Over here at Stella Orange, we’ve spent the last week talking about the difference between taking a fast food approach to marketing and taking the approach I teach, a gourmet approach.
The fast food approach gets taught a lot – especially online – but it ends up “calling in” lower caliber clients who just want the cheapest prices… it just doesn’t work.
On the other hand, taking a gourmet approach to promoting your work can make a real difference, especially if you are working on building an audience of raving fans who truly care about what you have to say (and will buy from you for the rest of their lives).
(Side bar: if you are newer in business – say your first year or two — and are working on just getting your online presence (read: website, newsletter, social media profiles) up, this is less important for you.
I want your focus to be on just getting it done – you have your work cut out for you, overcoming a lot of the worries and critic voices that many of us have. Don’t worry about this gourmet stuff too much – instead, focus on getting a “good enough” platform up online, and then get clients.
Because when you are starting out, it’s tempting to think that the perfect words will win you clients, but actually you need to talk to people, listen, and sell. I don’t advocate spending too much time fussing over your marketing ideas, because your clients will teach you what you need to know.
And even better, they will pay you to learn what their problem is and why it matters so much to them to solve it. You just can’t do this in your head. You need the marketing research of working with clients. End side bar.)
There comes a time in business when you have a steady stream of private clients, and your attention turns to online. You see the possibility for leverage. You know that’s your ripest opportunity for growth.
THAT is the time to look at your online presence – your website, social media profiles, awesome free gifts, and your newsletter, for starters – and do a quick gut check.
The questions to ask yourself at this critical stage are:
- Am I proud to send people to my website?
- Am I accurately presenting the work I currently do – and the results my clients get?
- Do my website and online marketing materials feel as high end, sincere and compelling as when I’m with people in person, or working with a client one-on-one?
If you are less than satisfied with your answers, know that this is completely normal. And there is zero judgment. It’s normal to grow as an entrepreneur and human being, and so after a few years, we look back at an old website or old copy and think, “Geez, I’m not even that person anymore.”
This is the moment my clients come to work with me.
For example, take Amy P., a certified Martha Beck coach and advisor to coaches who want to build businesses. This was Amy’s old homepage:
It’s not exactly fast food… but it wasn’t really gourmet, either.
The gourmet approach requires you to have a “point of view” – an angle, if you will, about your work. It asks you to take a stand about something. And not in a corny way. In a way that lines up with your heart; that is, your actual perspective and truth about the work you do.
What was interesting about Amy was that she already HAD this point of view. Her body of work was about how many of us are addicted to the approval of other people. That idea alone is really compelling. But notice, it was nowhere on her old website, which looked like the website of many other life coaches on the web.
That’s what made the old website more fast food than gourmet. It was rather anonymous and generic.
If you look closely at her old site, you see she has information about weight loss, about coaching, and about what she calls approval addiction. That’s a classic experience for many of us; we help some clients with one problem, and some clients with an entirely different problem. We like the variety and chafe at the experts who tell us to “you’ve got to pick a niche!”
But what ends up happening is that it scatters your focus. Which is okay when you are primarily building your business offline. But when you get online, the goal is to be known for something – you need a calling card. Something that’s yours and yours alone.
For Amy, her thing was – and is – approval addiction. It’s really catchy, right? Just hearing the phrase, you want to know more.
And instantly, she sets herself apart from other coaches.
When Amy came to work with me, one of the first things I noticed was that she was 100% clear on the problem – approval addiction. Her take was that coaches can’t build their businesses and be their biggest selves if they are seeking other people’s approval all the time. It siphons their energy.
But if that was the problem, I asked her, what was on the other side?
In marketing, they call this the promise. But in my world, I’m just curious about how people see things differently. I wanted to know what Amy saw.
Because that was going to be the thing that called gourmet clients to her – her vision of what was possible, when you recover from your approval addiction.
This is important. When you get to a certain point in business, like where Amy was, you can’t just talk about the problem. Even if, like Amy, you’ve totally nailed it.
People are hungry for inspiration. And not just the cliche schlock that so many are pumping out online. The real stuff.
Amy had that.
She just hadn’t put it into words on her website yet.
We ended up coming up with the answer, “what’s on the other side of approval addiction?” It’s this:
The story now goes like this:
The problem many coaches have, when it comes to growing their businesses, is that they are addicted to other people’s approval. They may feel guilty about asking for money. They may worry about people unsubscribing from their newsletter. They may compare themselves to internet famous coaches, and it paralyzes them.
This holds them back – in business and in life.
So, enter Amy, who’s here to help you recover from your approval addiction, so you can live brazen.
Who doesn’t want to live brazen? Even if I can’t remember the definition, I want to be brazen. It sounds freeing, if slightly dangerous.
That, my friends, is a gourmet story. It’s different. It resonates. It doesn’t sound like everyone else online. And best of all, it’s rooted in the way Amy actually looks at the world, so when you read her newsletter or go to a webinar or read one of her sales pages, they all tell this story of going from approval addiction to living brazen.
Now, not everyone comes to me knowing what their “thing” is. Amy had already worked out the concept of approval addiction – so all we needed to do was flesh out what “the other side” was, brand it, tell a coherent story, and put it all together.
But across the board, turning your marketing gourmet requires us to put more of YOU into your marketing. It’s not just about the sale – it’s about taking a stand for the thing that you are fighting against… and fighting for. In Amy’s case, we needed to find her words for what she was fighting for – a brazen life, with no apologies. When you’ve got words for that, there’s no stopping you.
Stella Orange is the founder and creative director of StellaOrange.com, an agency that helps coaches and online businesses nail their message and get their writing projects done faster, bolder and more profitably. As a teacher, Stella shows her students how to craft their money-making message and find their voice so they sell more online with a quirky, human touch. She is based in Cincinnati, but returns to Montana several times a year, hosting sold out writing workshops for people who enjoy riding horses and drinking whiskey. Find out about upcoming production labs and events and get your free copy of “They Won’t Pay You Gourmet Prices if Your Copy Screams Fast Food” at www.stellaorange.com.
