The Black Girl Business Bar

In this episode, I address how our own biases and perceptions can affect our energy and how we attract customers.

Show Notes

What happens when you’re not attracting the people you want to work with? What happens when you’re getting on sales calls and you’re not converting? Is your energy off? 

In this episode, I address how our own biases and perceptions can affect our energy and how we attract customers. And I go right at the root cause. 

Other resources
More on Khalida
 
Khalida DuBose is a business coach specializing in sales strategy and mindset. As a previous crowdfunding coach, she supported more than a thousand crowdfunding campaigns and project creators in their quest to bring their dreams, passions, and ideas to the world. Now, she focuses on helping women of color online business owners nail the foundations of running a successful business and cultivate a rock-solid mindset as they navigate the entrepreneurial journey. For more information on Khalida, visit khalidadubose.com. Follow Khalida on Instagram @khalida.dubose. You can email her at khalida@blackgirlbusinessbar.com.
 
The Black Girl Business Bar is produced by Zuri Berry (@ZMCPodcasts). Music by Vincent Tone and Die Hard Productions.

Creators & Guests

Host
Khalida DuBose
Business + Mindset Coach
Producer
Zuri Berry
Principal Producer at ZMC Podcasts

What is The Black Girl Business Bar?

The Black Girl Business Bar Podcast is for Black entrepreneurial women who crave practical information to implement in their businesses and careers. They want tips and tactics that work and they want on-the-go mentorship that will make a difference in their businesses, projects, and lives.

Hosted by business coach and crowdfunding expert Khalida DuBose, the Black Girl Business Bar is all about letting Black women know what's possible for them in their entrepreneurial journey.

Hey, Hey friends. So I have a episode today that could or could not be depending on what type of mood you're in or where you're at in your business, it could be a little bit touchy. But it has to be said, and I've been having a lot of thoughts around this subject for quite a while now. And I just want to share them with you.

Welcome to the Black Girl Business Bar podcast. I'm your host Khalida DuBose. Okay. So today we are talking about clearing up the energy you have with your audience, your ideal clients, your audience. Just clearing up the energy in general.

So, when we're not attracting the people that we want to work with. And I mean, like getting them on the sales calls. When we're not booking those clients, like those sales calls aren't converting, or we noticed that people aren't even really identifying with our content. Or maybe they're just liking it, but that's just kind of where it goes. I want you to think about one thing: that's to clear up your thoughts about people. People in general, but especially the people that you want to work with.

So I hosted a live on Facebook several months back at the request of another woman of color coach, who I had been talking to casually. And she wanted to talk about why people of color don't invest in themselves each time. And when she asked me, I thought, hmm, this is so interesting. At the time, you know, I felt my intuition tugging at me and I was thinking, well, I'm not really sure. Like where could this conversation go? Okay.

So my initial thoughts were of course people of color, women of color, people of color, of course they invest in themselves. Right. I see it all around me. I invest in myself. I was talking to her, she's invested in herself. The people who are going to be watching that live had invested in themselves. Right? But when I did the live, which she didn't end up being a part of because she had, she had a family emergency, but when I did that live and I was, I kind of had it as a conversation. I didn't want this to sound like a us against them. Like those of you who don't, like looking down on people. Because I didn't even really know how to ground the conversation. I didn't even know what was going on here. Right.

And so, we had this conversation and my thoughts were just like, of course they do. Then my brain wanted to fill in the missing piece. So this is what always happens. Our brains start to make assumptions about people and they want to fill in the missing pieces. I was like, maybe I'm not around enough people of color. Maybe, maybe I don't have enough people in my audience. Maybe it's not the right types. Maybe they invest with men. Maybe they invest with white people.

Those were my thoughts. Okay. I don't know what anybody else's thoughts were or what your thoughts might be when you're thinking potentially a certain type of person doesn't invest. Okay. And we're going to get into it. I'm going to air some dirty laundry. So I'm sorry about this, but I'm going to just to really make this a real conversation.

But essentially, these feelings are very palpable to us. It's a very palpable disconnect between us and the people we want to serve. And this is evident by the fact that they're not buying from us. They're not buying from you.

And yes, most of us who have had these thoughts at some point also wondered if it's our sales, our marketing, if it's our technique. But I'm just going to say this. If you haven't figured out all the things that I've been talking about in the podcast in the month of March and this month in the last few weeks, right. If you haven't figured out your audience and all those things, yes. Start there. But I also want to add this too. This would be like, you know, a piece of this will be just some of the internal work and the mindset stuff.

