Uncovering the Gifts of Marketing

Uncovering the Gifts of Marketing

So many people I talk to get tripped up with their marketing because it just feels icky somehow. Some people see marketing as being pushy. Other people think they have to focus on things like likes or engagement metrics as proof their marketing is working, and the whole thing feels shallow somehow or transactional.

I get it.

Most approaches to marketing don't feel good because they're based on tactics that assume you need to do certain things to manipulate others to buy from you.

I believe instead that marketing is all about building connections - bridges between you and your work and those in the world who may need your help…

When A Client Doesn't Take Your Lead

When A Client Doesn't Take Your Lead

My daughter and I started watching Chicago Med on Netflix. Sometimes, after treating the initial presenting symptoms, the doctors discover an underlying condition. They recommend a course of treatment, and every so often, the patient will resist. They'll argue. They'll insist they're fine. They claim they just need to be patched up and get the paperwork, and they'll be on their way.

In the show, the doctors fret, worry. Of course, the doctors are always aren't right 100% of the time. But they are most of the time. They have experience, expertise, the data. They’ve seen this stuff before.

It's like this in your business too. Perhaps you have a client who isn't listening to you…

Building Your Business

I was raised with a strong work ethic, and I came to understand that work often had an under taste of unpleasantness about it. Fun was something nice, yes, but it didn’t have much of a place when or where there was work to be done.

This is the stance I brought to my corporate career, before I left my job in marketing, and, it was also what I brought to start my own business. Sometimes it's all too easy to catch yourself seeing this business building thing as something you need to slog through. Fortunately, I've learned to do things a little differently.

Every time I find myself at a bit of an impasse, I try to look around and ask: where or how can I bring in more fun? And every time I do that, every time, something good comes out of it.

I want this for you too.

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

For Those Of You Bringing Businesses Into The World

For Those Of You Bringing Businesses Into The World

Have you ever felt an ache deep in your chest, just next to your heart, about your business?

If you're a heart based business owner - a coach, healer or other creative entrepreneur - it might be what I call a heartache. Sometimes it's small, a twinge or flutter of sadness. Other times it's large and threatens to engulf you. Sometimes it feels sharp, other times dull, throbbing.

It's a hurt that most often comes from wanting to take something inside you and bring it outside. And that's what your business represents - your desire to make this all real…

The Time It Takes to Build Your Business

The Time It Takes to Build Your Business

I remember the first time I heard it, years ago, from a trusted business coach.

It would, she said during her presentation, take three years on average to build a business that would really begin to support itself and support you as the business owner.

I remember frowning.

I decidedly did not want to wait three years to get my business off the ground. Life was short. I knew then, after so many years of doing what I was good at but didn't find meaning in, that the time was right to build my business.

But, that long?