60-Day Financial Fitness Challenge: Day 15

Today’s Task:

Pursue 5 contract leads

One of the best things that you can do as an entrepreneur is to always be selling. 😀 

This was one of my favorite acronyms they taught us at Cutco. ABS. I remember when they first said that, I thought, “Automatic Braking System!” The racer in me immediately when to cars. 

There’s actually a lot more to it than you’d think. Every interaction you have with someone is pretty much a sale. It’s the way you sign off on your emails. The way you smile. If you smile. Do you greet others with a hug? Do you express genuine concern for their wellbeing? Do you send handwritten notes? 

In other words, what is your brand? What are you known for? 

I find this so ironic because talking with my therapist (Yes! You should get one!), the big takeaway that we’re having is that I hardly know myself. As in, I can very easily rattle off a bunch of words that I believe others would use to describe me, but they are all in terms of work. But when it comes to any other qualities, I pretty much draw a blank. I’ve gone through a lot of evaluative programs and done a bunch of tests that all work to characterize me. Whether it’s a strengths test, the one that generates the four letters (INFJ anyone?), or even human design, they’re all trying to put me in a category. Tell me what I’m good at, what doesn’t come naturally, etc. Unfortunately, a lot of them leave out the ‘soft’ characteristics. You know, the ones that also contribute to your personal brand and make you YOU.

It’s funny for me to think about the reaction that I got when I shared my personal brand final report a couple of years ago with my family as part of a class I took in college: “Effortless equilibrium” it said. In many ways what I wrote was aspirational. How I actually perceive myself is that I’m messy, I’m always doing a thousand things at once, I have no plan, I’m not organized, and I have anything BUT equilibrium in my life. Any sense of balance that I create comes from a ton of discipline over time in building habits that I love. But others probably perceive a very different version of Emily. I had the same issue when I was writing down characteristics about myself – what do I know to be true vs. what am I working towards vs. what other people see in me? And when is who I am NOW good enough?

For someone who is constantly focusing on their own personal growth, appreciating where I am in life currently is probably one of my biggest challenges. 

How is this related to personal finance and to the idea of ‘always be selling’? When I think about it, part of what my personal brand is ‘growth’ or ‘improvement’. Because I never want to settle for half-ass. I want to do and be the best that I can, in any given situation or circumstance. And I’m always looking at the glass half full instead of empty. The collective experiences that others have had in interacting with me have informed their view of who I am. 

The critical part here is to examine what are you saying about yourself? And your ability to manage money? 

Are you telling yourself that you suck with money? That you can’t save because your parents never did? That you will never have enough? That it’s always been hard to imagine having money in the bank? That you hate money because it never stays around? 

Try an experiment and do a self audit tomorrow – listen to yourself (whether it’s the internal or external dialogue, because you know you’re talking to yourself in your head. Don’t tell me you aren’t.) and catch the moments when you get on to the topic of money. Is it positive or negative? Where do you have an opportunity to rewire your thought patterns – stop yourself in the moment – and reframe whatever it is you were about to say?

Words carry energy with them whether you like it or not. When you put ideas into the world with your voice, you help create that reality for yourself.

Let’s bring it back to contract leads. While it’s great to set goals and making financial projections, it’s also important to create positive momentum towards those goals through aligned action. For me, it’s making sure that come January 1 I still have enough contract work to keep myself on sound financial footing. For you, it’s likely to look very different.

And unfortunately the lead times on the work I do are anywhere from 30 days to six months. A lot of these things are slow to come to fruition. But the small actions that you take each day add up. 

So here’s what I did. I made one phone call. Got it returned and had a great conversation that turned into “let’s find a place for you on our team in March”. I had a Zoom call, which let to a meeting next month to discuss partnership opportunities and identifying funding to support it. I attended a city council meeting, which led to a follow up email requesting the opportunity to submit a bid. I sent an email as a heads up that there’s a phone call coming to discuss partnership opportunities. And I sent one more email as a follow-up from a meeting last week, including a very clear “I am available for hire” as part of the message.

While none of these actions resulted in a sale today, they did get me one inch closer to one. And that’s all I need.

What’s your aligned action?

Today’s resources to keep you inspired:

Susan Shane’s Travel Blog – The one that I think I’ve been following since high school!