Episode 52: Shifting the Lens

 Speaker 1: (00:01)
Hi, my lovelies. Okay. We're back for part two of the four part series on getting more clients. And so for part two, I want to talk about shifting the lens through which we see getting clients and AKA marketing. Cause that's really what getting clients is, is marketing right. And connecting. But sometimes we need to back it up. You guys know that this is my thing, right? It's not at surface level. We back up and we go deeper because when we heal the deeper things that I, I believe that we can expand more. So when we say I want to get more clients, there's deeper things that we need to work through. Uh, last week, if you missed the episode, um, we started by talking about charging your worth today, this week, we're going to move into shifting the lens through which we see marketing. The kinds of things that we're going to talk about in this episode are, you know, what underlying fears or blocks do you have about marketing? Is it feeling salesy or feeling like a fraud? Uh, we want to shift the way that we see marketing so that it doesn't feel that way. So it doesn't feel icky, gross, and super scary. And shifting our perspective of marketing, shifting the language that we use and shifting to a service first mentality and how that feels different.

Speaker 1: (01:23)
Okay. So why does marketing feel icky and gross for so many of us? And this is where I kind of want to start this conversation is because we are looking at marketing, oftentimes from what we've learned about marketing growing up, maybe we learned it in school, in high school and college and our jobs, the way that we're marketed to out in the world. And oftentimes what we're seeing is marketing the way the quote, good old boys did business. And so when I worked in corporate, it was basically a bunch of old white men that worked like all around the perimeter of the office. They had all the window seats, right. And they were the ones in charge of running the business. And it was very, it was this really like traditional BS crap model. And that's what many of us have learned is that's how we do business, right?

Speaker 1: (02:10)
But it didn't work. You know, that model of having all these rich, old white men in power positions and making the decisions, it didn't work for us in policymaking. It didn't work for us and maternal healthcare, right. It doesn't work for us in those systems. It doesn't work in the justice system and it doesn't feel good for us and our businesses either. And so when it comes to traditional business methods, I do want to say that there's a difference between masculine energy and toxic masculine energy, right? So sometimes there are parts of my business that are more masculine. They have a more masculine energy vibe. So like organization my, to do list my planners, um, my get to do list, I should say, cause that's kind of what I call it. I add a little feminine there. The get makes it more feminine, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1: (03:00)
So it's more of that feminine energy flowy feel. The masculine energy in business is very, um, is very much the structure, right? Um, the systems that are in place, the structure, marketing funnels, email funnels, things like that tend to be more masculine energy. And that's not to say that they're all bad. I do think that it's important to have that balance of feminine and masculine energy and business. But that's where I think many of us, um, are feeling that discomfort from is because we're missing that feminine energy. Right? And so the toxic is what I described a few minutes ago about all the old white guys that are sitting around, um, you know, the border of all these companies, having the window views of the water or whatever, having all these office views, I'm making all of the decisions that doesn't feel great, right? And that's not working. And so what do we need to do to get to that balance, To get to that balance? We need to start finding ways to bring in more feminine energy, to bring in that flow and, um, work on creating something that feels really good in marketing and in our businesses. So we don't have to do everything the traditional way.

Speaker 1: (04:09)
And the reason that this is really important to look at is because if we don't feel really great about our marketing or about selling our services, promoting our offers and creating opportunities for people to buy from us, then how are we ever going to create the sustainable business that we desire? How are we ever going to be able to help the number of families and people that we want to help in the world? If we can't, if we're not aligned with marketing and selling, it's a really important part of every single business owner's business,

Speaker 1: (04:43)
Because if we're not selling, if we're not promoting or creating opportunities and offering it to people, then it's unlikely that we'll be able to stay in business. You know, we will burn out really quickly if we're, um, if we're, if we don't get comfortable with this and we can reach a point where literally our energy can block new clients. And so if we are so averse to marketing and so turned off by feeling salesy, then we, we will never, you know, that much more difficult for us to make a sale for us to have a client hire us. So it's very important that we get on board with selling in a way that feels good to us.

