Are Any Of These 8 Reasonable (But Wrong) Fears Holding You Back?

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Jimmy Iovine, the co-founder of Interscope Records, attributes his incredible success in the music industry to one particular mental state; the fear of failure. Interscope Records has and currently houses multi platinum selling musicians such as Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, Eminem, and the late Tupac Shakur.

When it comes to business, some entrepreneurs believe that fear makes them burn the midnight oil, giving them an advantage over the competition. According to this school of thought, a terrified mind reasons with greater logic than a stationary brain. This is why thriving business owners are able to ask in-depth questions that help them understand their customers better. 

While it may seem okay to be terrified of failure, giving into fear too much is dangerous. It’s no secret that the fear of failure can make you so risk-averse you stall your own success.

Are you scared of venturing into an online business?

Both novice and seasoned marketers experience jitters at the thought of launching a new online venture. Setting up a website and implementing an unshakable internet marketing strategy is time-consuming, and requires a significant amount of capital. With so much effort and money at stake, fear of the worst outcome can easily gain a foothold in an entrepreneur’s mind.

What if you developed a totally opposite fear? A new apprehension that makes you anxious about what would happen if you didn't take the risks required to make progress. This "positive" fear would propel you to grab life by the horns, and step into the unknown.

Here are eight fears that are probably holding you back, and you don’t even know it.

1.  It’s too expensive to establish an online business

Financial capital is necessary to establish a business and sustain its daily operations. Capital also acts as security whenever the owner needs to borrow a business loan from a commercial bank or microfinance institution. Businesses with adequate capital in reserve experience faster growth that enables them to provide high customer satisfaction.

Are you afraid of establishing an online platform for marketing your products, due to the costs of hiring a professional website developer? Is this fear making you believe your dream of becoming a successful online business owner is out of your reach? This is the fear of going broke doing its best to keep you down and discouraged.

The first step to beating this fear is to understand the fact that all businesses - not just yours -  needs a continuous inflow of financial resources in order to thrive. If raising capital is your biggest challenge, you can rely on these eight tips startups can use to engage their audience to generate capital.

2. I’m afraid of spending most of my time building my business

Rome wasn’t built in a day. So why do some business owners get cold feet at the thought of spending time establishing their digital brands? It’s due to the fear of dashing high expectations. This anxiety is similar to the fear of rejection people face in relationships. It can be heartbreaking to receive a “no”, despite spending time going out on dates, sending text messages and hanging out together.

Successful online business owners overcome this fear by working with a schedule that balances career and social life. Doing this enables them to prioritize important activities, and formulate effective strategies to meet these needs. Try following Nathan Chan’s advice to transition from full-time employment, to owning a thriving online-based venture.

3. I’ll be too overwhelmed to manage everything by myself

Establishing a business is like nurturing an infant. You need to dedicate time and energy into training staff, coming up with engaging content to post on the company's website and networking with suppliers, just to name a few recurrent activities. As if that was not enough, you need to prevent your social life from collapsing, because no man is an island.

No one wants to be the lonely business owner who makes family unhappy due to spending too much time at the office. Proper time management will let you operate your online venture with ease. By getting involved in each aspect of your business, you’ll have a better understanding of your business model. You’ll also be able to experience other benefits, explained in The Power of The Company of One.

Do you need SEO gurus and reliable internet marketing assistance to launch your online store? Visit freelancer.com today.

4. What if I end up making bad decisions?

Being a business director can be scary, especially when you’re required to make tough decisions. For example, contemplating dropping a stubborn client who’s always rude, yet brings big business to your company. And hiring new staff isn’t as easy as it sounds, because you can end up hiring a troublesome employee.

If you read the autobiographies of most successful business personalities, you’ll notice a common occurrence in their paths to success. These individuals made costly mistakes due to bad decision-making. In 1985, Steve Jobs lost control of Apple due to a poor decision on his part. But he bounced back, and regained the reins of his highly successful company famous for producing the iPod and iPhone.

5. What if I end up wasting time and money pursuing a pipe dream?

If you scoff at the possibility of attaining success through your online business, you probably have no idea how Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook. During his stint at Harvard, an ambitious Zuckerberg asked five of his close friends to show up to his dorm in order to create a social media website. Only two people showed up. The other three thought the project nothing more than a waste of time and money.

After a decade, Zuckerberg and his two pals are raking in billions of dollars in profits. There’s really nothing to report regarding the three individuals who scoffed at Mark’s social media concept. Successful entrepreneurs aren’t afraid of being labeled “crazy" because of their innovative ideas.

6. What if no one likes my products or services?

Even the best companies experience embarrassment after much-anticipated products or services yield dismal sales performance. Apart from the loss of time and capital, this failure can also take a toll on the entrepreneur’s self-esteem. Rejection hurts, whether in business, relationships or other aspects of life.

Despite the pain associated with rejection, you can learn a lot of lessons from unhappy customers. The founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, believes business owners should learn how to listen to unhappy customers. If you do that, the rejection can be turned into a positive influence on your business.

7. Fear of taking the first step

Doing something for the first time brings anxiety due to the fear of the unknown. This anxiety hinders an entrepreneur from actualizing their business plan. The first step of establishing an online business is creating an interactive website to showcase your products or services. If the fear of spending too much capital dominates your mind, you’ll end up postponing appointments with professional website developers.

8. What if success overwhelms me?

Did you know the fear of success is just as real as the fear of failure? Success usually comes with significant publicity. In this situation, you may get worried about whether you can continue your ideas in the future, and build on your initial success.

Summing it up

In order to overcome your fears, you need to take consistent action. Taking risks emboldens business owners, while fear nurtures doubts and other irrational anxieties.

Despite the highly lucrative nature associated with online-based ventures and the ease of setting up a business website, people still shy away from pursuing their dreams. The reason why some entrepreneurs lack online stores to market their products and services is due to holding on to irrational fears explained in this article.

Now that you know how to beat the eight irrational fears explained in this article, feel free to share it on Facebook and Twitter.

Posted 27 November, 2017

NickGolding

Entrepreneur & Creator

Nick is the Entrepreneur Correspondent for Freelancer.com. He is based in Sydney, NYC, & London. His life consists of frequent flyer points.

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