Hey friend!

Welcome back to the Holistic Marketing for Coaches – Podcast! Today, I want to talk about why you don’t like marketing – because yesterday I was interviewed by another podcaster – about that. We spoke about everything marketing and everything business – and what people resist around that. What I think is really important to talk about is that they, feel shitty about marketing and the thought of marketing. So that’s why I thought it would be really, really important to talk about that today. So we’ll talk about why you have the resistance to marketing and then we will look at how to access that feeling excited and good about marketing, and yes, it’s totally possible. So bear with me, by the end of this podcast episode, you’re probably going to have a totally different mindset around marketing. So So yeah, you’re welcome.

Why You Don’t Like Marketing

Why do you feel about marketing? A lot of the things that come up around that is imposter syndrome, perfectionism, and as a result: procrastination, but that’s kind of just a symptom. Procrastination sort of goes away because you’ve now sorted out  the root cause of why you where actually procrastinating – I should probably create a podcast totally on procrastination as well. Shoot me a little message if that is something that you will be excited to hear about. So manipulation – what that really is, is that you’re indirectly getting what you want, like you’re trying to get something or going in the back door instead of just going in the front door. Just blatantly state what you want. So, a lot of people then, in terms of marketing, feel like marketing in and of itself, is manipulating. Because you’re “tricking people” to buy something that they don’t really need and that you’re tricking them to start believing that this is something that they really do need. And then we have imposter syndrome. And I did a whole episode on this. So, if you haven’t listened to it yet, I invite you to go back and listen to that. It’s JAM PACKED of tips and tricks and how to relate to it inn order to move through it. So, as I say, in that episode, a huge study found that 70% of us actually claim to have some level of imposter syndrome. So even like the people that are “successful” or that sort of have “made it in life” or in the in their own domain – still experience imposter syndrome. So, that truly just comes from our mindset and imposter syndrome in the sense of a coach; you might be a new coach or maybe even your further down the track. Or you might be doing quite well, but you still have this sense that you “don’t really know what you’re talking about”. You might think that “oh my God, people are going to figure me out” and “this isn’t as good as I say that it is” etc. You have all these thoughts around not being as good as you say that you are in your marketing. So, that’s definitely going to make you feel icky about putting yourself out there! You’d want to withdraw and not put yourself out there.

Perfectionism in Marketing

And then, you have perfectionism – which is also just a coping mechanism. We try to learn everything up front, so that when we do put things out there it will be “perfect”. So that; in the future we won’t feel uncomfortable because we’ve changed our minds or we’ve learned something new that makes us change how we see things. And we tweak our content so much so – that we end up not putting it out there. So perfectionism is basically to protect ourselves. A part of us would say that it’s ensuring that we create high quality content. And, yeah, that’s great! But there’s a fine line between wanting to create high quality and saving your own ass. And, you know, stealing content from your followers, so to speak, by just keeping it in your notes – instead of actually sharing it with them and actually helping them. It might be 70 or 80% of what it could be, but keep in mind, that perfect it’s actually very subjective.

I say this all the time; what you might perceive as obvious or really like mundane, someone else might be like, Oh, shit, I hadn’t thought about it that way, that is mind blowing. And it doesn’t matter how you structure your sentence or how perfectly it was laid out. It was the core essence of the message of what you were saying that actually made it click  for someone.

Perfectionistic thoughts also come from thinking that “we need to be seen as an expert” and yes, to some extent, like we are the experts in our domain. But, try instead to look at it as if you were a contributor to the conversation. You don’t have to have a doctor’s degree in your field in order to convey really helpful information to people that are starting out. In fact, if they are just starting out, then having someone that are so far ahead of them that it’s such a big gap, then they might not be able to relate to- or figure it out too well for them to actually be able to implement that into their own lives to actually relate to it. So just be a few steps ahead of someone and what you’re talking about, is more than enough. And you might even be just as interested in this topic as your followers and they might have done their own research but your unique perspective because of who you are the personality or experiences in life, you might see it slightly differently and express the message in your content slightly different so that they now finally get it. So that whole perfectionistic train of thought is just a coping mechanism.

