Are you ready to face your FUD and overcome it?

Once upon a time, there was a woman called Sarah. She’d invented a new sort of knickers. As you do…

She’d managed to get her first big order to a big department store. If you’ve ever had a change in your business, where you suddenly have a new client or you feel like you’re operating in a different league, you’ll know that the predominant feeling at this time is a mixture of our friends – Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt.

FUD

And that your biggest wish is:

“Don’t let me mess this up”

Face your FUD

It’s weird how the moment that you’ve dreamt of, the bigger new client, the opportunity to sell a lot more products, or the chance to be on national TV suddenly becomes the last thing that you want to do. You’ve wanted this for ages, but suddenly it’s the thing you want the least. Because the FUD is super uncomfortable.

So, what do you do about FUD?

You get into action. Sarah dealt with having this big order by calling up everyone that she’d ever met, and asking them to go into the seven shops which were doing trial sales of her new knickers and request them by name. She offered to reimburse all of their purchases.

Now, that sounds really simple. You just make some calls. But imagine making hundreds of those calls, enough to make a difference. By call number 27, you’re really just calling complete strangers and asking them for help. And then you’re moving on to call 28, and call 29.

But taking action is the only answer to Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt…Otherwise, the FUD will eat you alive.

When you next have an opportunity, big or small, maybe remember this story of Sarah and how she got into action. Her full name is Sarah Blakely, her knickers are called Spanx, and she’s now a billionaire.

Click through for the rest of Sarah’s story and what we small business owners can learn from her.

How we take action

I work with lots of clients who suffer from FUD. Clients like Fraser (not his real name) who had more work than he had time to do. It was affecting his relationship, the quality of his work, and his home life.

When we went through his business together and we discovered he was doing the work of three people. We also discovered he could afford to hire someone, or even two someones, to help him out. But Fraser was suffering FUD about hiring staff.

Once we’d worked the FUD out of the way, not only did he hire those two new members of staff, he also rented some office space and grew a whole team around his business.

FUD doesn’t just hold you back, it holds your business back too.