Modern day marketing advice says that I need to create or hone my personal brand. Pull in my tribe! Build my audience. Oh no! I don’t want to do that. Do I have to wear something uncomfortable or be someone I’m not? It feels so crafted. Posed. Inauthentic. Yuck.
Can’t I just share and anyone who wants to pay attention can? Isn’t that what’s really happening here?
I understand the rules. I’ve worked in marketing, public relations and advertising for most of my career. Since I’ve been self-employed for the past decade, I’ve consistently marketed our small companies. My brain thinks in marketing ways. Many times I’ll make suggestions to friends and colleagues how they can market their brands and products. I appreciate the process and think it’s exciting.
That being said, I’d much rather rely on attraction rather than promotion when it comes to what I have to offer. Whenever I sell a piece of artwork, it’s important to me that whoever buys it really wants it. It isn’t about them getting a great deal or me being a good salesperson or anything like that. I want the art to resonate with them, truly and honestly. So please, don’t make me click you in my sales funnel.
I am being a little bit like a bratty child, stomping her feet and not wanting to do what I’m told. If you know me a little then you are aware that I’ve written a book, I’m re-launching my bed and breakfast retreat center, and my husband has amazing art and art services to sell. So I have to market it all, right? Yeah, I have to market it all right. But I really don’t want to. Not in the marketing-machine way they do it now. I’d rather build things slow, know who I’m sharing with, and create real connections.
The conundrum here is unless someone knows me, how will they ever find me? There is the necessary marketing piece. So what am I to do if I don’t want to pull you into my pipeline or click you in to my sales funnel? How would I even start to break through anyone’s life noise? Why would I want to?
I suppose all I can do is be honest about who I am and what I have to offer. That means sometimes you’ll see a blog post that seems random and maybe too heartfelt, but it’s actually a part of me and my life. Or I’ll put something on the Still Waters Insta that might’ve been better off on my personal Facebook page. That’s what I do. All the aspects of my life are interwoven. For me, they are not comparmentalized into hard-line distinctions. They melt into one big pile that is the soul of my life.
A savvy, polished marketing person at a top firm might wag their finger and tell me I’m doing it all wrong. But that’s OK. I’m doing it my way.
Maybe being nothing short of honest and bumbling in my marketing will work out just fine. People that want what I have to offer will find me organically. I can certainly try. If I fail miserably, I can use that to write my next book, “How to fail consistently with authenticity.”