Marketing Strategies: Are you intimidated by higher end clients?

One of the issues that has surfaced in my career as a business coach over the years is the issue of intimidation. Many clients who come to see me for coaching, want to work with higher end clients. However, what they usually say to me is this “I want to work with higher end clients, but I feel intimidated whenever I’m around them.”

I was working with a client a few months ago name Karla, who had this very same issue. I asked her this question, “What self limiting belief do you have about yourself that could be causing you to feel intimidated by higher end clients?” She answered, “I have the belief that I’m inferior.”

I guided her though a reprogramming process to teach her how to eliminate that belief from her consciousness. The session was very interesting. The first part of the session was to get clear about the positive intention of her old belief. The question I asked Karla to ask was this: “Dear old belief part of me, what are you trying to do for me by having me believe that I’m inferior?”

At first Karla resisted this whole questioning process and couldn’t possibly imagine what positive intention there could be in the belief, “I am inferior.” However, I encouraged her to dig down deeper. I encouraged her to be a loving detective and to assume that every self limiting belief that she has about herself has a positive intention at the root. She agreed to cooperate and to look deeper.

Soon she found that the part of her that was telling her she was inferior told her that what she was trying to do for her was to make her humble. So, in other words, the old belief had a positive intention and the positive intention, it said to Karla is “I wanted to make you humble. I wanted to keep you in check. I wanted to keep you out of the center of attention.”

I asked Karla to probe deeper and ask “Why do I need to be out of the center of attention?” And the reply was, “Because if you’re out of the center of attention, you will be protected from other people’s judgment.” At this point Karla became emotional and started to feel some pain from her childhood.

The second part of the reprogramming process was to find out the origins of when this whole sequence began. Her old belief part said to her, “You were very young and I gave you the idea that you were inferior so that you would be out of danger.” “What danger?” I asked. “You were playing with kids. They were making fun of you. To protect yourself, you made yourself as small as possible. You made yourself invisible and the way you did that was by telling yourself ‘I’m inferior.’”

At this point Karla was becoming emotional and I said to her, “What other core beliefs did you form about yourself at that time in your life?” And she said, “Well in addition to thinking I was inferior, I also told myself I’m not as good as you are, and I told myself I should be perfect.”

Then I asked Karla to come back to her present age and to talk to her old belief part and to thank the old belief part. This is what she said, “Dear old belief part of me, thank you so much for trying to help me when I was growing up. Now that I’m an adult, everything is different, and even though you’re trying to help me, you’re actually hurting me. In fact, if I keep on believing the belief that I’m inferior, then I will create some major problems, and here’s what they are.”

Karla went on to mention that if she keeps on believing that she’s inferior, that she never will be able to work with higher end clients and never be able to fulfill her full potential and never make the income that she wants. I asked her if those results were acceptable to her and she said “Absolutely not.” I then encouraged her to get adamant with her old belief part and say, “Old belief part of me, you no longer have any place in my consciousness. I need to release you right now to your highest good.” She escorted the belief out and said to it, “Thank you and I release you to your highest good.”

I asked her to take a deep breath and feel lighter. When she came back to her conference table, she felt very much lighter and unburdened and we had done the first part of the reprogramming process which was to eliminate the false self limiting belief called “I am inferior.” Since nature abhors a vacuum, we needed to fill in that space with some positive new empowered belief. So I had her imagine that she was her future successful self.

She was proud. She was smiling. She was at ease, and the future successful self said to Karla, “Here are your new empowered beliefs. Please write them down.” Karla began writing fast and furious, her new empowered beliefs such as: “I’m as good as anyone else.” “I deserve to be successful.” “I am as smart as anyone else.” “I am able to make mistakes, learn from them and move on.” “I’m so happy and grateful now that I’m reclaiming my own power.” “I’m so happy and grateful now that I’m releasing old beliefs from my childhood and realizing my true potential.”

At the end of the session, I asked Karla how she felt and she said she reported feeling lighter and had lost that feeling of inferiority. Many clients who want to work with higher end clients need to take a look at the self limiting beliefs that are holding them back.

If this is one of your issues, ask yourself. What self limiting belief could I be carrying on a subconscious level that could be making me feel inferior? Am I believing that others are better than me? Do I believe that because they have more money than me, they’re better than me? Do I believe that I’m not as smart as them?

Do a little inquiry into your own subconscious beliefs. Practice the steps outlined in this article and you’ll find it easy to release those old beliefs, put in your empowered beliefs and then begin to feel at ease and comfortable when you work with clients in any of your categories.