How to hustle with grace
Hustling to me sounds so like the underbelly of New York city. When someone says hustle hard I imagine myself in a trench coat selling fake watches. If you are like me the thought of selling yourself or your product & services can sometimes feel yuck. But you cannot create something and then just wait and hope people will come along and purchase. We have to hustle in order to succeed. So how do we over come that icky feeling?
I pride myself on personal connections and helping others in selling my services. Even when I was selling a product, I was really focusing on helping protect as many children from sun damage as possible. So I think if you are like me, you need to focus on how to hustle with grace.
Here are a few ways to change it up and hustle with grace:
Sales pitches and negotiations
If these kind of interactions make you cringe you need to change your viewpoint. When you are talking to your customers, it is not a
sales pitch, its a discussion on how you can genuinely help them solve a problem they have. By thinking in those terms I am not ashamed at all of talking about the benefits of my product or services. To me this is no longer a hustling person in a trench coat selling fake watches, but a kind hearted human offering help. I am showing them how I can make their lives better. How does your product or service improve people lives? How does your product or service solve a problem for people. Define this and share it.
Ruthless Competition
If you are like me, you are not a hater. There is not point in being one. The reality is you will have competition, but in this day and age, you don't have to be enemies. Hustling with grace means you can collaborate with your competition. Maybe if you are not comfortable with doing it in public, you can meet privately. You can share disaster stories and cautionary tales of things to avoid. Help each other out. I use to attend trade shows with direct competitors. I saw no need to not talk to them. Besides we travelled the world together doing different shows, why not stick together, share hotels, give each other warnings about certain buyers and keep our spirits up on low trade show days. There is no need to be a ruthless competition. This is the era of collaborating. This allows us to hustle with grace. Thank goodness.
Align with a purpose
When hustling, you may be solving a problem for your customer, but do you have a purpose outside of this? If I was the trench coat wearing fake watch seller, I would feel a heck of a lot better selling my items if I knew the proceeds were going to help a charity or cause that really meant something to me. Find yourself a charity or cause that means so much to you or has touched you in times of struggle. Contact them and ask how you can help? Maybe you could help raise awareness or help with dollar donations? When you are focusing on hustling and sometimes feel a bit yucky with the sales side of things, remind yourself that some of the proceeds will go to help others. This hustling with grace is so rewarding.
Be true to you
Nothing will ever feel right if you are not doing it from a place of authenticity. Your hustle may look incredibly different to your best friends hustle but that is ok. The way you sell and grow your business needs to align with you core values and with your purpose. If you follow your heart and speak with authenticity your hustle with always be done with grace.
How do you hustle with grace?
