Why Being “Nice” Will Keep You Broke

“Nice guys finish last.” You’ve heard that saying, right? While it might be cynical, there’s some truth to it... and it doesn’t just apply to guys. Gals suffer from it even more so, and it touches on something I’ve come up against when working with women entrepreneurs in my coaching business.

In this episode, I talk about being bound by niceness and why this tendency (if you have it) will hold you back financially if you don’t recover from it.

1:21 - Are you a recovering people-pleaser?

2:51 - The “too nice” lesson I learned when I first got in sales

5:08 - One way niceness gets in your way and how I work with clients to overcome it

6:12 - Another way niceness shows up in both business and life as women, to our detriment

7:56 - Another people-pleasing habit and the nice thing you can do for yourself to stop it 

Find me on Instagram or LinkedIn or email me at hello@lesliedlyons.com.

As mentioned In Why Being “Nice” Will Keep You Broke

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Transcript of Why Being “Nice” Will Keep You Broke

Hey boss, I am Leslie Lyons, your embodied leadership and sales coach, and this is Pleasurable Profits. This podcast is ideal for owners and leaders of tattoo shops, permanent makeup studios, cannabis businesses, movement studios, sex toy shops, and other industries that are too often left out of the leadership conversation. If you’re looking for a woo meets strategy approach to defining your strengths and values, designing a business that supports you, and creating a soul-driven, and of course, pleasurable plan for profitability, then let’s get started.

Hey, party people. It's Leslie, your embodied sales and leadership coach. How are you doing? I'm doing amazing. Thank you for asking. You guys are always so polite. In this week's episode, I'm going to talk to you guys about something that is typically one of the first mindset things that I had to come up against when working with women folk in my business and my coaching business. It is “I seem to attract a lot of recovering people pleasers.” Can you relate? Are you one of those people?

If you are, listen on, I can help you. When I say recovering, because they've gone on to be bosses in their own right, they learned the hard way just to experience that you can't please everyone, but it still doesn't make them get all warm and juicy to think about the fact that they can't please everybody or that someone might be angry with them.

One of the things that we work on immediately, because I get it, because a lot of it just has to do with social conditioning around what it means to be acceptable as a woman, as I tell you guys all the time, I'm a Christian, and so I am steeped in patriarchy, and patriarchal environments so I know what it's like up close and personal. I know how these things can have an adverse effect on how women show up in the world if you don't have someone or have a mindset to push up against it. So trust me, you are not alone in this.

But what I want to say today is quite frankly, and quite candidly, you trying to be nice is keeping you broke. “What did you say, Leslie?” Broke, yes, broke. Even if you’re making money, if you are bound by niceness, you're not making as much money as you could be making.

Real talk time, let's have that convo. I think back to when I first got into sales, and I had a lot of manufacturing clients. If you're from Illinois, you know Arlington Heights is just full of everything, from candy manufacturers to machine parts manufacturers just all over the place as well. This one client was a candy manufacturer and I love candy. I had it all in my mind that this is going to be like a trip to Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory. That's what I thought it was going to be. It was kind of like that but not nearly as exciting.

But I'll never forget, I was trying to win this business. So I was out in the plant with the CFO, and we're talking and he's showing me how the candies are made and this is where they dip in and this is where the molds are. I'm out there because they get these cranes and I'm like, “Oh my goodness, can I step on the crane?” He's like, “Sure.” I get up on the crane. All the things like I'm doing all the sh*ts.

I'm just like, “Yes, we're bonded. We're connected. We're there.” I leave thinking this guy's going to call me. I'm going to get the business. To my chagrin, I hadn't heard from him in about a week. So I follow up with him and I'm like, “Hey, I thought we connected and we had a good time.” But no, seriously, just following up just to see where he was at in the status of filling his positions.

To my chagrin, he went with one of my competitors. I really was taken aback and just was like, “Oh my gosh, I thought we connected. I thought you liked me.” He said, “I did. I really did like you. We did connect, but you never asked me for the business.” So he gave the business to the person who asked him for it. He didn't know if I didn't have a candidate that could fill the position or what the deal was, because I never made my intentions clear.

