You Don’t Need to Be an Expert to Get Clients

Do you ever feel like you need to know more, be better, or look more professional before clients will trust you?

In this episode of The Aligned Business Show, we unpack the pressure so many brilliant women entrepreneurs place on themselves — the belief that they have to become an “expert” before they’re allowed to succeed.

Because the truth is: no aligned business can grow under constant performance pressure, perfectionism, or fear of getting it wrong.

Success is built through trying, experimenting, learning, growing, and sometimes failing — and none of that is possible when you feel like one wrong move could ruin everything.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why feeling “not qualified enough” keeps so many women stuck
• The pressure the expert model creates in business
• Why perfectionism blocks business growth
• How to build confidence while growing your business
• What it looks like to succeed as yourself

If you’ve been questioning your worth, doubting yourself, or feeling like you always have to know more before showing up — this episode is for you.

🎁 Free resources:https://vickigylling.systeme.io/clientattractionguide

#WomenInBusiness #Entrepreneurship #AlignedBusiness

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So many gifted, amazing, talented, capable women sabotage their own business because they try to skip steps or run their business like someone else. I this is so close to my heart. I have seen this a million times, and this is part of my own story. I see how women enter onto this journey of creating their own business and wanting to make a difference from like passion and a pure heart and truly dedicated to making a change. And very quickly, we are met with one thing that is you should do it in this way. And how that often looks is the masculine energy, the dominance, the force, the not very feminine weight, and especially one thing can fuck us up more than anything and create so much doubt and create so much insecurity. And that is the expert role, the expert model marketing like you are a fucking expert. Now, when I met this concept of marketing like an expert, I was brand new to my business. And I was a mother of two, and I was pregnant with my third child. And all I had was a deep desire to, you know, make a difference and help people with what I've discovered, what I've learned, what life had thrown at me that I'd overcome. I just really wanted to help with that. And I felt like I actually could. There was value, there was something I could give to other people. And I was met with the expert model. If there's one thing you don't feel like when you're just starting, it's the expert. And if there's one thing this model and this way of doing business and this idea of having to market and be the expert creates, it's fucking insecurity. Like, how can we not fail when we feel like we have to live up to that high standards? Not even just I'm doing my best, like my very best, or I'm willing to learn, or I know I'm capable and I'm giving it my all, but there's room for error, there's room for learning, there's room for growth. Not even that, but just you have to be a fucking expert. Otherwise, no one will buy for you. Can you see how much pressure that creates and how much unnecessary tension and doubt and fear it creates? And you know what? I'm not saying that women are meant to be experts. We are definitely experts at something, but very few people in general, male and female, are meant to be experts. And expertise is something that's earned. Expertise comes from doing things thoroughly for a long time, fully committed, dedicated, and really learning, growing and evolving, and and you know, exceeding the level of mastery. You don't start there. And if you feel like you have to market that way, you feel like you have to live up to that role, how can you not have a really bad time showing up? How can you not feel insecure or like an imposter or doubt that you are enough? If that is the idea you are faced with, I have to be the expert. This one thing fucked me up so hard, more than anything else, more than coaches that, you know, kind of were just seeing me like a paycheck and didn't really deliver, more than frail launches, more than really seeing the ugly side of the coaching industry. Believing I had to be more than I actually was, believing I had to be way more than I actually was, and nothing about me and where I was right now at the current level was good enough and was capable of building a business and was capable of getting the attention of the people I could help and was capable of selling them. That was what I took from it. That was the internal feeling I got from you have to market like an expert. Do you even know how many hours I've spent day after day trying to nail my expert model? That was the way I was told that people would pay attention. If I didn't have an expert model, if I didn't have my framework, if I didn't have my modality, people wouldn't even bother. How are you supposed to develop that if you're not allowed to try? How are you supposed to come up with that from an actual value point? If you were not allowed to try and test and, you know, pivot and evaluate and redo it. 70% of the world's population are generators and manifesting generators. If you don't know anything about human design, don't worry, stick around, you will be schooled in that. But you don't have to know anything about it to understand this. 70% of the world's population has a response strategy. It means we are not meant to initiate things. We're not meant to just come up with the next part idea. We're not meant to just develop our framework or modality from thought alone, from idea. It's not meant to be a concept in our mind before it actually appears before us. I'm 10 years into this journey, and I'm sure I could have nailed it quicker if I hadn't taken the long detour and was exposed to the expert model, the expert way of marketing, and a lot of other stuff. But it's now, 10 years in, that I'm starting to really feel what my modality is, what I'm starting to feel, what the framework I can lean into really is, where I can help my people the most. But do you know why I've discovered it? Or actually, it discovered me, it found me. That's the whole other talk. But I discovered it because I allowed myself to go in every direction where I was pulled, where I was drawn, where I felt like I have something to offer, something