Hi there, lucky pants! You might have seen that I’m going to be writing a bonus series on “What Makes Marketing Hard” (or at least what makes it feel hard).
(If you didn’t see it, the post is here: What Makes Marketing Hard. It also details the fiendish evil plans I have in store for you.)
I’m going to hit the big one first. This was probably the biggest block for me, and it’s the one I hear again and again.
Ewwww, marketing is gross
Trust me, I get this one. Before I had a business to promote, I hated marketing, I hated selling, I hated marketers, and I hated salespeople.
Then I had to become one.
Oops.
I’d been working in corporate “marcom” (that’s marketing communication, in case you’re not a jargon junkie) for a long time, but marcom is a whole different beast from getting the word out about your own little tiny business that consists mainly of you.
When I decided to go solo, all I wanted to do was to find some clients and do copywriting. I couldn’t afford advertising, I had no idea what Google Adwords even was, and SEO was definitely some kind of black magic.
Figuring it out
Because I was so grossed out by the marketing advice I was finding, I realized I was going to have to totally reframe this thing for myself or I’d never actually do it.
(I’m extremely bad at doing anything I don’t want to do. That’s both a good and a bad thing, but anyway, it’s how I’m wired.)
So I read every book and blog I could find. Then I went back and re-read the ones I thought were any good.
I bought courses with money I didn’t have. I went to hear talks from experts, and then I read some more.
And I tried stuff. I actually tried the cold calling thing, because books on “How to Not Starve as a Copywriter” told me I didn’t have an option.
Cold calling made living in a homeless shelter look quite attractive, so I scratched that one.
But I liked to write, and I especially liked to write to pals online, so I thought maybe a blog would be ok.
And one day it sort of went “Bing!”
It wasn’t about me
It wasn’t about beating my chest and saying how awesome I was, or some ugly sales process called “closing” that would manipulate a person into saying yes when they wanted to say no.
Because I had worked in marcom all that time, I did know lots of techniques that would help people. They just needed a little adaptation.
And because I was figuring out for myself how to promote my copywriting biz without wanting to shoot myself, I had a good take on what worked and what didn’t.
I knew that if I worked out a system that worked for me, it would help other people in the same spot.
I wasn’t setting myself up as some kind of marketing and communications god. I was just putting my hand out and offering some help.
It was about them.
Changing the focus = changing the results
The thing is, in corporate marketing, you have to make the CEO happy. And the odds are good that the CEO is a) an idiot, and/or b) a jackass.
80% chance he’s one, at least 50% chance he’s both.
And so you hardly ever get to put together marketing that’s really, truly about the customer. You know, the person whose life is made better by what you do. And, coincidentally, the one who pays everybody’s salary.
If I could put together a marketing process that was about them, about the people I served, it wouldn’t feel gross. And even when people got mad at me for being “too salesy” (I do get that sometimes), I wouldn’t feel bad. Because I’d know that I was helping a lot more people than I was turning off.
That’s how Remarkable Communication got started, a little over two years ago. It took a little over a year to make it a really viable business because a) I had to figure everything out, since I didn’t know of any good models, and b) I’m a slow learner.
My favorite 5 ways to make marketing feel less gross
- Make your “advertising” into something valuable. Instead of creating junk that makes people angry, create great stuff that helps people and makes them feel wonderful.
- Know that what you’re doing is noble work. This is obviously my personal belief, but I’ll share it with you: Creating a business is an inherently good thing to do. Business is about creating value, and value is just another way of saying that you’re making the lives of your fellow humans better in some way. Big businesses can get distracted from that. Tiny businesses can’t, because when we do, we fail.
- Be yourself. Don’t try to turn yourself into that weirdly extroverted yet bland guy who did the sales training you went to one time. You’ll feel like a fraud and a creep. You totally get to be weird, shy, quiet, funny-looking, have a strange sense of humor, and like things hardly anyone else likes. Embrace your weird. Call it your USP if you really want to.
- Work, all the time, to get your ego out of it. It’s about the people you serve. This is hard but it’s rewarding.
- Don’t do stuff you hate. There’s always another way. Sometimes I might encourage you to try something that will get you a little out of your comfort zone. But that’s not the same as doing something that just feels wrong. You’ll get really good at spotting the difference. Trust your instincts.
