I talk a lot about business principles with my students and in my social channels, but today I wanted to dig into mindset and look at the biggest lie you are telling yourself as a first-time entrepreneur and how it is holding you back in your business. Honestly, if I had a dime for every time I have heard someone say this to me, I’d be obnoxiously wealthy by now! In this episode, I’ll walk you through what that lie is, why it is so commonly believed and three ways to overcome it.
During this episode Jan discusses:
- [2:14]: What the biggest lie is you are telling yourself as a first-time entrepreneur.
- [2:48] The key to defining your unique value.
- [4:32] The first step in knowing how to discover what makes you unique in relation to your business.
- [4:56] Step two, how your unique advantage separates you from your competition.
- [5:26] Lastly, the questions to be asking yourself to help shift your mindset toward success.
- [6:05] Success is a skill that needs to be practiced in order to master it.
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Episode transcript: Transcript of the episode’s audio.
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I'm Jan Ditchfield. And I went from frustrated corporate business consultant, and serial entrepreneur to the CEO of a thriving online business. But it wasn't an easy journey. And after many missteps, and moments of massive self doubt, I finally found the secrets to get past my roadblocks. So I can build the business of my dreams, one that helps others to do the same. I created the hay spark club podcast share with you these easy to follow strategies and frameworks that will help you take your dream from spark to launch. If you are a professionally driven woman, or a first time entrepreneur, was looking to understand how to build a business, which allows you the lifestyle freedom you want, then this is the podcast for you. Ready? Let's dive in.
Hey, you, it's a new week and a new episode. And this month, I've been teaching in my free boot camp about the eight key decisions you need to be making before launching a business. Or if you've already had one launched, these are the things you should be going back to and tweaking. And I love having the chance to get to know new women owned businesses. And I'm always super excited to see their ideas take shape. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to launch a business, let alone having the mindset you need to stick with it when times are tough. And trust me, there will be tough times. And if you followed me for a while or you're one of my students, you'll know that in addition to having run my own businesses, I also spent the better part of my career working as a gun for hire. So I go in and help overhaul the operations and finances of businesses that were trying to scale or remain relevant. So spending so much of my time working on the behind the scenes of business development, you really start to see clearly why businesses are struggling. And in my experience is either because they have big gaps in three specific core business foundations. Or they've set themselves into a mindset that's inviting failure, because they can't get past the self doubt.
And I talk a lot about business principles with my students and in my social channels. But today, I want to dig into mindset a little bit. And look at the biggest lie you're telling yourself as a first time entrepreneur, and how it's holding you back in your business. And so here it goes. There is nothing unique about me. If I had a dime for every time I've heard someone say this to me, I'd be obnoxious Lee wealthy by now, we get so caught up in thinking that there's nothing unique about ourselves. And the truth is, everybody has something that makes them unique. And everybody has something that they're they excel at. The key is in defining it. So when it comes time to finding out what your unique talent is, that's going to give you an edge on your competition, there's an easy place to start, and I'm going to give it to you right now, is really this easy. Have you ever received a compliment that you just shrug off? Because whatever's mentioned is just easy for you? Or it's something that you regard as just your common sense? Like it's one of those things when people say you just go back and lift your shoulders and you're like, that's just easy. Doesn't everybody know that? No, not everyone does know it. And that actually that key thing, that thing that everyone's like, Wow, it's so amazing, you know that. That's what makes you unique. And that's what you can use to start or grow a successful business.
So your unique advantage is something that you have, like it's a skill or it's a personality trait, it can be a way of thinking, it can be a method of teaching. It's something that no one else has, or does quite the way you do. So this is the time when I really invite you to listen. So like come to me settle in, take your seat, hear me when I say this, that in order to define what it is that makes you unique. You have to start by asking yourself some questions. But you can't hold back in your answers, or believe that you're bragging with what you're putting forward. Because if what you're defining is rooted, in fact, that it's not bragging, it's why you will be successful in your business. So say it loud and say it proud. So here's the questions.
Are you ready? Grab yourself a pen, piece of paper. These are the things I want you to ask.
First, ask yourself what makes you uniquely different? Is it a specific skill you have? Or is it a method of delivering a solution? Is it something artistic or intellectual? Is it your ability to create lasting relationships or give advice that's practical and easy to implement? Whatever it is, it should be unique to you and how you present your solution.
So next, what is it about you your product or Your business that can't be copied or bought? What are you doing that a competitor couldn't replicate, and try to pass off as their own? Is there something proprietary about your system? Have you worked with key stakeholders in the past? Who can validate your expertise? Does your intellectual property set you apart from others define what's unique to you, and that your competition will never be able to copy or duplicate?
Lastly, ask yourself why you're the expert in this space, education, years of business that you can leverage relationships that you hold, all of these things can come into play when it comes time to define your unique advantage. articulate why you are the best person to be doing what you are doing within your business. Because unless you believe in yourself, no one else will. Everyone has moments where we think we're not good enough at something in business. And it's a mindset that we get into which holds us back from moving forward with the things that we dream about doing. And this is so normal, because we all fear failure.
But you have to keep going anyway. Success is a skill. And like all skills, you have to keep practicing it in order to master it. So inside my side hustle Academy, I teach my students to learn from someone who's gone before you. So sit at their feet and listen to their stories, apply their teachings to your business, focus on getting really, really good at what you do, by learning from people who are really, really good at what they do. And when you find yourself struggling to think, what if I fail, or I'm not good enough, or there's nothing unique about me? I want you to stop and ask yourself, but what if you succeed? Imagine your life if you move forward with starting a business and you succeed. Imagine having more time to spend on the things that matter to you. Imagine the lifestyle freedom you want. Imagine waking up every day feeling proud of yourself because you chose success over fear. What is 2021 is your year to start a business.
So let's recap how you can define what makes you unique and shift your mindset towards success instead of failure. So number one, first, ask yourself what makes you uniquely different? Number two, what is it about you or your product or your business that can't be copied or bought. And lastly, number three, ask yourself why you are an expert in your space.
So that's it for today. So if you're thinking about starting a business this year, the doors to my course the side hustle Academy are opening soon, so from February 12 until the 19th. But next week, I have something really exciting. I'm actually offering a free sneak peek inside the Academy, where you can access module one and all of the lessons of the first five lessons for free. So if you want to be the first to get on the inside, get your name on my list right now and you can head over to Jan ditchfield.co forward slash side hustle Academy, and I'll be sure to email you the link to check it out. And thanks so much again for joining me today. And I'll be back next week, same time, same day, and until then sparkplug keep building something magical