Is Fear Stopping You From Blogging for Your Business?
Your website is the place people go to learn more about your business. For many of you, it’s your actual storefront too!
When visitors land on your website, they don’t get to meet you in person and ask you questions or get any kind of impression of you at all, other than what they see on your website.
And you want them to give you their MONEY??? That’s a big ask, my friend.
So what do you do when meeting your potential customer is impossible? (And even when it is possible?)
You blog.
Your blog is the place where you can provide all kinds of free, expert (yes, you ARE an expert) advice and value to your potential customers so they will feel confident knowing that you know what you’re doing.
In a word, blogging builds ‘trust.’
Blogging accomplishes lots of other important goals too, and please feel free to read about some of them in this blog post over here, but for THIS blog post, I want to address a problem that many of you have as it pertains to blogging.
You’re afraid to blog. Yikes!
You Are Afraid to Put Yourself Out There
I get it! Blogging can make you feel, well, vulnerable!
Putting your own thoughts, feelings, opinions, beliefs, etc. out there on the internet where literally anyone can see them can feel very uncomfortable.
When this ‘feeling’ starts to rear its ugly head, ask yourself, “Why?” Because something is at the root of this feeling.
Now, I’m no psychoanalyst, but I’ve been on this planet a while and I’ve had to do a lot of my own ‘work,’ so I’ve picked up a few things along the way.
I’ve also worked with several impressive, professional, highly competent business owners who are experts at what they do and witnessed for myself that a person’s level of expertise does not seem to matter when it comes to those who are afraid to blog.
Speaking completely anecdotally, these are what I think are the most common reasons people are afraid to blog for their business:
You’re introverted by nature
Someone criticized your writing once and it left you feeling incompetent
Your teacher left red ink all over your essay and it left a permanent mark, not only on your paper but on your ego
English is a second language for you and you’re nervous about making grammatical errors
You are suffering from ‘Imposter Syndrome’ (you know who you are…probably most of you)
You’re afraid of looking ‘stupid,’ ie., OTHER people thinking you look stupid
You’re afraid of being wrong
You don’t do anything you can’t do perfectly because you are a perfectionist
Why These Reasons Don’t Hold Weight
Okay, now that we’ve got that nasty business out of the way where I expose the fears of your inner child, let’s do some inner child work, shall we?
Let’s break this down and give you some CONFIDENCE!!!
Someone criticized your writing and now you feel incompetent
When someone criticizes you, it has nothing to do with you. You know that, right? When people criticize (in a non-constructive way) it says everything about them and nothing about you. It is THEIR fear and THEIR insecurity speaking, don’t let them project their fears onto you.
Now, if someone has offered constructive feedback, take it in context. Feedback IS a good thing, but blogging is supposed to be in your words in your voice so that it’s authentically you. It’s not a thesis for heaven’s sake!
Your teacher left red ink all over your essay and it left a permanent mark, not only on your paper but on your ego
It’s your teacher’s job to, well, teach you. And they are teaching you the ‘right way’ to write, like, as in, if you were handing in a paper, or writing a book, or a thesis, or an article for a medical journal, etc.
In those cases, you do need to follow the ‘rules.’ But that is what is so GREAT about blogging. There really aren’t any grammatical rules, except that you need to use your brand voice (ie, your voice) and be authentic.
Look at my horrible grammar! Don’t get me wrong, my grammar is actually quite good. But I want you to hear what I sound like when I’m talking to you. I don’t always use proper grammar in speech. (And sometimes I even swear—gasp!)
So don’t worry about all those red marks on your paper, they don’t apply here.
English is a second language for you and you’re nervous about making grammatical errors
Please do not deprive the world of your gifts, knowledge, and expertise for this reason. It may surprise you to know that we English-speaking people have a tremendous amount of respect for you
Learning a second language is hard! I’ve spent years learning French and I’m so limited in my communication with French-speaking people. I’m learning Italian right now and it is not easy. I fantasize about speaking and writing a second language as well as you do!
If you can speak and live and work in an English-speaking country and function as well as you do, our hats are off to you.
Can I hear a “Hell Yeah” in the comments please? ↓
Let’s give these folks some serious kudos and confidence because they blow me away!
