Authentic Marketing -- the Practice of Passion & Compassion (2018)

Why is it that so much marketing feels fake or pushy? I think basically people think of marketing or people who are trying to do marketing. And basically this, by the way, this tale is not mine. It's mangoes. He jumps up right when I'm doing these Facebook lives or when I'm talking with clients, when I'm working on my own. He doesn't jump up. He's a performer, that's for sure. But marketing, it does not have to be a performance. You don't have to be polished, or I should say, you don't have to try to be polished. What if. And if you're hearing the purring that's his, what if? Marketing can be about just being yourself at this stage in your business, and if you consistently practice two things, you become more and more skillful at being your best self at whatever stage in your business you are, rather than trying to look bigger. I don't try to make my company look bigger than I actually am. In fact, a lot of people look at my business and they might think my actual business is probably bigger than what people think. But, but it's, it's. I don't try to be the number one thing in whatever my field. I don't try to be the only choice for you, for whatever, you know, business coaching. And so, so much of marketing is posturing, basically, right? And that's why so many of us heart based on business owners don't want to do marketing. It's because we don't want to be fake. We don't want to be anything other than who we actually are. So that's the path that we're typically taught. The fake, pushy, try to be attractive, try to be compelling, try to be the best. The number one. Right? That's one path. The other path, which I'm trying to not trying, but I find myself doing and then noticing what I'm doing and then sharing that with you all is the path of practicing passion and compassion. And by the consistency of that practice, I just naturally grow in those skills. And the growth in the skill of passion and compassion means that I am connecting more and more truly and in a way that's trustworthy with you. So let me explain what I mean by the consistency of practice, of passion and compassion. So passion means to me, sharing what you really believe is important, what you believe is helpful for your audience. You have a passion to get a particular message out, don't you? Or you are looking for that passion. You have some interest at the very least. And as you start Diving into particular interests, they become passions. That's one of the interesting things that there's a recent research by Stanford about how let's not try to find our passions because we can't find our passions, we develop our passions. There's a big misconception about finding your passion, finding your calling. When as you look at what actually happens with successful people, they have some interests that they then dive into and get through the hard parts so that they become better and better at it and they become passionate once the world reciprocates to say, yeah, you are really good at this interest that you've developed. Oh, wow. And then that dance of continual development of their interest and the world continually responding creates a passion. So, so this, so what I do and what I hope you are doing is on a regular basis, and that's the key. Are you being regular about doing this on a regular basis, expressing your interests to your audience? Now, hopefully these are interests that are somewhat related and aligned with something you want to do a business on. You know, that's something that's for you and your career coach to explore and figure out, well, what is the business model for my interests? But once you have some general idea, and by the way, these things can change, right? My interests have changed over time and I'm actually in process of developing a secret project which I will reveal in about six months where I'm developing my interest in the non business area and I'm going to make a business out of it, not business coaching. And so I'm using my own methods of course, to develop it from scratch. I'm not using my current audience. I'm going starting from zero fans. So that'll be exciting to share with you at some point. But practice sharing your interests, expressing your interests so that you can become more skillful at it. Because really if you're telling me, George, I post on Facebook and nobody I post on my Facebook page and nobody responds, well, one issue there might be you need to learn how to use Facebook ads. That's part of learning how to express your passion, is learning how to distribute your content. If you're just posting on your Facebook page and nobody's responding, it's because nobody's seeing it. And if you need at least several hundred people seeing something before somebody responds. So if you're only getting, reaching 50 people, 100 people, it's not enough. So learn Facebook ads, please, please do that. I highly recommend it. So if, however, you are reaching several hundred people with each message and still nobody's responding the reality is that you need to get more skillful at expressing your passion. And the only way to get more skillful at it is to practice