[00:00:00] What if playing it safe is holding you back? What if the thing keeping you stuck isn't fear of failure? But fear of standing out. Ooh. Hey friends. Welcome back to Selling Your Expertise podcast. I'm Rene Hribar, and this is a real thing if you scoffed at first, I understand, but it is a sneaky one and none of us.

Are immune. So listen in. Let me tell you a little bit about one of my clients. You know that I love to tell you stories about the people I work with. I will never divulge their true name or identity, but I will say that these are real women that are going through real things, that have real lives and they have real big dreams.

And like me, like you, they are sisters in arms. And we need to hear the details, the context, so that we can get the true picture. So this particular client. She was an adjunct professor. She was round in the bend at the big five. Oh. So she was looking at all her life choices. Uh, she was, uh, teaching in the [00:01:00] business school of this local university who, you know, in, in the big scheme of things, it's not like a, it wasn't like a Stanford or a Princeton, but it was a great school and it was known for its marketing and she was one of their marketing professors.

She also did marketing services for local businesses on the side. Everything from creating, publishing, creating social media, creating their videos, running meta and Google ads to making technical edits on their websites and their funnels. So as she was married with two grown kids outta the house, she was also though caring for her sister who was battling ms.

So she did not. Have extra time. And that is, it's, I think, again, people have asked me and they've, they've, they've written in via email. You know, you give so much detail about these people. Why do you give so much detail? And, and I feel like if I'm you, and I'm listening to this right now, I want details. I wanna know the context.

Who is this for? Who should be listening to this? Because as I tell you this story about my [00:02:00] client, maybe you're thinking, oh, that sounds just like my sister. I should send this to her. Do that or Oh my goodness, that sounds just like my friend who is still at that job that we both were at, but she's still there and she calls me every week and she hates it.

Maybe this is for her because I, part of this, my initiative here with this podcast is to help other women not just learn how to sell their expertise. 'cause yes, you will hang out with me long enough. You will learn how to sell your expertise, but to also gain the. Confidence and often it's through other people's stories that we can aspire to live into.

So. Back to the story. So this, this client of mine had spent years in academia and had always, as she called it, tinkered with the tech. She advised department heads, she even head the university in their automations and messaging campaign across all of their departments. She was offered a paid speaking gig introducing safe AI at a [00:03:00] conference for university leaders.

I mean, she. Was being recognized. She was really carving out a niche for herself, and she found me after I had spoken, at an event, and a good friend of hers, bought my book. So often when I speak, people will get my book. And so a good friend of hers gave her my book. As a birthday gift, and she told me that she sat down one Saturday morning with her coffee, started reading and thought, ah, finally someone who gets it.

So I'm, of course, you know, flattery will get you everywhere. No, I mean, I was very excited, but that's what I wrote it for. I, I designed it for that reason. So by the end of the weekend. She had already looked me up online. She had signed up for my emails, and a month later we were working together. So when we first connected, she shared something with me that she had always noticed and wanted my take on it.

She said, Renee, everyone around me is sticking to the same safe playbook. [00:04:00] Same offers, same messaging, same strategies. And she asked me, she's like, if I wanna stand out, I think I need to do something different. But what if it doesn't work? What if I fall flat? And that is the real message. So I mean, I, I, listen, I get it.

Like playing it safe feels smart. Like, hey, these people did it and they're doing great. I should do it at that exact way. But here's the problem. If you do exactly what everyone else is doing, you blend in, you become invisible. So she made a decision instead of following the industry standard, she launched something.

Fresh. Something that felt more aligned with her voice and her client's real needs. And honestly, it scared her a little bit, but she went for it. And together I can say we had some really great outcomes. So here's the shift that I want you to take [00:05:00] here. This is not about the strategy in this case. Uh, I want you to really see.

It's about her belief and ultimately yours. She believed for years that she needed to launch just like Amy Porterfield or follow every marketing trend, to finally really grow on her side of the, quote unquote tinkering with the tech to make it a full-time marketing agency that she could lead. And I mean, you know, she had a built, built-in interns as well for a staff that she could immediately grow into an agency from, you know, her solo half solopreneur to.

Growing into an agency, but what she needed from me more than anything else. 'cause yes, I gave her strategies. Yes, we built in details about how to hand off the baton from marketing into sales and how to close the deals. But more importantly, she needed permission. Permission to do it her way. [00:06:00] She had never.

Told her whole story before, she had never shared why she got into tech or why she loved supporting local businesses with their automations and marketing. That alone made her stand out and it was what scared her the most, so. Who would care about this? She thought, you know the answer. Lots of people. and honestly, I mean, I've, I've had that conversation with so many women across the years that I've been supporting businesses and their growth.

Well, who would care that I did this or who would care that I did that? There are people out there that when. All things are equal. They want someone who they believe understands them, and that means they have common ground. So what I want you to take away from her story is that being different, more importantly, being yourself, your way is the point.

Safe feels comfortable. It rarely [00:07:00] creates momentum. So here's your action step for this week. Ask yourself, where am I playing it too safe? Is it in my offer? Is it in my outreach? The way maybe you describe what you do, pick one area where you could stop blending in and start. Doing it your way, not from someone else's playbook, because the truth is the people you wanna work with, they're not looking for another carbon copy of what's already out there.

They're looking for you, they just don't know where to find you or if it's really you or not. And that's it for today. All right, I'll see you later on this week. With what happened next, but hey, if you're not already on my email list, get on it, girl. I don't know what you're waiting for. You'll keep getting great messages and insights like these, and the best part you can hit reply to any email I ever I ever send you and ask me anything.

All right, have a great Monday.