Your Journey as an
Emerging Change Catalyst
By understanding the journey you are taking as an Emerging Change Catalyst, the struggles you may face, and the key milestones that match your goals, you will stay more focused and hopeful as you move through each phase of the process. Keep reading for more details.
If you’ve never started a business or you haven’t done so in a while, you may feel a bit confused and overwhelmed by all the decisions you need to make and all of the tasks you need to complete before you can get started.
Unfortunately, the list of steps you read online or receive through your courses has likely been created by Seasoned Entrepreneurs for other Seasoned Entrepreneurs who are trying to take their existing business to a new level. This means they have some infrastructure already set up, a following to reach out to, and some successes with their services.
You, however, are likely starting from scratch. You are searching for clarity about the focus of your business, grappling with a lot of logistics for the very first time, and wrestling with whether your work will create the impact you imagine. To expect yourself to check off all the same tasks that the Seasoned business owners are working toward, without having the same foundation, is unreasonable.
Furthermore, some of the “essential” decisions you’ve been taught to focus on first, such as your marketing niche and your client avatar, are difficult to define, when you don’t have a first-hand experience with paying clients. Like the saying goes, it’s like putting the cart before the horse.
As you work toward starting your business, the best you can do is make some preliminary decisions based on your sense of the business you want to create. Then when you start working with your paying clients, you’ll gain new insights that will refine, strengthen, and evolve your vision to better match the needs of your favorite clients. As you consciously engage with clients over time, you will spot multiple ways to improve and deepen the impact of your work, but that’s another story. (See For Seasoned Change Catalysts for more on this phase of the business journey.)
Another interesting aspect of being in business is that you’ll have ample opportunities to dig deep, find faith, and train yourself how to notice where you feel stuck and why. Learning how to turn those moments into opportunities to gain clarity, strengthen your work, and deepen your confidence is a key skill all Emerging Change Catalysts need to learn and nurture.
In all likelihood, your biggest challenges at The Point are:
A lack of clarity about the focus of your business. This alone can hold Emerging Change Catalysts back from taking steps to start their business, for months or even years.
You don’t know what business you want to start.
You aren’t sure what your niche is.
You have several ideas, but you can’t make a decision.
You don’t know who your ideal client is.
A lack of confidence regarding your initial offer and all of the logistics associated with working with your first and next paying clients. (Sometimes clients get bogged down thinking they need to have clarity about their entire business vision before they can start. When they can’t see that big vision, they feel like an imposter. Don’t worry about the big picture at this stage. There will be time for that after you have figured out the basics of being in business and working with clients! Your clients will even show you pieces of the puzzle you don’t know about right now.)
You are currently working with practice clients or low-fee clients, but you aren’t sure how to bring on paying clients.
You are still trying to sort out the logistics, systems, and protocols you need to have in place to work with paying clients.
You are feeling stressed out by the marketing tasks on your to-do list: your website, your social media, your free opt-in gift.
A lack of momentum that’s often rooted in the simple fact that you aren’t sure what steps to take to turn your idea into a viable business. (I know, you’ve been taught that certain tasks need to be done before you can start your business. At this stage of your business, however, you don’t have to implement “all-of-the-things.” If you focus on a few initial tasks, you’ll be able to bring in paying clients more quickly. By working with your clients, you will gain the necessary clarity about your next steps.)
You are getting a few clients sporadically, but you aren’t sure how to replicate the outcome on a regular basis.
You feel clearer about your focus, but you need to figure out how to bring on paying clients more reliably.
Your lack of clarity, confidence, and momentum Then lead to:
An inability to commit to your business 100%. When the foundation of your business is wobbly, it’s hard to claim your commitment to it, so you sit on the fence wondering when, where, and how you are going to make the leap to get your business started.
A cascading sense of self-doubt. When you’ve already invested in the training for your profession, but you haven’t been able to turn that investment into income, you naturally begin to question yourself, your dreams, and your decisions.
A mix of ways you are hesitating — confusion, procrastination, perfection, overwhelm, indecisiveness — that erode your self-esteem, hope, and belief in yourself. These feelings are a natural part of the process of being a business owner. The key is learning how to work with them to find the wisdom they hold for our business.
Unfortunately, the training you receive about marketing strategies does not resolve any of these dynamics above. On the contrary, often the Mainstream Strategies for developing your work and marketing your business do more to reinforce what you already know isn’t working for you.
You don’t need to stay Anchored
in this swirl of emotions!
There is another way to gain clarity, boost your confidence, and start your momentum with a series of small, incremental tasks that verify you are on the right track and confirm your work is just what your clients need to make progress in their own lives.
Carol McClelland Fields, PhD, BCC
Business Mentor for Emerging, Seasoned,
and Trailblazing Change Catalysts.
Now, more than ever, the world needs Change Catalysts who are passionate about helping their clients navigate the significant transitions of our uncertain times. That’s why you invested in the training to become a Change Catalyst, right? To contribute to those who will benefit from your support.