What happens when you fix all of those things, your marketing is on point, right? Marketing doesn't have to be perfect for people to come work with you, but it's on point, it's starting to work, it's starting to point in the right direction. And you still feel like your not getting the result.

So this is where my advice comes in and this is where I thought, oh, I know it finally sunk in what's happening. I've heard coaches talk about this, you know, but I just really didn't get it until someone asked me a question about not wanting something. And what I was thinking about was maybe like, for those of you out there who work with women of color, or you work with moms, or you work with single moms, or you work with men, or you work with whomever your ideal client is. If you have thoughts about them, if you have beliefs about them, like they don't pay their invoices. They don't spend money on their businesses. They don't invest in their own knowledge. They don't invest in theirselves. If you have those thoughts about anybody, even if you think there's a portion of them who do, and a portion of them who don't, if you have those thoughts, then essentially what you're saying, energetically, is those people don't do this therefore, I don't want to work with those people.

So every time you go to hop on a sales call with somebody, if it's a single mom, and you don't think single moms have money. And you're like, oh, you know, okay, let me see, let me do this thing. And how am I going to have to convince her to, you know, get into this program. If that's the energy that you're showing up with, that person can feel it. If that's the belief that you have, even if you've tried to shift your energy before the call, the person can feel it. And the solution to that is to fix the belief.

Right. Stop making assumptions about people and fix the belief. That's the first step, no more assumptions, unless the person says something directly to you, you have to question every thought that your brain has when it comes to negative things about other people. Even sometimes the positive assumptions.

Like I can't work with her. She's out of my league. This was where my assumptions usually came in. I can't work with that person. Ooh. When I get to this point, then I'll finally be able to work with that person, instead of saying, you know what, I have something to offer. I could definitely work with that person. I could definitely help them out. Instead of making assumptions of what what's going on in their life or what's going on in their business.

So these things can be very harmful for you, even if they seem like they're positive, you hop on a sales call and you see that this person has X amount of followers where they've made X amount of dollars. And you're like, oh, I can't help them. I can't help them because I'm a business coach and I've done this right. Once again, thinking about yourself and what we do as a human being. What you'll do is if you don't know something, you just try to fill in the blanks. And a lot of times you fill in the blanks from a point of something that's happened to you, that potentially was traumatic.

So if you've had traumatic experiences with single moms not paying their invoices, or you've had traumatic experiences with Muslims not paying their bills, or Muslims not taking the coaching seriously that you're doing, whatever the situation might be. Then you might think they don't buy. Or you might not be good at marketing yet. And you're out here marketing, but you've had experiences outside of your businesses with certain types of people. And now you're bringing those experiences inside of your business.

So this might have already clicked for some of you, but for those of you who don't, when you finally internalize this it's going to be a game changer.

Why would anyone want to come work with you if you don't like them? That's just something that you have to ask yourself.

I want to especially caution you if you share identities with the clients that you work with, to check how you feel about yourself and what you attribute to everyone else based on the identity that they share with you.

So just think about it. If you've gotten to a point where you're in your business and you're like, okay, I've only invested this much, so nobody else is going to invest any more than that. I see that a lot, where I'll talk to a client and they'll say, well, why would anybody ever buy this? Or why would anybody, you know, spend more than that?

Sometimes I have to ask them, well have you? Because it never dawns on me or it doesn't dawn on some of my clients that people wouldn't spend a few thousand dollars to be in a coaching program or to get their problem solved. And a lot of times it doesn't dawn on us because we've already done that, we've already made those purchases. We've already done those things. So it's very important for you not to attribute what you're doing to what somebody else is going to be willing to do. So let me say that again. It's very important for you not to attribute what you've done or what you're doing, to what other people's behavior who share identities with you, what their behaviors might be.

Okay. That's, that's something that's really easy for us. Sometimes we look and we look at our clients and we just see a mirror and we think, oh, they're going to be just like us. Oh, they're going to think about this just like us. So my overall point here is no more assumptions. You can't make assumptions unless the person comes and tells you, and then you only have knowledge about that one person, not the rest of the single moms, not the rest of the Black people, not the rest of the people of color, not the rest of the Muslims, not the rest of the whoever you work with. Just that one single person.

And you're still only having surface level knowledge of that person until you ask them questions, dig in, and really hear where they have to say.

So another point that I want to bring up is is that biases are strong. They're very strong, they're strong AF. And your customers can sense them a mile away.