consistently. Because if you only practice when you feel like it. Right? For example, I really didn't feel like doing this video. Honestly, I don't feel like doing this. I had a particularly challenging day emotionally for personal reasons, and I didn't feel like this topic was that strong for me. For whatever reason, I didn't think it through. So I'm kind of talking it through as you can. It's very stumbling, this video. It's not very good, but I'm still here and I'm practicing what happens when I'm not feeling emotionally well, and I am not totally clear on what I'm gonna say. I'm practicing, still doing it anyway, and feeling the feel, feeling that feeling of uncertainty, of frustration, and yet, you know, stepping back and still practicing passion and compassion right now, in this moment, in this message. You see what I mean? So you and I both need to practice, and I'm just trying to model the practice of that continually. And just so you know, I have a new schedule of these Facebook videos, which is going to be Tuesdays and Fridays and trying that going forward instead of Monday, Wednesday, Fridays, Tuesdays and Fridays. So are you practicing consistently? No matter how you feel, no matter if you don't feel good today, are you still showing up and practicing? I am, and I hope you will as well. And if you keep practicing, you'll start to develop these muscles of ignoring the frustration, ignoring the fears, ignoring the sadness, ignoring the whatever it is, confusion and lack of clarity. That is part of the practice is ignoring these things so that you still show up and talk and write and record and reach out whatever it is. However, you're practicing sharing your passions. So that's one talking about passion, compassion, right? Consistently set a schedule, show up no matter what, no matter how your day's going. Right? No matter if your cat is jumping on your lap at the wrong moment. Right, Whatever. Maybe that was the right moment. No matter what, you consistently show up in practice knowing that nobody might like it. That's the key. That's the key. And ignoring the dismay. That's a practice, too. Practice ignoring the dismay. That's what happened in the beginning when I had nobody showing up. Now, I'm grateful to have some of you show up, and I'm so grateful, but it's because I practiced three, four years of this consistent content in the beginning, where nobody showed up, nobody liked anything that I did Right. And I think some of that stuff was even better than this video. Right? This video. I'm just. Some of you are just super nice and just showing up and liking or commenting. Thanks Evelyn and, and Wendy and Danielle. So back to my. See, I'm so, I'm so not in the right mindset today, but I think that's part of, part of why this video is important. I'm kind of not clear today, but. So talking about passion, right? Practice consistently sharing your passion and observing. Okay, so I've talked about creating content, sharing passion, and now you also learn how to distribute that passion through Facebook ads or whatever paid distribution that you use. Without paid distribution, it's gonna take you years to build any kind of feedback and audience. Use paid distribution and it'll take you only months of silence until you start getting engagement. So practice creating and distributing your passion on a consistent basis, noticing which ones people are engaging with. You're going to create 10 pieces and out of every 10 pieces you create, maybe only two of them will be good, but you still created the other eight anyway because you need to practice talking about certain things. You just need to practice. Don't expect every piece of yours. I don't expect every piece of my videos or writings to get, you know, as the average amount of likes or comments or whatever. I expect if I'm lucky, one out of every three or four might get above average. Well, that's the statistics right now. Nowadays I might get on average a dozen likes. Well, I'll notice which ones get two or three dozen likes. Oh gosh, how come those got two or three dozen likes? So practice consistency of creating and distributing your passion and noticing which ones are better. And that moves us into compassion. Okay? So you also also need to consistently practice the compassion you have for your audience. Now you might tell me, George, I'm a warm hearted person. I'm such a giver. I'm always helping other people. That's great. Now what I'm asking you to do is to practice a different kind of compassion and empathy focused empathy focused compassion. Some of you are just kind of giving away your time and your help in a very scattered way. Whoever needs help, you help. And that's great. In your personal life, I love it. You are being a saint. In your business life. You need focused empathy, focused compassion. You need to look at whom you're helping. Are they an ideal client? Okay. And are they. And are you talking to enough of your ideal clients? You say, george, I'm a compassionate person. All right? Now apply your compassion Care enough to be embarrassed. Okay, so let me talk about this. I care enough to be embarrassed, right? Like this video. I care enough about you to show you my