Times are hard. Many businesses are having to pivot or make drastic changes in their business or lose their income. Many others have shuttered (both online and physical) and are losing customers and revenue.

Social media does not seem to be working at all. Organic growth is a myth at this point, unless you’ve built up your business pre-2019. Even better if it was earlier in the decade.

It is now over-saturated, competitive and pay to play (ads). Honestly, the social media platform owners probably never meant for organic growth to last forever, ads and money was always the end-game. How else would they make money for themselves if they weren’t limiting the growth of businesses on the platform?

I still see people in my inbox selling their marketing courses, email marketing strategies, content marketing maps etc, and I always wonder how much do they actually make. Freebies and opt-ins no longer work, people do not need another free guide they never read.

ChatGPT/AI is here to disrupt businesses even further and standardise content generation and ideas.

As if business wasn’t already so cookie-cutter before this.

So how do you actually stand out in this noisy crowded online space?

By being authentically you.

Yes, by being who you are and infusing your values, thoughts, opinions, feelings, creativity and every fibre of your uniqueness into your business.

That is how you get to be successful. That is how you start to build a tribe.

That is how you not only get to start a thriving business, it’s how you maintain it through thick and thin too.

But.

So many business owners are afraid of being themselves online

What is being “yourself” in your business?

Nope it’s not about showing your face and having your photo front and center, just like everyone online likes to tell you. It’s about having the courage and the confidence to be unapologetically yourself.

Many of us filter out aspects of our personality in order to behave a certain way online, in a way that we think is acceptable, in a way that everyone else is behaving.

We do the same things, post the same stuff and do things that we don’t even really enjoy.

And do you know that it shows? Your audience/readers etc can tell if you are really into what you are doing or if you are just doing it for the sake of doing so.

You as a business owner probably wouldn’t feel too good if you were trying to do something that you are not totally. Which brings me to the next point.

The pressure to be perfect is a barrier to authenticity

This is one of the main issues plaguing alot of business owners today. We look around us and everyone seems to be doing so well, they seem to have all the time to do everything – run a business, post on social media, create more products and services and run their personal lives just as well.

We get on Instagram and see others posting about how much they earn, how many customers they got, the amazing reviews their customers are giving them and we feel inadequate and worthless.

We feel that we need to follow exactly what they’ve been doing to see the same success they have.

But alot of times, we really don’t know what is going on behind the scenes for many businesses. Some of them are not as successful as they seem and many aren’t going to reveal what is really happening for them. I’ve written abit here, here and here about what bloggers/website owners may sometimes lie about.

And because of the lack of transparency around doing business and how they achieve their success, we feel that we have to be doing the same in order to be successful.

So we follow whatever they tell us:

• Post thrice a week (or three times a day) on your IG feed/stories (depending on who you are listening to)
• Do videos!! Videos are the in thing! Reels as well! Do them all and you will get more followers. Post them everyday! And don’t forget to use trendy audio/music in your Reels 😉
• Emails not working? Slide into their texts! Get their numbers so you can reach them quicker (i.e. annoy them faster)
• Set up a funnel from your free opt-in! Do a 5-day email challenge while you are at it and funnel people down 5-7 different emails so that they will purchase your product at the end of it.

We do all of that and more and yet we do not see any success.

And we throw in the towel.

What a lot of us don’t realise is that we have been doing it all wrong.

2 things to look at instead.

#1 Only do things that you want to

Don’t want to be on video? Don’t. I’ve never been on video – and never will be because I’m protective of my privacy – and my business has never suffered.

Don’t want to be on any of the social media platforms? Don’t. Social media is not a must, like I’d be sharing in my book. I’ve experimented with different platforms over the years and have never been consistent with any except Pinterest and again, my business has never tanked.

You don’t have to do anything in business if you don’t want to. Especially if it doesn’t align with your values and if you feel like crap doing it.

The people who are telling you to do certain things in order for you to see success? They are telling you all that because

• It worked for them.
• They want to sell you something. So they just gotta tell you that it worked for them.

The thing is, there is no guarantee of success if you follow any of the strategies that someone else tells you.

Because ultimately, it has to align with what feels good to you. Especially if you want a business that lasts for a long time.

#2 Shift your perspective

There is no get-rich-quick method to business. Sorry to burst your bubble. A lot of business owners – those that are truly successful – did anything but got rich quickly.

What they did though – they experimented, took risks, changed things when it came time to do so and kept showing up for whatever they needed to do.

Many also have a true liking or passion for what they did. They weren’t in it just to cash in quickly.

This was something that took me awhile to learn as well – I was all about getting results fast and furious at first. But business is usually not like that. You are in it for the long so you do need to take the time to figure out what is truly working.

Be creative and bold. Do things that you probably wouldn’t have before. Experiment. If something doesn’t work? Let it go, it’s fine. You can come back to it later on if you get a feel for it again.

Question: How can you start to become more authentic in your business?

Do you even feel happy running your business everyday? Where is it not aligning? What can you do to shift it?

Need more help? Tools, tips, a roadmap, a different perspective?

I wrote this book just for you.