Self Love = Good Business
You’ve got a kickin’ website. Amazing products you have made with your own brains and hands, or sourced and masterminded to sell. You’ve educated yourself and honed your skills to be able to deliver that service – that extension of you – that you know others need.
Every distant family member and acquaintance, let alone immediately family and friend, knows you are puttin’ it out there and have become your own boss. You’ve researched. Studied. Done your homework. Facebook page? Twitter account? Of course. You’re ready. Your long held dream to be your own master and go into business for your beautiful self is here or indeed, already happening. There’s nothing stopping you.
Except you.
You can have the most amazing product knowledge, beautiful logo and all the business acoutrements you could possibly need, but if you don’t have the self confidence, belief, and yes, love for yourself, that entrepreneurship and business requires – you’ll never reach the heights you really want to. Or really deserve to.
Learning to love and respect yourself makes absolute business sense. In so many ways.
Why?
When you love yourself you create a brand that reflects you. It’s something that is YOU on a screen, or card, or piece of paper. It’s your style and a public expression of your taste. A self loving brand is one that comes from your heart and is not influenced by others or selling and marketing goals. The sales will come Beautiful You – when you create a brand that has YOU at it’s centre.
When you love yourself you speak your truth. You express yourself in a way that is conversational and reflects what you would like when delivering your service or goods in person. If you’re not a reserved and formal person – why write your content that way? If you have a wicked sense of humour – share it! Really want to tell your customers or readers something authentic about yourself but afraid? What for? Those who are meant to stay and be with you, will stay and be with you.
When you love yourself you put yourself out there. You take speaking engagements. You never pass up opportunities to showcase your goods at fetes, fairs and expo’s. You gladly tell everyone about what you do. It’s about having confidence in yourself first – and what you do, create and sell second. The thought of turning something down because you are worried you aren’t good enough, don’t look ’right,’ or aren’t as successful as others doesn’t weigh you down. You’re out there believing in you and what you do.
When you love yourself you embrace self promotion. Yes. Embrace it. You don’t shy away from marketing yourself and openly sharing with your potential customers what you do and how you can provide for them. Why? Because you believe in yourself and what you offer so much that you share it with people in a way that is respectful, meaningful and offers value to their life. If it’s not for them – gosh that’s ok. Truly it is. If it is for them well they just may never have come to you if you hadn’t tweeted, or told them about your new product or shared a link telling the world – you’ve got something they just may be interested in.
When you love yourself you speak about what you do with confidence and pride. You would never be meek or coy. You’re thrilled to tell people you’re an entrepreneur! You love what you do. You recognise that there are literally millions of people the world over that could benefit from your goods or services and that they are absolutely worth talking about with joy and pride.
When you love yourself you can handle criticism and setbacks. You’re strong and solid enough to realise that putting yourself out there means not all will agree, want, or even like what you do. And you’re ok with it. What others think is not nearly as important to you as what YOU think. How revolutionary is that? This strength also sees you pull yourself up when things don’t go your way or you quite literally fall into a hole. You know it won’t last and a new path or the next chapter will unfold. Why? Because you believe it will, and you take confident steps to make it happen.
When you love yourself you set boundaries. You value your physical, mental and emotional health enough to switch off from the world of business and just chill, or run, or sleep, or get a pedicure – whatever you need to do. You don’t return non-urgent calls after hours, you’d never be one of those people that leaves a movie to answer a page and you shut that laptop or step away from that computer regularly and with no remorse so you can give to yourself. You embrace what you need.
When you love yourself you invest in your business. You seek out a mentor in your field to help guide and support you. You join a network of professionals both in person and online that can support your business and your growth and they may just become customers as well. You form or join a mastermind class. You get a coach. A copywriter. A psychic. You understand the value of spending money on not just the ‘nuts and bolts’ of your business – but on YOU. I’m happy to share with you that in the coming months I am going to be working with coach Tara Gentile and copywriter Alexandra Franzen. The excitement is palpable. I’m my own Santa.
When you love yourself you accept help. When people become enthused about what you do and they offer to help you – seek out if they really can – and if they’ve got the goods – you take them up. You invite people into your life that can support and inspire you. When your partner, or best friend, or neighbour, offers to help you pack and store your latest shipment, you smile, do it together and break open the teapot and good biscuits for them afterwards.
