with you. They will take what you do, take what you advise them on, and they will run with it. Hello. Welcome. Hi. Anton. Antonella. And cozy chai. I love that. I love chai. Anyway, it's very rare that clients will throw a hissy fit and the whole thing about wanting their money back, you know, like, are you attracting parents? You know, I hope not. Hi, Charlie. Welcome. I hope not. Like, Karen's are the worst. And also, like, it speaks more to, like, what is your niche? And what do you say that you help people with, you know, you know, your marketing and how you set the terms of your contracts will also help you scare away people who you do not want to work with. Right? So, you know, for instance, you could have a no cancellation, no refunds policy. That will scare away people who, you know, don't want to work with you. Right? Chai is the best. Yes. Oh, my God. There is a chai place in San Francisco when I live there on Fillmore street. And I would literally go and get my hair blown out at the dry bar next door just so I have an excuse to be in that neighborhood to get good chai, which, of course, like, I don't know, I've never had authentic chai, so it might have just been, like, gross Americanized chai, but, oh, my God, it was delicious. Even the. Even the potentially shitty version could be good anyway. Case in point, stop being a weenie. Stop being weenie about working with clients. What you do is good enough. You're going to get better over time. Right. And remember, like, your clients don't know how to do what you do. There's a reason they're hiring you, right? You do not have to be perfect at it. You just have to be better than they are. That's it. You have to know some of the things that they don't know and you have to make their lives easier. And I guarantee if you're watching this and you want to start a business, you have that in you. All right. All right. So I'm going to be wrapping up my life over here on on Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. We're going to be spending the rest of the evening over here on Tick Tock. And if you want to jump with us, I am going to be asking, I'm sorry, answering questions over there about your niche and how it may be scaring away clients. So if you want to come join us over there, please do. But other than that, have a great night, everyone and I will see you all soon. And this is just my people over on my desk.