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Have you ever had the experience of having to promote someone else’s products and services? I don’t know about you, but I always find this much easier than promoting my own business. May be it’s because we’re not as close to someone else’s business as we are to our own and so if people say no it’s not such a big deal.

Problem is, if you’re in business, you’ll need to market and promote your products and services and for this to be effective, you’ll need to get over the fact that you’ll have to talk about yourself in a positive light.

Easier said than done though, isn’t it?

I think we can all trace this problem back to childhood. We were all brought up by being told that being modest is the way forward. Talking about yourself too much is a bad thing – you should pay attention to other people instead. 

Great advice…but, not so helpful when you’re trying to sell your business.

So, let’s explore some ways in which you can overcome this:

1. If you’re not comfortable talking about yourself and would prefer to listen to other people, that’s actually a great selling skill. Ask people questions, encourage them to tell you their problems. Chances are that they’ll tell you exactly how you can help them and then it’s much easier to tell them what the solution is.
2. Write down some frequently asked questions. If you keep getting asked the same questions over and over again and you’re not sure what the answers should be, write them down with your ideal answer. Then you can do two things with this. You could put your FAQs onto your website so that potential clients can see them and you could also practice them so that the next time someone asks you a question, you’re ready with an answer.
3. Act. If you don’t feel very confident or passionate about selling your products or services, acting like you are very confident and extremely passionate about your business is often a great way forward. And amazingly enough, the more you act, the more you’ll start to feel confident and passionate about what you do. Try it, you might be surprised.
4. Practice. The more you talk to people about your business, the more you’ll learn what makes people excited about what you do. Practice talking about your business to everyone you can think of – business contacts, colleagues, partners, friends and family and so on. The more you practice, the more confident you’ll become.
5. Don’t be afraid to try different things. When I first started my business, it took me about 2-3 years to get the description of my services right. It took a lot of trial and error and a lot of tweaking what I was doing. My point is you’ll probably never get it perfect – experiment, try different things and go with what you have. Don’t forget, you can always change it.
6. Don’t ask for advice. When you’re not feeling confident, it’s really easy to ask everyone for advice. When you do this though, you’re admitting you don’t feel confident, which, let’s face it, doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in others does it? Act confident and you’ll find you feel much better and others will feel confident too.

Although talking about your own business in a positive light isn’t easy, it can be done. Try these tips out and see if they work for you.