to deliver, something to learn without needing it to be the answer, the solution, the only way. Every direction I've taken, every road I've walked, every thing I've learned and picked up and discovered along the way slowly merged into this amazing thing that is so me, and where I have seen I can help people the best, where I've kept being a student of life and business and discovered more things. And whenever I felt like there was a gap, or whenever I felt like there was something like there could be more, it could be easier, or it could be better, or it could be deeper, it could be more impactful. I didn't stop because I just wanted to create a framework I could repeat forever and ever and package up and sell. I wanted to make the biggest difference for anyone ever entering to my field. You discover your business model and your modality and your framework and anything by trying. And if you feel like you have to live up to an expert role from the beginning, you are not giving yourself a lot of room to experiment. You are not giving yourself a lot of room to test things up and try it and see how it works and pivot and you know, rearrange and do again. None of that is possible within such a strict structure that the expert model and the expert way of marketing dictates or creates. And that's actually got a lot to do with skipping steps. Now, if there's one thing I fell for again and again, and I was drawn to in my 10 years in business, it was that if I were to start over, this is what I would do. But you know what? I often discovered people were implying concepts and nervous system evolution and things they have learned, and really huge breakthroughs and identity shifts that are taking a long time. They were they were they were trying to start over with all of that. And of course, like if you can if you can allow yourself to learn something for 15 years and just go back with all that knowledge that took 15 years to acquire, and that where you went through all of this like evolution and discovery and growth and back and forth and confusion and clarity, if you can just be allowed to take the lessons of 15 years and go back and start from that point, of course, it will be much easier. Like, how can it not? But the ones you're trying to sell that first step to do not have that clarity, do not have those lessons, do not have that evolution, have not gone through that process of growth. They can't just take your step number 100 as their first step, no matter how neat you package it, no matter how much you try to explain it, like internally, they are not there. Awareness-wise, they're not there. The software is not there, the hardware is not there. So for the last few years, that type of content, I rarely even consume it. Whenever I see it, it's just like, okay, yeah, great. I mean, sometimes, sometimes a few people can actually give you great insights on those posts. But most times it's just this is what I would have done 10 years ago if I knew what I know now, and if I had gone through the process I've gone through, and if I have learned the things I've learned, this is what I would do from my awareness, from this point. Doesn't work, it doesn't matter. So we can't skip steps. And one of the things I keep seeing with my clients that is kind of tied to the expert model, even if they haven't been subjected to it, is they think they have to be further ahead. They think they have to market in a way that they can't own yet. They think they have to offer things that they can't fully own and haven't really embodied because that is what they feel would be worth more. That is what they feel would sell. That is what they feel the market wants. So they keep self-sabotaging because they try to skip steps. And you can't skip steps. Like it's it's like when you grow up, you can't skip learning the alphabet and just go straight to reading really well. You can't skip stumbling with your first steps and just skip straight to doing an Iron Man. You can't skip steps. And whenever we try to skip steps, there's a very important part of us that is not fully on board, that is not fully developed, that is not quite there, that's not ready yet, and that will be the biggest block. That will be like an anchor locked into the ground trying to hold us back. So, the most important thing, if you want to build a business that is right for you, an aligned business. I know it's it's like it's a big concept and it's it can be taken in a million directions. And what does alignment mean? And the fact is, we are always aligned to something. It's just rarely what we want to be aligned to. You know, most people are aligned to uh victim things and and uh predicting really bad things happening and and everything they don't want. But a truly aligned, beautiful, magnetic, 100% you business, the most important thing is that you allow yourself to be you in it. You allow yourself to create the way you naturally create, you allow yourself to let your personality lead, you allow yourself to be magnetic in your own way and not try to act, not try to force, not try to be something you think you have to be in order for people to like you. Or you think you have to be in order to be professional or serious enough or someone that people can rely on and see as a leader. Because there's not just one way of being professional, there's not just one way of being a leader. And as soon as you feel like you have to be more than you actually are, that's when the truly big disconnect happens. That's when you feel more insecure, more doubtful, more, I don't think I can do this, than if you just accept where you are, lean into that state, take that face, grow in those steps, and allow yourself time to experiment, to play, to be curious, to discover without this really high, heavy bar above your head saying you have to be here, you have to do it like this, you have to say it like this, you have to act like this, people have to see you like this. It doesn't really do anything good for us. And when you are a woman and you have your own business, your strongest force is not logical steps. Your strongest way of building this and creating this and growing this and scaling this and evolving this is not from your mind, it's not from a linear perspective. If you can't allow yourself to discover yourself in every step, if you can't allow yourself to lead with what's your biggest strength and you constantly feel like you have to live up to this set rules or this like