Something that comes up a lot in the Love & Badassery Motorcycle Club is the topic that marketing feels icky, slimy, manipulative (see last week’s post), and downright tiring. This makes sense. The Motorcycle Club attracts people with high-standards of integrity. So I’d like to share with you what I shared with them, hopefully offering a mindset shift around marketing your business in a way that feels good (or at least, not so icky).

First, separate yourself from the idea that marketing is a THING YOU MUST DO and come back to your overall goal.

You want more people to know about your business so that you can _______.

(fill in the blank and if you’re up for it, send me a note to let me know)

Maybe you said “help more people” or “have a bigger impact in the world”. That’s great. For those of you who answered “make more money”, that’s okay too! When you earn more money, you increase your capacity to help people more fully, invest in your local community, donate to charity, fix the things you’ve been putting off, etc.

Now that you know why you want more people to work with you, you have the opportunity to discern which techniques you’ll use to share your services with the world. If some of those tactics go against your values, you now have the open eyes to discern and choose otherwise.

Not all marketing is manipulative.

Consider marketing like a birthday party invitation. You’re having a party and you want people to come. The right people. But in order for them to even know about the party let alone RSVP and show up, they need to be invited.

And everyone wants to be invited to the party.

When you stop marketing your business, you’re also taking away your potential clients’ sovereignty to decide whether or not they want to work with you. Instead, what if you decided that your job is not to “market your business” but to “invite people in”? When you use techniques that don’t play off scarcity or visual tricks, you can trust your people will make the right decision for themselves.

Allow your people to be the grownass adults they are and give them an opportunity to decide if they want to come to your party.

Of course, all of this becomes far easier when you have solid business foundations but wherever you are in your business, this is your gentle nudge. You’re hosting a badass party. Don’t forget to send out your invitations.