Marketing that Doesn't Shrivel Your Soul

Yes, you can find marketing activities you actually enjoy and create great results.

Here's my story of how I stopped doing marketing I hated to marketing I genuinely love.

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My mission is to change the way small business owners market themselves and it’s very important to me that I reach as many people as possible.

Transcript

Today I’m going to talk about finding ways to actually enjoy marketing your small business. It is possible!

The older I get the more I realize that life is short.

For this reason I began to tag items on my to do list not only with their priority but also with the level of joy I get from doing the task. 

My joy tags are:

Ooh! 😄
Great 🙂
OK 😐
Tedious 🫤
Ugh 😩

We live in a culture that worships the Protestant Work Ethic (PWE) which encourages us to work very, very hard and to forgo pleasure with the understanding that at some distant time we will be rewarded for our toil.

The PWE also suggests that success and money are the fruits you receive for your hard work. 

There is also often unspoken assumption that if you do not get lots of success and money from your hard work, you lack virtue, you are not deserving of Divine favor and are somehow undeserving.

You don’t have to be Protestant to live by the work ethic. I was raised in a Reform Jewish home and my parents were big fans of the PWE. 

Capitalism and Meritocracy are natural results of the PWE.

We assume that work is WORK. It should not but fun or gratifying. Perhaps the more we dislike what we’re doing the more virtuous we are?

When I started my coaching business, I hired several expensive business coaches who insisted I market myself by attending as many in-person leads groups as possible.

When I protested saying I strongly disliked attending leads groups every single coach told me I must do what I dislike in order to have what I desired.

I hated being told this and pushed back but a part of me also bought into their reasoning. I seriously wondered whether I could be a successful business owner.

A large part of my own journey as a coach and business owner has been questioning and exploring the truth of the PWE.

Another way to ask this question is How can I do what is necessary to having a thriving business in ways that I actually enjoy?

Because when I enjoy the activity I’m less likely to resist doing it. 

Marketing is a necessary business activity that very few business owners enjoy. Although I focus on helping heart-centered business owners with their marketing I want to emphasize that I don’t enjoy marketing my business.

I enjoy promoting others. I don’t enjoy promoting myself.

I’ve discovered that, yes, there is marketing I really enjoy doing

Fortunately I’ve learned that there are marketing activities I genuinely enjoy:

• Meeting other like-minded, like-hearted business owners and learning about them and their work
• Appreciating the unique brilliance each person brings to their work
• Writing about marketing and related topics
• Being a champion of showing up as my messy, human self because I believe this is what our best prospective clients most desire.
• Discovering win-win collaborative opportunities.
• Understanding at a deep level what my right-fit clients deeply desire and learning how to articulate this in my communications.
• Discerning who my right-fit people are in my communities and making a point to invest time and effort in these relationships.
• Giving myself permission to not invest time developing relationships with people who are not a right fit.

I understand there will always be marketing-related activities you don’t enjoy but still have to do. For example, I don’t especially enjoy the nuts and bolts of keeping my contact list up to date. And I don’t always enjoy doing follow up activities because people generally don’t respond to follow ups even though the appreciate the contact.

I’m always on the lookout for ways to make these activities more fun and delightful.

Life is short. Marketing can be delightful and it’s worth pursuing the activities that nourish your heart and soul.

I appreciate you!

Judy Murdoch
Marketing Root Work Coach, Writer, Artist