Ep. 88: Overestimating Yourself & Your Organization for Rapid Growth
EPISODE 88
Overestimating Yourself & Your Organization for Rapid Growth
About the Episode:
Today on the Purpose & Profit Club™ Podcast, we're going to talk about underestimating and where this shows up for you personally, where this may show up in your organization, and how you are underestimating your prospects, your donors, your social street teamers, your potential partners, sponsors, etc. I’m going to teach you how to switch your default of underestimating yourself and show you the power of overestimating your capability to increase the possibility of growth for yourself and your organization. I can’t wait to hear your favorite takeaways!
Topics:
How we typically think tasks take way more time than they actually take and the effect this has on our work
Stair stepping your belief in your own capability to increase possibility
Giving yourself the permission to stand out, ruffle some feathers, and accelerate your possibility to attract more donors
Making celebration a regular occurrence in your business
Overestimating your possibility and capability to get into the rooms you need to be in and get a seat at the table
The most common ways Christina sees organizations underestimating their donors
Action steps you can take today to upgrade your time capacity, your VIP donors, and the overall growth of your organization
Think you’ve reached out to “everyone” in your network? Out of ideas to get noticed and get funded? Generate leads for your nonprofit or social impact business: https://www.splendidcourses.com/prospect
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“I want a coach who is motivating me and calling me in.”
“A really great coach nudges you forward and shows you what you’re capable of.”
“A project will take as much time as you give yourself.”
“You don’t want to wait for an invitation to get a seat at the table. Bring your own chair, this is how you disrupt, this is how your organization grows.”
“I want to override the default of underestimating myself and overestimate my own capability.”
Episode Resources:
FREE Resources from Splendid Consulting:
How to Work with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
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Christina Edwards 00:02
Welcome to the purpose and profit club podcast for nonprofit leaders, mission driven creatives and social entrepreneurs get ready to stop dreaming and start doing here. ideas become action, we prioritize purpose and profit. You ready? Let's go. Well, hey changemakers. Today we're going to talk about under estimating. So where this shows up for you personally, where this may show up in your organization, and how you are under estimating your donor prospects, your donors, your social street teamers, your potential partners, sponsors, and just where I'm seeing this through line showing up for a lot of organizations. So I was at the gym this morning, and I was doing a couple of different weights, machines, weight machines that I haven't done in a minute. And I found myself forgetting, like my setpoint, on how much weight I can lift on a given machine. Okay, so like, hop on this machine to do I don't know, like chest press or something. And I'm like, Oh, is this like something that I do 50 on? Or am I like, closer to 100 on this, like, I just forgot. And so I sort of would meet in the middle and try something and maybe try 70 and go, Oh, no, I'm actually capable of more, right. And that happened for me on several different machines this morning of forgetting what my setpoint was on each, each pace, or each machine, and also, just finding that I was more likely to underestimate what I was capable of in that given situation, then overestimate, okay. Now, each time, it was easy or not, you know, tomato face inducing enough, I would increase the weight, right. And I can't remember if I told this story, but a while back, I hired a coach to help me, you know, do some weightlifting and learn some new equipment at the gym. And he was great. And then he moved. And then I got a replacement coach. And right away, it was like, Oh, I think we're just not a fit. There wasn't that motivational piece, there just wasn't that alignment in understanding what my goals were. And I could kind of tell, and one of the biggest red flags I think this happened on like, the first day, but once it happened again and again and again, was he kept under estimating me. So we'd go to, you know, whatever, whatever machine, and he'd start the weight at like, 30. And I'm like, I would look at him and go, I can, I can go, we can go up, and then he go 40 And I'm like, no, no, no, this one, I'm up to like 115 on now. And he'd be like, Oh, okay, you know, and it was like this very sort of passive, like, not even it was just like, huh, and I want a coach, whether it's in the gym, or in the brain, right? I want a coach who's literally motivating me and waiting for me over here and calling me in. Christina, I got you. Let's go, let's go together, come, come, come come. And when my coach is under estimating me, not only am I not getting that from them, I'm actually the kind of experience of that is the opposite of what I want. Because I feel like I'm starting to like phone it in, or I'm just not even seeing what I'm capable of. And a really great coach nudges you forward and also shows you what you're capable of. So that happened. And I was like, Ah, this is not this is not a fit. So there were there was more along the way, which is a story for another day. But for