Let me start here. It's Monday, January 5th, 2026, and if you've been telling yourself, I just need to get more consistent this year, or I know what to do, I just need to do it this year, or once I feel more confident, I'll put myself out there this year. I want you to pause, breathe, because if you want these things, I want you to think about this one thing.

What if none of that is actually true? Wow. Welcome back to the Selling Your Expertise podcast. I'm your host Renee Hribar, and I'm bringing you the New Year kickoff. Oh yeah. Everything you hear me share right now with you today is based on working with thousands of smart. Capable entrepreneurs who have gone on to sell millions of dollars in products and services.

I have had a sales agency for over a decade selling business to business services, consulting products. I even had a beverage company. What I've been doing here in the online space. From writing a book to hosting communities, to hosting events, programs, bootcamps, and one-on-one client work is to help you.

And I want you to hear this. So turn up the volume and let's kick off 2026, baby. All right, we're gonna do this first. Repeat after me. I am not lazy. I'm not broken. It's possible if you're not lazy and you're not broken, which I know you're not, you're just unsupported and worse. Unpracticed. What? That's where we're starting today because January doesn't need motivation.

January needs a little honesty. Oh yes, I know. Just like me in the scale this morning, woo. Honest, January has one. Job not to hype you up and give you a shiny, new tactic. And definitely not to convince you you're capable. You already know that January's job is to move you from, I'm thinking about selling to, I need a system and a place to practice this, and that starts by naming the real reason you've been feeling stuck.

Spoiler alert, it's not. More confidence or content, and it's not even about your pricing. Oh, I know so many people are talking about that. Oh, it makes me nuts. Those are just symptoms. Those are not root causes. So here's the pattern I see all the time because the symptoms keep coming up. I need more content.

I need to be more confident. I need to get my pricing right, my offers, right, my messaging right. Symptom, symptom, symptom, symptom. I can't just tape a Tylenol to it. Friends, I know a lot of you are Gen Xers like me, but we need a little more support than that. Like a good bra, right? You know what I'm talking about?

All right, so here's the pattern I see all the time. You spend a lot of time thinking about your offers, your positioning, your messaging, what you should be doing, and when the timing will feel right to make that offer. You think about launching that membership or reconnecting with that. Old colleague who's killing it in this new role.

She just announced on LinkedIn. You think a lot about those things. You replay conversations in your head, you rewrite posts, but don't publish them. You analyze. But you're not taking action. It's like sending that email to check in and reconnect with a former client or connection from the last conference you attended.

You know the one I'm talking about, if this is not ringing a bell, go back to episode 51 where I talked about how to make money from the couch eating cheese. Okay. It's funny. You'll love it. You're welcome. Here's what I want you to tell yourself. And I want you to think about this in the biggest heart that you possibly can, again, repeat after me.

I am not lazy. I am not broken. But what I think you're telling yourself is, oh, I'm just being cautious, or I don't wanna make the wrong move and ruin something, or I don't wanna come off too strong and offend anyone. But here's the truth, and I want you to take this with love your thinking in circles round and round the mulberry bush because there is no container holding you steady.

I can't tell you how many times I I working with someone, even if it's on a Zoom call, and I'm like, I'm just gonna reach out. Uh, virtually and grab your shoulders and shake you a little bit because like in the movie Moonstruck with Cher, do you remember that scene where she slaps Nicholas Cage across the face and she's like, snap out of it.

That's how I feel so often because I see in front of me is someone who's amazing, who's smart, who's incredible, who can do anything, who has done so many things doubting herself. And so here's what's happening. When there's no rhythm, there's no weekly expectation. You know, there's no KPIs. There's no one asking you if you had X amount of page views on that freebie or on that workshop offer that you put out.

There's no place where action is normal action inside your business. 'cause if. If you're like me, you're working alone most of the time. I mean, I'm recording this alone in my home podcast studio, which means, you know, uh, it's a room in my house. I mean, yes, for many years I had an office and an office space, but what I do hasn't changed and.

That can be lonely sometimes, and it can be a little weird, especially when a lot of us were used to sort of cut our teeth on, came up in the corporate world where there were a lot of people around all the time and. It really does shift the way we think about ourselves, what we need to do, when we need to do it, how we need to do it.

'cause we're sort of in that precipice of like, well, I wanna reject corporate structure, um, and all the thing, all the negative things that corporate gave me, but also I want to embrace the corporate dollar and I wanna be able to make the money I wanna make to live the life I know. Is possible for me. And so when you're thinking in circles like that without the rhythm or the weekly expectations, a k, a, no one to check in on you, no place where action is normal, your brain starts to fill the gap with more thinking and it feels productive.

