Authentic Marketing vs. Self Promotion
Many people are turned off by marketing because they see it as self-serving advertising aimed at taking money from people. I’ve seen loads of this type of shameless, self-promotion out there, and it’s a turn off. Of course, you wouldn’t want to be known as that type of self-promoter.
The conundrum is that, as an entrepreneur, you have to get your message out there in a big way and, as a coach, you want to live on purpose. You want to grab attention without being pushy, and make sincere promises to deliver that don’t violate your integrity. Without applying pressure, you want to inspire clients to take the action you know they need to take. And without using a gimmick, you want to appeal to a sense of urgency. You want to attract the attention of the people who need you and let them know that you’re the answer to their prayers. And you need to communicate full-out so that those people can find you! Otherwise, you’re a well-kept secret!
So how do you put it out there in a way that feels aligned with your values–where you feel genuine and filled with integrity?
Authentic Marketing
The answer is to market authentically, to learn how to communicate in a clear, sincere, and compelling way. Marketing shouldn’t be slinging sales talk at someone or getting on a soapbox. Authentic marketing is having a real conversation that speaks to someone’s needs. Its genesis is in uncovering your passion, finding its voice and allowing it to be heard. It’s a dialogue that flows from the inside out.
To uncover your passion, you need to reconnect to your vision—why you started your business in the first place. When you do that, you’ll clear the mental cobwebs and connect back to what has always been there but got mucked over by those voices that play in your head. Tapes like “I’m not a sales type. I don’t have the personality for it.” “I don’t want to be intrusive.” “I don’t like to talk about myself.” “I’m embarrassed that people might think I need money.”
People are attracted when you speak from your passion. When you are in touch with your gift, your energy shifts and a meaningful, natural conversation can open. You speak in ways that illumine opportunities; that make space for transformation. You share your belief in the person’s ability to change and invite that person to try on a new way of thinking and being. When your agenda is pure, others are attracted to your clear and obvious commitment to help them create change.
When you re-connect to your love of facilitating positive change for others, your marketing will be transformed because you have been transformed from salesperson into instrument of change.
You then become fearless about speaking about the solutions you bring forward. You find this space within you where marketing is no longer a drag. It’s exhilarating; in fact, it’s feels a lot like falling in love with your gift, again, and enrolling others in that feeling. Remember the first day of coach training? How in love you felt with this way of being in the world? What could be more powerful and satisfying?
To market authentically to those we want to serve means that we communicate and show up in ways that respect their sensibilities, speak to their intelligence, and honor their ability to discern for themselves what they will buy.
What does your messaging convey?
Does your heart and purpose shine through your words and way of being?
What will it take for you to shift your marketing messages from promotion to authentic contribution?
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What’s Fear Got to Do With It?
We’ve all been there. You want to create a new teleclass or send out that email announcement showcasing your services. But days pass and you just aren’t doing it. “I’m procrastinating,” you say. Yes, you are, but that’s not what’s really going on. Procrastination is a symptom. What’s really going on is fear.
The Impact of Fear on Building Your Practice
Many of us think we’re being positive because we’ve created a marketing plan and we’re working it, but unbeknownst to us our subconscious thinking is running the show. More than 90% of the time it’s in charge. And much of that thinking can be negative—self-limiting and fear. Thoughts like: Marketing is annoying to people. They’ll avoid me. Or, no one can afford coaching in this economy. Or, what if I fail?
If fear, doubt, and worry are operating in the background, they’re informing your actions (or lack thereof!) without your even realizing it. The result is sporadic or no marketing at all, which translates into struggle to fill your practice and lack of revenue. Even worse? You don’t really understand why you’re having such lackluster results.
The effect is similar to poor nutrition. Your body will run if you feed it junk, but how will it run? Will you have low energy and will it break down? Will you have a negative body image? So the question is: What’s in your system? Because it’s feeding the results you have. If negative, subconscious thoughts and feelings inform your actions, how do you boost your thinking full of the nutrients needed to operate optimally?
Getting Conscious
The first step is getting conscious—awakening to your subconscious beliefs around marketing; what you’re really thinking and feeling. What you, perhaps, didn’t realize was there. When you identify what those thoughts and feelings are about marketing and connect them to how they’ve mitigated your results, you’re able to finally unhook. You’re free to disengage from the fear and negative belief systems. This opens a space to create a new mental model for how marketing could look—one that resonates for you and allows you to capture the attention and interest of the people you most want to help.
