4 Ways You Can Win More Business by Selling Yourself Short

We know the title of this post sounds counterintuitive, but by leaning into your shortcomings, you can build greater trust with your customers and clients. The healthiest professional relationships center on honesty and authenticity. Even when the truth is less than flattering, it’s better to be upfront about your potential weaknesses than attempt otherwise.

If nothing else, consider practicing radical authenticity as a strategic power move. People always root for the underdog after all. In this post, we will aim to highlight the ways in which selling yourself short can be used to your advantage and even help translate into landing a sale.

Generating Trust Quickly

Building lasting trust with your clients and customers may take time. Losing that trust and credibility, however, can occur very suddenly. For small businesses, often the quickest way to lose face with clients and customers is to fail in delivering promises.

Set the right expectations by practicing authenticity and being upfront about what your business can and cannot accomplish. Overextending yourself and the capabilities of your business is ultimately an unsustainable and futile gesture. Stepping beyond your limits as a business not only harms your relationships with customers and clients but can also result in feelings of immense burnout.

Be clear about your services and do not feel shame or embarrassment when communicating how you cannot help in certain areas. Present the information with confidence and forethought. Do brain surgeons sell themselves short when they admit they cannot fix a car engine? Technically yes, but no one thinks any less of them regardless.

Transparency is Key

This may run counter to more traditional views of charisma, but one of the most confident things a business owner can do is embrace transparency. Sharing your business’s strengths and weaknesses requires a certain level of integrity and comfort with oneself that others often find disarming.

Additionally, embracing honesty and transparency can be highly infectious. When clients and customers recognize that a business is building a space that reinforces authenticity, they too may feel more comfortable communicating their specific pain points. This allows your business to better serve your clients and customers, as you are both left with a greater understanding of their top values and priorities.

A Litmus Test for Quality Leads

We would be remiss to not mention that selling yourself short and being honest about your limits may be a turn-off to certain prospects. Before viewing these rejections as exclusively negative, consider the possibility that these specific clients would not have been a good fit for your business. The goal should not be to convert every lead but to work with clients where there is mutual alignment.

Being upfront and transparent can help prevent you from wasting time with leads that are not worth chasing after. The alternative is committing to a customer or client with unrealistic—and potentially harmful— expectations regarding your service.

Resisting the Urge to be a Jack of All Trades

Put yourself in the shoes of a prospective client or customer. Are you more likely to place your trust a small business that promises 110% quality service in all areas or a small business that promises expertise in a specific, bespoke area of service?

Electricians do not promise to fix our pipes. Just as plumbers do not install our lighting systems. But when starting a business, particularly in the service realm, owners can often advertise themselves as a jack of all trades. In practice, this strategy is more likely to result in business owners spreading themselves too thin and overextending their reach.

The mindset of ‘beneficially selling yourself short’ can help business owners focus more on their strengths and what helps them stand out in the market. Business owners are under no obligation to continue providing certain services if they are not seeing any growth in that area.

Focus your efforts instead on maximizing the services that you feel most adept at and provide the most value for your customers and clients. Delivering consistent, quality service is the surest path toward continuing to grow your business. Happy clients equal more referrals, which ultimately equals more leads.

Get in touch with our office today to learn more about how Sebastian Lane’s fractional sales management services can help grow your business, build stronger client relationships, and capture more leads. Call Sebastian Lane Consulting at 443-534-6783 or email us at jesse@sebastianlaneconsulting.com.

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