Journey Beyond Imposter Syndrome

Have you ever heard the saying, "You miss 100% of the shots you do NOT take." This applies to social selling, network marketing, affiliate marketing, influencer marketing and building a small business too! You miss 100% of the shots you do NOT take! Likewise, if you don't ask, it's an automatic "NO." In today's episode we talk about how to get your ASK in gear! You get what you ask for! In today's episode I share social selling strategies and how to conquer the dreaded imposter syndrome.

My personal batching work method when interacting with social sellers and promoting affiliate products is sure to inspire. We'll break down my strategy for vetting potential affiliates and designing messages specially tailored to them. Hear my personal journey of overcoming imposter syndrome.

Lastly, prepare to be amazed by the transformative power of simply asking for opportunities. I share my personal experiences of reaching out to individuals with larger followings than mine, and the life-altering opportunities that resulted from it. Do your following size really matter? We cover that today too! You'll learn how to craft personalized messages and use your follower size as an advantage when seeking brand collaborations, podcast sponsorships, or even a raise from your boss. Plus, we'll discuss why a 'no' isn't a setback but a launchpad for a 'yes' in the future. Trust me; you won't want to miss this one!

Attention social media influencers, affiliate marketers, content creators, social sellers, I would LOVE to work with you! Click here to apply for the Yu Affiliate Program https://affiliate.beautifulyu.com/create-account?ref=JENNYP

Try my favorite Yu Products! Use discount code JENNYP at checkout to save up to 25% OFF! https://beautifulyu.com/?ref=JENNYP

Let's stay connected OFF social media! Text the word PODCAST to 385-220-8658 or click here and text PODCAST https://my.community.com/jennypeterson

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to the social media influencer podcast. I'm Jenny Peterson, a stay at home mom of three turned six-figure social media influencer, turned CEO of my own seven-figure product-based business. I'm obsessed with all things online business, online marketing, influencer marketing, affiliate marketing and social selling. Why am I spilling all my secrets? Because I believe when we all do better, we all do better. Let's dive in. Have you ever heard the saying you miss 100% of the shots that you don't take? Well, friend, today I'm going to share with you a true story, something that happened just yesterday that inspired this podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:42

As you may know, I own a company called you and we're a wellness supplement company, and one of the things that I pride myself on is the creation of our affiliate marketing program. Why? Because it was created by an affiliate, a foreign affiliate. It's different than anything else out there. Side note and I feel like I can trust you with this and share this with you I did just have another company copy my affiliate program straight up, and that's a whole nother different conversation. That's when you know it's good, when people start to see what you're doing, see the success that you're having, and try to copy or imitate what you're doing. Here's what I have to say about that, because chances are, if you're in social selling, there's other people out there that sell the same products that you do, and when you start to have success, you're gonna get noticed. People are gonna start copying you. Guess what? Let them, because even if they're selling the exact same product, even if they take your words and they copy and paste, the truth is is nobody is gonna be able to sell the way that you do. There's one and only you. So it doesn't matter if they try to imitate you, if they try to copy, if they try to steal your ideas. They're not you. They never will be you. They don't have your heart, they don't have your brain, they can't communicate the way that you can communicate. They will not be able to connect with your following the way that you connect with your following. So remember that there's a couple of things that make my affiliate program different than any other affiliate program out there. One, we pay high commissions, up to 30%. Two, we pay residual income.

Speaker 1: 2:33

All of our products are set up in a way that they can be ordered on subscription. In fact, it's best if they are ordered on subscription, because they are consumable products that you need to take every single day and so when somebody orders from our affiliates and they sign up on subscription, we pay our affiliates every single month. Their customers stay on subscription. Most affiliate marketing companies out there they're all about paying you for the one time sale and then they try to cut the affiliate out as quickly as possible. They collect all the customer data, they retarget those customers and guess who does not get credit. Something else that we do that I haven't seen anybody else do, is when a customer orders from an affiliate, their email address is tied to that affiliate forever. So let's say they ordered through the affiliates link the first time. They used the discount code. They didn't order on subscription. Then later on they Google beautiful you and they go to our corporate website to place an order. Their email address is forever tied to our affiliates. So guess who gets credit? Even though they didn't go to the affiliates link, even though they didn't use the affiliates discount code, that affiliate gets credit for the sale.

