So… what does the word ‘marketing’ do to you?
Here are a few responses my clients and ‘Turn Your Passion To Profit’ group participants have had:
“It sounds crass, like someone is trying to get you to do something which isn’t good for you but is good for them”
“It’s about manipulating people into giving you money.”
“I have a big wall, it’s a dark art, there’s no way into it”
“It sounds like something I can’t do”
Any of these feel familiar?
If so, and if you feel at all repulsed by the idea of marketing, I want to say…. Thank you.
Huh?
Seriously: thank you.
Thank you that you recognize that a huge amount of marketing out there is manipulative. Thank you that you feel disgusted when you see TV adverts or flick through airbrushed magazine pages.
Thank you that you haven’t bought into the myth that you need that next bigger, better, all-new-improved widget. Thank you that you’re alert to your own needs and are not swayed by million-pound marketing budgets. Thank goodness for people like you.
Your resistance to marketing is completely valid – and, more than that, it’s utterly necessary. We do need to stay awake and discerning and not just buy into whatever marketeers decide is good for us.
The fact that you’re a conscious citizen who resists marketing bodes well for our future. It gives me hope that we’re not all-together a population that swallows what other people tell us we need.
But here’s the catch (and this is what breaks my heart)…
The catch is: you’re not selling washing detergent or fast cars. You’re not selling Botox, 2-for-1 chicken or sugar-laden breakfast cereal.
If you’re reading this blog, the likelihood is that your work is all about helping people, healing people, bringing them deep inner transformation or relief from pain.
What breaks my heart is that you’ve taken your very right and proper distaste for marketing and translated it into “I can’t market these services that will actually help people”. You’ve thrown a blanket “I hate marketing” position down over your own precious talents and passions.
Then you’ve added a whole bunch of other messy stuff into the mix – doubts about your own self-worth, fear of being visible, fear of failure – and you’re left with a really heavy blanket of resistance to marketing.
This can only keep you stuck right where you are, not helping the people you want to help. You can’t then have the impact or earn the income you yearn for. (And guess what? Those people who need you might instead go and buy that new-and-improved car seat cover because it’s simply more obviously available to them right now than you are).
You’re offering an approach which meets someone’s genuine core needs, not artificially constructed needs. The need to be heard, the need to not be stuck, the need to not be in discomfort. The need to be free, to be in relationship, to be empowered.
And so it’s your duty to make sure you can be found by the people who need you. In other words, it’s your duty to market.
How does that sound?
How does that change things, when you hear that it’s your duty?
It’s my duty to let you know about ways forward from your resistance. There are people committed to teaching a different kind of marketing – people like Mark Silver, Molly Gordon, Tad Hargraves and – of course, me.
I don’t come from a sales and marketing background at all. I was a teacher, a backpackers’ hostel manager, a tour manager, a youth worker. When I found that I loved this thing called ‘coaching’ and that it could help people, I realized I needed to learn as much about marketing as I did about coaching skills – if I was going to reach the number of clients and have the level of impact I wanted.
I’m so grateful that I’ve found people like Mark, Molly and Tad who frame marketing so differently. I’ve discovered that marketing can be about serving, about honest communication, about creating bonds with the people I’m here to take care of and their communities. (That’d be people like you).
And this is what I want to share with you. I intend that my enthusiasm for congruent, authentic, heart-centred marketing is contagious and that you discover how to communicate your solutions in ways which feel natural, generous and definitely not manipulative.
I take a stand for you reaching the people who need you and, as you do so, enjoying a fulfilling, easy, supported lifestyle yourself.
So I’d love to hear from you…
How has your relationship with ‘marketing’ been? Do you find yourself holding back from telling people what you do, or sending out that promotional email? What shifts when I tell you it’s your duty?
Leave a comment below, let us know. You certainly won’t be alone.
Ready for clients, impact and a decent income?
If you’re trying to earn enough money to go (and stay) self-employed, then you’re who the Turn Your Passion To Profit journey has been designed for. Check out the group programme here > > and if you even slightly suspect one of the remaining places is yours, then fill out the ‘free consultation’ form on the bottom of that page.
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© Corrina Gordon-Barnes, 2011
This is really good; spot-on, authentic and fresh; thanks!
Nick Robinson´s last [type] ..Great Recovery
Hi Corinna,
I found marketing and selling really hard until I got more clarity on what I wanted to say. When I really ‘got’ that it felt much easier. So, general consulting and coaching was no good (even though I believed in it). What worked was when I realised that I had a true passion for helping people to make a career change to the voluntary sector. At that point everything just poured out of me. My coach suggested that I offer a freebie for people who signed up to my newsletter, so I wrote a 12 page guide for career changers and found it easy, because I really had something to say. I now have 100 subscribers in just 2 months.
