Feel The Fear - It Works!

It seems like "Feel the Fear" is the buzz phrase right now - it's the subject of training videos, such as Eric Worre's, and Susan Jeffer's classic Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway has been republished for the umpteenth time.

Never one to stand in the way of a trend, I decided to take a chance and have my own Feel the Fear moment. I suffer from horrendous performance anxiety - I'm so scared of speaking, singing or playing solo that the mere thought will start me shaking. But friends encouraged me to sing a capella in a music festival class this year and, much to my surprise, I found myself sending off an entry form.

If I'd read the biography of the adjudicator, I wouldn't have dared enter. Having entered, I didn't want to let my friends down, so I spent the hour before my name was called, feeling terrifed and nauseous, trying to remember the words to my chosen song. I can't remember singing. I can vaguely remember applause. I didn't stop shaking for 20 minutes afterwards.

The adjudicator, a multi-tasking teacher, academic, choir master, author, arranger and a capella expert (!) described my efforts as "a promising performance", with "a lot of vocal strengths, and a really interesting voice quality" (?!) and "good diction ... clearly felt and expressed emotions..." I was too scared to asked in what way my voice was interesting. Maybe next time.

There will be a next time. Scary as it was, I've proved to myself that I can actually stand in front of an audience and survive. Next year, I'll do a lot better.

Plus, I've got no excuse now with anything related to my Kleeneze business. The only thing that terrifies me more than performing in public is holding a live cockroach (and that's never going to happen!); business building fears are small by comparison.

How do you cope with your fears?

Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone

Yesterday, I collected my Kleeneze catalogues from a few streets that I hadn't delivered to before. I learnt a lot in the process.

These streets are on a council estate - there are some properties which have been bought by the residents, but not many. The street lighting is not strong enough to show the obstacles, loose steps and sudden drops on individual paths up to the houses, which meant that, for the first time ever in my Kleeneze business, I was using a torch to walk up to people's front doors. I still managed to hurt one foot badly enough that I was limping for the last 30 minutes.

Collecting 200 - 250 sets of catalogues normally takes me about 2 hours; last night I spent 3.5 hours and collected in around 130. In the streets I have been targetting so far, 80% of my catalogues were left out on the day I stated I would collect them. In this new area, nobody leaves their catalogues out. Nobody opens the door without checking who you are, either, despite the fact that I and a couple of teenage girls were the only ones visible. Nobody answers the door after 9pm, either.

I completely understand why the other full and part-time Kleeneze distributors have avoided this area. It's dark, it's scruffy, the residents are nervous of strangers and there seems to be a large noisy dog in every other house.

I am delighted that they have done so.

My normal order value per catalogue collected is £1. In other words, If I put out 200 catalogues in a "good" area, I collect in between 160 and 180 on the first visit and my orders total around £160 - £180.

In a "good" area, many people wait until they have received catalogues from you at least twice before they order the next time. When they order, they place little "tester" orders for something cheap that they won't miss if you don't turn up to deliver it. Often, the order value per catalogue collected on the first round is in the region of 40p per catalogue, although that obviously improves once residents get to know you.

In this area, I collected 130 catalogues out of 237 dropped - 55% of my total catalogues. I was expecting orders to the value of £52, in line with my experience in the "good" areas so loved by the other Kleeneze distributors in my town.

I got orders totalling £180, making my order value per catalogue £1.38 - not bad for a first drop.

It just proves that, if you do the work on your own personal development and step outside your comfort zone, you can achieve so much more than you believe possible. I can't wait to go back and collect the rest of my catalogues.

Personal Development Works - In Every Area of Your Life

Since I started with Kleeneze, I've read a lot of books, including Don Failla's 45 Second Presentation, Jeff Olson's Slight Edge, Dani Johnson's Script Book and Gavin Scott's Follow Up Your Way to Fortune.

I read these books to develop my skills and my self-confidence, so that I can be a more effective retailer and team leader.

It turns out that the improvement in self-confidence has had a remarkable effect - I've applied for a team leader's position in my day job!

So why on earth have I done that, when I want to quit the rat race, work from home and become a Kleeneze Premier distributor in 5 years time?

It's quite simple - if I get the job, I will be practising team leading skills all the time, which will help both my day job and my Kleeneze career. If I don't get the job, I've still done something outside my immediate comfort zone in applying, so I'm already benefiting from stretching myself psychologically. That, in turn, will have a good effect the next time I have to do something I'm wary of doing.

I'm currently reading three of Malcolm Gladwell's books, Outliers, Blink and The Tipping Point, as well as re-reading Go For No. I can't wait to see what other improvements I can make to my outlook and focus.