Speaker 1: 3:50

We are not looking for ways to cut our affiliates out of the equation. We wanna have a long-term relationship partnership with our affiliates. We understand that we wouldn't have a business without affiliates shouting our products from the rooftops At you, our affiliates, are the most important At you. You really do matter. Something else that I learned as being an affiliate being an influencer affiliates, no other affiliates. Influencers no other influencers how do you get your people to invite other people into your program? You have to reward them for it.

Speaker 1: 4:27

So something else that we do that's completely different in our affiliate marketing program is when our affiliates refer people into our program. They make 5% commissions off of anything that their refer referees sell. Is that the right word? Anything that the affiliates they referred into our program sell 5% commission. Just so you know, I came from network marketing and I did not get paid 5% on my quote unquote team until I hit the very tippy top of the compensation plan. We are giving that to our affiliates straight out of the gate. And let me be clear we are not network marketing, we don't wanna be network marketing. We're not MLM, we're affiliate marketing. But we're different, we're better.

Speaker 1: 5:15

So let me tell you what happened yesterday, now that you understand how my affiliates get paid. So yesterday, one of my affiliates asked how do you invite people into the you opportunity? And I'm just gonna redo the conversation because this is in a leader chat. So here's how the conversation started. Somebody said crazy thing is you can still make a boatload off of people you refer to. The company so and so makes like 10K off of me each month and doesn't even give me half laughing face emoji and this is true. By the way, I have affiliates that are making five figures a month just off of inviting their friends into our affiliate marketing program. Isn't that amazing? So the person who referred her said laughing my A off, I give her my love. Hey, everyone go get some big hitters and you too can make 10K a month off of someone laughing face emoji.

Speaker 1: 6:11

So here's where the question comes in Are you guys approaching these girls? Are they approaching you? I feel like as an affiliate, it would feel way too much like MLM to message someone. Someone replied back. I approached them and just tell them I'm helping build the affiliate program. It's just all about the wording, which is true. They are helping build our affiliate program. Then the other person asked do you have any wording that you send potential affiliates? I don't send them anything, but just the link to sign up. I normally do a post about it with all the information. So here's the thing you can totally approach, and I don't like the word recruiting because it makes me think of MLM. I do have some PTSD from my network marketing days. Here's the thing I could totally do a post about our affiliate program and invite everybody to come in. I could sign up hundreds of people doing it that way. That's actually not the way that I like to invite people into our affiliate program. We're not network marketing. We don't take just anybody. You have to have at least a thousand followers and I like to do it more as an invitation only kind of thing. So then I jump into the conversation and I said I can share what I send.

Speaker 1: 7:24

I message people every day, anytime I scroll social media. If I come across someone who is a social seller promoting other products, I copy and paste their URL and keep it in the notes section on my phone. I literally have a list of hundreds of people. I like to batch my work, including sending out messages, so I set aside a block of time to message as many people as I can. So let me explain what I do here Whenever I'm mindlessly scrolling through social media.

Speaker 1: 7:54

If I'm scrolling through social media looking for content ideas, I am always paying attention to who is coming through my news feed, and if I see someone who's promoting another product, if I see someone who's doing a Facebook live with another product, I copy their URL and I put it in the notes section on my phone, because I'm not going to message them at that very moment. Instead, I'll set aside time and then I message as many people as I can, which I'm fixing to do after I record this podcast episode. Why do I copy their URL? Because I know myself If I don't capture their information somehow, I will never remember who they are. I'll think, oh my gosh, I saw the perfect person last week. What was her name? Oh no, oh no friend. And I literally have a list of hundreds of people on my phone. That way, when I sit down to send out my affiliate invitations, I don't have to sit and think who am I going to message today? I just open up the notes section on my phone and start going down the list, because I have hundreds of people that I've already vetted, as this is a social seller, this is somebody who's already in affiliate marketing, this is someone who goes live. I've already weeded out who I'm going to message, and then I shared with her an example of some wording that I would send. So I would normally say some things like hey there, your cute page just popped up in my newsfeed. I'm Jenny, co-owner of you, and I'd love to work with you. I'd love to invite you into our affiliate program. Our program's different because we pay high commissions, residual monthly income and we have a big referral bonus program. We have affiliates making five and six figures a month.