Your Intentions in About Your Marketing are Everything!

And we have to ask ourselves what the motive is behind it. And even if we say that it’s to have high quality, ask ourselves like, what does that mean? And where’s where do we draw the limit? Or where do we draw the line between what’s actually really hight quality content and what’s actually me trying to say my own ass.

Another thing that makes us feel icky around marketing our business as coaches, is our belief in ourselves, in our products to our clients. If you doubt yourself as a coach. If you don’t think that you don’t have enough education, that you don’t have enough experience, that you compare yourself to others that are a lot more experienced or well known in the field… and so you just don’t think that you are the right person for people to coach with. Then you are going to feel really icky about marketing yourself! You’re thinking that you’re selling someone a raw fish, a rotten fish. Like, you think that “you should really go to that person over there to get your fresh produce –  but, you know… come to me and you can get your really rotten fish!” You have to get to a point where you believe in yourself. And how do you do that? You actually just start believing it. You start believing that you’re a good coach. And if you’re in the very beginning of your career, you can coach people for free. Just get yourself to a level where you feel so comfortable in helping people that you’re like, “yes, I’ve got this and I can coach anyone on anything in my field. I feel really solid in this”. And, don’t get to perfectionistic here. Just work on your mindset and focus on “I’ve created transformations for people, I’m getting really great feedback from people and I see I’m helping people creating change”. It’s really good to find evidence for what you believe, but the fastest way to develop a belief, is to bridge thoughts. So, if you think that you’re a shitty coach, ask yourself how it’s true that you are a GREAT coach”. You might think that “I’m a really great listener, that you only focus on your client when you’re in a session”. Etc. It’ all evidence from how you show up that creates evidence for you being a good coach.

A lot of coaches have drama about their package, you know, how many sessions or how many weeks or months they’re going to sell it for and what the price is for this package or per session. If you think if you have a lot of drama around what you’re selling, then you’re also going to under-communicate the value of your offer and you’re going to feel icky about marketing it because you’re not sold on yourself and your product. So, to sell it to someone else is going to feel crap.

Belief Triad

The last point of the belief triad is your clients. So, if you don’t believe that people want what you sell, you don’t believe that people have money to pay for coaching… you’re also going to feel pretty yucky about marketing your coaching. Because you feel like you’re tricking them to buy something that they don’t want or they don’t have the budget or money for. Obviously you’re going to feel pretty off about selling someone something that isn’t a great product. So, if you have these subconscious beliefs, and they can be super subtle, like the thoughts that are in the back of your head… you might not even be aware that you have them! So, be really onto yourself and always ask yourself, “Why am I not feeling good about marketing this product right now? Why? Why do I have that hesistation around not wanting to put myself out there? Because I’m afraid of what people are going to say? The perfectionistic thing? Or do I feel like I’m being manipulative – or do I feel like that I say that I’m someone that I’m not – like imposter syndrome? Or do I have some sort of disbelief in myself, my product or my clients?

Okay, so how do we actually get from feeling shitty about marketing ourselves and having all these doubts and limiting beliefs around the coaching that we’re selling, and what we’re marketing? When you started out as a coach, you did that because you love helping people! You have seen the amazing transformation that coaching created in your own life, and seeing your peers creates amazing changes in in their clients lives. And so, you just really see this as such an amazing service and something that everyone needs to have. BUT THEN, you start building a business. And you start thinking that “I need to earn money, and I need to sign a client this month” or four clients or whatever, you know, wherever you’re at in your business. And so, what’s happened here is that you’ve changed from an intrinsic motivation, extrinsic motivation. So intrinsic means that you are motivated by what it gives you to do this thing you know, you feel fulfilled and satisfied and excited about helping someone. It really fuels you from the inside to do this work. But now that you’re in business, you have started focusing on earning money and getting clients, and are instead putting your worth on external factors. You’re also trying to GET something. It’s really changed from what I GIVE to what I GET, so try to catch yourself in that.

