laneimageconsulting
Today’s blog is short and sweet and all about conflicts in your business and how they can hold you back.
I’ll start by taking you right back to the beginning of my career in styling – Before my kids came along and before online colour and style were a thing.
My first business was called Nutri-Style, and it combined two different components: nutritional advice and image consulting.
My business concept was inspired by WeightWatchers and I just loved what they did to transform peoples’ lives.
They had a magazine that showcased amazing makeovers they’d treated people to after losing weight.
Everyone they featured looked stunning, wearing clothes they’d never previously considered when they were heavier.
I thought that combining my styling services with nutritional support and guidance would be a fantastic combination. When my clients lost weight, I believed that they’d want a total makeover to make the most of their transformation.
So that was the idea, but from the get-go, I struggled to make it work. For a start, I was trying to appeal to everyone and not appealing to anyone.
I thought the more different people I tried to reach with my marketing, the more clients I would have. Of course, the big problem with that was that my marketing wasn’t very targeted.
I was trying to promote myself to women, men, younger people, and older people, and my messaging was so wishy-washy and generic.
I tried everything to get any old client through the door to bring some desperately needed money into the business.
When I did succeed in getting the odd client, they sometimes turned out to be difficult to work with as I was not an expert on every single person on the planet and I didn’t have the depth of experience to help them. This is a huge problem when you are a generalist like I was! 😣😣😣
Another issue was that I struggled with was my own diet and nutrition regime. I
battled for years to maintain the weight I thought I should be to be a nutrition coach. I convinced myself that I needed to be a UK size 10 or smaller to be taken seriously, but it’s difficult for me to slim down and maintain that size with my build, genetics, and need to enjoy life and some treats. My feelings of inadequacy held me back, and I was very reluctant to put myself out there and promote the business.
I spent a LOT of time going over everything in my head, trying to work out a way to make the two different offerings work and get the steady stream of clients I craved.
Of course, I didn’t understand the importance of identifying your ideal client and claiming your niche at that stage. The internet was only in its infancy back then, so information about marketing and growing a business wasn’t as freely available as it is now.
It was only years later that I discovered the concept of niching down.
So why am I telling you about my adventures with my first business?
Because I want you to think about any conflicts you’ve got going on in your mind about your business.
It could be that you’re struggling to marry up different services like I was.
Maybe you don’t feel like you’re good enough or perhaps you’re scared to niche, don’t know how, or are struggling to identify your ideal client.
If you have any unresolved conflicts regarding your business model and your services, it’s tough to put yourself out there and talk about your business. Your uncertainty comes through in your messaging, which puts potential clients off working with you.
To get more clients on board, people have to have confidence in you, and so you need to be sure about your process, the services you provide and the results you achieve. If none of these is true, your marketing will not work.
So, think about what’s causing conflict in your business.
What’s causing you to hide away instead of telling the world how you can help them?
If you need help pinpointing the problem and devising the solution, I invite you to set up a free strategy call with me.
I’d love to get you unstuck and attracting the flow of clients you yearn for.
You can book your call here: https://laneimageconsulting.com/book-your-strategy-call/