Speaker 1: 9:35

Is this something you'd be interested in? Question mark. So it depends on who I'm messaging. If it's somebody who randomly popped up in my newsfeed and I don't know them from Adam, I've just followed them for the first time then I will tell them. Like your page just popped up in my newsfeed and I had to message you. If it's somebody that I have followed forever, I'll just say hey, I have followed you forever. I love your content. I especially loved when you did XYZ. I think you're hilarious. I love when you post about this and I let them know. I know who you are, I follow you, I love your content and I think this would be a great fit for you. What do you think Now? This is really important. I always end my message with a question Is this something you'd be interested in and the reason for that is, when you ask a question, you are inviting the person that you are messaging to respond back to you, and there's a dialogue here, right?

Speaker 1: 10:34

I don't send a novel. I mean this message that I have right here. That even looks a little too long to me, to be honest. If they have to scroll, baby girl, it is way too long. Nobody wants to read a novel. I don't send a join link. I don't even know if they're interested yet. Why the heck would I send them a link? I want to open a dialogue, I want to open a conversation and talk to this influencer and see if it is a good fit.

Speaker 1: 11:01

Did you notice how I dropped? Oh, we have affiliates who are making five and six figures a month, true, true, and that is shocking to some people and that catches a lot of people's attention when I say that. And a lot of people say, okay, I'm interested, I want to know more, or they'll ask me questions like what kind of products do you sell? Okay, here is the part of the conversation in my leader chat my top affiliates. This is the part that inspired this entire podcast. So then she responds.

Speaker 1: 11:35

So is it weird of me to message, ask, invite others to check it out or join as an affiliate if they have more followers than me. Like by a lot laughing face emoji, I feel like they would look at it, look at my page, and think I'm just wasting their time. It's in my head, I'm sure, but I need some sort of validation that people won't think I'm being spammy. This is where I got fired up and I have learned from working with affiliates that following size is not everything. I know that companies always want to work with affiliates that have large following. They think the more followers they have, the more they're going to sell their product, but that's simply not true.

Speaker 1: 12:17

Let me tell you about this girl. This girl. I looked up all of her social medias and combined she has under 9000 followers on all of her social media platforms, and I understand how she feels because I have felt the same way she was worried about. Will somebody take me seriously? Is my content good enough? Is my page good enough? Am I qualified? Is somebody just going to look at my page and think why would I listen to you?

Speaker 1: 12:50

You don't have very many followers and this just broke my heart because I don't know if you've ever felt this way before, but it sounds like imposter syndrome to me and I looked it up. Did you know? Imposter syndrome is in the dictionary. So what is imposter syndrome? Well, according to Webster's dictionary, imposter syndrome, also known as imposter phenomenon, is a psychological occurrence in which people doubt their skills, talents or accomplishments and have a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as frauds, despite external evidence of their competence. Those experiencing this phenomenon do not believe they deserve their success or luck. And I could just hear the imposter syndrome in her response. Is anybody going to take me seriously? Am I qualified to message somebody who has a bigger following than me?

Speaker 1: 13:49

Let me tell you about this rock star. I already told you on all her social media is combined, she has less than 9,000 followers, but guess what? She outsells influencers that have 10 times the following Every single month. This girl sells around $20,000 in you products every single month with less than 9,000 followers. When I had 9,000 followers, I wasn't selling 20,000 a month of anything. So while some might look at her follower size and think that it is small, here's what I've learned it doesn't matter your following size. She has a highly engaged, loyal following that is willing to buy from her. So here's what I said back to her. No, it's not weird at all in all caps, by the way. You are one of our top leaders. You're a rock star. You outsell people who have a bigger following every single freaking day. Then I went on. I've also learned from personal experience. If you don't ask, it's an automatic no. I know what you mean, though.