Dang, that was long
Sorry, I’m pounding this out in a coffee shop on my laptop and I guess I just had a lot to say. I promise I’ll try to make the next ones shorter. 🙂
So what’s up next?
This is the first of five bonus lessons on why marketing is so hard for us, and what can make it a lot easier.
Bonus lesson #2 is going to be about the second giant boulder in your marketing path: overwhelm. The topic of “marketing” is so huge, and there are so many pieces you can put together, that it just all seems too big for one normal person to figure out.
If you’ve gotten this far, thanks for sticking with me. I hope this was helpful to you! You can let me know what you think by replying to this email, or if you’re reading the post on the blog, leave a comment. I’d love to know your experience with it.
Lots of love, thanks for being in my little tribe. I think the world of you, I hope you know that.
xoxox
(P.S., if a friend sent you to this page and you aren’t subscribed to one of my free classes (delivered via email), you won’t get the rest of the bonus lessons!
Just fill in your name and email address here. I promise I will never, ever spam you or clog your mailbox up with junk. I hate that too.)
Sonia, I really enjoyed this—so much that I clicked through to the site to leave you this comment. Not that I hadn’t heard a lot of it before, but it’s the kind of stuff you need to hear again and again and again to develop the courage to apply it. And your voice is fresh and comforting, somehow.
Plus, the insight about what makes marketing feel so icky inside bigger organizations (and honestly, I would include nonprofits most of the time) is right-on and brilliant. In that situation, we so rarely have the opportunity to make it work for the people we are there to serve, whether you call them customers or clients or something in between. Why else do we all end up eventually working for ourselves? Because we want to do it right, or at least, right-er.
I don’t think you need to worry about your posts being too long. No need for apologies, or promises to be shorter next time. Just keep writing stuff like this and you can be as long as you like, IMO.
Great stuff Sonia, thanks for breaking it down for us so well. I really like your writing style, and enjoy getting your lessons in the mail.
As a person who has a really technical background (I hand code PHP/XHTML/CSS templates for joomla, wordpress and magento), I always ‘over-engineer’ my copy into some techno mumbo-jumbo and get caught up in the features, not the benefits.
I’ve spent the past 5 or 6 weeks reading everything I can get my hands on, including every free report this side of the north pole, from Brian Clark to John Carlson, and I keep migrating back to looking up your old posts on your blog here and at copyblogger.
I guess I’m comfortable with your type of teaching, and I wised up and realized too, I’m better off trading out some coding work with a copywriter friend/client, than I am trying to become a seasoned pro in 6 weeks time.
If you ever need a quick fix for your bullet points, let me know! It’s just 1 line of code to make them do what you want! It’s what I do well!
Hi, thanks a lot, I really loved the freshness of your article, and I had to agree on everything. Marketing is gross, until you have something to sell, how true 🙂
Thank you so much Sonia for this article.
It confirms exactly how I have experienced marketing up until now. Gross!
But I am learning more and more that marketing is about good, clear and honest communication.
Like you I have a little tribe (“vrije werkers” (free workers) in the Netherlands) around me. And every day I am meeting new interesting small businesses and professionals on the internet (through my blog, Twitter and so on). I love to communicate with them and offer them some coaching, which in the end will lead to payed services.
This is a so much more fun and rewarding way of executing marketing than I used to. This is about real people doing the best they can to have some success! Who wouldn’t support them with some good solid and honest communication?
I am happy to be part of your tribe. You are learning me a lot.
Sonia,
You’ve written some priceless gems before, but this one is possibly your best. Maybe because even though I’m in a different industry, ultimately my business is all about great communication. Today’s blog was very personal and represents my shitty corporate life before I started my business, and my happy but less profitable life since I went out on my own.
Xes and Ohs 2 U for a post that was fabulous for its clarity, articulation, and relevance.
JW
Sonia,
I’m so appreciative of this approach. I’ll be even more appreciative once I’ve seen it work. I believe what you are saying make sense – it’s how I like to do business with others – and I haven’t experienced it on this side.
We shall see….