When you love yourself you let the competition be. You’re too busy focusing on you and your business to be overly concerned with what anyone else is doing. You don’t feel the need to compare yourself to anyone. You have a strong enough sense of self and purpose that you can draw inspiration from what others are doing or simply send them good vibes and leave them enjoy their own success. Some people may think I’m nuts, but I link to, tweet to, Facebook to and profile in my newsletter, other counsellors, coaches and people doing similar things in my field….um, a lot. Should it not concern me I’m driving business to them and away from me? Nope. It’s not the way I think. If of course they are doing something that is exactly like a current project of mine – sure, I pull back from that. But great content they write, courses that I’m not running, a service they provide, an ebook on an amazing topic? I want to tell Beautiful You about it because I know it can add value to your life. In turn, the generous person I hope that I am takes action and is.
When you love yourself you charge what you’re worth. Yep. This is the big one. Money. Loving you means you would never knowingly undersell or undervalue your products and services. That necklace, or dress, or service you have put your whole heart, not to mention, countless hours into. You know that one? Or that many? You charge what it’s really, really worth. You know that it is going to bring great joy to someone very fortunate who purchases it. Or great confidence. Or great insight. You charge what it’s really, really worth. And if you’re not sure what that is? By my calculation its the price that doesn’t make you feel outrageously nervous and conversely, like you will be resentful because you know what you have created and can offer is genuinely worth more. It’s somewhere in between those two.
So get your self love on Beautiful You. Self love is not just about what you need as a person day to day. It can immeasurably help you propel your business to where you want it to be – looking amazing – coming from your heart – reflecting your values – focused on you – engaged in hot promotion – and yes, oh yes – bringing in the cash.
Not sure where to begin?
These are the best posts I have created here at Beautiful You that are focused on self love, confidence and being proud to be you. There are lots of tips, suggestions and ideas for you to develop a deeper sense of self love for yourself. One that will see you grow. And your business soar.
[...] A great take on the importance of being YOU and how this self-love equates with a better business.! [...]
You hit the nail on the eye. You got to have the self confidence you need in order to succeed. And it is within you- all you have to do is find it!
I agree BCA. So often we turn outside of ourselves looking for things we need, when all along it’s with us if we just look within.
Well what a truly wonderful article Julie. As usual you hit the nail on the head! The number one ingredient of all successful business owners is self-belief and self-love, which gives them the strength to keep going through the inevitable challenges that arise. I wholeheartedly agree re aligning with other businesses with similar concepts and values and building a supportive community. To me, there is no such thing as competition – as no-one can do ANYTHING in the same way as you and people will come to you if they resonate with what you’re doing and the way you put your unique stamp on it, regardless of product or service. Love your work! xxxxx
Thank you Michelle! I agree so whole heartedly in the spirit of sharing in business and not looking at others through competitive eyes. So many amazing connections (and clients) have come to me from engaging with the so called ‘competition’ making me glad indeed I reached out to connect.
Love the thoroughness and thoughtfulness of this post and the connections you made for us. Thank you for the inspiration!
You’re welcome Rosie! I’m glad the post resonated with you. Can’t wait to read your book BTW! I’m a little behind with my reading but yours is on my ‘must read’ list. From all I hear it’s wonderful.
[...] love this post from Julie Parker about how important it is to factor self-love into your business endeavors. This is a topic that is not often covered in conversations on entrepreneurship, and, of course, [...]
Thank you so much for this post! I absolutely needed it!
Very often I feel nervous writing on my site because I think “who am I to give others advice?” I almost feel like I’m not worthy enough sometimes, that I don’t know the right things to say or that I’m fooling myself. This post reminded me that I’m good enough just the way that I am, and that I need to love my little site as much as I love myself (and that I can do a better job taking care of both!)
I will definitely be sharing this!
Jessica – I’ve popped over for a peek at your great site and I can tell you that you are more than worthy to be writing about what you do and sharing your thoughts on self worth and how we feel about ourselves. You ARE good enough just the way you are so please do keep taking care of you and your site too. Thank you for dropping by and thank you for sharing my post as well!
[...] so much more to being successful than just good business sense. [Beautiful [...]
Julie, I am actually in the process of starting a few small businesses, and your post was a great encouragement for me, just what I needed to hear, I felt guilty for spending money on myself. Thank you, thank you, thank you !
I’m so pleased to hear that Saby – that is exactly what I wanted this post to give and do for people. Don’t EVER feel guilty about spending money you you and your dreams/business. You’re totally worth it.
[...] A great take on the importance of being YOU and how this self-love equates with a better business.! [...]
WOW! My friend Chantelle (AKA Fat Mum Slim) has written about you and told me about you, but wow. You are the real deal! Reading this has been so inspirational. Especially during a “is this having your own business thing really worth it?” week. Thanks for a much needed pick me up Julie!
You are so welcome Peita and what a beautiful business you have. I’ve just snuck over and peeked at your website and it’s wonderful. Keeping doing what you need to do to ensure you operate from a position of self love and I’m certain great things will come to you.