really solid, non-negotiable picture of what it looked like to be a serious business owner, like how are you not setting yourself up for the disaster? How are you not making the journey harder for yourself? You know, so many of my clients, the the biggest thing I've been able to do for them is to give them the permissions to be them. It sounds crazy. Like we all look for frameworks, we all look for the steps to take, we all look for the strategy. Like when we have come to the place where we really feel like strategy is the only thing that's gonna save us because everyone keeps preaching it. We rather want something out here that we can just do than to acknowledge where's the disconnect internally. And the biggest permission slip I've been able to give them and the greatest feeling of joy and freedom and liberation comes from when I tell them this don't think you have to be more than you are, don't think you have to be further ahead to be of value and be of service. Don't try to think up how you can be of service and how people can need you, because when you just lean into what you really want to do and what you're passionate about, and how you see a change can happen in the world, you are magnetic, you are leading, you are an authority, but not if you feel like you have to be it in a certain way. Like even still, we see a lot of female entrepreneurs, the moment they want a breakthrough, they rely heavy on a masculine energy. And we see the not suit and tie, but suit and long nails or suit and high heels, it's still a very set image of what power and professionalism and seriousness looks like. And as long as we feel like we have to live up to those ideals, we will always come up short. Like as long as you feel like you have to be a certain way, and people will only take you serious if you are like that, sell like that, market like that, act like that, do like that, create like that, be like that, you always come up short. Instead of just allowing yourself to evolve your business at the pace it's meant to, because you can't really fuck it up like that. Like you can't not not make it if you just allow things to grow in their own pace. The other day I wanted to help my little sprout, my melon sprout. It still had part of the seed on top of the head, and I thought, you know what? I can just help it. I can just help you know what happened. I broke it now, it died. It has no chance of surviving. It is dead. I killed it because I wanted it to go faster. I wanted it to skip steps. This is what happens to us when we try to do this. So having an aligned business means allowing yourself to evolve at your pace and allowing your business to evolve at the pace that's right for your business, and fully embracing who you are and fully leaning into where you are at and seeing the value of this stage, because this stage is what builds the next. And there are people, no matter where you are on your journey, no matter if you have never helped anyone or if you've helped a million, at every stage of this journey, there are people behind you, behind your awareness, behind your abilities, behind what you've discovered that can gain value and help from you. But the problem is when you start focusing on the ones that are at the same level or actually a bit further ahead than you are, then you never become enough. So I wish to God that we could just put this expert way of marketing to rest. I really do. I don't think it's benefiting anyone, I don't think it's helping anyone to feel like they have to walk in such huge shoes for even to start their business, you know. I really feel like we need to take a fucking chill pill and just breathe and and acknowledge how valuable we are at the level we are at right now, no matter where it is on the scale. So if you try to skip steps, if you think you have to be further ahead, if you think you have to be this whole other person and know things that you don't feel solid in, that isn't embodied, or offer things in a way that you don't feel is actually the way you can fully back up and stand behind with your energy. You are self-sabotaging in a very, very refined way, but nevertheless self-sabotaging, and you will not be creating an aligned business. The moment you do that, the moment you step onto that road, it's a moment where you honor who you are. That doesn't mean you can't grow, that doesn't mean you can't learn new things. That's what life's about. We continuously do that, but wouldn't it be more cool to learn from a place of curiosity and joy and excitement rather than I think I need to know this, and if I don't know this, I'm not good enough. And I think I have to learn this because if I don't learn this, I'm screwed. Can you see the energy is completely different? Who do you actually think goes further? The one who keeps banging himself in the head that they're not good enough, or the one that allows themselves to grow at their natural pace, because your natural pace isn't necessarily slow. We just think it's slower than forcing ourselves to move at a faster pace. So if you want to get right with your business, ask yourself this. Where do I feel like I have to be more than I am? Where am I trying to market in a way that is not really true to me? Where do I feel I'm not enough? Where have I been told or led to feel that I need to change this? Because no one will take this seriously. Where am I placing an ideal of seriousness or professionalism so far ahead or so much above where I am right now that it actually feels heavy to bear? Because once you discover that, you can just rearrange it. You can rearrange your thoughts and your perspectives, and you can allow yourself to see who is it right now with what I know, with what I'm passionate about, with what I love to talk about, with what I'm capable of, with what I have experienced, with the skills I have, who is it that could actually benefit from this? And I guarantee you they will benefit more if you allow yourself to lead the way that is true to you, then try to perform an act. So I hope you're gonna do this. I really hope you're gonna do this. This is a cornerstone and the most non-negotiable foundation of creating an aligned business because everything you do, the offers you create, your messaging, your voice, and your whatever you you offer and do in your business, it comes from this. You are enough, you are amazing, you are capable, you are skilled, and you are here to make a difference, but not as someone else, as you.