Like research, right? Yeah. Your researching as you take 52 screenshots of someone else's offer, save their launch emails and stuff them into a Google Drive folder where they collect. Digital dust until you accidentally stumble upon them months later, while you're looking up that recipe your cousin sent you last mother's day, how do I know this?

How do I know this? Because I'm not new here. I work with thousands of people just like you. Just like me. I mean, I'm not immune to these problems. I just know that those symptoms of thinking and wondering and worrying are just that symptoms, and we just need to get to the core of the matter. So when you look at the ideas that other people's sales pages have sparked in you and you push it down with the shame you face when you scroll through LinkedIn and should all over yourself, I don't want you to keep doing that.

Thinking does feel safe. I get that research feels like progress. I understand. But it's not that idea, that research that could be a great post or launch for you, but you're waiting for the right time, the time to be right. The thing to get done, if you nodded along to any of this, I'm talking to you, right?

I'm talking to you. I feel for you. Don't, I'm telling you. Don't look away. You got this. We're in this together. Just like I had to look that scale in the face this morning, I'm giving it to you just like I gave it to myself. So let me give you an example. I, you know that I love to give examples. I, again, I do work with a lot of great people.

This particular one, she is a freaking rockstar. She's a website designer slash dashboard builder slash ai expert. Um, and she has earned her 10,000 hours. In each area of discipline I just listed out for you, she is a bone of fad expert. She's smart, she's experienced, she's funny. She knows her craft cold, and she's always gotten great referrals.

Until recently when a lot of the activities that she was doing had to stop because her attention was. Pulled in a different direction due to a major life shift, a change in her personal situation, and if that resonates with any of you, again, keep on listening. I'm talking to you. We're gonna make this happen.

We're gonna get January kick. 2026 is ours, baby. All right, so here's the reality. This particular woman, she is having conversations. She is networking, she is doing coffee chats, and she says in her southern drawl, I'm just connecting. I just love it. As a New Yorker, who nows lives in the Midwest for a long time, I just, I just love the southern drawl.

Okay, so during one of her messages, here's the part that I want you to think about. This is the focus. This is what she said to me, and I've heard this so many times. It made me stop dead in my tracks. So she's messaging me back and forth and she wrote this. She goes, I'm great at the conversation. I just don't know when it turns into the selling part.

She put that in quotes. Let me, let me share that again. Okay. Because this is a big part. She wrote. I'm great at the conversation. I just don't know when it turns into the selling part. So I'm laughing because I'm excited. I'm excited because if you've ever said that or you've thought that, or if you wondered that, I'm excited 'cause we're gonna do good things today.

See, she wasn't confused about her offer. She wasn't unclear on her value. She wasn't afraid of people. She just didn't know how to lead the relationship forward. Specifically in these exact scenarios. So every conversation she had that she was actively going out there, putting herself out there, like the gurus say, ended with, well, that was nice and nothing happened after that.

No next step, no direction. It's not a confidence problem. That's not even a knowledge problem because she listened to this podcast just like you and read my book cover to cover. She even showed me where she had highlighted and put tabs up with her own handwritten notes in the margins. She knows that she needs to ask questions and then invite to the natural, natural next step, but she said, when I would be having these conversations, now I'm just being silly with her Southern drawl trying to.

It just didn't feel like the right time. I figured they'd come back if they thought they needed me. I love her so much and I love her Southern accent. So the point is this, I wanted to fall down on the floor. I wanted to fall down on the floor. Because with all that cute and punchy way that, you know, I know all of our AI helpers write our about me and our taglines even.

I get challenged and have to figure out what does this person actually do and how does it pertain to me and my business? And I bet they know. I bet they know. Right? So if, if you were. Able to come to me and you certainly can in my inbox or dms and say, Hey Renee, I have this solution and here's how I think it could help your business.

You could say that and that would be helpful. The challenge is, 'cause people do this all the time, is context. How do I know who you are? Who is this a stranger danger? You know, what is your background and experience? We've gotta give people a chance to get to know us. We talk about that a lot. That's the part she was really good at.

She was really good at getting to know people, but she didn't have that next step. And so again, you do know what I could do better based on your expertise. I bet you do. I bet. You're like, I bet you she could do this better. Or Sheik should do that better. I bet you have ideas. It'd be great if you shared 'em with me.