embarrassing parts of my non polished parts. Like, this video is terrible, but compassion means to say no. No. My audience is important enough that I'm going to share my message while I can. And also I'm going to notice what they need from me and I'm going to share more of that. Some of you are only talking about your interests and you're not noticing what your audience needs and wants from you. And talking more about that and then being willing to be embarrassed and reaching out to your audience one by one. Not all hundred people in your audience, but reach out to one a day. Okay? Consistency, right? Maybe. Maybe you do only once a week and you reach out to five per week. But reach out to five per week. That's my homework for you, your audience members. Maybe it starts out with your friends and your colleagues, but then whatever Facebook fans you have, start reaching out to each one, okay, five per week. And say, hey, I want to thank you for engaging with my content or being a fan. I am looking to better understand how I can serve my audience. And if you are, if you are willing to talk with me for 15, maybe 30 minutes, if you have time, I'd love to learn more about you, find out more about what you're going through in the area of, well, whatever your topic is, right. In the area of health, in the area of relationships, in the area of spiritual growth, in the area of career change, in the area of leadership. Right. I'd love to know what's going on with you in that area. I want to hear your story. I want to know what your situation is so that I can create better content going forward and also better offerings. Would you be willing to do that and be willing to be embarrassed? Care enough, be compassionate enough to reach out and be embarrassed when 4 out of 5 or 9 out of 10 don't respond to you, are you willing to care that much? Because if you care, if you have enough compassion for others, it's not about. Well, actually, what compassion really is, is unconditional. Right? So it's not about, oh, gosh, George, I reached out to three people and nobody responded. Well, it's not about you. Right. It's about them. How can I reach out in a way that is even more connected to them? Oh, maybe my message is too templated. Maybe I need to look at their profile a little bit and just connect a little bit with something that they enjoy. Right. So does that make sense? Let me know in the comments. Not because I need comments, because I actually want to know whether I'm making sense to you. So to summarize, this video is going way too long. Consistency of practice is the overall message for this video. And my question to you is, what are you consistently practicing? And I'm going to encourage you to consistently practice two areas. Passion and compassion. Passion means the creation and the distribution of your passionate message, your interests. Starting with your interests. But then what interests are aligned to your business? And can you share that with as much passion and authenticity as you can? Okay, that's one area of practice for me going forward. Starting, you know, starting the rest of the year, going for. I'm doing two Facebook live videos a week and two blog posts a week. So that's how I'm consistently sharing and distributing my. And I'm using Facebook ads. I spend about $200 to $300 a month Facebook ads just to distribute my content. Not even trying to sell anything. I spend additional money to sell stuff on Facebook ads, but just at least $200 a month. That's sort of average. Just to share my content, just without selling anything, just to share my content. You don't have to spend $200 a month. If you don't have that, start with $30 a month. 33, 0. If you can spend 22, 0 $20, but start with, like, something like 20 to $30 a month to distribute your content as a ministry, as your charity. Instead of giving money only to charity, give money to your own charity of content, your own ministry of content. You believe in your content. So creation and distribution of your passionate message, consistent practice of that. So you get better at it, knowing that you're going to have a lot of silence. Nobody's going to like your thing for a while. That's normal. I did that for months and months. Nobody liked my thing for a while. But you need to keep practicing so you get stronger at the muscle of doing these things. Creation and distribution, your Facebook ads. Don't tell me you spent $30 on Facebook ads and nobody liked your thing. What is practice? Practice is, oh, how come nobody liked? Let me discover why. Let me talk to some Facebook expert about why nobody liked it. Let me research why. Let me ask George why, and then let me get better at it. So the next $30, maybe I'll get one. Like, I'll get one comment if I'm lucky, right? So you just have to keep practicing that. And then the other area of practice is compassion, which is caring enough for your audience to reach out to them one by one by one, knowing. Just like with passion, where you're not going to hear back from most of your content, you're also not going to hear back from most of your compassion outreach. But it's not about you and your embarrassment, okay? It's not about. It's not