The voter/consumer doesn’t trust you or your “policy”. And you waiting until election season to tell me your policy is obsolete.

I DON’T CARE ABOUT WHAT YOU KNOW... I CARE ABOUT WHAT YOU HAVE SEEN.

Knowledge is boring and generic. It doesn’t help me the way your life experience helps me.

It also doesn’t create connection with me like your life experience connects with me.

And here’s the problem with knowledge for you...

Because there’s so much to know, you never feel like you know enough.

And that stops you from marketing your important work.

Marketing is about connection not information.

Information is everywhere. But someone who gets me is rare.

When you share what life has taught you, I feel like you get me. I feel seen and not alone.

I don’t want to do business with those who know it all. That feels risky and confirms my insecurities that I’m not good enough and you’re better than me.

I’m more likely to do business with someone who gets me because that feels safe. I feel known.

This is where you need to come from in marketing.

Just share your story. Share what life has taught you. Share what you have seen. Share what you have learned.

Tell me why you’re so passionate about what you do.

Tell me the problem you ran into and how you got to the other side.

Your problems are my problems. Your fears are my fears. Your insecurities are my insecurities.

When you’re real and human, it gives me permission to be real and human.

And people that are real and human make the best clients.

So be what you want to attract. Share what life has taught you. Share what you have seen. And watch your tribe grow.

When passion and ideas and life lessons come, don’t hoard them. And don’t wait for them to be perfect to think that’s what makes you valid. Share what you see so we can benefit from your life’s lessons.

We often want answers BEFORE we take action. We don’t want to invest time and money if it’s not going to work. But that’s not how life and certainty work. You have to take action first AND THEN answers show up

I DON’T CARE HOW BIG YOU ARE, OLD YOU ARE, WHAT GENDER YOU ARE, OR WHAT COLOR YOU ARE...

...when you show up in your certainty it’s sexy.

It’s captivating. It’s clear.

But absent of your certainty we’re left with all the other stuff you’re afraid for us to see.

Some people are kind about that “stuff” and others are judgy about it.

And you know this. You’ve experienced this.

Which is why we feel shy, bashful, or scared to step out and show up in the areas we feel stuck.

This is the challenge of certainty.

In order to grow and step into the next expansion for yourself, you have to step into uncertain territory.

Let’s use marketing as an example.

You can feel your certainty in the important work you’re doing as you do it.

It feels clear. You feel strong doing it.

But when you put your marketing hat on, things get fuzzy.

You don’t know how marketing works. You get self-conscious about doing videos. When you sit down to write you have a hard time finding the words.

Which is so weird because when you’re simply talking to somebody about your work you feel inspired and aren’t short for words.

So how do we find certainty in uncertain territory?

If we find it, people will connect to the powerful people we are. Money comes and our impact grows.

So a lot is riding on you finding it.

You could take a lot of roads to finding your certainty.

But here’s a back door to certainty in uncertain territory I’ve found...

Without concern for marketing tools, algorithms, or “how things work” (you don’t need to understand how things work in the beginning of this expansion)...

You simply share your truth in new settings and with new people.

You share what life has already taught you and you do it from a real place.

This requires that you slay the dragons of shame attached to your story so that they no longer have any power over you...

And in fact that you see these previously shameful things as part of what makes you strong.

When your shame is redeemed for strength certainty shows up.

And with that certainty, you share your story in new ways with new people.

The story doesn’t change. That’s your wheelhouse of power.

But you expand where you share it and who you share it with.

THIS IS WHAT CREATES CERTAINTY IN UNCERTAIN TERRITORY.

Marketing, then, is just a platform to share the parts of your story that your certain about in new places with new people.

And as you do that, we will see your certainty no matter how big you are, old you are, what gender you are or what color you are.

****

PS - If you want to learn how to bring more certainty into your marketing...

I’m launching a 6 week course in July. I’ll have more details up this week. But if you’re interested, PM me and I’ll send you a link later this week so you can if this program is a fit for you.

It is critical to get clear on who your audience is. But the typical exercises can put us in our head instead of our heart and we get confused about who our audience is. But you can feel into your audience to get access to how to describe it. (Listen now)

LEARNING MARKETING DOESN’T MAKE YOU GOOD AT MARKETING.

I don’t even know how much I’ve spent over the years trying to “learn” marketing.

Or the hours I’ve spent messing around with the tools of marketing (like Facebook ads, landing pages, email automations, and the long list goes on).

We’re so easily wrapped up in the tools of it. And I get it. Tools are easy to see and play with.

But marketing has to start in a much deeper place.

Mastery of marketing tools absent of substance in your message results in nothing.

And this is the rub.

Because the hard work isn’t learning the technology, even if you’re tech challenged.