I'm always open. Good people who are growing their businesses are always open for new ideas. However, the problem is, is that most people don't. Actually tell anybody they're afraid of, of offending someone. They don't build in the context. They either do it too fast too soon, or they don't do it at all. And the way I teach selling is to start to ask the questions to help qualify them early on.

Like as soon as you start meeting them, you're just gathering information, connecting the dots, building a bridge through questions, and you're building. What I call a recon sheet, which is basically your internal document where you get to figure out where does this person belong in my life? Are they a connector, a collaborator, a client?

Are they just someone that I know that I don't really talk to? That's always a possibility. Uh, I talk to Gary V all the time. He doesn't talk to me, he doesn't know who I am. He doesn't know that I'm secretly his best friend. And maybe that's our relationship. The point is, is that everybody has a spot in our life.

Everybody fits somewhere. And so if you're out there networking and you know your value, you know you're worth like this particular person, then it's about a structure and a, and the process, right? So the problem is they're waiting for the time to be right, or for me to figure it out. Me to figure it out as a customer, right?

Your customers, to figure it out. So at this point, it becomes a practice problem. So all of this is right back to the line. I say over and over again to the smart, awesome professionals in my permission to sell program, my newest program, which I'm so excited about when they say things to me like. It, you know, like, I did this and I tried this and I, I published that, or I was, I was drafting this and I said, this is not knowledge.

You know what to do. This is about practice and when you practice it, you'll see your own. Missteps, you'll see your own gaps. And I think that's the big difference that they always say about me is I actually teach them how to see for themselves, teach them how to self-diagnose so that they don't need me forever or they don't need me forever for that.

Because at the end of the day, new level, new devil, I wanna fix this problem so we can create a new one and then I can help you fix that one. Because growing and scaling your business, there's gonna be new things around every corner, and that's what I love to do is help people navigate that. So. Let's make some money first, right?

Because you don't have a business unless you're making some money. If you're not making money, it's just a real expensive hobby, and I don't want that for you. So you've got skills, you've got ways you can help people. You've got things you've done already. You've got knowledge. Now let's put it into practice.

So you don't, here's the thing, you don't learn selling by thinking about it. My first sales manager's like, you're not gonna know if they want it until you. Put it on the table and make the offer. And of course, to do that, there's things you need to do first so that that offer is well received. And so you don't get better at consuming more content.

You know, that's not the goal here. The goal is not to consume more content. You don't get better at selling by consuming more content. That's something people say, I need to learn, I need to learn more. I need to read up on it. Yes, that's always good, of course, but that alone by itself isn't enough. So yes.

For sure I'm always learning, but I'm also not over con. There's a point where I'm over consuming. I need to consume enough to take some action, do some tests, look at the data, see if it makes sense, and either skip it or go down deep, like dive deep on it. And so I also wanna say that you don't build confidence by waiting for the right time.

Confidence comes after repetition. You know, my son just started going to the gym all the time. God love him. And I've taken him to the gym many times with me. But it's always like with other ladies my age, you know, that's, those are, that's my crew, right? And so he's always like, oh, eye roll. But he did learn a lot.

We did take some, uh, like CrossFit classes and, you know, those are big weights and those, there's definitely a structure to it. Well. He still, you know, of course was exposed to it. He learned it to say. But after doing it himself over and over again and again going to the gym much more now, he's like, I feel so much more confident just walking in, working my, you know, getting my workout in.

I know what reps to do. I know how to increase my weights. I know how to put the weights on and off. I know how to adjust the seat. I know how to. Where the spray bottle is to clean it off. I know where this is. I know where I have my own lock for the locker. Like little things make all the difference. So it comes after repetition.

So we've got to be willing to put ourselves out there, but I don't wanna do it in an unsafe environment. Right. So. This is where practice repetition comes in. It's the best thing ever. So clarity as well is something we need. It comes after you give it a try, and yes, maybe it won't work out as you planned.

It could be better. So I had one client who was like, I'm not clear if this is the offer I wanna make to everyone. I'm like, I. Well, we can't know that. So let's just work on is this the offer to make to that person? And she's like, well, I don't think this person has any money. She said she just started her business.

This is my client, another client who has a marketing agency, and her fee started about $5,000 a month. And I'm like, well, she's obviously got something, an idea. People do have startup money. Um, so. Let's ask her the question, what is your budget? What are, you know, where's your funding coming from? Well, my client rings me back immediately after she hangs up and she's like, this woman just got awarded 2.8 million for with VC funding.

