This is one of my favourite credos for business. When I started my first business we made this an art form. We were exceptionally good at making people believe that we knew what we were talking about, and that we could get pretty much anything done. Of course I can’t go into too much detail about some of the specific things we did as some of our very first clients might be appalled at how inexperienced we really were, but we always made sure that we delivered what we said we would (this is very important).
The key with faking it til you make it is to exude confidence. If you pretend you are experienced and confident, people will generally believe you, and hopefully you will start to believe that yourself as well, and that is the key to this technique. It’s all about selling yourself to people. When given the choice between two vendors, one who seems like they know what they’re talking about, but also seems very nervous, or one who you’re convinced knows their stuff and is confident, you are going to choose the latter. When starting out in business, this is in my opinion the only way you can really move up in the world, because you will almost certainly have self-doubt, and until you prove to yourself through results, you have to pretend.
This ties in very well with another of my favourite credos for business, and that is to jump right in. You have to have faith in yourself enough to commit to your business. If you are still shy about telling people about your business, and still refer to your business as though it’s just this little thing you’re sort of kind of doing, you don’t sound very committed to it, and don’t sound very confident. It’s very common for people just starting their business to feel like they want to protect their idea from confidence crippling criticism. When we first started out I felt like a leper for starting a business. A lot of my friends thought I was a dork, and I felt like one. I’m sure people like Brad Pitt and Tom Hanks felt a very similar feeling when they told their friends and family that they wanted to become professional actors, and I doubt anyone thinks their dorks now.
The point I’m trying to make here is that you need to commit at some point, and that is when you start referring to yourself as an entrepreneur, or a businessperson, or whatever title you want to give yourself so you start to feel like an entrepreneur. People might laugh at you, or maybe you’re just being paranoid, but it doesn’t matter because unless you put yourself through that initial awkward phase you are never going to be able to get to the point where you are a very successful entrepreneur. So, fake it til you make it.