Speaker 1: 15:06

We don't want to come off as spammy like MLMs they get a bad rep for, but we aren't MLM. At the same time, this is a very real opportunity. I feel like I'm doing people a disservice by not telling them about it. We are just getting started and I can't wait to see y'all's paychecks a year from now. Also, I messaged people with a way bigger following than me, and I tagged a bunch of people in this leadership group that have way bigger followings than I do that I messaged personally, inviting them into our program. They have way more followers than I do. I'm grateful. I didn't allow fear to hold me back from asking. I'm grateful that they're here today. I'm grateful that all of you are here today. I hope you know how much we truly appreciate each of you.

Speaker 1: 15:51

I really truly believe that anybody listening to this podcast episode can use this in some way. If you're in network marketing, it's a no-brainer. You're trying to build a team, you are actively recruiting Hopefully you're actively recruiting and you're going after big people. You're going to use this. Please hear me on this. I'm not saying message everyone and their mother and copy and paste the exact same message, the hey girl message that people are completely sick of. I'm saying be smart. Make a list of people who you already know from what they're doing on social media that they're qualified, message them and write out a personalized message or, even better, voice message it and start the conversation that's going to allow you to talk about your opportunity.

Speaker 1: 16:40

Now, if you're not in network marketing, no big deal. If you are a small business owner and you don't have affiliates yet, or you're building your affiliate program, sister, you need to message affiliates, even if they have bigger followings than you do, especially if you have bigger followings than you do. That's what I did. Was it freaking scary? Yes, but like I said in the beginning, I have learned that when you don't ask, it's an automatic no. What's the worst thing that they can tell you? No, okay, no, it's not for them, okay, I would rather hear a no than never ask no is not going to kill you, and no doesn't always mean no. By the way. Sometimes it means no, not right now, or no. I don't have enough information. I messaged somebody two years ago when I started this company. She told me no, straight up, no, not interested. Guess who's an affiliate for my company? It took some time. She watched other people join my program. She's watched other people make big checks and she's now in the program and I'm so happy and I don't want to pressure anybody to do it before they're ready. They have to decide when they're ready. So that's the thing is. Sometimes people will tell you no and then, two years down the road, they're in your affiliate program. Hearing no is not going to kill you, but never asking.

Speaker 1: 18:04

If you're a small business owner and you're too afraid to ask, and get your ask in gear and ask people if they want to promote your products, that will kill your business. Honestly, I wish I could go back in time three years ago, two years ago, when I was messaging people before we even had a product about coming into my affiliate program, and give myself a hug and say I am so grateful, I'm so grateful that you're messaging these people even though you're afraid. You're afraid of what they're going to think of you. You're afraid of what if they say no? They have way bigger followings than you. I am so grateful that I didn't allow fear to hold me back from asking, because if I had, I can guarantee you I wouldn't have the business that I have today.

Speaker 1: 18:50

Listen, even if you're not in network marketing, even if you are not a small business owner, you can use this. If you're an influencer and you're pitching yourself to brands, trying to get a brand of collaboration, trying to get paid, trying to get free product, you better get your ask in gear. You want to get that company to sponsor your podcast, to sponsor your event? You better get your ask in gear. You want to talk to your boss about getting time off or getting a raise? Get your ask in gear. I am telling you everybody needs to get their ask in gear, because if you don't ask, it's an automatic no. You miss 100% of the shots that you don't take. But if you ask, what if they say yes? What if they say yes? A no is not going to kill you. A yes could change your business and could change your life.

Speaker 1: 19:51

You know what I just thought of. I'm going to message this affiliate of mine who said is it weird if I message influencers that have a bigger following than me, like way bigger, is that weird? No, use that to your advantage and here's how you can tell them hey, look, this is how many followers I have. This is how much money I made last month. This girl made four figures last month and use that to your advantage when you are talking to people with a larger following, like, imagine what you could make. I'm telling you right now that would grab my attention if somebody messaged me that had a smaller following than I did and said hey, here's what I'm making. Now you have a way bigger following. Imagine what you could make, because I would think that would be like what she's making how much. That would definitely pique my interest.

