When Marketing Yourself Feels Gross

This week, we're getting honest about why promoting your work can feel so uncomfortable when you're someone who genuinely loves to teach, create, write, podcast, or share what you know.

Because for a lot of deep feelers, contribution feels safe.

Selling feels exposed.

And if you're not careful, you can end up giving endlessly, building trust, and helping people for free without ever making it clear how they can work with you more deeply.

Whether you're...

• Someone who has a lot to share but feels weird every time you talk about your offer
• A coach, creator, teacher, writer, or business owner who loves contributing but avoids selling
• A deep feeler who worries that promoting your work makes you look pushy, arrogant, or attention-seeking
• Or someone who has built trust with your audience but hasn't built a clear bridge to the next step

... this episode will help you reframe selling as an act of service, not performance.

We're diving into:

• Why self-promotion can feel so gross for sensitive, thoughtful people
• The difference between contribution and invitation
• Why trust isn't the finish line, it's the foundation
• How over-giving, people-pleasing, and imposter syndrome can make selling feel emotional
• Why your free content may be building trust, but not creating a clear path to work with you
• How selling can become a simple, grounded invitation instead of a dramatic sales pitch
• The difference between performance and leadership
• And the question every creator and business owner should ask: “If someone loved everything I put out for the next six months, would they actually know how to work with me?”

The Energy Xchange is a podcast for highly sensitive people, empaths, INFJs, and deep feelers navigating relationships, business, visibility, and personal growth.

Work with me:
If this episode is bringing something up worth exploring, I'd love to connect! Visit JustOneWoo.com for ways to work with me or find me on Instagram at @the.energy.xchange.