Now getting clients to pay me, without me compromising or thinking I am not worth the money, that is my next challenge!
I think the solution will be based on the same thing, though. That when I know deep down that what I have to offer is really life changing and valuable, it feels fine to offer it and charge for it.
Hi Corrina,
When I read the headline, I thought ‘that’s a bit harsh, I don’t hate it’. Although when you mentioned tv adverts, I thought ‘you know what, you’re right, I just can’t stand them’. I find them fake and, yes, manipulative.
I suppose I have a background in marketing – although I don’t really see it that way, since as you say, it can have a negative ring to it. I’m a graphic designer, and for me this is about being creative and using creativity to help people promote their business. But when I’ve worked at agencies, whose clients include large chains of supermarkets or insurance companies, it felt very different to working for myself and being able to choose my clients (to a degree), which are smaller businesses with better ethics. Those are the kind of clients I want to work for!
Although I started self-employment again in September last year, I must admit that the agency work, which I still do when needed, does give me a base of income to allow me to (in quieter agency times) do my own thing, with some money in the bank. Being self-employed, I have some distance from it now. From the agency work and their clients I mean – whereas when I did this full-time, it just felt like I was betraying my own values.
As I finish my degree in Nutritional Therapy, and take the time to ‘gather data’ as it were, I’m sure I will develop my own formula, which will be fulfilling in a personal way as well as financially. Although the latter is certainly not the most important – most important to me is doing what I love and feeling I make a difference.
Nick – You’re welcome
Devi – Congrats! Sounds like a big shift and you’re now reaching your Tribe. I did a teleclass recently on ‘Are you charging enough?’ so keep an eye out for the audio recording of that, although sounds like you’re already on to that next solution…
Esther – Haha, do you hold your hands up in horror at those TV ads? I do! Interesting for you to compare the marketing ethics of the different companies you’ve worked with.
Fantastic blog, Corrina! So many good points. Having been through your wonderful Passion to Profit course, my attitude to marketing has changed enormously – now I feel guilty if I *don’t* do it because I’m abandoning people I could help to wander around in the wilderness! Such an amazing reframe.
As always, thank you!
Joy
Joy´s last [type] ..How To Set Up Your Desk So Your Body Will Love You- Five Easy Steps
Joy – YES! I *love* that you got that ‘marketing is your duty’ piece.
And you’re modelling it with your brilliant blog post you’ve got linked there (check it out, people!)
Thanks for spreading the word about Turn Your Passion To Profit. I want to introduce your gang to the current gang… and then to the September gang… and then…
I’ve posted this comment on Facebook too
Yes making me thoughtful
I have mixed feelings about marketing – not all bad! However I find myself unsure just who it is I’m wanting to direct my “marketing” to … to whom and for whom am I setting out my stall? And what do I actually want to show on my stall? Who am I best place to help? Who do I serve? And what do they need and/or want from me that I’ll truly enjoy to give? I reckon that when all that’s in place it’s easier to feel better about marketing! 
Thanks Corrina xx
Annie´s last [type] ..The Pride Paradox
It’s a great and refreshing reframe, Corrina.
Thanks for reminding me!
Annie – Yep you’re spot on, the marketing stage comes after you’ve identified your Tribe, researched their needs, and decided on the right way of packaging and pricing your services to meet their needs. Have you taken a listen to: http://youinspireme.co.uk/12-steps-to-business-heaven-call-recording/ for those 12 Steps To Business Heaven?
Claire – Pleasure. Like with Joy, great to see you blogging!
Great article Corrina.
I’m lucky in that my articles generate me a lot of clients, and I love writing and communicating, so I don’t feel like I’m marketing or being pushy. It’s much harder for me to make a direct offer without feeling some negative energy around it, but I’m working on with the help of mentors such as Marie Forleo.
I’m passionate about the fact that when heart-based entrepreneurs earn money, we usually spend it in good ways, expanding our economy so we can help more people.
Denise Duffield-Thomas´s last [type] ..Youre Totally Worth a Fresh Tea Bag
“Marketing is your duty” I love this, you’re so right.
I’m not part of the anti-marketing brigade, although I do understand the repulsion of the tactics used to brainwash us into thinking we need stuff we clearly don’t. Like you said it’s important to stay awake and discerning, this also includes to our own judgements. I’m a big believer in paying attention to your judgements, taking what’s yours and leaving the rest. The marketing strategies we dislike clearly show us what matters to us and hold clues for how we would like to show up in our own marketing.
Our fears will play many games with us to maintain the status quo and this is one of them. I love your reframe of marketing in this post, it doesn’t have to be a dirty word and you’ve made that point well.