To start, you go below the symptoms and identify the fears fueling the behaviors. I’ll walk you through a simple process to do that in a subsequent article, but let’s take a quick look at procrastination again. We said that it’s a result of fear. Let’s take that deeper. What is the fear? Often, it’s a fear of rejection. We think people will avoid us if we “bother” them with what we’re up to. It could also be a fear that you’re not trained enough, not credentialed yet, or that you won’t do it perfectly, or what if they say “no,” then, what?
What are your fears about being an entrepreneur? All of them can, and often do, lead to procrastination.
Once, you’ve identified what’s putting the brakes on your lack of consistent, forward movement, you can address the real issue, and in doing so, eliminate its power to negatively impact building your practice.
We’ve all been there. You want to create a new teleclass or send out that email announcement showcasing your services. But days pass and you just aren’t doing it. “I’m procrastinating,” you say. Yes, you are, but that’s not what’s really going on. Procrastination is a symptom. What’s really going on is fear.
The Impact of Fear on Building Your Practice
Many of us think we’re being positive because we’ve created a marketing plan and we’re working it, but unbeknownst to us our subconscious thinking is running the show. More than 90% of the time it’s in charge. And much of that thinking can be negative—self-limiting and fear. Thoughts like: Marketing is annoying to people. They’ll avoid me. Or, no one can afford coaching in this economy. Or, what if I fail?
If fear, doubt, and worry are operating in the background, they’re informing your actions (or lack thereof!) without your even realizing it. The result is sporadic or no marketing at all, which translates into struggle to fill your practice and lack of revenue. Even worse? You don’t really understand why you’re having such lackluster results.
The effect is similar to poor nutrition. Your body will run if you feed it junk, but how will it run? Will you have low energy and will it break down? Will you have a negative body image? So the question is: What’s in your system? Because it’s feeding the results you have. If negative, subconscious thoughts and feelings inform your actions, how do you boost your thinking full of the nutrients needed to operate optimally?
Getting Conscious
The first step is getting conscious—awakening to your subconscious beliefs around marketing; what you’re really thinking and feeling. What you, perhaps, didn’t realize was there. When you identify what those thoughts and feelings are about marketing and connect them to how they’ve mitigated your results, you’re able to finally unhook. You’re free to disengage from the fear and negative belief systems. This opens a space to create a new mental model for how marketing could look—one that resonates for you and allows you to capture the attention and interest of the people you most want to help.
To start, you go below the symptoms and identify the fears fueling the behaviors. I’ll walk you through a simple process to do that in a subsequent article, but let’s take a quick look at procrastination again. We said that it’s a result of fear. Let’s take that deeper. What is the fear? Often, it’s a fear of rejection. We think people will avoid us if we “bother” them with what we’re up to. It could also be a fear that you’re not trained enough, not credentialed yet, or that you won’t do it perfectly, or what if they say “no,” then, what?
What are your fears about being an entrepreneur? All of them can, and often do, lead to procrastination.
Once, you’ve identified what’s putting the brakes on your lack of consistent, forward movement, you can address the real issue, and in doing so, eliminate its power to negatively impact building your practice.
We’ve all been there. You want to create a new teleclass or send out that email announcement showcasing your services. But days pass and you just aren’t doing it. “I’m procrastinating,” you say. Yes, you are, but that’s not what’s really going on. Procrastination is a symptom. What’s really going on is fear.
The Impact of Fear on Building Your Practice
Many of us think we’re being positive because we’ve created a marketing plan and we’re working it, but unbeknownst to us our subconscious thinking is running the show. More than 90% of the time it’s in charge. And much of that thinking can be negative—self-limiting and fear. Thoughts like: Marketing is annoying to people. They’ll avoid me. Or, no one can afford coaching in this economy. Or, what if I fail?
If fear, doubt, and worry are operating in the background, they’re informing your actions (or lack thereof!) without your even realizing it. The result is sporadic or no marketing at all, which translates into struggle to fill your practice and lack of revenue. Even worse? You don’t really understand why you’re having such lackluster results.