today, I want to talk about this idea of where you're under estimating yourself, and the power of actually overestimating yourself. Okay, so the first example that I see a lot of organizations internally and a lot of just people humans in the world is time. We typically think tasks take way more time than they actually take so anyone who is a procrastinator, anyone who has ever cramped have a book that they had to read in high school and then wrote the report the night before, right knows, or like, you know, that paper or whatever it was that looming task, that project that that report that you had to turn in, whether it's in school, whether it's in college, whether it's for an employer, and you waited, waited, waited, waited and then suddenly you busted it out, like in the last 24 hours before it was due. How did you do that? How did you bust it out? Right? It didn't take you less time than it would have taken you three weeks ago. It's simply that it like lit a fire under your ass and so you got it done. So I find that people typically overestimate short term projects and how long they're going to take I love my brain loves to default to do this with my taxes right brain loves to just be like oh taxes take out hours and hours and weeks and weeks and months and months. And they're terrible, when in fact, it's like, less than six hours for me to work with my accountant to do them, right. And it's really, really important where you find that this shows up for you. We're actually overestimating how long time will take, I used to tell my clients this that a project, a task will take as much time as you give yourself, let that just sink in. Meaning if you tell yourself, I'm going to create an online fundraiser for this social holiday that's coming up, it's happening in two months, two months from today. So I'm gonna give myself two months to do it. Right? How long will it take, it will take you two months, you'll dip in, you'll dip out, you'll do some of it, you'll put it on the back burner, then you really do it like the last two weeks before it's actually happening. Versus I'm going to plan this social fundraiser, it's happening in two months. And I'm going to have the entire campaign mapped out, I'm going to have the fundraising page created, I'm going to have the story in the content done and ready to go. And it's going to be sitting complete ready for me to press play on for when that social holiday happens. And I will complete that part of that in two weeks will take me two weeks. Or if you've ever had for me, I teach a lot of webinars, I use a lot of live trainings. So if I'd have to create a webinar, I have to create the content, I have to create the deck after create any offers that I'm gonna put promoting it right. So it's like three, three core pieces. If I give myself two months to do it, it takes two months. If I give myself this is what I do. Now, by the way, I give myself probably an hour to actually ideate. I'll like brainstorm, I'll write it down. I write analog, what do I want the framework to be? And then I will give myself to two hour blocks to create the content. And that's it. That's it, it could take 10 hours. But if I give myself five, I get it done in five. And the Asterix the caveat to this is you have to be willing for it to be imperfect. Right? You have to be willing for it to be imperfect. If you're searching for perfection on this fundraiser on this storytelling piece on this webinar on this pitch deck, it will take forever, you don't have forever, right? You don't have forever you're you're on a mission to impact millions. If you want to impact millions don't wait for forever on some sort of long ended deadline. Right? Okay, so your time ask yourself, Where am I overestimating time, I've heard lately, in a couple of one on one calls, a couple of coaching calls like this, this? Oh, I have so much to do, it's going to take a lot of time. And this came up actually in the club recently, and the purpose and profit club, my group coaching program, where I could feel it, I could feel the side. And I knew what this person was referring to that would take a lot of time. And I know, it actually was very similar to what I what I just outlined for my storytelling, which is or creating a webinar. I'm like, that's an hour's worth of work. But what it really takes more than the actual ideation and writing this down is decisive action and willing for it to be imperfect, we get it to 80 90% and we go and we go and we go. We're scrappy in that way. Okay. So ask yourself about the timepiece. Ask yourself, where am I under estimating my capability? Ooh, that's a big one. Because I've been seeing this come up a lot lately, which is, it's some sort of comes out some sort of like, I'm not great at, I don't know how to, I'm not the best at, I need more information, I need more blah. I'm not really This isn't my zone. Which when you carry that around, oh, that's heavy. That's like a heavy ball and chain. Just carrying that belief system I've shared before. Many years ago, I used to just identify somebody who was just not a great writer, not a good writer, right. Which was completely under estimating my own capability. When I said that out loud. All I did was solidify that in my brain. If anything, I was saying that to people. So they would be like, Yeah, okay, sure. They're agreeing there's to me, like, what is that? What's the upside of that? Where can you take a stair step from saying, you know, I'm not really a great fundraiser, I'm not really a seasoned, blah, blah, blah, right? Or