“Inspiration shows up after you make some sort of gesture.â€
– Bindu Wiles, Creativity Coach
Isn’t it interesting once you’ve followed that rabbit down the hole? Bill Moyers refers to the phenomena of living your truth as being helped “by hidden handsâ€. Joseph Campbell tells us when you follow your “bliss†you are put on a path that has been there all along.
This is the key to good marketing.
The problem is that self-promotion gets a very bad rap. In many cases it is misunderstood completely. It’s no wonder most standard marketing efforts and methods produce such horrible results. Good marketing is not about who promotes the most, or who has the catchiest tagline. It’s not about advertising, mailers, and press releases.  Good marketing is about authenticity and finding inspiration from that very place of being.
If you are struggling with the idea of self-promotion for your practice or career I suggest starting from a more honest place. Find a passion and a gift you wholeheartedly believe in, and speak with that voice. You will find yourself anchored in integrity with a renewed sense of purpose and meaning. When you come from that position of strength, your marketing efforts will look different, they’ll have a different rhythm, and they’ll be far more effective.
And when you find that place and that voice you’ll know. Your actions will no longer feel like self-promotion. You won’t call it marketing because, at that moment, it will no longer be marketing.
It will simply be you.
AUG
David,
I really enjoyed this reflection. I have just retired, continue to work part time but am looking for my “passion” “my desire”. So thank you for this insight. It will help bring clarity to a sense of direction in my life at this time. I have heard it before but somehow it will make a difference if I take the time to reflect more clearly on what this means for me at this time.
Sounds great Bernie! Let me know where things take you!
I think it’s particularly challenging for therapists to market themselves – somehow we think it cheapens what we do. It’s like having the mindset when applying for a job and thinking that the potential employer has something you want (job, pay, etc) rather than thinking that you have something (skills, expertise) that the employer needs. I am trying to think of marketing as the process of finding a fit between what someone needs and what I have to offer… Thank you for the reminder that therapy is a gift.
“…finding a fit between what someone needs and what I have to offer” Great way to put it Linda. I have found that when you really know the scope of what it is you want to get out to the world you can hone in on your target audience. And when you work in that way the people you want to notice will do just that. However, it is not necessarily a short-term process and I see lots of folks give up too early. It took the company I work for quite some time, first to discover what they wanted to stand for, and then to build the kind of relationships needed to succeed.
Thanks again David for a thought provoking, insightful and, as it would happen, very timely message for me personally. Your posting reminded me that there needs to be (and in fact there is, whether we realize it or not) congruence between who I am, what I believe, what I do, how I do it, etc. So the more I come from a place of service and belief that what I do has value, everything I do, including anything I do to promote my practice, starts to feel less like “work” and more like an organic and natural extension of self.
Thank you for your message. I think marketing is hard but I consider my practice a service. It is also hard to know how much to charge because you have to think about how valuable is your service and yourself. I got the fee schedule back from an insurance company on what I was charging for different services. The insurance company was paying full price for at least 5 of the services! If I had put down a really low charge just to get patients then those 5 would have have been paying at that rate and the company would wonder if my services were very good! It also allows me to do a sliding scale when necessary!