The effect is similar to poor nutrition. Your body will run if you feed it junk, but how will it run? Will you have low energy and will it break down? Will you have a negative body image? So the question is: What’s in your system? Because it’s feeding the results you have. If negative, subconscious thoughts and feelings inform your actions, how do you boost your thinking full of the nutrients needed to operate optimally?
Getting Conscious
The first step is getting conscious—awakening to your subconscious beliefs around marketing; what you’re really thinking and feeling. What you, perhaps, didn’t realize was there. When you identify what those thoughts and feelings are about marketing and connect them to how they’ve mitigated your results, you’re able to finally unhook. You’re free to disengage from the fear and negative belief systems. This opens a space to create a new mental model for how marketing could look—one that resonates for you and allows you to capture the attention and interest of the people you most want to help.
To start, you go below the symptoms and identify the fears fueling the behaviors. I’ll walk you through a simple process to do that in a subsequent article, but let’s take a quick look at procrastination again. We said that it’s a result of fear. Let’s take that deeper. What is the fear? Often, it’s a fear of rejection. We think people will avoid us if we “bother” them with what we’re up to. It could also be a fear that you’re not trained enough, not credentialed yet, or that you won’t do it perfectly, or what if they say “no,” then, what?
What are your fears about being an entrepreneur? All of them can, and often do, lead to procrastination.
Once, you’ve identified what’s putting the brakes on your lack of consistent, forward movement, you can address the real issue, and in doing so, eliminate its power to negatively impact building your practice.
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The Conscious Marketing System
Get present to how you’re thinking, being, and doing to authentically grow your business~
by Paulette Rao, MCC
This article outlines the interdependent system of thinking, being, and doing that occurs in the life cycle of becoming a successful entrepreneur. You will examine the internal and external barriers that get in the way of playing full out. You will learn what it means to have the MINDSET, LANGUAGE, and MAP to attract the clients you most want to work with so you can make money doing what you love.
Conscious Marketing™ is about awakening your sense of how you show up and allowing your action to flow from that place. In stages, it’s about having a clear understanding of your thinking, being, and doing. By taking a step back and getting present you can find a new way of thinking that clears the way for all the marketing opportunities to arrive. From this place, marketing can be different, and even fun! In this system, you follow a simple roadmap that gets you from purpose and vision to creating personal action steps for success with confidence and accountability.
Getting conscious about marketing means going within and taking an honest inventory of how you’re thinking and feeling about marketing as well as taking stock of your marketing messages, tools, and plans.
Getting conscious offers the opportunity to rid yourself of the anxiety that’s typically attached to building a practice. Once you clear the emotional decks, you can step into the place of presence, where the clarity needed to CHOOSE a new way of thinking about marketing exists. Creating that new mindset about how you want to show up and communicate the gifts you put forth in the world allows you to capture the attention of the people you most want to attract and engage. Getting conscious creates the opening within – the place where you begin to build your thinking and actions to grow your practice.
Marketing is revealing who you are, and what you offer, authentically and naturally, so as to attract and engage the people you most want to work with. It’s falling in love again with your contribution and enrolling others in that.
Being a conscious marketer means getting to the heart of what it takes to build a client base with less fear, struggle, and effort. It means experiencing the necessary breakthroughs that release us from our marketing gremlins. In Taming Your Gremlins, Rick Carson refers to them as the great inner critics in our mind. You may know them as the relentless messages in your head that say things like “You? Sell? Hah!” “What if you fail?”
To get conscious means that you have shifted your thinking such that a new mindset can emerge. This new mindset dramatically changes your course.
Getting CONSCIOUS dramatically shifts your results.
How the Conscious Marketing™ System Works
We begin by forgetting about marketing!
The first order of business is to identify the self-limiting beliefs and fears that hold us back from marketing full-out. When we know something’s stopping us and we’re not sure why, it’s time to examine our underlying beliefs. If we don’t, we stay in the same ’stuck’ place and we won’t grow our business. So, first up, is getting crystal clear about HOW we think about marketing that doesn’t serve us.
Each of us has fears, whether it’s fear of failing, being rejected, disliked for being successful, worrying about what others will think or say, etc. The problem is these fears hold us back from doing what it takes to get clients. The fear of being rejected alone can stop us cold from marketing!
