When I was a teenager, before my family moved up to Washington State, we lived near the Sierras in Visalia, California. Sometimes my friends and I would ride our bicycles up to the General Grant lodge in Kings Canyon National Park. The mountainous road up to the lodge is very steep, with lots of turns, and in some places it runs along cliffs that drop a thousand meters into the valley below. In fact, there are places where the road is so narrow that it’s not possible for a car going uphill and a car going downhill to pass by each other. One of them has to pull into a turnout and let the other go by before pulling back onto the road and continuing.

When you are on a bicycle climbing in a tight situation like this, it is not unheard of to have your left elbow grazed by the outside mirror of a passing camper van.

By the way, this is but one example of my brother and me engaging in activities that probably had our parents sweating bullets back at home, and the fact that they not only allowed us to do these things, but actively encouraged them, is a priceless gift I will be eternally grateful for.

Anyway, what does this have to do with your presentations?

I talk often about putting some of yourself into your presentations. One of the problems that I see most often in people who are making the transition from corporate to solopreneur or small-shop consulting is that in their presentations or on their websites, they will use words like “team,” as in, “my team did such and such.” I’m not saying “team” is an inherently bad word, it’s quite a normal and encouraged word in the corporate world. But in the solopreneur or small-shop consulting world, it’s less common, and is often (not always, but often) a signal that someone is trying to look bigger than they really are, and thus it endangers the trust you need so desperately.

So keep in mind that when you are making a presentation, you need to put some of yourself in the presentation. Not your team, but you.

Why?

Because when you hide yourself, you are forfeiting one of the most potent tools solopreneurs can utilize. Plus, by trying to make yourself look big, you are playing a game you are guaranteed to lose (believe me, your customers know you’re a small shop). Yes, when you first do it, you will probably feel knocked around, like a camper van’s mirror is hitting your elbow. But you need to do it, you need to move through the pain.