One of my mentors compared to body odour (BO). If you’re trying to get something from someone, it’s like repelling, people, like “I want nothing to do with that”. But, if you are there to give them something, they’re like, “Oh, interesting. I want to explore this”. So obviously, when you have that intention, people have bullshit meters you know, like people are like, I don’t feel good about this because this person is sending out weird signals.

So yeah, so really change your intention and try to get it back into seeing how amazing coaching is and seeing what amazing results that it’s created in your life and your clients’ life. And just seeing all the evidence that this is something that really helps people and focus on what you can give instead of what you can get.

Everyone are Your Clients and Friends

Another thing that will help you immensely in starting to love your marketing and really feel excited about it, is to see everyone as your clients and like-minded friends. So, when you are currently posting on Instagram, for example, and you’re like, “I need to write it in this way or that way to sort of make them want to buy it”. That’s a very manipulative sort of, I-need-something-from-them-mindset and intention. People pick up on that. Instead, sharing like as if they were great friends like “oh my god, like I just learned this thing. I need to share it with people” and “oh, wow, I just got this insight – that was really eye opening for me and I’m sure there’s someone else that needs to do this right now”. And also, not to hoard information for yourself. People are like, “what do I share for free and what do I share in my offer or with my clients?” And I just say “give it all away”, because when you just give it all away, you just start to create so much more genius content.

If you’ve heard about the author, Seth Godin – he had a period, and he might even do it still, he wrote a blog post every single day. And he said that, the more he wrote, the more his subconscious went out to find things that he could write about – and he got better at writing every time. He also said that yes, while I do regret some of the things that I said, or that I could have said it in slightly different ways, I would have never become such a prolific writer and such a great communicator had I not written and done all these things. Just like let it pour out of me without filtering it too much. So, I invite you to do that. Just lower the bar for what you’re putting out. Because the more you practice, the more you put out, the more you think about how can I help your people in the best possible way, then, automatically you’re going to feel a lot more creative. You’re not going to feel so strangled and constrained around your stuff. It’s not going to have to go through all of these filters and not even end up getting published because that is never “good enough” for you to take it out of your notes and actually post it on a social media platform. See, see everyone as your client and share the content with your non-paying clients on social media, etc, as if they were paying clients. Just pour it all out, because the more you share, the more brilliant stuff you share the morning will actually start to generate and create and flow through and channel as well.

If people haven’t actually paid for it, they’re not going to sit down and really study material anyway. So, when you actually create something structured or if you work with them, 1.1, and focus on their personal stuff, like nothing can compare to that. That is where the transformation really happens. And you know, your stuff that you share on social media and all the platforms is kind of an intellectual understanding. But when they coach with you, they start to implement it in such a greater way and embodies so much more because it’s applicable to them. We go into their belief system into their feelings, that emotion into their actions, and how we can create the best results for them specifically.

Seeing marketing as helping people for free gives you such an amazing feeling of generosity as well.. So, it’s not about what you’re getting it’s about what you’re giving. And when I think that I might have helped someone today in a small or bigger way – that that is what I want. That’s why I became a coach. That’s why I went into business as a coach in the first place.

But, I can almost hear your objection; “but like, get let’s get real, we need money in order to have a business. We can’t just give away everything for free”. But the matter of the fact is that up until this point, you haven’t earned as much money because you’ve had all of these restrictions around your marketing. So, what do you think will work the best? To put yourself out there to start sharing all the honey with all the bees and actually starting to attract them through your honey? Or, by giving out a little drop here and a little drop there and they never really get to know you and how brilliant you are because you put out so little good content? That’s not really inviting. It feels like such a contradiction and so counterintuitive, but all I can say is START doing it and you’ll experience the amazing results that you’ll get.

So, to summarize:

• Your thoughts create your results
• Ask yourself why you’re holding yourself back
• The way you think about marketing determines the quality and quantity of your marketing
• Treat everyone as clients and as friends who are interested in the topics that you talk about
• Give unconditionally and in pure service.

Okay, my friend, I hope that this was helpful and that you feel more relaxed and open and more curious about sharing your content now and that you’re really excited to give away all of your good stuff for free.

If this changed the way you see marketing, then please do share it with someone that might also benefit from this. So, share the love and I will talk to you next week!