RECONCILIATION - The business of marketing the marketing business **Warning - I get personal here**

As I sit here having ran my own consultancy for 6 years, with the last few months being by far the toughest, I thought I'd share some thoughts and hopefully, find kinship and hope to both you and I!

Definitely a balancing act

Excuse the late-in-month edition here. These words will hopefully set the scene as to why I have been elsewhere. But I wanted to talk about self employment, and use my newsletter as a way to share some personal truth. For some, this may be of less interest, but to many I hope this may well resonate. Some of you will run your own business, you may lead a small agency, or you are in corporate life with a certain commitment to PR and a ‘personal brand’, and almost always in this position, you’ll find yourself having to sell the value of marketing internally.

So practice what you preach, right?

So there is a saying :

‘Builders live in crap houses’

I went for middling adjective (can sub out bad < > shit on the adjective scale if needed), and of course this is not a slur on construction professionals. But more a loose proverb reminding us that those who practice an expertise do not always get it right themselves.

And that is OK. Obviously, if I saw a driving instructor pile into the back of another car they would not be the obvious choice for lessons, but overall in these times of financial and resource pressure, it can be hard to get it all right.

There is a bigger piece around agencies and tech/media companies and how they market and position. They often regress to a bland mean using words like brave and AI-driven. But that is not the focus of this particular piece. Perhaps another day. This is more sharing some personal experience of being self employed and balancing the demands of growing your own stuff as well as helping clients grow.

As I have said many times before in Front of Mind, we are a human business in the business of humans working to encourage humans to invariably buy things off other humans. And people aren’t perfect. We aren’t predictive cells on a spreadsheet. We have good and bad times. And if self employed, there’s only so much of you to go around.

Reconciling the marketing of them and the marketer of me

There is a cliché saying of real truth, that ‘you can spend so much time working in the business you neglect working ON the business’

A bit about me here. I set up my business in 2019. This month I marked my 6 year anniversary of trading! But it really felt muted. Because the last year has been without doubt the hardest.

For the first 5 years (especially since the lockdown lull) I was busy with multiple projects and retainers. Demand exceeds supply, the power position of being able to turn work away. All the while, I always fiscally aimed to spend less than the business earnt, to ensure acorns for any impending financial winter.

Somewhere along the way it got a little tricky. I got used to earning more, and inevitably the outgoings increase with hedonic creep none of us are immune to. But more importantly and understandably (and the big challenge of a business of one) you are so busy with the client work you seldom have the time, energy or the envisaged need to keep promoting/marketing/selling. I know it’s theoretically wrong but a further reminder that we’re humans. We’re imperfect.

I have therefore been this said builder living in this house. In the line of duty, I encourage clients to think about future demand as well as short term, and have a strategy and plan, although I can’t say I have always given myself the love I would give clients, and it is important to do so. The wise move of hindsight would’ve been to push myself further on Fridays - once client work had been done - with some more social, that extra prospecting email, that extra reply. But to be honest, I have little in the tank left at that point. And that push is the antithesis of what I wanted when escaping agency life and going alone anyway.

To be clear, I have done a lot of marketing planning and execution for my business. Since 2019, I have done all the things you’d assume for a (in the main) solo business and brand. All planned and within context. CRM & eShots. Outreach. Social posts. Writing. Award shortlists. Talks. Paid ads. I even wrote a book. A bit of everything I felt in line with my business (it depends of course), and it in the main likely helps when you are busy as it provides further social proofing, adding to said momentum. However, when you are on your own, it can be hard to do anything deeply or long enough for you to test its efficacy whilst feeling safe enough to maintain, when both time and money are of the essence. It is the challenge.

To add, on the ‘it depends’ thinking, the approach for your own marketing should differ from client’s marketing anyway, this challenge is more about action versus non.