I find that the word ‘Invitation’ has been very helpful to me around these issues. I think the thing that puts my hackles up about crass marketing is just how uninvited and uninviting it is – just today in Brixton I cycled past a billboard which was alternating an image of a lady in a red swimsuit (special K) with a macdonalds burger. Not only did I feel mad about the waste of electricity, the juxtaposition of her body with a piece of food jangled the feminist in me and the vegan in me thought it was highly ironic that there she was looking healthy next to the most unhealthy food you could possibly eat, advertising a processed cereal that is probably not much better. It was just not something I wanted to see or had invited whilst negotiating busy traffic on my bike.
So for me I now am clear that I work ‘by invitation’. My aim is to create genuine loving connections with people in my community, which then naturally results in invitations to perform, give treatments, lead groups etc. When I communicate genuinely, these invitations arise naturally. I also extend invitations through newsletters, blogs, facebook events etc, to people that have clearly indicated they want to be part of my community and are free to say yes or no according to what is right for them. I enjoy the creativity of making each invite – its like having a party, I want it to be fab and funky and reflect the intent of each event.
I know that I could learn much more from experts in this field but as it stands for me right now, heart felt invitations work for me and generate reciprocity naturally.
Seeing my community as a ‘market’ to whom I am ‘selling’ does feel really alienating and crude, but if I think of it like a colourful crazy marketplace, thrummimg with juicy fruit, colours, textures, sounds where we are all exchanging creatively and bartering skills, ideas, experiences and products, it feels more vibrant. Within that vibrant space I can make my invitations and get inspired by what others offer – its something I’d be more happy to be invited into. I love the creativity of my community and I celebrate and support all of us being seen in our realms of expertise because truly what we all offer needs to go beyond our own backyards and out there into the world.
Denise – Love that you’re working with Marie, I want to hear e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g!
Lola – I’ll be speaking more about this in a call I’m doing: ’3 Essential Mindset Shifts To Turn Your Passion Into A Profitable Business’ – now what wonderful woman is hosting that on 28th June…?
Katie – Now I live in Cambridge, when I return to London for a day or two I really notice the billboards. We don’t have them in Cambridge and it’s so much more peaceful. p.s. Love your reframe of a marketplace, I’m so happy I’m bustling around in the same one as you!
I found this a very interesting article Corrina, thank you. I notice that I have no problem at all marketing what I do to the people I meet in person, but I haven’t made a jump to doing that on-line (yet.) I think most of my concerns about that are how time consuming it could be. (I’m concerned about spending too much time at the computer.)
(And as she has been through your programme I can see that credit is due all round…) You are both clearly really doing things which works!
I liked Joy’s post and when I went to her blog, I was hugely impressed by how clean and fresh and simple it looks: extremely enrolling!
Rosalind – She’s got a great blog, huh? Neither she nor I like spending lots of time behind the computer either, so let that inspire you perhaps…
Hi Corrina
Thanks for the link to your 12 Steps to Business Heaven call – I’ll definitely check in and check it out.
At the mo I’m not sure if I’ve already listened or not and that’s no reflection on the call – more a case of scramble brain from a gazillion classes from a gazillion people and right now I’m all a jumble not sure what i have listened to and what’s still waiting to reach my ears – let alone my brain, heart & soul.
For me it’s not just about research and meeting their needs – there’s a huge bit about how their needs have to match my needs/passions/desires etc. because it’s so important for me to not be a square peg in a round hole. Tee hee I want – I need to be the jelly mould not the jelly! xx
Annie´s last [type] ..The Pride Paradox
Annie – I wanna tell you to unsubscribe from all those newsletters again…
You nailed it!
Jason Stein´s last [type] ..How to Finish Your Content
With utmost thanks to you, Jason x
the backlog grew anyway down to the unexpected and enforced house move which sucked up all my logistical and emotional energies for a few weeks.
anyway, time to make some space again and some slower pace … and then write/create – my get me up-to-date! will listen to your call though – discernment in practice xx
Annie´s last [type] ..The Pride Paradox
Hi again Corrina
Finally got to listen to the recording yesterday! I love that you include a piece on how to deal with criticism (eg from people who don’t understand the self-employed lifestyle). Surrounding yourself with support to counter the sandpapering (even well meaning sandpapering) I’ve had from relatives is so important.
loads of other great tips in the call / course too. Did you do a earlier version of this call? I feel like I listened to a prototype of the call a while back – but maybe it was something else
Will trying tuning in / connecting more to get guidance on what’s my tribe and my passion … what I DO know is that I feel most alive and energised when I get the chance to “perform” – to connect with people in some way as front of room leader or “host” of some sort. I also have pretty good idea of what skills and qualities I bring to the party – but not really sure further than that … will see what comes up Annie x
Annie´s last [type] ..The Pride Paradox
Annie – There’s another call: ‘How To Turn Your Passion To Profit: Top 10 Tips’ which you might be thinking of. That and other useful audio recordings can be found at http://youinspireme.co.uk/free-stuff – enjoy!