Speaker 1: (05:24)
And since I think that examples are really helpful to give context for the things that I talk about here on the, on the podcast, I thought about this story, um, from my childhood, uh, with sales and it was this gross icky, salesy experience that I had early on. Um, and I wanted to share it with you because I'm sure you can look back to think about, you know, what experiences you've had in childhood or as an adult, or even now if you're having, you know, people that just feel like they're doing some really gross icky sales, marketing things, um, you know, tap into that and see where this is coming up for you. But first, let me give you this example. Okay. So story time, do you remember the in-home vacuum sales demonstrations that people used to do? Okay. So when I was a kid, I remember this when I was it's I guess I wasn't a kid.

Speaker 1: (06:14)
I was a teenager, but when I was a teenager, my boyfriend who was also a teenager, but a little bit older than me got into backroom sales. So he decided he wanted to be a vacuum salesman. You know, somebody who worked at the company, I think it was like Electrolux. I don't, I don't know, but it was this like wild, huge, clunky, heavy silver machine that had a million different attachments and gadgets. And it was really expensive. And we did not have a lot of money. I mean, I was living with my dad at the time. My dad, you know, was had me and my brother and he was running his own tire store, which he still does in Tampa, but he didn't have like a ton of money to buy this, you know, really fancy vacuum cleaner. And he really didn't care. You know, he was a single father.

Speaker 1: (06:55)
Like I don't think a nice vacuum was at the high end of actually, I think he was married at the time. Um, but I don't think a high end vacuum cleaner, but something that was on his radar at all. But my boyfriend, I think he felt, we felt a little bad and I was like begging my dad to let my boyfriend come and demonstrate this vacuum cleaner for us because I wanted to make my boyfriend happy. I wanted to, you know, boost up his competence there. I was, you know, a little teenager, people pleasing already. And I like begged my dad. And so my dad agreed to let him come demo. This vacuum cleaner for us. And my dad hated the guy and I don't blame him like looking back. I hope life because he was such a turn. So it was the most awkward hour of my life, or however long it was an hour.

Speaker 1: (07:41)
I don't even remember. It felt like an eternity and it felt so gross. Like the salesy part of it, it was just so uncomfortable that awkward, like you could smell the awkwardness in the air, you could feel how uncomfortable it was. And I felt bad for my boyfriend at the time. Right. Cause I, I loved him and I thought I loved him, but he was just such a terror. Um, but seriously, the, the sales process and the whole in-home vacuum sales demo process, it's terrible. It was just terrible. It puts so much gross pressure on homeowners or renters or whoever was in this residence to buy this damn machine, right. This super fancy, super expensive at the time vacuum cleaner. And the company would like call and call and call over and over again, having these telemarketers or, you know, just people sending behind the phone, basically hitting dial and dialing numbers over and over until someone finally agreed to say fine, sure, whatever, come over and show me the damn thing.

Speaker 1: (08:37)
You know, maybe you get a free, I don't know if they did this, but I know a lot of companies back then did things like this where you'd get like a free something. You know, if you listen to this demonstration, you get this free thing. Right. And so my dad finally agreed to let him come over after dinner and show us how to get the dog shit staying out of the carpet, you know? And so my, I mean, we had dogs, right? So like there. Yeah. And my dad was not into keeping our carpet super fancy. So this guy just spent an hour showing all of the different, showing us all the different ways to use this machine and the pressure. I remember feeling like this thick pressure, energy of not buying like, well, we don't really want to buy, we don't really want this thing. We're not really interested in it. Right.

Speaker 1: (09:31)
And yet we felt this pressure to buy it because this person just spent all this time in our home, they drove to our house, they brought all this stuff. They did this a demonstration and you kind of feel bad, like you're guilted into buying this thing. And it's just not something that feels good. And so if you didn't buy it, you felt this gross feeling because you felt bad for the person kind of, but if you did buy it, you felt kind of suckered like, Oh, they got me for this darn thing that I probably won't even use all the million attachments. Right. And so there's just a gross feeling that you walk away from an experience like that with, and that's just one example. Right. But there are others. And this isn't to say that all in-home demonstrations are bad. And all of that is just, I thought it was a funny example because the whole ex-boyfriend thing, um, you know, and I just, I remember how awkward it was for those things.