When we go within and listen to our inner dialogue, we start to notice limiting beliefs about money, marketing, and entrepreneurship-the ones that stifle our efforts and preclude results. By listening carefully to the voices in our head, we begin to see thisTHINKING for what it really is – simple FEAR: False Evidence Appearing Real. We have to be willing to put aside the fear, doubt, and worry to create the clearing for a new, conscious way of thinking about marketing that paves the way for success.
Until we take the time to stop and identify these beliefs, we can’t do anything about them. So the first step is staring them down; getting conscious to the subconscious, hard-wired thinking that is creating our results! Our subconscious thinking creates our reality.
Knowing how we think about marketing and how to shift our belief system around it is a skill most haven’t learned. Our thoughts and beliefs affect us profoundly, but we often don’t see it, as more than 90% of our thinking is subconscious. This subconscious thinking shapes our actions and hence, results. Therefore, if you think marketing is difficult, it leads to procrastination about marketing or avoidance altogether! Little action equals poor results.
Once we’re clear as to the thoughts and beliefs that mitigate our results, we can unhook from the thinking that binds us to playing small and safe. We need to powerfully disengage from the fears, perceptions, attitudes, expectations, and assumptions which frees us to create a new paradigm for how marketing could look-one that resonates for us. One we feel excited to try. One that energizes us into action.
Here are some of the thoughts and assumptions prevalent among service professionals I work with. Any ring a bell?
- I hate how marketing feels. It often leads to rejection.
- If I ask for referrals it will sound like I’m begging.
- No one has money to pay for my services in this economy.
- Marketing is annoying to people. People will avoid me.
- I don’t have enough time to market.
- I can’t start until I know exactly what to do. I’m not (trained, credentialed, educated, experienced, etc.) enough yet.
Sound familiar? Perhaps now is the time to create new attitudes about marketing that no longer limit our potential.
Okay, so we’ve identified what’s holding us back. What do we do next?
Powerfully putting fear aside sets the stage for reconnecting to our VISION as a successful entrepreneur. We draw out who we are, what our gifts are, whom we want to help, and how we bring our solutions to bear. A strong and clear vision for ourselves and our practice comes into view.
Once we are fully in tune with the vision we want to create for ourselves, we are able to start SPEAKING directly and impactfully to the needs of the people we feel compelled to serve. If we’re not clear and powerful in our messaging, we confuse people or, worse, fail to get their attention.
BEING true to ourself and claiming our voice is the most important aspect.We want to communicate in a genuine way in order to attract attention from those we want to help. We unearth our authentic voice so that we can speak about what we do in a way that’s fully aligned with who we are. Communicating from our core allows us to speak more openly, from the heart, and gives us the freedom to fully step into action. This means falling in love again with what we’re offering and allowing that energy to be infused into all our communication.
We craft MESSAGES about our target markets, their challenges, and our solutions. We begin to understand basic marketing syntax which helps us communicate succinctly, impactfully, and authentically. Understanding marketing syntax, a new use of language, lends itself to communicating with ease, clarity, and confidence.
We also discover the role of story-telling to allow for natural conversations that are as comfortable as talking about the weather. It is important to practice articulating our messages so that we feel confident speaking to people whose potential we believe in and know we can make a difference.
Taking action, the DOING piece, is more than handing out business cards, creating flyers, and giving classes. It starts with finding the conscious entrepreneur within and bringing it forward in all we say and do. Once we are truly congruent and aligned with our core, we can show up in a way that the DOING flows easily.
We’ll start DOING more than before, with commitment and focus, creating opportunities, and getting better results. We will generate more paying clients which means we get to make money doing what we love. We get to play full out, as an entrepreneur, enjoying the freedom we dreamed about and the financial stability we deserve.
Another step of the DOING is the creation of a marketing PLAN that propels us forward. A step-by-step map of what we will do and how we will do it. We also identify a few simple, but solid, tools we will need to carry the plan into inspired actions. We create offers that allow us to invite people to experience what it would feel like to get the results we promise. We create authentic invitations that really allow others to see what we contribute.