I'm like, yeah, she needs your help and she's got money to spend. She's like, Renee, I would've, I would've blown her off. I would've canceled the call if you hadn't talked to me about that. So, clarity about what to offer. Often comes after you give it a try, and yeah, it might not work out as planned. It could be better.

So the other thing everybody wants in 2026 is momentum and speed. And that comes after you feel safe in a container going slow, and then you can go fast and build on it. So one thing I tell my initial permission to sell clients is, listen, let's just get you working 25 hours a week making 250 K base, right?

And they're like, well, I wanna make more than that. Hey, I get that. Let's make that first and then we can make more. 'cause that baseline gets rid of all the, the cracks in their, in their plan. It fills 'em in, it carves 'em out, and it lets things run smoothly. So we have a. Foundation to build on. 'cause I have seen it many times.

You maybe have too, where you see somebody collecting a big award, oh, you got the million dollar award. Oh, okay, cool. That's awesome. And then you, they're like, I'm broke though, because they spent all their money to make that money and then they ended up in the red. So those are things I want you to avoid.

We're gonna go slow first so that we can go fast later. So yes, you started out by thinking about it. Great. We're moving on to practice and now we're gonna move on to confidence and clarity and momentum and being able to sell your expertise is not something some people are just good at. That's another myth I wanted dispel, because that's like saying Serena and Venus Williams are just good at tennis.

No, it came down to knowing what to do and then practicing it, and we've seen the documentaries right. Practicing it with, with, uh, guidance, I guess would be a gentle way to say that, but it's a behavior, a checklist. It's something you can control. It's a decision you make. I'm going to practice tennis today or, you know, my, my backswing or my serve.

So what are you going to practice today? Like if you go back to episode 51, you're gonna hear more about how to make money from the couch eating cheese. It is about going through your inbox. And making, and I even gave you a script making specific outreach messages to people that have been in your inbox maybe for years and, uh, never anything happened.

But you're gonna shift that and you're gonna make something happen. 'cause right now you're trying to do everything solo in your head with no practice, and honestly, that is not fair to you, especially because you probably have big dreams, right? You want things, maybe you want a new hairstyle. I'm thinking about one, my hair's grown out.

You know, there's always that. I don't know if you go through the same thing. Should I cut it? Should I have bangs? Should I, should I go above the shoulder? Should I let it grow? I don't know. This is every woman's bane. Like on repeat. Um, maybe you want a new address. Maybe you wanna add an address to your portfolio.

So maybe you wanna move or maybe you wanna have a second house or a third home or an investment property, or build your investment portfolio. Maybe you wanna pay off your mom's mortgage. So she doesn't have to worry about it anymore. Maybe you wanna pay off your, your student loans or your kids' student loans.

Um. Maybe you wanna travel more, even if it's just to see your sister in Virginia. Like you want to be taken seriously. You've been working at growing your business and now you're ready to show a profit, not just fun money, but a real profit center. At the same time, you do not want to work all the time and you want to stay in the lane of the work you will love to do, not just those one-offs.

You can get a bit on off Upwork, right? Gosh, don't do that. So here's another lie I need to clear out. I'm clearing, I'm clearing it out. Selling is not a pitch or a single brave moment when you blurt out the price. Selling is a sequence of small decisions like the ones I ask the women I work with each week, right?

Who am I paying attention to this week? What conversations am I opening? What conversations am I closing? What direction am I guiding this? Particular person towards, so most people don't get stuck because they can't sell. They get stuck because nothing is guiding their weak. Their focus is all over the place, and they're completely reactive like this.

They get an email, maybe it's inviting them to be a speaker on a summit. They react to it. They get a message from a client, they. To it, taking an extra two unplanned hours out of their already busy day. They scroll for a minute and they see something someone else is doing and they dive down a research rabbit hole only to never do anything with it except shove it on their Google Drive and say, I'll focus on that when the time is right.

Girls, are you listening to this? Then their doorbell rings. It's the groceries being delivered, being in reactive mode. They get up and sort that out. Meanwhile, one of the kids or the spouse pops into the kitchen and asks about something that they also then react to. It's a vicious daily cycle. I'm laughing because this is, this is a life that I used to live.

This is a way that's very, very close to home. It hits close to the heart because that is what I thought I had to do. I thought I had to be up and ready for everybody all the time. And this shows up immediately when I start working with someone and I see how fast they were, respond or react to my messages to them.

I should not be that important. I'm only one person and. Let's say I message you, you should not be Janie on the spot, like message me right back because that just shows me you're in reactive mode. You're reacting to everything. 'cause I know I'm not the only person who messages you or asks you something.