Speaker 1: (10:19)
But if you've experienced things like that, you know, look at your own life and look at the situations where you have felt like you've been in really uncomfortable selling type of situations when we've all been in them. Right? Like I've talked about this on the podcast before, but network marketing is an industry that's kind of known for this, the super masculine selling tactics. And like I said before, you know, that masculine energy and selling, it's not terrible. Um, the problem is, is that they oftentimes, they don't bring a lot of the feminine in. And so for example, with network marketing, there's a difference between sending somebody a cold message out of nowhere saying something like, Hey, do you want to try my 30 day fix to lose 30 pounds? That's awful. That's toxic masculine energy. Honestly, that's terrible. Like who really goes for that? Um, and it feels gross, uh, versus somebody who just shows up on social media or in life and does what they do. They drink their stuff, they take their supplements or whatever they do their exercises. Um, they use essential oils. I mean, you guys know, I use a lot of network marketing brands, so I use all my stuff and people ask, I tell them, but I'm not a, that's not part of my business anyway. But if it were, I probably wouldn't be just cold messaging, a bunch of people because it just doesn't feel good. Right. And so when you've been on the receiving end of messages like that, it just doesn't feel very good.

Speaker 1: (11:50)
So how do we do this? How do we start shift this and shift the lens through which we see marketing and selling? Um, what we really need to understand first is that we want to buy things. You know, we want to buy a vacuum cleaner and we want to be treated like humans. You know, we want to buy essential oils. We want to buy, you know, um, uh, supplements like nutritional supplements. If you don't have, if you're a busy parent on the go and you've got kids at basketball games and gymnastics and this and that, and you just need something on the go, but you don't really want to grab the chips anymore. So yeah, you might want something, but we want more than just somebody popping in our inbox and trying to sell us things. We want to buy things, but we don't necessarily want to be sold to, right. We want to feel connection. We want to connect with real people, especially since March of this year. I think more than ever people want to connect. We want to get to know the person that's behind that business. And that is where, that is where we bring feminine energy into marketing.

Speaker 1: (13:01)
I understand that, you know, out in the world, your potential clients that are out in the internet world on the interwebs that are on Instagram or Facebook or Pinterest or wherever you're at, they want support along their journey into Parenthood. They really do. They want birth support. They want you, you know, whatever, it looks like virtual doula support in person. They want postpartum support. They want people around helping them through things. They want to connect. They want real connection and real support. And that is what you're providing for them. Right. I have no doubt that that's what you're providing for them. The problem is sometimes I think that we are putting that block up and literally blocking that connection because we're so afraid of marketing because we've had such a gross experience with selling throughout our lives. And when we really think about it, marketing is simply connecting and having conversations.

Speaker 1: (13:48)
That's all it is. It's just talking about the thing that you love to talk about. And when there are opportunities for people to hire you, to work together, to go deeper in those ways, whatever it is that you're offering, it's just letting them know that those opportunities are available to you. And so, you know, leading with service, that's why this podcast is a great example of that, right? So this podcast, I don't get paid for this podcast. You guys probably know that unless I have sponsors and things like that, um, I thought, I thought it was really, really cute. And a sign of the times doing, I told my dad that I was launching a podcast last year and he's like, Oh honey, that's great. What's a podcast. And I tried to explain to him what it was. And I'm like, well, it's something that you listened to.

Speaker 1: (14:27)
That's like a show I'm not on the right. He's like on the radio. And I said, no, not on the radio. Um, you do listen to it like you would on the radio, but it's like a station that you only like that station. And you go to that particular spot and you listen to that person or that company station over and over again and whatever they're talking about. And it's just a place that you get information and you connect with the person and you get to know a little bit the person behind the business. And he's like, well, honey, that's great. How much do you make off of that? And it was, it was so cute because I was like, Oh dad, that's not how this works. You know? And so that's a great example of how we're shifting a little bit to this podcast is a, you know, service first part of my, I mean the whole business is service first, right?