Speaker 1: 20:41

Anything else that I learned from my recruiting days and I say that like it's over, because technically I'm still recruiting, but it's for my own company, right? I learned that if I don't ask, somebody else will, and I think I've shared this in a podcast episode before that. There's a friend of mine who I've been friends with for years. I never asked her to be part of my company. Well, I'm grateful one of my other affiliates did, because I sure as heck didn't. And I'm grateful that she's in my affiliate program now because girlfriend sold almost $100,000 last month. And what happened? After this person joined our affiliate program? Multiple people messaged me and was like oh my gosh, I know her, she's my friend. Oh my gosh, who did she join under? And they were kicking themselves in the face because they realized they didn't ask, somebody else did and that decision alone cost them about $5,000 a month.

Speaker 1: 21:43

Friend, I want to remind you that you are one of a kind, literally one of a kind. There is one and only you. You are amazing. You have greatness inside of you. Stop doubting yourself, stop holding yourself back because of fear. Fear of rejection, fear of what other people are going to think, fear of hearing the word no, fear of failure, even fear of success. Do not let fear hold you back. And when you experience imposter syndrome because I really feel like it's something that we all experience at one point in time or another I have two words for you S-T-O-P-I-T. Stop it. Literally, stop it. Have you ever seen that skip? By the way, I'm totally dating myself now. The stop at skip is hilarious, but literally stop it. Get out of your own dang way. Get out of your head. You are good enough, you're amazing.

Speaker 1: 22:46

Get your ask in gear and go ask for what you want. Advocate for yourself, stand up for your dang self. Ask, because if you don't, it's automatic no. And what's the worst thing somebody can say to you? If you ask them, they could say no and guess what? You're not out anything, because if you didn't ask, it was an automatic no. But what if they say yes and you also don't want to be the person that thought I should have asked that person, and then you see that person sign up with somebody else and now you're kicking yourself in the face. I have done that so many times. You do not want to be that person, and can we please all agree collectively to stop getting so caught up in the number of followers?

Speaker 1: 23:34

I feel like it's always more, more, more, but more is not always better. I'll tell you what I would take 9,000 followers that spend $20,000 a month with me, over 100,000 followers that spend $20,000 a month with me. It doesn't matter how many followers you have. It matters how engaged is your following? How are you serving your following? How are you connecting with your following. That's what really matters. More is not better. More is not necessarily going to make you more money.

Speaker 1: 24:07

There's a lot of influencers out there with hundreds of thousands of followers and they're not making money. And think about it for a minute. If this girl was to stand in a room surrounded by 9,000 of her raving fans her followers, who know her, love her, support her and connect with her, she would be overwhelmed by that number of people. Are you kidding me? That's a lot of freaking people. Here's the other thing I know that influencer that you're watching that has hundreds of thousands of followers, or even a million followers. Guess what? She's just a person. She's a human being like you and I.

Speaker 1: 24:51

I feel like we put people on a pedestal because of their following size, but the truth is, if somebody else can do it, you can do it too. If somebody else can grow their following by showing up consistently and serving their audience, you can do it too, and that's the beautiful thing. If you're a small business owner right now and you are wondering how can you get your product in front of more people, maybe you've watched me build my own affiliate marketing program and I've shared with you the success that we have seen. Guess what. If I can do it, you can do it too. Now it's going to take work, absolutely it's going to take work. You're going to have to message a lot of influencers and invite them into your affiliate program. I'm talking hundreds, maybe even thousands of people, but guess what? You got to get your ass in gear. I'm so grateful that I get to work with these amazing, talented, smart, beautiful women. I'm so grateful for all of the affiliates in our program. We are gearing up to do our annual influencer retreat here in just a couple of months and I cannot wait to spend time with some of these amazing women before I let you go.

Speaker 1: 26:05

I do feel like I would be doing you a disservice if I didn't share the opportunity with you, because if you have reached the end of this podcast, if you have subscribed to this podcast, you're probably in social selling. You might be an affiliate marketing, you might be a network marketing, you might be a small business owner, you might be an influencer or want to be an influencer, and if that's you, I invite you to click the link in your show notes and apply to become a you affiliate. Okay, I have to share this with you. I have no one else to share this with. I cannot make this stuff up.