a rejection of you. It's not. It's just. It's a rejection of the approach you're taking. Maybe the message needs to be tweaked. Maybe they're not ready to reach out. They're embarrassed, they're intimidated by you. You might find this surprising, but no matter how small your audience is, even if you have 50 fans on your Facebook fan page, your fans might be shy when you reach out to them. They don't want. They're shy. I've reached out to some of you, and you haven't responded. Right? You're shy about saying, yes, I'll talk to this person that I'm a fan of. So expect 9 out of 10 not to respond to you, but you've got to reach out to 10. Reach out to 10 people every two weeks. That's my homework assignment for you. If you need clients, if you need more engagement with your content, personally reach out to 10 people every two weeks. So five per week. Okay? Who are part of your fan base. Start with your email subscribers. Start with your Facebook fans. Don't stop at 10. Get to 100. That's my homework for you. Get to 100 people. You've individually reached out to thoughtfully spend five minutes per person. So half an hour a week is not too much for your compassion outreach. What you're trying to do is you're trying to really get through to them, to talk with them, to actually talk with them by phone or by video or even just messaging, if they're comfortable with that, and find out their story, what's going on for them in the area that you have your business helps people with. If you help people with creativity, what's going on? Why do they feel like they need creativity? What area do they feel they need creativity? You need to understand their story, and. And you need to hear these stories until you see a common thread to say, oh, my God, I didn't realize that that was a common thread among my fans. I need to create content on that common thread or I need to create an offering that meets them where they're at. If not enough people are buying your services, it's either visibility or it's resonance. There's only two things. Visibility means. Well, you need to share it with a thousand people, not a hundred. Right. 100 is not enough. Share it with a thousand before you get a couple of sales. Right. Resonance means, well, even if you share it with a thousand people, nobody's buying or not enough people are buying well, it's because you don't know their stories, you don't know their wants, and you're not meeting their wants. That's why they're not buying. You know, that's. That's the only two things, visibility and resonance. Right. So I'll end it here. Consistency of practice, people. You've got to be consistent in your practice of these two particular things. So I hope this is helpful. Thanks for bearing with me as I go through this more emotionally challenging day and showing up anyway. And hopefully this will be a model for you to show up. Anyway, I didn't feel like doing this this morning. I didn't feel like writing the blog, and I have to finish writing it because it was kind of a mess. I had to finish writing it. I'm going to post it within the next half hour, and I hope that I can be an encouragement to you. That's genuinely what I hope for. So be well and go for it. Just do it. Do it anyway. I noticed when I am uncomfortable and yet I act with purpose, I grow uncomfortable, yet act with purpose and grow. That's my entire life. That's my entire business. It's not fun all the time, but what's fun is the deeper level. There's a deeper level of fun in all this. So that's okay. I'll end of this. Right. I do not. I highly disagree with anybody who's trying to sell you that business is supposed to be fun and easy unless on the spiritual level. Okay, all right. Business. If you think it's supposed to be fun and easy, the immediate interpretation of that is it's supposed to be fun and easy on the. On the surface level, on the sort of flesh level, on the physical level. Oh, yeah. It's supposed to be easy for me. I'm supposed to feel like doing it, am I not? No, no. It's supposedly fun for you on a spiritual level of growth. Right. Your spirit says, oh, my God. The growth of working through discomfort is fun. Yeah. And easy in the level of when you connect. When I should say my personal beliefs. When I connect with source and realize it's complete security and everything is going to turn out amazingly well, then the big picture is easy and the deep picture is fun but the shallow, the ego day to day action is not fun and it's not easy. It's just like working out. It's not fun and easy when you first start working out but afterwards your spirit thanks you and your even your body thanks you. After I make this video I'm still going to be embarrassed. This is terrible video but it's still my spirit says thank you for working through that and that's the enjoyable part, right? So anyway, the big picture is fun and easy. The little picture day to day is not fun and easy. Just so you know, otherwise you should go get a job and even jobs are not fun and easy, right? So be well, do it anyway. Realizing that the temporary is not fun and easy but the result, the accomplishment of doing it is so fulfilling. All right, take care. Have a good rest of the day.