I haven't you know, where can you take one stair step up from that, that belief on your capability and say, Actually, last week, I was able to do this, and I'm really improving, or I know the next step, and I'm willing to try that next step. I don't need to be at the expert advanced level, to increase our organization's impact and funding. I just need to take the next best step. So that's capability possibility. Where are you under estimating your own impossibility or your organization's possibility? And here's what that looks like, which is like, where you're like, Oh, well, in fact, addition in the economy and this and fatigue and that, and staffing and overhead and budget or go, we're probably just going to be lucky if we break even this year, if we increase by 3% this year, right? Oh, how does that feel a lot, it doesn't feel good. I don't even like saying that. Instead of saying, we are disruptors, we are innovators. We are nimble, we are resilient. And we are figuring this out. This is the year we grow exponentially. This is our year, this is our organizations here, this is my year, where I get the expertise, the guidance and the support to exponentially grow this year. Like how does that feel because that doesn't feel like you're gonna breakeven, that doesn't feel like you're gonna make a 3% increase year over year, right possibility. Now, when you use the same concept of under estimating and you actually use the profit and impact flywheel I have a training on that in a previous podcast episode about that, which is a three step flywheel process, motivate, accelerate, celebrate, and this is what we teach. And this is what we really go through inside the purpose and profit club coaching program. Okay. So you can ask yourself, Where am I under estimating my own motivation? Right? Where am I kind of phoning it in and not actually nudging and pushing myself forward? Where can I? Where's the low hanging fruit there? What's one, a 1% 5% increase I can do there. Accelerate, accelerate is all about accelerating the results you want faster, right getting there faster. So instead of agreeing, this is the status quo. This is what we've got where actually, can you accelerate your results? And where can you instead of stop under estimating what's possible? Where can you actually overestimate like even just this idea of overestimating what you're capable of, think about where that would take you and your profit and your impact at the end of the year. If you were just like bold, and you're like, you know what, I'm going to overestimate all of this. Now. I want to give you the caveat. I don't mean overestimate in this like grind, have 270 hour work weeks, all nighters, that's not the overestimating, I mean, this sort of like, I mean, this imperfect action, this bold daring, asks, I mean, campaigns that don't look like any other campaign stories that don't look like any other stories in your sector, really saying, we're standing out and we're shining. And we're doing all hands on deck this year, right? And we're gonna ruffle some feathers in order to attract all of our perfect fit people, all of our passionate raving fans. Where's that kind of possibility for you to accelerate, and celebrate? So where are you under estimating yourself when it comes to celebration? Right, celebrating the wins celebrating? What you've done? What you've accomplished your successes, personally, professionally as an organization. Ask yourself Where am I surprised that I pushed forward and actually did that? Like where did where have I missed giving myself a pat on the back? Where am I miss celebrating that with my partner, friend, even somebody who's not in your sector to be like, I did that. I texted my husband yesterday, I linked to an article and I was like I did that did that it helped make those those relationships and connections happen. And now this organization is in the news. It's the best, it's the best feeling. Honoring that celebration as a collective for my client felt so good. Honoring my role in it felt so good. So recently, a client said to me, I'm not in those rooms, I'm not in the rooms I need to be in to cultivate new donor prospects and I don't know how to get into those rooms. Okay. Where could you instead overestimate your capability? Where could you overestimate your possibility your motivation to get into those rooms? Think about that, like that's kind of brain bendy but okay, right now, that's an a very under estimating thought to think and whether it's true or not, is not the point, right? You may not be in those rooms, but you don't want to wait for an invitation to get a seat at the table. You literally want to bring byo chair, bring your own chair into those rooms, bring your own seat at the table. That is how you disrupt that is how your organization grows. That is how you see huge success in revenue and impact. Got a byo chair, bring your own chair, get yourself a seat at the table. You're gonna have to knock on doors and say I'm here I'm coming in, let's go. And you're gonna get some people who are like, well, who are you? What do you do? What is this? But that willingness, again, to be nimble and to overestimate yourself is going to serve you very, very well. Oh, so So to back into how this client could help get into those rooms, it's first I said, what rooms do you want to get into? Right? Sometimes we say things and we say them without really thinking, well, what are the rooms I want to get into? Where are those rooms? How do I find those rooms? And again, I spend one hour I