I want to talk about confidence and how that affects your business and shows up in quite a few different ways. The reason I like to talk about confidence is that it kind of hits home and it’s a topic that’s near and dear to my heart, because I experienced having low self-esteem and felt how it affected my business in a lot of negative ways.

A lot of my clients and a lot of the students I mentor have similar issues and it’s something I’m continuously trying to help you get through.

As I mentioned very briefly, having low confidence can shop up in different ways it can manifest itself in different forms.

I’m going to give you a few examples and then you can maybe self-identify and understand that the root of your problem isn’t what you think it is.

1. Not trusting in your products and having a general feeling that people are going to hate them. This could mean procrastinating getting your products online, procrastinating working on your website or taking product photos. It could also mean putting off shipping out your products for any sales you’ve made because you’re scared that when people get it they’re not going to like it.

   Still to this day it frightens me to ask people for feedback because I’m always afraid they’re going to say my product sucks and that they want their money back. I have an automated email that goes out to customers after they’ve received their products and 80% to 90% of the time people are always giving me five star feedback.

2. When you feel the urge to lower your prices or you feel really uncomfortable raising your prices to where they should be. When it comes to pricing you need to calculate your cost, add in your labor, multiply it by two to get your wholesale price, and multiply it by two again to get your retail price. A lot of people don’t multiply by two twice, so they’re selling their product to retail customers at wholesale prices. Not to say that there’s anything wrong with it, but when I tell people to raise their prices their response is that nobody is going to want to buy their product for a higher price. Maybe you’re priced at the correct price but aren’t making any sales and you feel the urge to lower your prices.

   Everyone I’ve mentored who has raised their prices upon my recommendation has actually experienced getting more sales. It’s the same with my business. I didn’t start off selling my necklaces at $25 or $30, I started at $12 but kept raising the prices over time. I have made more sales today than I did when I was selling them for cheaper.

I got off the phone with one of my clients and the way the lack of self-confidence came about in her business was that she felt her work was inconsistent.

She looked at her different products and designs and they were all over the place. I know as creative people we try to do too many things at once and have too many different styles.

For this client, I went over to her website, looked at her social media accounts, and looked at all her product photos and I just didn’t see it. I didn’t see what she was seeing.

She thought her products were inconsistent and I thought they were gorgeous and I felt that they all had the same theme and feel to them. Isn’t it funny how what you think might not actually be the reality?

How do you fix not feeling great about your prices of being scared to ask for feedback?

It’s really helpful if you can get a sounding board of friends who you really trust and who are in the same boat as you.

Ideally people who are also running their own businesses, people who have an eye for design, and who can be completely honest with you.

You could also ask your ideal customers. It’s really smart to get a group of people who will in exchange for a product answer a lot of questions for you.

The trick thing when you ask for feedback is that very few people will give you honest feedback. Sometimes people are afraid or don’t know how to say things. Sometimes you get irrelevant feedback and this happens a lot if you ask the wrong people. You can ask your friends or family, but if these are people that aren’t your ideal customers they won’t be able to help you.

This is what I can help you do too. I’ve been in the game for a really long time, in the online space at least, and I’ve seen a lot of items come and go and I know the patterns of successful businesses. If you would like to have feedback on your product design or anything you’re doing with your business, I think it’s important to get some validation or some feedback and maybe that can help you improve your business or design.

You can join me at Creative Hive VIP if you want to be part of a community of people who get you and where you can get feedback. This self-confidence thing doesn’t help your business, it prevents you from moving forward, and it’s a serious problem you need to get over.