My brilliant client Amanda of Restore Digestion from Cambodia had an idea: She suggested writing a post and pasting the content into ChatGPT for correction. I haven’t tried this, but it seems like a really good idea if it will make you feel more confident.
You are suffering from ‘Imposter Syndrome’
I had a client (actually 2 clients—they were partners) who wouldn’t let me use the word “experts” to describe them on their own website.
Lemme tell you something—you ARE an expert. Being an expert doesn’t mean you have to have all the answers. You don’t have all the answers because no one does.
When I had my women’s cycling blog, I read a book called Make Money From Blogging written by Sally Miller and Lisa Tanner and they say something like this, “To a third grader, a fifth grader is an expert.”
BAM!
You KNOW you’ve got something to say that will help people. Let it out! Sure, there’s someone else who knows more, there always is, but there are people out there looking for the answers that YOU have. And you know it.
You’re afraid of looking ‘stupid,’ ie, OTHER people thinking you look stupid
Honestly, I don’t think anyone is going to give you that much attention. But even if they do, this says everything about their own insecurities and nothing about you.
The flip side to this is, who cares? So what? So what if some jerk thinks you “look stupid?” Then he/she is not your person. They are not your customer. Don’t worry about them.
You’re afraid of being wrong
I’m not gonna lie, this can and does happen. But you should see this as an opportunity.
For example, when I create tech tutorials, I’ve learned to let people know the date of the recording because tech is changing all the time (so annoying—but so necessary).
When I speak of mistakes as being an opportunity, being wrong is okay sometimes. What matters is how you handle it when you ARE wrong.
If someone publicly calls you out on something you said or wrote that was wrong, don’t get defensive, thank them. Make any corrections you need to, own your mistake, and move on. It’s not the end of the world.
It’s actually an opportunity to reinforce your authenticity and build even more trust with your readers.
Even Warren Buffet is known for being completely transparent and upfront with investors when he’s made a bad buying decision. Yes—even Warren Buffet makes mistakes.
You don’t do anything if you think you can’t do it perfectly because you are a perfectionist
Please oh please oh please, stop being so hard on yourself!
This is most common in women, especially middle-aged women because we were raised to be very cautious.
Without beating up on our parents for this, let’s show them compassion. They thought they were helping us, and I know that my mom grew up in a time when women rarely had careers, so I’d say she’s come a long way.
I think I’ll include her picture here for shits and giggles (←note my grammar and casual tone).
Me and my Mom
But seriously, I promise you, you are your own worst critic. Just rip off that bandaid and start blogging! You are way too smart to keep all that helpful knowledge all to yourself!
And besides, being perfect is very off-putting, and I elaborate on that in the next paragraph. ↓
Don’t Try to Be Perfect
In a world that is (almost quite literally) ruled by social media, people are starving for authenticity.
Your blog is the perfect medium for conveying your authentic self.
It always blows me away to see people who have clearly spent hours on clothing, makeup, recording, editing, writing, and hashtagging, to create one single post for Instagram that will result in zero clicks through to their website. And they…are…so…FAKE! It’s obvious that it’s been choreographed to death.
The good news is you actually DON’T want to do that in your blog. Just be you.
I have to admit that when recording YouTube videos I don’t worry about much of this. If I’m wearing makeup in a video, trust me when I tell you, this is a coincidence.
I don’t even care what the background looks like. It’s the information my viewers care about, not my clothing or hair or makeup or what room I happen to be in. And if they DO care about that stuff, then they are not my people.
Be Kind to Yourself
Blogging is the single best way to drive traffic to your website, and it’s not right that you would let your fear of blogging get in the way of your website’s success.
Overcoming this fear will advance your business, your confidence, and you’ll just be damn proud of yourself.
The best advice I can impart to you is to just be kind to yourself. As you get started, you don’t have to be good at it. Just like everything else in life, you’ll get better as you go along. You can’t refine what hasn’t been started.
If you really want to feel better about yourself, go back and look at my really old blog posts. They’re terrible! And guess what? I’m going to leave them right where they are.
Is This You?
Did I hit the nail on the head? Or is there some other fear that is keeping you from blogging? Please share your thoughts in the comments and let’s unpack them together! 👇
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