Understanding optics and the ‘how-it-looks’ overthink

There is the asking why? Why should one do all the things? We speak of differentiation and distinctiveness when promoting, yet there seems to be this widely accepted conjecture of always having to post or showing up and being present, especially if a consultant/freelance. Of course, the fundamental tenet of mental availability and salience can only be derived from presence.

There’s the opposite strategy however; many in demand/busy people cannily buy into the idea (me included for most of the last 3-4 years) that posting less can signify your in-demand nature and add the cachet associated with it. I really don’t know the answer; I am somewhere in the middle now.

Also as I navigate quieter times, there are questions to ask. Should I mark myself as ‘Open to Work’ on LinkedIn? Ivory tower commentators cast shade over it as it can apparently look desperate, but I think that comes from a place of privilege, and should be seen for what it is, a great tool to signify availability.

Also if you do freelance/consult, you are always almost/kind of available, or near term. Perhaps an amber ring on the profile would be the best option. I am tempted to green-ring it, though sadly feeling like I need to pluck up the courage to do so. I wonder, does it send out a ‘not doing anything even biz related’ perception? Am I caring too much?

But here is a question to ask yourself, honestly :

Would you rather be a good practitioner who does not always sell yourself well/enough, or one of the voices who knows how to gamify and say the algorithm friendly, loudest platitudes, but without substance or backup?

I know where I’d rather be. A rare few successfully manage both. You just need to trust your output and find your consistency.

Also, should I apply for jobs/go back to work? There is no shame in it. The nature of consulting oscillates, but sadly, when the pothole in the road is deeper and longer than you’d first envisaged, the lack of feedback (exacerbated by a rising ghosting culture, again haven’t got word count for this today) and work can send you down some dark warrens. One of which is applying for jobs. But perhaps that isn’t so bad, despite the life of self employed to which I’ve become accustomed. I have admittedly started looking at FTCs / contracts that could fit nicely into my interim preference for things to bolster the coffers. But again it is not easy, especially with an influx of talent in the current streamlining zeitgeist onto a seemingly shrinking market. Another observation here : my multitude of experiences which maketh the skillset for my consultancy are the very thing that seems to turn off formulaic hirers who crave a lane of specialism.

What if I am even doing the right thing? After a while banging your head against a wall, you even consider changing careers altogether. With lack of feedback, rejections, budget changes, understanding of the market challenges, a lack of appetite, it is easy to burn out and wondering if the juice is still worth the squeeze. But then I feel a sadness, a tinge of how can I throw away years of experience including building the consultancy brand. I have ADHD, and that may add to my intensity of feeling and rejection, but the pragmatism needs to kick in at some point.

Perhaps the answer is individual, and do we just do what we can, with the data and resources available?

Here I am, line in the sand, hitting send on a long weekend, at a crossroads with things up in the air. I made it through the personal emotion of anger and defeat. Why am I not getting the breaks, with all my experiences and skills? Etc. Then you must divorce yourself from it. Now I’ve a feeling of repetitive apathy; unhealthy but at least I am beating self up less. Sometimes it is just out of your control. The market, the nature of things. The swathe of redundancies from industry that will only serve to make the mid term harder. Though one must make peace knowing they have done all they can.

To close, I want you to know that, if you are reading this (especially this far) I appreciate your readership and hopefully understanding. Also, no doubt you have felt it yourself and this relates to your current experience in some small way. But in these (cliché/AI sounding) strange times, we must find our strengths and believe in them, and trust that process, knowing that all we have learnt about marketing, including ourselves, will come good. Whatever we do or wherever we end up - business or not, marketing or not - we do our best with it and worst case, we learn and grow. Testing and learning is a great marketing approach after all!

SA

P.S. I really hope you are getting a semblance of value out of this. If so, and you think any other marketer or business owner would, feel free to share/forward this to them. Also, follow me on LinkedIn, personally or on my company page. If you want to discuss anything, you need some marketing advice, or you just want to discuss something I’ve said, drop me a line. Thanks and happy reading/marketing!