Sell Yourself to Yourself: The Confidence Exercise Every Creative Business Owner Needs
About ten years ago, I wrote a commercial.
It wasn’t for Instagram, a website, or anyone else.
I wrote it for me.
I was a rookie salesperson, hungry and eager. I was convinced I would crack the job wide open, and I was also riddled with self-doubt. I never knew which side of me would show up each day. Some mornings I felt unstoppable. Most mornings I didn’t. My inner critic worked overtime to convince me I was a fraud.
That first year was hard. Not “challenging in a way that builds character” hard, but truly difficult. I didn’t hit the numbers or build the pipeline my company expected, and I started to wonder if I’d misread my own ambitions.
So I did what every hungry person eventually does. I read every sales book I could get my hands on. Most were forgettable. One changed my life.
It was The Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz.
If you haven’t read it, put it on your list. It isn’t flashy. It’s a book from 1959 that’s still in print because it works. Buried in its pages is one of the simplest, most uncomfortable, and most effective exercises I’ve ever done.
Sell yourself to yourself.
That’s it. Schwartz tells you to write a commercial for yourself, the way an ad copywriter would write one for a product. You write it, and then you read it every morning in the mirror.
Yes, the mirror. I know.
I rolled my eyes the first time I read the assignment. Then I did it anyway, because I had nothing left to lose. The ceiling I kept bumping into was clearly inside me, not outside.
Here’s Mine
I read this out loud every morning that year:
Meet Tricia. A really important person who has an important career. I am a big thinker, so I think big. I think big about everything. I am a problem solver. I provide an extravagant lifestyle to my family. I believe in happiness, progress, and prosperity. I deserve to be wealthy, so I only think that way. I can win others over because I am charming, intelligent, knowledgeable, well-educated, sincere, and eager to help. I am a leader, and those around me look to me for advice. I am lucky and have positive energy. I am good at anything I do. I care about others and the kids in my territory. This is why I have been highly successful. I have what it takes to win. Go forward, Tricia. Sell one million dollars this year.
I read it out loud every morning, looking right at my own face and feeling, most days, like a complete fraud.
By the end of that year, I had sold nearly two million dollars.
Was It the Commercial?
Honestly, a lot of things contributed. There was luck, a lot of hard work, the territory I had, and the economy that year. Plenty of it was outside my control.
But the biggest factor was that I started believing the version of me on the page.
You can’t sell anyone on a version of you that you don’t believe in yourself.
That’s the whole game. Sales, business, leadership, and money all depend on what you actually believe about yourself when no one else is in the room. The rest is performance, and people can sense when it isn’t real.
The exercise worked because it made me repeat a story about myself until I finally accepted it, until the person in the mirror and the person in the commercial were the same.
Why This Matters So Much for Creative Business Owners
Here’s why I’m telling this story to artists and studio owners.
Most creatives I talk to can describe someone else’s work beautifully. Ask them to describe their own, and they shrink. They downplay it, they hedge, and they add “it’s just” to the front of every sentence.
That’s a marketing problem disguised as a confidence problem. If you can’t write a commercial for yourself, you’ll struggle to write one for your studio. Your website copy, your class descriptions, and your Instagram captions will all sound like apologies, because they’re coming from someone who doesn’t fully believe what they’re saying.
The good news is that this is fixable, and the fix starts on paper.
Your Turn: Write Two Commercials
Commercial one: for you.
Sit down this week, before this post gets buried in your tabs, and write the ad. Not for a friend or an audience, but for you. Write it the way you’d want to be sold something you’re a little skeptical of but secretly hoping is real.
A few rules:
Write in the present tense. Not “I will be,” but “I am.”
Mix the big with the specific. Mine had “I provide an extravagant lifestyle to my family” and “I care about the kids in my territory.” Yours might include “I’m a skilled potter” and “I make every beginner feel at home on the wheel.”
End with a marching order. Mine was “Sell one million dollars this year.” Yours might be “Fill every Saturday class this quarter,” “Launch memberships by spring,” or “Leave my day job by December.”
Then read it out loud, looking at yourself, every morning for thirty days. This is the hard part.
You’ll feel ridiculous. Do it anyway. The ridiculousness is the point. It means the muscle is new.
Commercial two: for your studio.
Once you’ve written yours, write one for your business. Use the same rules. Who do you serve? What do they feel when they walk in? What do they leave with? What makes your studio different from the one across town? End with what you want customers to do.
This one isn’t for the mirror. It’s the raw material for your marketing. Your website’s About page, your class descriptions, your Google profile, and your social bios can all come from it. When it’s written from belief instead of apology, your marketing starts to sound like someone people want to learn from.
What I’m Promising and What I’m Not
I’m not promising you two million dollars. I’m promising that the person in the mirror will start to look like the person on the page. When that happens, the price increase, the marketing email, and the class you’ve been afraid to launch all get easier, because they’re coming from someone who believes in what they’re selling.
After 30 days, notice what changed. Notice what you stopped tolerating, and what you started asking for.
Believe it first. Then build from there.
— Tricia
Want Help Writing Your Studio’s Commercial?
If you’re stuck on how to describe your studio, or your marketing copy sounds more like an apology than an invitation, book a free call with us. Chase and I will help you find the words, from people who’ve written the copy for our own studio.
About Tricia Fox
Tricia Fox is a creative business consultant who helps artists and studio owners build profitable creative businesses. She and her son Chase co-founded Mud Hut Pottery & Art Studio in Riverside, California, where they run classes, studio memberships, private events, and school programs. Tricia brings ten years in sales and more than ten years in marketing and digital advertising, and Chase brings the craft and day-to-day studio operations. Together, they advise studio owners on the decisions they’ve already lived through. Learn more at triciafox.org.