Transcript

0:03

Welcome to the energy exchange. Podcast with deep feelers and violators. Here, we explore what happens when we start working with our natural energy. Here's a way to pattern just to feel safe. Now, I hope others like me to step more fully into their power without losing the superpower of their softness. We don't have to be allowed to be seen, and we don't have to push to be powerful. Everything is energy. Let's start this exchange. Welcome into this week's episode of the Energy Exchange. Today's topic has a little more of a business slant to it, but really it's about something a little more tender than business. Today we're diving into that weird discomfort that comes up when you know you have something valuable to share, but the second you have to promote it, you feel gross about it. Teaching feels good, writing feels good, podcasting feels good, but selling can feel like asking to be chosen. Like we're asking for attention, we're putting a price tag on something that comes from our genuine desire to help. And if you're a deeply feeling, intuitive, empathic person, that can feel icky. It can feel gross. Not because you're bad at business. I promise you, you're not bad at business. Not because you don't believe in your work, but because contribution feels safe and selling feels exposing. So here's what I want to dive into a little more today. Contribution and selling are not opposites. Contribution builds trust and selling, promoting yourself, gives people a way to act on that trust. And if we don't build a bridge between the two, we can end up giving endlessly without ever letting our work become sustainable, meaning creating abundance and livelihood for us. So first let's talk about why self-promotion feels gross. A lot of deeply feeling, empathic people tend to associate self-promotion with ego. We don't want to be attention-seeking or perceived as arrogant. We don't want to be performative. The idea of promoting or selling can feel very forced if that's not how you naturally show up in life. I was the kid in school begging for the teacher to call on me if I knew the answer. Like I would never be audacious enough to just blurt it out on my own, right? Like I'm looking for someone to ask me for the solution. Praying for them to ask for the solution. So if you have those tendencies within you, that's why self-promotion can feel a little unsettling. If you're an empathetic, caring person, you've probably been doing it your whole life before you had a platform. Maybe you've always been the go-to for someone when they need advice or lending hand. And for my teachers, coaches, creative people, writing feels like sharing. Teaching feels like helping. Podcasting feels like having a conversation. There's something about these mediums that allow you to focus on the idea that you're sharing instead of focusing on yourself. And I think that's why so many of us are drawn to those things. We're not necessarily sitting down thinking, how do I get people to pay attention to me? At least that's not how it has usually felt for me. Like most of the time, I'm sitting down thinking, this feels worth talking about. Or I wish someone had explained this to me sooner. And I think other people might be experiencing this too. That feels different. That feels useful, generous, and like genuine contribution. And for a lot of us, that's the entry point into visibility. We don't necessarily want to be seen just for the sake of being seen. We want the idea to be seen. We want the message to reach the right person. That can feel very aligned and good. It can feel like service. So that's why a podcast, a newsletter, videos, social media, that can be a comfortable space for us. They let us show up with purpose. They let us be visible without feeling like we're standing in the middle of the room saying, look at me. And sometimes, always actually, that contribution feels safe because it allows us to stay just outside the discomfort of maybe not being chosen, hired, or paid for what we do. So this is where it gets a little tricky. It's one thing to share an idea. It's another thing to say, oh, and if this is something you're struggling with, here's how I can help you with it. That second part can feel more vulnerable. Now there's a price, there's a next step. There's also now the possibility that someone could say yes or someone could say no. And for many of us, the creating part feels safe because it allows us to give without asking for anything in return. We can serve without risking rejection. It lets you be helpful without having to fully own the value of what you're offering. So, yes, contribution feels safe. And it really is the most honest, natural place to begin. But if we stay there forever, we end up giving endlessly without ever allowing our work to become sustainable. What we don't want is to become a perpetual teacher or creator. But it happens so often, and I've been there because we don't build that invitation. So people might love your work, they might love what you have to say, but they don't know how to work with you. They trust your perspective, but they don't know what you offer. So maybe they keep coming back, but there's no bridge between the free insight and then the deeper support you can provide. Like, wouldn't it be amazing if all the time and energy you're pouring into this thing could also support you financially? Most of us aren't getting paid to post on social media unless you're, you know, an influencer with a million followers. We're not getting paid to write that newsletter or record a podcast. We're doing it because we have something to say. But if you're building a business, we need a bridge. We need a bridge from that free insight to deeper support. From, hey, I like the way this person thinks, to I know exactly how they can help me. When you don't share that opportunity, you're doing both yourself and anyone following you a really huge disservice. Here's the mistake I see a lot of really thoughtful people doing. They treat trust like it's the finish line, but it's not the finish line. Trust is the foundation. We need a place to build from that trust that you've created. And if you've been posting for years, if you've had people reading your newsletter, there is a lot of trust that has been built. And I can almost guarantee you that if you invited those people to do something with you, you'd get some takers. If you're really attuned to what's going on for other people, you're always going to have those thoughts of, is this too much? Am I being annoying? Is this gross? We tend to think selling means convincing someone to do something that maybe they're not immediately ready to do. But if someone trusts your work enough to keep coming back, selling doesn't need to be about convincing them. You're simply making the next step available. What you're doing in your world right now is already helping people. It might be helping them see themselves more clearly, maybe helping them identify