A marketing manifesto for my work
One of my big goals for 2020 was to get much better at marketing. It’s April and so far I’ve shifted from my flashy and slightly pretentious old website into this new one, set up my first ever personal mailing list (I know!) and started to think a bit harder about things like Instagram and vain notions of what “my audience” might want from “my content”.
I should start by saying I hate marketing, which is probably already obvious. My hatred goes back to hearing Bill Hicks talk about it when I was a teenager. When I think of marketing and sales, I think of real-estate agents, false claims, magic potions, being tricked and a whole host of other negative connotations. What’s even harder for me is that the industry I’m in necessitates good marketing. I’m not sure exactly what industry I am in, but it’s basically “people-who-write-books-and-then-make-money-from-something-else-because-books-don’t-pay-very-well”.
There are a couple of big problems I have with marketing. Firstly, in my industry, it seems impossible to work out what works and what doesn’t. I ran a masterclass event last year with a dozen or so paid delegates. I made a point of going round the room before we started and asking them each how they found out about it. Each one had a completely different reason: “I heard you mention it on your podcast”, “I’m a friend of someone else who’s been”, “I read your book”, “I randomly googled it”… the list went on. Then there’s been the things that actively have not worked, despite them being the things people like me are told to do. Youtube channels, facebook ads, expensive conferences, blogging, twitter, content marketing, google ads, networking groups and so on. If only I’d have just kept all that time and money rather than having thrown it down a big hole.
The second problem is the posing. I follow a fair few people in my industry. These are all people-who-write-books-and-then-make-money-from-something-else-because-books-don’t-pay-very-well. Most of them seem to spend their time on Instagram, staring out at pretty views, pretending to be on some kind of fashion shoot, walking their own red carpet, or reacting to imagined acclaim: “hey you. here’s another picture of me!”.
Finally, there’s the people who I definitely don’t want to associate with or be confused with. The fake guru types who prey on the vulnerable and desperate, charging them ten thousand dollars they don’t have to “make them rich” - which I don’t know about you, but feels like they’re off to a bad start with that. I was asked recently by a guy who’d been on a one day course with me, if I had any ‘high ticket’ programmes, so that he could pay a lot more money to spend more time with me teaching him the same things, in some kind of exclusive ‘mastermind group’. He told me he was ‘price inelastic’. I sent him back this video as my way of saying that’s not a route I ever plan on going down.
But all that aside, I do want to share my work with more people. I do want my books and talks to help people. I want to do all of that in an honest way, with authenticity. I’ve really learnt to enjoy public speaking recently - the bit afterwards where you connect one-on-one genuinely feels like the most exciting and interesting work that I do. And after a few years of a good run with my publisher, the lack of sales for the last book (which is honestly the one I’m most proud of) has made me realise that publishers can only get you so far. The rest is on me. It’s up to me to bring the audience to a book. After a couple of relative hits, perhaps I got complacent and thought the next books would sell themselves. I’m determined to give the next two (which are both really exciting) the best possible shot and have their message reach the highest possible number of open minds.
I’ve been working out what feels comfortable when it comes to marketing. Sure, I know I need to push my comfort zone slightly too, but there are lines I’m determined not to cross, too. Here’s my evolving manifesto for marketing and selling my work:
Don’t share quote posts on Instagram where the quotes are of myself. (It’s so arrogant! I’m not Ghandi.)
Write my website in the first person, not third. Immediately this has helped me feel more comfortable and less like I’m playing a weird game.
Don’t create content to a schedule, or you risk half of it being ‘filler’. Don’t add to the noise just for the sake of it. Speak when you’ve got something useful to say, share or sell.
No photos or videos of me signing books, “meeting my public”, gazing out on a big stage or generally looking important.
No pricing tactics that include the phrase that goes something like “this is worth $10,000, but if you sign up today you get it for $997”. If you’ve never sold it for ten thousand dollars, then it’s not worth ten thousand dollars.
No arguing with people on Twitter or Facebook. I left Twitter a year or so ago and Facebook many years ago. I feel much better for it. I won’t go back there as places that I’m willing to spend any time, but I’ll happily use it as a place to reach people with important stuff (and get them to somewhere less toxic where we can talk properly).
Make sure everything is 99% about delivering value, with 1% asks. No one-hour webinars that consist of 45 minutes of upsell, 5 minutes of ego-flattery and ten minutes of actual value. If I focus on being useful and helpful, I genuinely believe that’s the best sales tactic there is.
Set out to help people doing real work that pushes our world forward, not help people-who-write-books-and-then-make-money-from-something-else-because-books-don’t-pay-very-well. I mean no offence to any of my peers but being an expert in how to become an expert isn’t enough for me.
By making these rules, I’m slowly getting comfortable with the idea of marketing. I want to do it in a modest way, not in a being-a-show-off way. As my friend Grace Marshall put it to me “you want to be a guiding light, not a star”.
I’d love to hear from you. What do you think I should do when it comes to marketing? What would be useful for you?
This blog post now exists in the world, acting as a reminder that if I get intoxicated by the rising millions of subscribers in the next few years, that this is me. The non-marketing, happy me. So if future-me is breaking any of my manifesto rules, please email me reminding me of the words of Bill Hicks and I’ll be sure to sign you up to my platinum experience where you can hold me to account in your own exclusive Zoom group, for the miraculously reduced price of $997.