So what I mean by this, now we're talking a little bit more on the energetic, you know, esoteric stuff, but have you ever felt like someone really just didn't like you and you still proceeded to interact with them? Or you just get this weird energy? Maybe it's not even a like, or dislike, you just get a weird energy from them. You still try with them. You still interact with them. You're like, I'm just being silly.

So your customers do the same thing. Your customers will still like your content and they'll still see themselves in it. And they'll still find some things, right. But if you've had trauma. With certain types of people or you have biases towards them of any kind, you need to clean it up because that energy is still palpable.

They still will like your stuff. They'll still see their selves, but they might not want to give you a bunch of money. They might not want to trust you with all the vulnerable stuff that they're going to be going through. That they're going to be working with you on, whether that's something in their business that's physical, right. Or if they're coming to you for some type of coaching.

So I want to give you some specific, you know, things that I've heard and I'm only doing this because I know there's many of you who are in my audience who happen to be Muslim. You, your faith is Islam. And you know, some of the things that I hear a lot is Muslims don't invest. They want everything for cheap. I hear a lot about single moms, single moms. I have tons of people in my audience. There's a mixture. And you might fit into multiple categories here. These might be multiple identities that you share.

Women just can't do. I hear a lot of, a lot of different things that come up based on our own beliefs, on our own life experiences. And then we just start to attribute them to everybody else. Just know that it's not true. None of these things are true. They're just stories that we're telling ourselves.

Number one, if you just going with the example of Muslims, don't invest, they are one of the most educated communities on this planet, and that's an investment right there. It's a time investment and it's a financial investment that you would spend money on higher education. Okay. So that's not actually true. Whether or not they pick certain investments is a whole nother story. Right? But if your job is to work with Muslims, if you're a Muslim business coach, if you're a Muslim life coach, if you're a Muslim parent coach. If you work with a bunch of Muslims, you know, in your service industry, like you're, a VA or something like that, and you have ideas that like they're unorganized or they don't pay their invoices or they never follow through on their promises or they won't finish their coaching program. Then that energy is going to come off.

How you speak to them, how you treat them, how you do everything is they're going to be able to feel that they might not know exactly what it is, but they will be able to feel it.

I really think that these ideas, a lot of times come from scarcity and sometimes I come to from just plain looking down on others. So if you grew up in a way where people said things about Muslims, even if you are in the Muslim community, Or you grew up in a way where people had ideas about single moms or you were, you had a single mom, et cetera. And maybe she said things like, I don't have money. If you grew up in these ways, a lot of times you just take these thoughts. They just become like truths. So it's just really important for you to kind of check, check how you feel. If you feel a certain way about a community. Right?

So I work with women of color primarily. So if I didn't like women of color for some reason. Let's say I'm a Black woman, but there were other women of color that I just didn't get along with. And I'm saying, I work with women of color is going to be hard, right. That energy is going to be kind of palpable. So I need to clean up that energy about how I feel and realize that there might've been things that happened in the past. There might have been instances, there might be biases that I believe that that are other people's stories and not even my own.

Clean those up.

Be very intentional about cleaning those up and then catching yourself when you make those assumptions about people.

So that was my message to you guys today. I did get into some very specific examples because I know there are people out there listening who share these identities, but I use exact phrases that I have heard many times over in my life, inside and outside of business. And the more I practice the business, the more I know that you don't get to just be outside of business and say things, and then think that you're not going to carry that into your business. So whether you're talking about yourself and making assumptions about yourself, without actual proof. Or you're making assumptions about other people on a broad spectrum without any proof. You have to stop.

It's not like we get to just check that baggage at the door and then come into our businesses and be pristine. Just like any assumptions you make inside your business, you'll take those outside of your business as well.

So that's my message to you. If you feel like you're doing all the things correctly and you're still kind of like, you know, feeling tension or you feel like, you know, you're scrolling on social media and you just kind of feel triggered by certain people. You might want to check your assumptions about them. If especially when those people are going to be within your target audience, those people could be potential clients.

Check your assumptions, clean those up, and just realize that not only is that going to help you overall in your life, but it's going to help your business tremendously.

Thank you so much for hanging out and listening to the Black Girl Business Bar podcast. If you haven't already, hit that follow or subscribe button, so you never miss an episode. And if you found today's episode helpful or had any aha moments, please tag me on social media and let me know about them.

As always friends, we are dropping podcast episodes on your favorite podcast player, every single Tuesday and episodes on YouTube, every single Thursday. And we can't wait to see you back then.