But I was too busy trying to be nice and to be liked that I forgot the main reason that I was there. I don't want to see that happen to you, but oftentimes it can. How does niceness get in your way? Number one, by not speaking up. You may have the opinion that good girls wait to be asked. We don't make demands. We don't ask for what we want. We are passive in processes. We wait for invitations. When it comes to selling, you will get what you ask for. If you're taking notes, and I hope you are, you will get what you ask for.

One of the big things that we work on is how to express your true desires in a way that you know not only feeds you but also serves your customer. Just straight up asking for what you want in a direct, non mousy way. If you have trepidation around that, we got to work on it. But putting some teeth to your request will always get you more than waiting for someone to ask you to take their money.

Another thing that I see is women often apologizing for asking for a sale. That goes something like you're calling a prospect for example, you told the CFO, “Hey, I'm going to follow up with you in about a week. Is that all right?” You guys made that agreement in person, over the phone, what have you, and then a week comes around, you follow up and you're like, “Hey, Mrs. CFO. I'm reaching out. I'm sorry if I'm bothering you. But I just wanted to follow back up on our conversation last week.” When you start with an apology, especially around something that you agreed upon, it makes you look uncertain. It makes you look unsure. There's no reason to apologize.

Think about how this shows up because I'm always trying to make the parallel between business and life as a woman. Think about the times where you've been walking down the street and somebody bumped into you and you said I'm sorry. Or when you walk into a room or you cross in front of somebody as opposed to saying excuse me, you say I'm sorry.

That type of sh*t shows up in business situations as well. But when it shows up in business situations, it will cost you money. Because I've said it before, and you're going to get tired of me saying it but I know repetition is the key to mastery, sales is an energetic game. You have to be responsible for your energy. When you come in with that mousy, apologetic energy, it makes the people feel like you maybe aren't the most secure about what you're selling. So let's stop apologizing.

Another thing that I feel like to get in our way when it comes to being too nice is walking away from deals that don't serve us. This is people pleasing in another form. Where do you take on every client or because you feel like there's some type of charity case like you've got the superwoman complex and you've got to help everybody when really you can't say no to anybody.

Anybody who wants to work with you, you try to do it, you try to fit them in, you try to get them on your schedule, whether you know, whether you feel the best fit for you or not. So you take on these clients to do them a favor, but then you're miserable, because you didn't want to let them down. You put yourself in bondage.

Make it make sense, as the kids say. Make it make sense. But I know what that's like to be like, “Man, I know I can help a person. I know I have a desire to help that person.” But they may not be the best fit for my schedule. They might not be the best fit for my prices, so you're giving discounts to people.

This goes back to that charity-case feel where you're giving discounts to people when you know you can't discount your work or you shouldn't discount your work. These are all signs of trying to be nice. Your niceness is keeping you broke. It's keeping you in bondage to other people's desires while you forsake your own. If you want to get out of that habit, one of the first things you can do is understand and stand on the fact that what you sell, the service or the product, is making a difference in the right customer's life.

You don't have to be nice because you're making a nice product. Your product does all the niceness, there's nothing else to talk about. Your product does it all. Every time you get ready to go and make a sales call, you should have some type of ritual that gets you in the mode, in the mood, or in the mindset to make that sale.

The best thing that you can do is reaffirm to yourself that I am doing this client a favor by calling them today. That's the nice thing to do. The nice thing to do is to help a client overcome a problem they have. It's not in your tone of voice, it's not in “Can you smile while you're in pain? Can you say yes to things you should be saying no to?” You are being nice when you are in true service.

That's it. Quick, easy. Something to think about. Let me know, hit me back, if you've ever found yourself in a situation where you were apologizing for something in a business situation that you shouldn't have been, or you were not comfortable just asking for something, let me know what you did to overcome it more importantly. All right, my loves. Until our next conversation. Grace and peace.