While doing a recent guest appearance on a radio show, I got into an interesting conversation about investing in your business. The host is a business owner, but she feels a lot of fear when it comes to spending money on her business.
To be honest, I see this fear come up a lot during consultation calls. People are all gung-ho until the fear of spending money stops them dead in their tracks.
Before getting into the beliefs behind this fear, I first want to say that I get it. I used to be terrified of investing in my business as well. You know what happened as a result? By business stayed stagnant for many years.
I’ve also seen this happen with coaching clients who for many years refused to invest in their businesses. Now that they are investing, they are getting the knowledge and skills they need to move forward. As a result, they are on track to make more money.
Here are four reasons why you may be afraid of investing in your business. These are based on hundreds of consultations throughout the years.
I won’t make a return.
Perhaps the most common fear you may be facing around investing in your business is not knowing whether or not you’ll get a return. In other words, you’re not trusting.
I’m going to let you in on a secret from the finance crowd. When we invest, we know we’re getting a return. However, we may not know what that return will look like at the time of investing. That is where the risk lies.
The difference between those who successfully invest in their businesses and those that don’t is they act on the knowing of making a return, not the exact details of the return. Everyone else tries to figure out exactly how a return will look like. Here’s a newsflash: Since you can’t predict the future there is no way for you to know the details.
I have a fear of success.
The fear of success also has a lot to do with the fear of investing in your business. Granted, this fear is sneakier but it is very common.
People are afraid of what success will do to their lives. They are afraid of having eyeballs on them. As such, they sabotage. One of the ways in which they sabotage is in failing to invest.
Another way in which this manifests is fearing that you don’t deserve success for whatever reason. This is usually tied to some sort of self-worth issues that haven’t been resolved yet.
I failed before therefore I’ll fail again.
If you have failed in the past, it will be hard for you to invest in your business. The reason is because you feel like you have evidence as to why things don’t work out.
For example, I often tell people that they were swindled by a business coach. Or, they took a course that didn’t prove to be fruitful. They often use this as an excuse to not move forward.
That’s cool. So have I. Does that stop me from investing? No. I simply take the lessons so that I do better next time.
Final Thoughts
In order to grow a business, you must get over your fear of investing in your business. At the end of the day, it does take money to make money. Because of this, you need to find ways to move forward and make the investments regardless of whether or not you can control the future.