give myself one hour to brainstorm the rooms that align with with my organization, my mission? Where are they? Are they Online Rooms? Are they zoom meetings? Are they in person? Like really decide? Are they friends of friends? I mean, where, you know, are they thought leaders? Where do I? Where are the rooms? Many times? You don't know the answer to that question, because you've just default said, I can't get into the rooms. And that's that, ask yourself, what are the rooms I want to get into? And then let's get you into those rooms. Let's overestimate Okay, again, I just want to underscore not through frantic energy, not through burnout, not through, I have to that that grind. Like I have to this feels awful. But like I get to energy I choose to energy are now we're going to talk about this is a big one, where you're under estimating your prospects, your donors and your supporters, your people where you're under estimating your people. Okay, our upcoming theme inside the purpose and profit Club program is all about upgrading donors. So if you want to get in go to splendid courses.com, forward slash waitlist, we're opening doors very, very soon. And if you want to go through that monthly theme with us, and I will teach you how to upgrade donors, this is for you, because many, many people are under estimating their donor. So let's walk through what that looks like. You're under estimating their capability under estimating their interest in your organization. Like you're deciding their interest level without actually knowing if that's true or not. under estimating what they're capable of their capacity to give. That's probably the biggest one under estimating. And although I would say it goes like sandwiched together with under estimating the frequency for which they want to give. So if you have a donor who gives $5,000 a year annually, often I'll hear some flavor of that's their ceiling. And I can't ask more than once a year. Right? Kind of mixing and matching those objections. How you'll never know if that's true, that is just a thought that is just like, let's just have a thought that you're having about them that you're projecting onto them a guess a best guess right? Versus the only way you'll know if that's true is if you ask them to give more. And if you ask them to get more than once a year. And I don't mean like oh, well they get my emails, Christina and they only give once a year I mean, direct ask if you can hear no, then you asked them. If they say to you, no, then you ask them, okay, so there's a way to do this that feels good and doesn't feel wobbly and doesn't feel grasp be it doesn't feel like this getting energy, I teach this inside the club. But for today's purpose, I just want you to start to think about there are your VIP donors. Okay, now for your organization, your VIPs, maybe $1,000 and up other organizations, I work with their 10,000 and up, okay, you get to decide. So think about your VIP donors. And think about what you've decided how you've underestimated them. There's a bunch of different ways you've underestimated them. One, it could be the frequency in which they want to give the amount they want to give. Those are wanting to it could be their desire to be more involved. It could be their interest level in different programs or services you have like you may not know very much about them, but you've decided that you do. So the best way to figure out the answers to this questions is to book meetings with them. And these meetings are listening meetings, these are asking good questions, being curious and listening more than they are extracting, and pitching. Okay, this shouldn't feel like you're giving a presentation in a boardroom. Or you're giving a presentation in a high school classroom, right? This should feel like you and I are sitting to have coffee, and you're asking me really meaningful questions and you are actively listening. And by the end of the coffee, I'm asking you, what can I do? How can I help and I'm writing your check. Yeah, that's possible. So ask yourself, Where am I actually under estimating? So I did this example with donors. Where are you under estimating? And we can actually let's actually drill this down. Where are you under estimating donors at under 500 level? So people who give gifts under 500 annually, where are you under estimating them as somebody who has kappa City, I've definitely given gifts under $100 annually, and I have a capacity for so much more. I've just never been cultivated by certain organizations, right? That's true for millions of people, millions, not 1000s Millions of people, they may say, here's $100 here or there, here's $200 here or there, and you've decided, well, that's probably the most that they can get. Okay, so where's that even happening for lower capacity to orders that you even decided lower capacity? Right? Okay. Where's it also showing up that you're under estimating what I would call social street teamers, partners, or sponsors. So these are those other people who can really help boost your organization's visibility, your organization's endorsements, your organization's funding, that's just a different way that they do it. So a social street team, that is my method that I teach inside the club, that is where you're working with aligned influencers, so social media influencers, digitally ambassadors, and anyone who is a Brand Champion, and we use their networks to leverage visibility and fundraising works. It's amazing. Typically, we two to 5x campaigns when we use the social streety method. Where