Speaker 1: (15:12)
But like, this is a great example of that. This is just a conversation. Like we have conversations on this podcast about doula business, about doing business online about, um, all of time, the things that I'm into, right? If they're all me, they're all a part of me. And when there are opportunities for you to work with me in different ways, I let you know about it. That's all that is. And so I never feel weird about I'm not anymore. Anyways. I don't feel weird about promoting or selling or marketing anything that I'm offering, because I know that it's really awesome. It's really bad ass. And I'm just letting you know that it's there. It's never a weird, uncomfortable thing where I'm getting in your living room with a vacuum cleaner. And I'm trying to convince you to buy. It. Never feels like that for me.

Speaker 1: (15:54)
And I hope it doesn't feel like that for you, because for me, it's me letting you get to know me, because then you can decide if you like me, right? And if you like me and you stick around, awesome. If you like me enough that you subscribe and rate and review my podcast, it makes me more happy than you can imagine. And then if you reach the point where you get to know me, you like me, you trust me and you want to work with me. Then you're like, Oh, let me see what she's offering. And you look at the different things that I do and the different ways that I work with people. And then you decide whether or not you want to buy something. And I've told you guys this before. So you've probably heard me say it, but I'll say it again.

Speaker 1: (16:27)
Like it's never one of those things that it feels awkward. If people don't buy from me, that's not how this works. And so that might be helpful for you too. When you go out and do business online, you know, you might have, let's say you create an offer. Let's say you put a workshop out. And a hundred people are interested in it. A hundred people raised their hands. So let's say a hundred people click the link to look at it and you can look and you can tell, right? So like in the back of Squarespace, you can see your analytics to see how many people have visited a given page within a certain amount of time. And you're like, Oh cool. You know, a hundred people are clicking it. So they're interested, they're raising their hands. Um, but what I don't suggest getting attached to is, Oh, well that means I need these hundred people to buy this thing.

Speaker 1: (17:08)
That's never, it's not usually how this works, unless you're beyond saying, and you're selling something that just became available or, you know, something like that. But generally that's not how this works. And so I think it's a really, uh, I think that'll be a really helpful way to move forward in all of our businesses is to remember that there's going to be a lot of people who get to know you, who like you, who trust you and who may or may not buy from you and the people who don't buy from you. It's cool. It's no hard feelings. Like I love everybody in my community that sticks around that listens to me ramble here every week on the podcast who hangs out with me in the doula group, um, who chats with me on my Instagram post. Cause I feel like I sometimes pour my whole heart into those, those written posts.

Speaker 1: (17:50)
And I love all of it. I love having the conversations with people and I get to know a lot of people and some people end up as my clients in one way or another. And some people don't and no matter what it's okay. And so when you shift the lens through which you see marketing to one of marketing is just, it's just connecting with people and having conversations even online, you know, and I think a lot of us understood marketing as like networking in person. You go and you drop off flyers and you meet the midwives. And you know, that's part of it if you're doing in person work. Um, but online it's, it's the same thing. You know, it's, it's really very similar process. You're just meeting people virtually. And so many people in my community. I know almost everybody virtually, hardly ever have. I met some of them, you know, I've only met a handful of people in my doula communities in person. And

Speaker 1: (18:48)
I say that I feel incredibly connected to a lot of my community. I don't know every single individual, but like the more you speak out, the more you comment on my stuff, the more, you know, I just, I get to know people who engage more, right. I'm like, Oh yeah, you know, we connect when I go live, you talk to me, I talk back. I enjoy that. I enjoy having that conversation when I post something to Instagram, you're like, I really liked that or good point, glad you brought that up. Or, Hey, did you think about this? Just conversations. And so when you shift that, it, it makes it, it makes marketing feel different, right? And so when you change the way that you see marketing and you heal those old stories about what selling was or what we thought selling was, and we break down those old blocks, we open up to expansion and getting more clients. Okay. And so be sure to join me next week, because next week will be part three of this four part series. And from now going forward, we're going to do after the episode. So the episodes come out on Tuesday and then Wednesday we'll meet in the doula group at one 30 Eastern. And we'll do the after the episode kind of unpacking and going deeper into this topic. So I will see you there. The links are in my bio.