How to deal with imposter syndrome in sales and business

80% of my 1:1 coaching clients are women over 40. Many of them share similar traits: smart, successful, and yet they struggle with imposter syndrome, that nagging feeling that despite everything they've achieved, they're not actually good enough.

It shows up for different reasons. A toxic work environment. A terrible boss. Sometimes a divorce, or the kids leaving home and the whole shape of your world shifting overnight. Life throws things at us that knock us off balance, and imposter syndrome is often what's left standing once the dust settles.

What causes imposter syndrome

There are ways to overcome it, but the speed at which you do depends on a few variable factors. Are you an introvert or an extrovert? How much do you tend to procrastinate when things feel uncomfortable?

Neither of these makes you weak. They just mean your path through it will look different from someone else's, and that's fine. There's no fixed timeline here, no matter what any confident LinkedIn post might suggest.

Nobody is judging you as much as you're judging yourself

When I started on YouTube, I freaked out about the size of my bald head, my nose, my ears. All the things you notice about yourself that nobody else even registers. Unsurprisingly, nobody engaged with those early posts either.

Then, in 2021, I overcame that fear and started doing video properly on LinkedIn. It became my biggest source of leads and remains where most of my business enquiries come from to this day. The thing I was most scared people would judge me for turned into the thing that grew my business.

Success lies on the other side of fear

I don't just mean financial success here. I mean internal success and fulfilment, the kind that comes from doing something that scares you and discovering it wasn't as bad as you thought.

When I first started speaking, my legs wobbled and I spoke too fast. Through daily practice and facing that fear again and again, I eventually completed my first TED talk, and now I speak internationally every few months. You can watch that talk, How Vulnerability Changed My Life, if you want to see where it started.

The same principle applies whether you're picking up the phone to a prospect or stepping onto a stage. The fear rarely matches the reality once you're actually in it.

Ask for help instead of struggling alone

When you have problems, there's never any shame in asking for help. It's what smart people do, and it's usually the fastest route through.

You rarely achieve anything alone, even when it looks that way from the outside. I released Everybody Works In Sales in 2018, and it still sells 40 to 50 copies a month. That's not going to trouble the Sunday Times bestseller list, but for a self-published book, 40 to 50 copies a month is genuinely good going years after release. An editor, a designer, a marketer, bloggers and friends all helped me sell it. Nothing about that book happened by me sitting alone at a laptop.

Get your mindset and attitude right

How you show up and deal with things plays a huge part in managing fear. I've found a vision board genuinely useful for staying centred and focused, especially on the days when imposter syndrome is loudest.

It's okay to be scared. It's not okay to do nothing about it.

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Get in touch if you want to overcome imposter syndrome, generate more sales or get better results on LinkedIn.