Instead, I teach people right away a time block. And I know this sounds so old school, but it is, it's very effective, especially for those of us who have gone our whole lives. Undiagnosed, A DHD, and everything else in between. As a recent diagnosed A DHD, I'm like, oh, things really do make sense now that I see that lens of how my behavior has been.

So reacting was very much a part of how I lived my life in many ways. And when I started. Doing the time blocking it made all the difference. 'cause I just would look at the clock and say, oh, it's not time right now to respond to messages. That's in an hour or that's tomorrow morning and. I'm, I'm, I'm, again, I don't work for corporate anymore.

There were days when my boss would yell at me because my blackberry wasn't like attached to my hand. Yes. Blackberry just, just shows you the era, the era when I was in corporate. And so I want you to think about this vicious cycle that I just. Repeated to you, and it's from my own life, but it's also one that maybe you resonate with.

And what happens is, is the, is when I was in this vicious cycle, I would look back at the last month and I didn't have the revenue to show for all the effort that I had put in for all the work. That I'd done at my computer for the business and the clients and everything else in between. And I see so many smart, amazing, professional, incredibly capable women having this same cycle.

So everything feels random, right? Be like, I don't know how I got my last client, or I don't know how I'm gonna pitch my next offer. I don't know how I'm gonna get in front of my ideal clients. I'm not even sure if those are my ideal clients. Everything feels random when you say things like that. That's all the randomness, because you've been told.

That when you show up enough in the right way, people will just be attracted to you and your business and your solutions, and they'll book a discovery call and qualify themselves through the form that you fill out or that you have them fill out before they book the call knowing exactly how to explain their pain to you.

And they of course already understand the value of what you deliver, yada, yada. That is a dream I wish. I freaking wish, 'cause I have the content, I have done it in the right place. And I tell you what, they still, even with referrals, especially with referrals, they absolutely still need to be qualified.

That means I need to ask questions that I already think I know the answer to. And depending on how they answer, I have a better decision to make about better information to make a better decision to make about how I'm going to move forward with them if I'm gonna move forward with them. So every conversation.

That you have when you're in this vicious reactive cycle feels awkward because you haven't had one in a while like this, and you aren't sure where this is going because you haven't thought about it. In this way. Every offer feels heavy, like you're holding your breath to put it out there because you've been told to wait for them to become self-aware and ask you how to work together.

Please, even if they do, that's putting all the power in their hands and they genuinely do not understand what they're asking for. I work with a lot of web designers, bookkeepers, dashboard builders, marketing agencies, consultants, coaches, and ultimately. They all say this, well, they asked me for this, da, da, da, and it would be $25,000, and then I share the price of 'em, and they almost fall on the floor.

It's not because your pricing is too high, it's because they don't understand what they're asking for. They've never done it. That's why they need you, right? Or if they have done it, they might've done it once and maybe it was from the sidelines, right? So they don't understand what they need the way you do, and so.

Having all this, it feels very heavy because you, it feels random. It feels awkward because there's no system or structure carrying the weight. You hear this system and structures help carry the weight. We were just. In Spain and we went to, of course, LA Familia. I might be saying that wrong. Pardon my Espanol.

And all these amazing internal beams and the, they looked like trees. I mean, the, the artistry was just incredible. I'd never been in a cathedral like this before. And it was the lighting and the, and it was set up to be from, you know, east to west. And it goes from day to night and. It is absolutely incredible, but it had a sys as much as it was beautiful and incredible, it had a system, it had a structure to support the weight.

So here's the part I want you to sit with. Even if you've been stuck lately, even just this past week, if you keep circling the same questions, it's not because you need more motivation. It's not. It's not I wish. I wish because I can motivate people. I can do a pep rally, friends, but it burns out quick.

It's because you're building something alone. You're trying to build revenue alone, and revenue is probably not what you were trained on. It's not what your skillset lies. Inside of selling is a contact sport. It does require structure and feedback, and ideally that feedback will come during practice and not when it really.

Counts or worse after. So here's the only action step for me. For you for this week. You know, I always end my podcast episodes with an action step. Stop diagnosing yourself as broken. You are not broken. Stop assuming confidence comes first. Ask a different question. Ask where am I actually practicing my revenue generating activities?

Right? Where am I actually practicing these things? Thinking about selling is not the same as practicing selling, and January, January is about practice. So go to ask me coach.com for the next steps that you can take, and I will see you next Monday. I.