I’m a true Midwestern gal and I’ve not been optimized for marketing.
That means I’ve been raised to keep my mouth shut if I couldn’t find anything nice to say… be polite… and remember, no one likes a braggart.
In other words, marketing is not about subtlety.
(I really like the word braggadocio but hardly anyone uses it anymore. Pity.)
Actually, that last part about people not liking a braggart came from my father.
You can imagine how that has affected me as a die-hard marketer.
Anyway, I don’t think I’m the only one battling this mental bondage, either.
And make no mistake about it… it is bondage.
Are Good Manners Holding You Back?
This type of thinking is holding you back. It’s keeping your success at arm’s length and perhaps even more importantly, keeping you from helping those you can help with your solution.
The Cowboy is forever telling me to get out there in the world and SHOUT what I can do for them. To avoid subtlety and really put myself out there.
And the Midwestern gal inside of me cringes.
I tell you, it’s tough to break old habits.
But break them I must and the same goes for you.
Listen, you NEED to sing your own praises. You MUST share with the world that your solution IS the best. (And work like a mad scientist to make sure that claim is true…)
Of course, all that happens after earning the attention of your prospective buyer.
The Mental Game of Marketing
When it comes to marketing, I have to wonder how many business owners struggle with the mental game of marketing.
Let me unpack this a bit:
- You first have to create a solution that has value. Whether it’s a product or service, it has to help someone solve a problem and/or deliver happiness.
- You then need to tell people about it. The whole “build it and they will come” was a great line for a movie, but doesn’t work in the real world. Advertising is a necessary part of running a successful business.
- You have to KEEP telling people about it. It’s a busy, noisy world and otherwise, people will forget you even exist unless you’re showing up consistently.
When I was younger, I wondered why Coca-Cola advertised so heavily. Didn’t everyone know who they were?
I can’t find the source but remember the company president at the time said something like this: “Because each day, there are babies born who don’t know anything about Coca-Cola.”
Perhaps the marketer inside me was born that day. All I knew was that I had a huge “Aha” moment.
People need to be told constantly that you’re the best thing since peanut butter met jelly.
THAT is the heart of marketing.
Marketing Is Not About Subtlety
As someone wise said, it’s not bragging if it’s true.
The Cowboy is reading Dan Kennedy’s No B.S. Wealth Attraction In The New Economyand shared with me a great excerpt from the book.
There is a unique language used by wealth-attracting entrepreneurs. I hear it all the time, because I hang out and work with them most of the time. I’ve been surrounded by them for years. They speak one language, the outside world speaks another. I’m not going to hand you a vocabulary list here and suggest you try memorizing it, or suggest you read positive affirmations 20 times a day from 3-by-5-inch cards. That can be useful, but it is a tiny piece of this puzzle, and overly simplistic. Trying to use a vocabulary list won’t cut it. The language has to be an honest, natural reflection of your beliefs about money and wealth; everything in this book has to come together and support the changes you choose to make in your own belief system.
But make no mistake: What you speak matters. And you can attract more wealth more easily by speaking the language of wealth.
Dan then referred to Donald Trump’s relentless marketing style. From the book (emphasis mine):
In [Donald’s] own words:
“… key to the way I promote is BRAVADO. People may not always think big themselves but they get very excited by those who do. People want to believe something is THE biggest and THE greatest and THE most spectacular. Some people have written that I’m boastful, but they are missing the point. If you’re devoting your life to creating a body of work and you believe in what you do, and what you do is excellent, you’d damn well better tell people you think so. Subtlety and modesty are appropriate for nuns, but if you’re in business, you’d better learn to speak up and announce your significant accomplishments to the world.”
Now you may loathe the man but he’s right. You have to announce your accomplishments to the world because no one else is going to do it.
Many business coaches say their biggest challenge is to help their clients believe they’re the “real deal.” Not a phony.
“After all, if we can’t make what we’re doing the best,” she said, “why would we choose to do it?”
– Ivanka Trump
So if business owners feel as though they’re “faking it ‘til they make it,” it is going to be really, really tough to market themselves.
This definitely applies to email marketing.
As Ivanka Trump said when asked about using what Dan Kennedy calls “Trump-Speak” (emphasis mine):
She said she’d grown up with it, it was ingrained and natural, and was a way not just of promotion, but of re-affirming commitment to an ideal and a position in the world. “After all, if we can’t make what we’re doing the best,” she said, “why would we choose to do it?”
Indeed.
Perhaps I’ve not been clear about how good I am at what I do. That’s going to change this year and is changing. But let’s just keep it between us and not tell my dad…
