I hope you have the summer space and time to check out my esteemed colleagues and my own offerings to save you some unnecessary toil and snag zones on your road to lush, sustainable income. Check out The Solopreneur Toolkit, 5 colleagues and myself sharing time-saving success tips.
About five years ago when I took a business training course, the first month was on developing your marketing message. There was a simple formula to use to fashion your statement – and no, it wasn’t rocket science. Somehow, though, this was an excruciating chapter to pen for myself and many fellow students. Many never quite finished jumping through this hoop, even after years in business.
It defied explanation – these were smart and savvy people working to create a simple a, b, c kind of statement about the target group, the problem they have, and how we help. What was going on? Okay, this isn’t the first time you’ve heard that self promotion isn’t easy for some reason, right? It can be for lots of reasons, yet until you’ve done it well, you are still under the spell of the self promotion stumble zone. It’s awkward. It’s weird. You never want to lean in to it with grace and god forbid, joy.
When I look around now, I see the fallout of never getting this important spiel to a place that works to attract clients – heck, to even clearly let others know what you’re up to in your business!
Let me briefly state some of the behind-the-scenes shenanigans that trip up even the most gregarious, extroverted light workers. To sail past these hurdles, you need to master three areas: Knowledge, Money & Mindset, and Energy.
1) KNOWLEDGE
This might look like the simplest area to master, and it is a bit less subtle than sidestepping mindset ambushes that can be a bit more sneaky and snarky. Yet, there is a veritable ton of knowledge to grok to get the right words into your marketing message. You want eyes lighting up, not glazing over. You want to capture cool language your client’s use after a time, and not rely on your own marketing speak all the time.
I can’t cover all this here, but how about a glimpse into the knowledge base and some of the actions that will help you create a rocking message.
FEW POINTS:
The sequence of what you say needs to make sense – and quickly get to the point. Clients, problem, solutions. (Wrong answer = I’m a massage therapist, btw.)
It helps if you have actually researched your client base (interviews) to find out what problems you solved, and how this worked out for them – their before and after, if you will, along with compelling client wording.
Your message needs to have the soul fire (passion) of your mission connected to it – even if it’s not through the words – this awareness and soul fuel is key for light worker marketing.
You often need to get outside feedback on your message, practice it, and take it to the streets.
Creating this is some of the hardest writing you’ll ever do (see next sections for why this can be true).
Your work will evolve and so will your message – so get it to a B or B+, and get your evolving on. Endlessly tweaking your message can be a sign of mindset quicksand.
2) MONEY & MINDSET
Two things, but they work in tandem – so I’ll call it one area. Money beliefs are juxtaposed on your entire reality, and especially your soul fired genius work. There is a lot of history where people were not paid money for spiritual work – they were paid in other ways, or took poverty vows (ah the good old days, eh? – Not! or not possible today, at any rate). So this needs updating and healing.
Mindset is the track you’re on when you take on the hero’s journey of actually having the courage to go against the grain to do your soul genius work and get well paid. You will basically get the lovely job of clearing out your own, and the planetary objections to why this can never work. “This can never work” is always the chorus before things change. So the mindset track will throw every doubt, fear and threat it can muster to keep you from gaining traction.
There is a lot of investment to keeping things the same, if you haven’t noticed. Reversing the dominant paradigm is true activism, especially in the money, power and business zone. This is one of the biggest wounds for the planet to heal, and the time is now – okay we’ve got five years ; )
Your mission, is to get to the place where you foresee the signs of money and mindset ceilings, and gracefully keep on keeping on despite this, to break on through these. Outside support and tools help. An example from our SFCAM group – Julie (name changed) has a pretty rocking message, and just as she’s about out the door with it, she wonders, oh wait, is this really the right target group; will people understand this; etc. With group feedback, these questions were revealed more as mindset static, and Julie was reconnected to her next steps.
3) ENERGY
Energy is the final sign of self promotion mastery – I like to call this Energetic Embodiment – the old E squared ala Einstein. This is where you’ve tested and practiced and got in front of folks with your message enough, and you’ve had enough successes and seen enough of your clients’ transformations, that you have developed confidence, even charisma as you conduct your marketing and outreach. You know this stuff, your soul genius work, WORKS. And you can trust your soul mission enough to know that it’s bigger than your ego’s fears, doubts, and anxieties. Dammit – people out there will suffer without your intervention, you realize, and it’s time to get over yourself and get out there.
Getting to the E squared sweet spot makes all the ups and downs of the journey worth it, so hang in there friends.
**) Special Random Notes for Light Workers
In this life, you will probably not be burned, drowned, hung, or otherwise killed in a painful, center-of-town-square humiliating way. But that residue may still linger as you mount the platform to share your genius and healing gifts again.
One of the tricks in moving to the new paradigm is figuring out how to get to E squared with ease, and support. You get to create this with your intention, and with bravely knowing help is allowed, and asking for it, budgeting it in, etc. There is certainly a lot of residue from the old paradigm here too – in terms of “must work hard to succeed”, survival instincts, etc.
I hope you have the summer space and time to check out my esteemed colleagues and my own offerings to save you some unnecessary toil and snag zones on your road to lush, sustainable income. Check out The Solopreneur Toolkit, 5 colleagues and myself sharing time-saving success tips.
Yours in cresting that E squared learning curve,
Denise Barnes
Soul Biz Savvy