It's Your Fault!

Everything that goes wrong in your marketing, ultimately the responsibility rests with you if you're a business leader, without any question it's on you.

I'm sorry to say but it's your fault.

The reality is that the biggest reason it's probably failed is because of you. That's why ultimately it's your fault.

Now we can feel bad about that, we can throw a pity party and we can get all miserable and depressed and down about it, or we can own it and do something about it. And I'm going to show you how you can fix it.

There are two primary reasons why we have to take responsibility for our marketing when it's sub-optimal. We certainly want to take responsibility for it when it's optimal and when it's doing really well, the numbers are great, loads of conversations, lots of pipeline, we take responsibility for it then and so we have to take responsibility for it ultimately when it's not performing up to scratch.

There are ultimately two big reasons.

The first is that we fear pressure and we fear judgement.

We fear judgement and we often call that impostor syndrome. Impostor syndrome means that we are afraid of being found out, maybe we don't know everything we think we know, maybe someone would disagree with us.

The fear of judgement means that we shrink back and we do less.

‘Let's not talk about our product that way.’

‘Can we really confidently say we are X Y and Z?’

‘What if somebody disagrees with us?’

‘What if people start a social media campaign saying we're terrible.’

The reality is it very rarely happens as long as you're telling the truth.

As long as what you're saying is true, how can it be wrong?

People can disagree with you, great, have a really big discussion about it online, that's really great for your marketing. Have a really engaged ego free discussion about your product, other products in the market, where the markets going, what the service is that you provide and the benefits and why it stacks up and the social proof that demonstrates that people love what you do and they get great value for it from it and except that not everybody's gonna agree with you.

Not everybody's gonna get value out of what you do, it's not possible to please everybody.

I'm often if you're ever in my presence and company you'll hear me say; even Mother Teresa had enemies. Well if even Mother Teresa can have enemies, what hope is there for your marketing in terms of it being perfect for absolutely everyone?

Well the reality is it's not going to be perfect for everyone.

So you have to get beyond the fear of judgement.

You have to get beyond impostor syndrome.

There are loads of people out there way better and more qualified than me, you know, that talk about impostor syndrome all the time. Kim Platts talks about it, she is an impostor coach she will help people suffering from impostor syndrome deal with those specific issues.

If you want to connect with Kim, you can click here.

The bottom line is impostor syndrome is a killer and it definitely definitely holds back your marketing. But that's your fault, you have to own that.

So I'm judging you and I'm throwing down the gauntlet and saying what are you gonna do about it?

So that's the first thing that holds back your marketing and that's why you're probably the biggest marketing fail for your business.

The second is the flip of that, because the opposite of the impostor syndrome is the superhero syndrome.

The superheroes syndrome is really about fearing pressure. Because if we are a superhero, if everybody needed us, it would be insane;

'I would be under so much pressure I'd probably screw up.'

Impostor syndrome creeps in, ‘what if people found they didn't like me?’ The pressure starts to lead to a fear of judgement. That fear of pressure often keeps people sat in a quiet corner serving the small number of customers they have. I've actually had a client actually tell me when we got down to it during a marketing strategy session the reason why their marketing wasn't effective was because they were afraid to move forward and make it effective. Because if it got really effective what if they got busy and couldn't cope.

Two things;

First of all it's very rare that that happens, because generally growth tends to be organic because you do what you can cope with.You put your prices up or you become more discerning and you push other people away.

And the second part of that is - what a lovely problem to have if it does happen! I mean let's be realistic here, if I suddenly became oversubscribed (thanks Daniel Priestly) I would deal with it. Of course it's fantastic having that much custom and revenue on the table in front of me, and I can solve problems with revenue of course I can. If I've got customers coming in and I can't serve them, I will expand albeit quickly - lovely problem to have.

So there are two reasons why pressure hold back your marketing and business growth;

The fear of being the superhero and judgement

The fear of being outed as an impostor.

The opposite is that you embrace pressure and judgement.

Put yourself out there,

Make big statements (as long as they're true),

Have an opinion (as long as you could genuinely feel that and back it up).

Don't just say things, don't start a fire in a crowded theatre. But embrace the pressure and seek judgement, because when people see you putting yourself in the fire and standing through it, nothing says I want to buy from you more than when you buy from you, when you back yourself.

Your marketing needs to back you.

Everything in your business needs to back you.

You know what the most important thing is? You need to back you.

You need to get past the pressure and the fear of pressure, and you need to get past the judgement and the fear of judgement. You need to accept if you're still in the business you're in, as long as you're telling the truth, you're fantastic at it, you must be, because otherwise the market would have made its decision and you wouldn't be in business anymore.

So if you're in business, take the covers off, put on your shiniest shoes, put your hair into any shape that you like (or if you don't have hair like me, make the best of it make your bald head gleam), and get out there, start having those debates, start having those opinions, start embracing the pressure, start embracing the judgement and watch your business fly!