Great Marketing Doesn’t Convince.
Your ideal clients are already looking for you. They just need to be able to recognize you when they find you. Great marketing shares who you already are, so that you ideal clients know that you’re who they’ve been searching for.
This is the beauty of authentic marketing. When you share the core of who you are and what you offer in your client-facing material, great potential clients can actually see you. Those that need you will be able to recognize you.
When you pretend to be someone you’re not, projecting a good-looking image that you think will be liked, you will inevitably fail to fulfill the expectations of the clients you attract. Do you expect happy results on either side of a collaboration built on a lie?
This includes lowering the cost of your work to convince clients to hire you. When you accept work that isn’t an equal exchange for your time and energy, nobody wins. You either cut corners to make up the difference, or end up giving away much more than you receive. The first situation sets your client up to feel taken advantage of, and the second sets you up the feel the same. Either way, you cannot offer your best work.
Clients that needed convincing need to work with someone else. There is someone else out there that is a better fit to support them. You do everyone a disservice avoiding this reality.
How To Actually Help.
If you’re in a conversation with a potential client and you find yourself trying to persuade them to work with you, STOP! As soon as you recognize it, take a step back, breathe, and get back to center. At the end of the day, it’s your client’s right to determine for themselves if they want to hire you. It’s not your responsibility, nor is it appropriate for you to decide for them.
The reaching you’re doing doesn’t feel good to be on the receiving end of. It reveals your desperation and lack of confidence. It’s manipulation that fulfills your own needs. You think that if you don’t get this client, you won’t be okay. And that’s not true.
The reason I’m sharing this so plainly is because I know that helping others is deeply important to you. You’re a genuinely loving person with skills that you know are supportive to many. You may even be as passionate about accessibility as I am.
I’m here to tell you that if you see yourself in what I’ve shared, you are out of alignment with what caring and supporting actually looks like. This is tricky to identify because lowering your rates or working with clients that aren’t a good fit for you is easily mistaken for kindness or humility.
Here’s The Alternative.
Be honest about who you are and what it costs to live a life in which you offer your best work.
There are a ton of ways to increase accessibility to your work that don’t lead to bad-fit projects and lowballed quotes. Affordable or free teaching in courses, on social media, or in newsletters is highly accessible. If you want a mission field, start there.
The world needs your growth and success. That’s how you can change the world; by directing the capital you earn toward people and causes that matter to you.
When you work with clients that are more than happy to pay top dollar for your work, you’re able to do the same, and you become a model for how business can nourish its contributors and the causes those contributors care about.
Stop hiding, beautiful one! And let go of your shame. Your offering, your pricing, and your vision are wonderful and deserve support. There are tens of thousands of people looking for exactly what you have to share and how you share it. Claim it. Great marketing shares exactly who you are, as you are. Share from that place. Watch how your life transforms.
