As a business owner, you want to focus on the work that you do in your business. Work that you’re passionate about. Marketing may not be your favourite task, yet it has to be done. So, you have to find a way that works for you.
Sometimes, stressful thoughts can come up around marketing. What if I get rejected? I don’t want to look like a show-off. I don’t want to come across as pushy. Why didn’t they call me back? Maybe my offer stinks. People don’t want to be bothered by my ezine. How do I talk to someone about working together without it feeling creepy?
By applying mindfulness to your marketing, you will be able to execute your marketing strategies with grace and ease. Here are some principles of mindfulness and how they can be applied to your marketing:
If you take a compassionate approach to yourself and to the people you want to serve, everything feels easier.
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” ~ Dalai Lama
Extending kindness to yourself and knowing that you are doing the best you can do will make the path forward less complicated. Your potential clients are also doing the best they can, show them compassion for their situation and trust that they know what is best for them. So, start with yourself and extend that compassion to your potential clients.
If you are open to experience whatever happens with your marketing, you won’t get so stressed out by it.
“Openness is not a passive exercise. You actually have to “do” openness.” ~ Danielle LaPorte
I often tell my clients that marketing is a continuous experiment. You learn and adjust as you go. If something doesn’t turn out the way you expected, instead of getting upset and giving up, find the lesson in the situation, make some changes and keep moving forward.
You need to be extremely clear about your intentions when it comes to your marketing.
“Our intention creates our reality.” ~ Wayne Dyer
If your intention is to find the truth in the situation, to be mindful of what the person you are connecting with needs, it will be positive and fun. If your intention is to make a sale before you even know if there is a fit, it will feel stressful and uncomfortable. Here are two examples of how you can shift your intentions with marketing.
| Situation | Stressful intention | Peaceful intention |
|---|---|---|
| Need clients | I want them to buy my product / service | I want to find out if our service / product is the right fit for them |
| Going to a networking event | I have to meet people and tell them what I do | I want to learn from people and help where I can |
You can easily replace the word marketing with connecting. So, if you want your marketing to feel more fun, focus on connection.
“The most important things in life are the connections you make with others.” ~ Tom Ford
Connecting with people and building relationships over time, that is really all marketing is. How do you connect with people? If you listen more than you talk and come from a place of genuine curiosity, you will connect. There are many options available for connecting with people online and offline and the same principles apply no matter what the situation. You can also deepen connections with people by connecting people you know to each other.
It’s also important to have a solid connection with yourself to understand your own thoughts and feelings. A practice that I’ve found helpful in dealing with stressful thoughts is The Work of Byron Katie. All of the information you need to learn about it is available for free on her website.
As with openness, if your marketing doesn’t turn out the way you thought it would, it is helpful to accept the situation. Try to avoid seeing it as something bad. It just is what it is. Accepting doesn’t mean that you don’t care or that you give up. Accepting allows you to look at the situation from a place of clarity and calmness, you can see what can be learned and what will support you the next time.
“Accept – then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it. Make it your friend and ally, not your enemy. This will miraculously transform your whole life.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
Most of the stress related to marketing comes from two things. One is from thinking about an experience from the past that didn’t go the way you wanted. The other is worrying about what will happen in the future.
“The present moment is the only moment available to us, and it is the door to all moments.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
By staying in the present moment, you are able to experience your business as it is now. This doesn’t mean that you don’t make future plans for your marketing. It simply means you make those plans in the present moment from a place of clarity.
Spoiler alert – there is no silver bullet in marketing. So, you can stop searching for it. Marketing takes time. You need to be patient and consistently plant seeds and make connections. It’s all about connecting with people and building relationships. And building relationships takes time.
“If you believe business is built on relationships, make building them your business.” ~ Scott Stratten
I hope you’re starting to see how mindfulness can make the experience of marketing your business much easier and a lot more fun. Think of a marketing action you want to take today and if you feel any resistance to it, read through these concepts and see if you can find a mindfulness match that will support you in seeing things in a new light.
Do you have any tips to add? Let us know in the comments!