The hard work is digging deep enough in your shadow to pull out the message that will actually set others free.

Modern marketing is about connection.

And in order for you to connect with others you first have to connect with yourself.

I had an amazing person tell me today that they were confused about marketing.

But when I asked about what they do they were very clear.

Which brings me to a truth...

We, at some level, are clear about what we do or want to do; the difference we want to make. We can feel this in our soul.

But the minute we put our marketing hats on we completely lose touch with that clarity.

Why do you suppose that is?

I think it’s because we think of marketing as this game of tools and tactics with rules we don’t understand, so we get in our head about it all and away from our heart for it all.

“Marketing” as a word confuses us.

But the act of creating connection when we speak from our heart is natural.

And that’s all marketing is.

The tools of marketing are just tools. And those tools will come and go.

But your message will stand the test of time.

Your message is already brewing inside you.

If you know what it is, it’s time to level up your marketing by sharing that message in bolder ways.

If you don’t know what your message is but feel the brewing, then you will find it in your passions and your shadow.

Often our own story has the root of our marketing message in it.

But if you’re not at peace with your story, it’s hard to find your message.

Here’s the point...

Marketing starts with your truth, not the tools. Get in touch with your truth and you’ll get in touch with your marketing.

Once you have that, then you can begin to find tools to mobilize your message.

THE WORLD IS READY FOR WOMEN TO RISE...

...because we want to be heard and understood.

For thousands of years the world has expanded through masculine “building” energy.

Which is great. We need masculine energy.

But harmony lives in the balance of yin and yang.

I believe we have been more masculine yin, than feminine yang.

One of the things I’ve observed in marketing is that people feel connection through empathy. That’s feminine energy.

They feel connection when they feel understood and not alone. Feminine energy.

They feel empowered when someone listens to them and they come alive when someone holds space for them to speak their truth. Again, feminine energy.

This is why Brené Brown’s work on Vulnerability is resonating so deeply with people.

We have choked off the feminine energy for so long in order to survive in the masculine.

So when someone speaks of the power of vulnerability it rings true from a very deep, often repressed, place.

If you are a woman reading this, the world wants to be heard. It wants to be understood. It wants space to not have to have all the answers and to feel safe asking all the questions.

In some ways I think the energy of “answers” comes from the masculine.

And I think the energy of “certainty” comes from the feminine. (See my post on certainty).

If you’re in business, I believe people aren’t looking for answers from you as much as they’re looking for certainty.

You don’t have to have all the answers for others to take you seriously.

You have lived life and life has taught you many things. You have watched and listened and learned. Which has resulted in certainties for you.

We want to know what those are and we need you to share those.

To me, this is showing up.

You show up with all that life has taught you and provide wisdom, perspective and counsel from that place, letting us then draw our own conclusions on our own journeys.

Yes, the world is ready for women to rise. This is why we’re so hungry for empathy and connection.

It’s time for you to show up.

We’re ready.

****

PS - If you’re a man, this doesn’t exclude you. You can tap into your feminine energy by listening more than talking.

You can hold space for people to show up in their light without their light threatening your own.

You can explore your own shadows and darkness to find the feelings we as men often push way down, in order to understand others in their pain.

The world is ready for feminine energy. I believe it‘s counter-balancing thousands of years of masculine modus operandi.

Information doesn’t earn attention, conviction does. So you have to find the topics in life you have conviction for. That is what becomes the heart and soul of your marketing.

I DIDN’T KNOW THERE WERE SO MANY KINDS OF PEE-ERS...

There must have been 20 different signs of types of pee-ers in the men’s bathroom at Jimmy John’s.

Of course I had to read them all.

Part of what I love about Jimmy John’s is the humor they put in their brand.

I came out of the bathroom and immediately told my son he needed to go check out the bathroom.

He did.

And came back laughing as well. We proceeded to have a funny conversation about what type of pee-er we each were with my daughter watching this conversation unfold.

(proper parenting in my opinion).

This bathroom humor brought two lessons to mind...

First, when we infuse our brand with personality it stands out.

It doesn’t have to be humor. But it should be worth remarking about. Seth Godin calls this being “remarkable”.

Second, just like I didn’t think there were different kinds of pee-ers...

We often don’t think there are different kinds of marketers.

We tend to lump what we think marketing should look like into one general category.

But marketing is art. And that art needs to create a CONNECTION not just deliver information.

Jimmy John’s uses humor to create that connection.

I use deep thoughts on marketing and life to create that connection.

You have your own way you already create connection.

What is it?

Is it meaningful conversations?

Is it being the class clown?

Whatever it is, it is your art and you have to find a way to work it into your marketing.

Who would have thought you could take something as gross as a bathroom and turn it into a point of connection?!

What will be your point of connection?