Thanks for encouraging us to click through an leave a comment on your blog. When I saw this email in my inbox, I immediately identified with it. I just want to do what I love to do… why can’t people just find me?
Marketing is like accounting for me. It’s fun when I’m making money. When I’m not, it kind of sucks! 🙂
I love inspiring people and my email list grows all the time, but it doesn’t always translate into sales. Thanks for reminding me that marketing can be fun when I am myself. Just wish I didn’t feel the financial pressure on top of it all.
Sonia,
1) Thanks for an awesome post! Like usual 🙂
2) As for gross: I’m not sure we can ever salvage the “M” word (Marketing). It definitely has some evil baggage. Part of me thinks we may have to invent a new word/phrase that means Sleaze-Free marketing. For now, I suppose sleaze-free-marketing will suffice 🙂
3) <<>>
Thanks for leading the tribe, chief!
Mike
You guys are all giving me a huge smile today. Thank you!
Beth, you’re so kind, thanks. Writing is fun when it’s like this — a whirlwind whoosh. Apparently it’s very easy for me to write about how gross marketing is. 🙂
Hi Sonia and appreciate your refreshing view on marketing, because it can be “gross!”
I’m new to your tribe and glad to be a part of it. Thanks for this post and looking forward to the rest of this bonus series “What Makes Marketing Hard” 🙂
Sonia, for me the hard part is asking people to fork over a bunch of money for something that, to me, comes pretty easily.
I need to be more like Picasso in that story where someone asked him to do a quick napkin sketch. When it was done, Picasso said, “That will be a million dollars.” When the requester said it only took him 30 seconds, Picasso said, “But it took me a lifetime of training to be able to do it in 30 seconds.”
I saw this on a smaller scale at a craft show. As I was looking over a table of knick-knacks, I was thinking to myself, “I could make these.” That’s when I looked up and noticed a sign that said, “Yes, but you *didn’t* make these.” A mind-reading sign. Awesome.
Drew, yeah, that can be a tricky one. The best cure I know of is to do some Q&A calls. Answer some questions and listen to the very grateful happy voices and you realize that even though you might know it backwards & forwards, there are a lot of people who don’t, and who really need your help.
Marketing doesn’t need to be that hard, but there are a lot of details & techniques that can cloud the basic issues. And as a topic it just gives a lot of folks a brain freeze. Kind of like computers hit some people.
Thank you so much for writing this. As I was reading I thought, “This person is ME! This is exactly how I feel.”
The promising thing is, if you ARE me — a year or so ahead on the learning curve — all I have to do is keep following you to be the me I want to be a year or so from now.
(don’t know if that made sense. hey, it’s early Saturday morning and I haven’t had my coffee yet) LOL
Bottom line: Sonia, you rock!
I accidentally wound up in here and just started reading. Your delivery is very easy and disarming, a skill set I wish I had.
Unfortunately, I worked in federal law enforcement for 30 years and in that time my social skills reverted back to their primal stage.
I have also been trying to make this online thing work but I keep running into walls, mostly in the traffic generating area. I’m hoping to garner some value from your posts.
Sonia, I join your tribe in saying thank you for writing this. I have been in a bit of ‘stuck-mode’ when it comes to marketing because I’ve spent too much time turning up my nose at the gross marketing I’ve been subjected to by others…and fearing that I’d be pegged as another marketer.
You reminded me to step back and remember that it’s about SERVING people, and that the niche I’m in is one that I’m truly passionate about, so thanks for the reminder. How can it feel gross to be myself, and to help others in an area I’m passionate about?!
I love your philosophy and look forward to your lessons.
What makes marketing so “gross” is the possibility of rejection. How the heck do you get over the fact that some folks are not going to want your services and not take it personally? How do you move beyond paralysis?
Sonia,
I agree with your post completely. One of the things that I tell my clients is stick with what works for you. If you do not enjoy speaking in front of audiences, then do not include that in your marketing program. Marketing is easier to handle if you focus on the things that you enjoy doing and do not try to do to much at one time. I tell my clients to decide on one goal to accomplish and then pick no more than three tactics to implement to accomplish your goals and track your results.
I also agree with it is about the customer and not about you. It is not about what you want potential clients to know, it is about what they want and need to know and then you fill that need.
Jenn