patterns, problems, desires, or possibilities that they hadn't fully named before. But at some point, there's a deeper problem that they're not going to solve just by consuming more free content. And I think, especially right now, we're in this age of information and AI is making it so easy for people to teach and share. It's getting very overwhelmed. We have enough knowledge. They can find out anything they want to find out. What people are looking for is that person, that one point of access that can actually help them solve the problem that they're searching for. That's where your offers come in. Your offers create access to a deeper solution to your eyes and lived experience on their specific situation. You're opening up access to structure, feedback, accountability, support, and maybe that clear path forward. So if someone's been following you for a while and they already like the way you think, the way you explain things, the way you approach the problem, you may not need a dramatic sales pitch. It simply becomes an invitation. Here's what I have, here's who it's for, here's how I can help you, and here's the next step if you want it, if you're ready for it. That's very different from trying to extract value from people. You're creating access for the people who are already in your world and are ready for more. And I've experienced this as a buyer so many times, and I'm sure you have too. There are people I have followed for months or even years before ever buying anything from them. I was never annoyed by their offers. I wasn't offended that they were trying to sell something. I just wasn't ready. I recently joined a program from someone I've been following for a couple of years, actually, Kim Shaper. And you might not know this about me, but I was a very overweight kid, extremely overweight young adult. So over the last few decades, I've been on swings up and down with my weight, food, all of it. So I followed Kim for a long time because she talks about nutrition hormones in a way that feels very practical and grounded for me. I love her no-nonsense approach the way she speaks. And my issues, what have kept me consuming all of this free content, really came to a head at the end of last year with my hormones being very out of whack. So when she made an invitation into her program earlier this year, it was an immediate yes for me before I even knew the price, guys. When I got on the call and I was told the price, it was higher than I expected. It was a pretty big investment, but it was still a very comfortable yes. There was no pressure, no sales pitch, and I didn't need one because trust had already been built. By the time I was ready, no one had to convince me. I was genuinely excited because I knew my problem was going to be solved. Like I had a partner in that. So that's what I mean when I say selling is serving. It's not forcing someone into a decision before they're ready, it's allowing them to follow, learn, listen, build trust. And then when they are ready, you've made the path clear. A podcast can lead to coaching, a newsletter can lead to someone signing up for a workshop, a YouTube channel can lead to someone signing up for an online course. And not because you're trying to squeeze value out of your audience, but because trust often creates a desire for deeper support. And when that desire is there, and I promise you, if you have repeat followers and people engaging with you, that desire is there. Then your offer isn't an intrusion. It's that next open door. When someone trusts you enough to want more help, the most generous thing you can do is make that help available. We have to get around this thinking that selling needs to be a performance. We're really talking about leadership. Performance and leadership are not the same thing. Performance says, look at me. It seeks attention. It's asking your audience to help you make money and build your business. Leadership says, come with me. It offers a direction for people. You are in this with them. One of the biggest things I've learned from creating content over the years is that visibility is not the same thing as being loud. And selling is not the same thing as being pushy. For a very long time, I think I believed that if I was good enough at what I did, people would just know what I did. You know, they would understand my value, they would connect the dots. But people do not always connect the dots. The more I've created, the more I've realized that people need repetition. They need reminders. They need context. They need you to say the thing more than once in more than one way before it can finally click for them. Promoting yourself is really just about making the right things clear enough that the right people can recognize how you can help them. We don't have to sell. Selling is not the thing. We just have to make the invitation clearer and present it more often. So here is a practical challenge that I want to leave you with. I want you to look at what you're creating right now. So that could be your social media post, your website, your podcast, your emails, your conversations with people, whatever your version of creating is. Ask yourself if someone consumed everything I put out for the next six months and they loved it, would they actually know how to work with me? Would they know what I offer? Would they know who it's for? Would they know the problem that I solve? Do they understand what makes my approach to this problem different from other people? Do they know the next step? That's where a lot of us get tripped up. We think we're being annoying when really we're just being vague and unclear. We think people are tired of hearing about what we do when in reality, a lot of people still don't fully understand what you do. As a marketing professional, I have lived this. I've spent decades helping other people market themselves. But when it comes to me, sometimes it does hit different. The goal here isn't to turn your entire presence into a big long sales pitch. The goal is to remove friction for the people who already trust you, they already like your perspective, they already feel connected to you and your work and might be wondering to themselves, okay, but how do I actually work with you? Make it easy for them. So to wrap this up, if you are someone who loves contributing, but you struggle with promoting yourself, you have to decide if you're willing to let people act on the trust that you've already built. Promoting yourself gives people a way to act on that trust. And both matter if you want your work to continue. Okay, I'm gonna leave it there. If you subscribe to my weekly newsletter, I'm gonna be sharing five low-key, super non-stressful ways to sell your current offers in this weekend's email. So make sure you get on that list if you haven't already. You can get on that list at just onewoo.com or you can check out the podcast notes below. I'll throw that link in there. Thanks for listening, guys. I will chat with you next week.