Speaker 1: 26:39

So while I was recording this podcast, I got two text messages and you better believe my top affiliates they have me on speed dial. I wished one of my affiliates a happy birthday because it's her birthday, and she messaged me back while I was recording this and said thank you so much. Because of you and your choices in life and direction you chose to go, I'm able to have the best birthday. Love you, my heart, my heart is going to burst. And another text message I got while I was recording this hey, just wanted to say, with the new comp plan, how excited I am. Like how can it keep getting better and better? Thank you. And I said yay, I'm so happy that you're excited. I'm excited too, and you're going to hit the top tiers for sure. I hope so. It's life changing money. I'm so grateful. I jumped all in. That's it for me right there.

Speaker 1: 27:30

I didn't know how this would feel to have an affiliate program, to work with affiliates, to be on this side of business, because I used to be on the other side as an affiliate, as an influencer for other companies. I didn't know how this would feel to see our affiliates oh, it makes me emotional making five and now six figures in a month. I didn't know how this would feel. I'm not going to lie as an affiliate, as an influencer, I have made five and six figures a month. It's pretty freaking awesome when that happens. But to build something and watch so many amazing affiliates and influencers making these big paychecks and seeing how it's changing their lives, I didn't know how that would feel. It's pretty freaking amazing. And I can tell you that the checks just keep going up and up. And the reason why is because we pay that residual income because of the subscription, so they just compound on each other and we did just raise our compensation plan, so we're now paying up to 30% on personal sales and those checks are just going to get bigger and bigger. And I didn't know how this would feel, but my heart could absolutely burst with joy to see how it is not just changing my family's life but changing so many other people's lives. It's pretty freaking amazing. And I'll tell you what Last payday, when we paid one person, one affiliate, six figures and we saw the total amount of commissions it was several hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Speaker 1: 29:22

Preston and I just looked at each other and we were like, how cool is this, how cool is this? I am grateful for this opportunity. I don't take it for granted. I am so, so, very grateful. And I hope you know because if you know me by now, I hope you know I am not sharing this to Bragg. I am sharing this because I want to inspire you, because if I can do this, are you kidding me? If I can do this, what are you going to do?

Speaker 1: 29:55

Because I am not anything special. I am just a girl, a stay at home mom, who was lonely, who wanted to do a side hustle, got into online marketing affiliate marketing, network marketing, influencer marketing and changed my dang life. And I'll tell you what. If you saw where I started almost a decade ago, I didn't see this happening. I didn't see this coming and I don't think you would have either.

Speaker 1: 30:27

In fact, you know how, on Facebook, memories will pop up and it's like five years ago, today, this is what you posted. Those things pop up all the time and I'm like Lord have mercy, who did? I think I was? And if it was like a video, I'm like who watched this? Who watched this? And it was like I'm going to follow this girl. Oh my gosh, it's embarrassing, but you know what I am grateful to that girl, my past self, who didn't let fear hold her back and went for it. You and I, we have one and only life, and I believe that you were born to do something great. I believe that you have greatness inside of you and I know that you have felt that spark. Go, do something great and stop letting fear hold you back. I will step off my soapbox now, man.

Speaker 1: 31:27

I thought this was going to be a short episode and I have been on a rant for over 30 minutes, but thank you so much for spending this time with me. I love you, I really do. I am grateful for you and I'm grateful that you keep showing up every single week and I will see you inside another episode. Listen, linda. Listen.

Speaker 1: 31:46

Before I let you go, can you do me a favor? If you enjoy this podcast, please make sure that you hit the subscribe button. Please leave a five star review. That means the world to me. I love reading those and I love reading them on the podcast too. That really does help this podcast grow, and it is free for you to do. It only takes less than 60 seconds, or if you know somebody who needs to hear this message today, share it with a friend. If this episode resonated with you, please let me know over on Instagram. You can screenshot it, put it in your stories, tag me at Jenny. Underscore Peterson. I love resharing those as well. All right, I will let you go and I will see you inside another episode.