Are you selling yourself short? 

(Hint: You might be).

I’d like you to stop selling yourself short. 

In my job as a business coach for trades and builders, lots of people come to me lacking confidence in their business skills. When I wrote this yesterday, I thought, “Well why would you come to a business coach if you didn’t think your business skills needed to get better?”, which is a fair point. 

But a lot of people who want to improve their business skills take it further and think that it makes you deficient, less smart and less good in general.

And that’s not the case – you’re not deficient,  you just don’t know these things.

People say things, “I’m just a tradie, I don’t understand business” or “I don’t know anything about business”. They say, “I didn’t finish school” or they say, ” I’ve never learned business”.

You put yourself down by comparing yourself to people who you feel like have got it all going on.

I’m talking about the suits, doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc.

You can let other people do it to you as well. 

People try and put you down. 

People try and build themselves up by comparison to you and perhaps suggesting that ‘you’re only a tradesperson’.

Everyone has this going on a bit. You’re not alone in letting people do that to you. No matter how successful we all are, there’s always some to look at and compare yourself and think, “I’m not doing as well as them”.

I do it –  we all do it. I look at other business coaches and their marketing on Facebook and think they get more people at their events than me and feel bad. I have to stop myself and go, “What they do doesn’t matter, just ignore it, Jon”.

There are people who will put you down, even your customers when they’re in a negotiation with you and want to either push you on price or on a job.

How to build self-confidence

The pressure is there. And if this is happening and you sometimes feel like less of a person, I’ve got a few things to say to you.

Recommended Reading: Don’t Undervalue Yourself – Stop Discounting!

1. You are selling yourself short because you’re not deficient. 
2. In the areas where you are deficient (specifically of your business knowledge and your business confidence), you can go and learn and you can pick it up.

I teach people business and they’re not stupid. They can learn it and so can you.

Here’s why you’re not deficient: 

1. You’re a tradesperson.
   You learned your trade and went through an apprenticeship. It’s a difficult thing. It requires effort, brains and commitment. Not many people have that. So you’re already ahead just by virtue of having picked off a trade.
2. You’re a business owner.

Only 14% of employed people in Australia, (this is an Australian Bureau of Statistics) with a job own their own business. So you’re one of the 14% who were brave enough to start your own business. And if you employ people, you’re in an even smaller minority because less than half of those businesses (14 %) employ staff. So if you’ve got staff, even just one apprentice, you’re in another minority of people.

You’re not deficient. You learned the trade, started a business (which terrifies most people) and you already employ people. It’s why you’re watching my videos.

Here’s another statistic.

Only 5.2% of people who own a business have got a business or management qualification. That means 95% don’t have anything either.

We all didn’t learn. We’re all in this position where we have them call a qualification that somehow validates our business knowledge. (I don’t have one either). 

So, you’re not deficient. You’re smarter and have bigger balls than most people. And you must know a fair bit about business to have gotten this far. 

Most of the other people who are successful in business are learning it on the job and picking up experience, just like me.

“Is there stuff you don’t know about the business?” Of course, there’s stuff. 

Even Warren Buffet and Richard Branson have stuff they don’t know.

And there’s stuff you know about your trade that Richard Branson, Warren Buffet and business coaches will never understand either. You’re an expert in that, I’m an expert in business.

We all have things we know and don’t know. There’s nothing wrong with that.

You can learn business.

You can learn it by coming to me as your business coach and saying, “Help me learn this stuff that’s relevant to my trade business, Jon”.

You can do that. 

It’s not the only way. You can read books, go on courses, go back to TAFE or go back to university. 

There are many options for you. 

I hope you realise that you’re not deficient. I hope those thoughts help you hold your head up high because you shouldn’t let people or situations squash you down. I don’t want you to do that.

Here’s another comment for you – trade businesses can make proper money just like doctors, lawyers, and accountants. 

The construction industry is one of the biggest in the world.

Our businesses range from small to massive. Think about Lend Lease and people like that. 

People make millions. You can make millions if you choose to and if you play your cards right. You can be successful and wealthy. How far you want to go is up to you I think.

One of my clients is an iron builder and he recently built a $10 million house for a guy who runs a form working business.

So tradies can afford to spend $10 million on a new house.

There’s money out there to be made in trades just as you should be rightly proud of where you are and how you’ve gotten there.

Don’t sell yourself short, please.

If you want my help, you know what to do.