are you deciding, though that somebody is just not an aligned person? Or that they'll say no, this business will say, No, they won't be they won't, they won't want to partner with us, or I know this business has been going through it. So they won't want to be a sponsor for event, or that influencer has such a big reach. Why would they even respond to us? They'll say No, right? Those, you hear those? And the truth is, we'll never know the answer to any of those objections or thoughts or beliefs until somebody actually hears the objection. So until that business owner says, No, I can't become an annual sponsor. Until that influencer says no, thank you. Until that potential partner says now, not for me, I don't want to mistreat him, right? You're literally just making things up. It's just a guess. And I'd rather you overestimate, I'd rather you guess, for your organization, that it's actually going to be in your favor, then underestimate and think of all the reasons why it's not going to work out. And all this to say, the reason why I know this, this content so well, this idea so well is because I personally, we all have very negative default, brains, right? We skew negative I'm somebody who loves to problem solve, I love to problem solve before a problem actually exists. So I just want to like mirror back to you. If you're listening this episode, and you're thinking, holy crap, I do all of this. And I'm bad. No, we all have a flavor of this. I have a flavor of this. Part of being a problem solver means that I'm constantly going and I'm thinking about different ways that I can kind of go this way, circumvent that, right. But it is. So it's a skill that I've developed, because I've been through it all that to say, it's a skill that I've developed, because I've been through it. And now I see when I'm getting ready to do something that maybe feels a little bit expensive or scary, where I actually want to override my default to under ace estimate myself, and instead go to the other side. I'm like, let's overestimate right now. Not in a punitive way, not in the I'm gonna set a big lofty goal and then punish myself if I don't make it but overestimate my own capability. Of course, I can get a seat at the table. Of course I can. Of course, that person wants to hear from me, why wouldn't they like really going to bat for why they would be a yes, instead of going to bat for why they would be a no going to bat for why I can do this in an hour instead of five hours. Going to bat for why this this piece of content, this story, this email, this appeal is exactly great the exact way it is, and I don't need to prove it another time. You with me? All right. So that's the today's episode, here's a couple of action steps for you. Take some time, think about where you're under estimating yourself. Were under estimating your prospects or your supporters in your organization and how you would like to shift that and start with the ones that feel the most true, like the most like the lowest hanging fruit are the most actionable and the most like, ooh, that feels urgent and time sensitive and a shift I can make. So start with those. Second update I want to give you as I told you this next month's theme, we're gonna be talking about upgrading your VIPs and everyone can be a VIP, so you get to decide who your VIPs are. It's going to be a really fun month inside the club. I'm opening enrollment for a couple days only. So make sure you sign up splendid courses.com forward slash waitlist to get notified when I open up enrollment. Okay. We are also going to be moving through outreach genius that's coming soon. I never talked about it a little bit on the podcast before. But today we talked about all of the people in your world, the people who already exist, their prospects, the donors, the supporters, the volunteers, the social media fans, like all of those people, outreach geniuses to Seeing those people and then taking people outside your sphere of influence. So strangers, right? And if you've ever said to yourself, we've got to cultivate new donors, we need to cultivate new social street teamers, we need to cultivate new, new New, then you need to make sure that you're inside the clubs you get both of these trainings. Okay? Because that is where we do both. We work your spheres of influence, and it is it's a game changer. I very rarely teach us live, I am going to be teaching this live in a sprint process. And when I teach it live, just in one session, we've had people come back and say, I just got $125,000, upgrade $125. Now, I just booked a meeting that was a $10,000 meeting. So these are not organizations, by the way that are $10 million budget organizations. These are organizations that are small to midsize shops. So this can work for you too. That's what I've got for you today. If you enjoyed the podcast, leave me a review. I met many of you through the last few weeks through the program launch and it's been really really fun and I would love it if you would leave a review, share, share your thoughts with our community and I'll see you next time. Hey, high achiever. I know your sights are set on ambitious world changing goals. In the purpose and profit club group coaching program. You can get the support, motivation and strategy to accelerate your impact. I like to say it's where the inner work meets a big impact and big funding. Go to splendid courses.com forward slash waitlist and you will be the first to be notified when we open up doors and you'll get special bonuses when you join our waitlist. See Inside