The plan is a simple, yet effective, marketing system so that we continuously create a sustainable supply of leads. The plan is the map we use to guide our movement forward. By following it, a sustainable practice emerges; one that reflects us authentically and creates abundance.
The last phase is sticking to our action plan for ongoing success. This means securing strong ACCOUNTABILITY. One key way of holding ourselves accountable is by becoming a member of a mastermind group led by a marketing mentor filled with equally committed, talented, and motivated professionals to stay fresh, inspired, and support each other’s pursuit of success.
A mentor helps us develop and refine our marketing plan; share innovative strategies and insider marketing tips; help us avoid costly mistakes; provides accountability for reporting progress made in our plan. We are locked into accountability for those times when we want to quit. And, let’s face it, we all want to quit sometimes! With that level of accountability, we take smarter and more action which gets to where we’re going faster and easier.
It’s amazing to see how much faster you grow when led by a marketing mentor and being supported and held accountable by a powerful group of like-minded people who believe in your potential. You can do anything with that level of energy and support.
~ ~ ~
Most entrepreneurs implement marketing activities randomly and get random results. By understanding and working this interdependent system of marketing, you’ll finally create consistent and sustainable results. Your confidence will soar! You’ll start attracting more clients and (dare I say) get excited about working your new system.
Bottom line – our presence and how we show up all starts with our thinking, followed by our being, and doing. If you become conscious about who you are, what you do, what you give others, then your marketing comes from the inside out. Marketing is revealing who you are, and what you offer, naturally and authentically, such that you attract and engage your perfect clients. It’s falling in love, again, with your contribution and enrolling others in that.
Are you ready to evaluate your marketing readiness?
I invite you to take an honest inventory of how you’re thinking and feeling about marketing as well as taking stock of your marketing messages, tools, and plans. The Conscious Marketing™ assessment will help you get conscious about both aspects. It will help you get clear about your thinking, being, and doing-identify limited thinking, see how you’re showing up, and evaluate your blueprint and toolkit for building your practice.
And look out for the very special surprise bonus at the end of the assessment. If you really want to kick-start your marketing system and defy all of the dire predictions for the economy, then you’re going to love this!
Click here to take the assessment. http://www.consciouscoachinginstitute.com/assess/
Call me at +1 718 833 5586 if you have any questions.
Warmest regards,
Paulette
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ANNOUNCING Online Conscious Marketing Awareness Tool
Hi everyone~
I’ve got some exciting developments in the works and I can’t wait to share them with you!
In just a couple of weeks I’ll be launching the Conscious Coaching Institute™ and it’s going to be something that you, as a coach looking for greater success in your practice, will want to keep an eye on.
More on that soon, but first…
How would you like to find out your top 10 marketing focus areas that will allow you to attract clients with confidence and ease?
Many clients of mine have benefited from this, and other powerful insights gained from participating in my Conscious Marketing program.
A personal consultation with me can help you dramatically boost the results of your marketing efforts. And that would normally cost you at least $150.
But today I’m launching a new interactive online assessment tool, which almost eliminates the need to speak to me at all!
Seriously, this is the next best thing to a personal consultation. But it won’t cost you $150…
It’s brand new, it’s not going to be free forever, but today I wanted to give you the chance to access it at no cost.
http://consciouscoachinginstitute.com/assess/
An authentic approach to evaluating your marketing readiness is taking an honest inventory of how you’re thinking and feeling about marketing as well as taking stock of your marketing messages, tools, and plans. This awareness tool will help you get conscious about both aspects.
It will help you get clear about three critical aspects of marketing: thinking, being and doing. You’ll identify self-limiting thinking, ’see’ how you’re showing up, and evaluate your blueprint and toolkit for building your coaching practice.
Bottom line: Getting CONSCIOUS dramatically shifts your results. It creates the space for attracting more clients while feeling confident, authentic and natural.
And look out for the very special surprise bonus at the end of the assessment. If you really want to kick-start your marketing program and defy all of the dire predictions for the economy, then you’re going to love this!
Best,
Paulette
For those who have asked–the NEXT Conscious Marketing Teleclass starts May 18 at 7pm Eastern. Ten ninety munutes teleclasses.
Contact Information
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Phone: +1 718 833 5586
Email: paulette@consciouscoachinginstitute.com
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