Honest Marketing Secrets

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So what is marketing anyway? Ultimately it’s a conversation between a buyer and a seller. And even more fundamentally, it’s an exchange of value between two, or more people wherein a successful exchange means everyone wins.

I believe that when you love what you’re doing, you tend to want to share it with your friends and even strangers on the street. When you love what you’re doing, you tell stories about the fun you’re having and the amazing things you’re discovering while you’re having it. And when you excitedly relate your experience to someone else, that excitement becomes contagious. We are all looking to optimize our experience, find our passion, experience joy, etc. And when you meet someone who has that feeling, you tend to want to hang around and hear what they have to say. In some circles, this is even called friendship, if you can believe it.

So what am I saying here? Successful marketing happens when one person is so honestly thrilled about what they’re doing that they have gained the depth of knowledge necessary to create a great product, or service; so great, in the best case scenario, that it might even be called art. And when this product, or service is just as exciting to another person, both people can then have a great conversation about it and agree to exchange value. What a deal!

Conversely, unsuccessful marketing can be the result of not being particularly interested in what you’re doing (possibly because it is simply a means to “make huge wads of cash”) and you try to force your lackluster product down everyone’s throat in pedestrian and uninspired, copycat ways. Pretty stark comparison? Yup, but I really see it like that.

Successful marketing doesn’t feel like “marketing” at all. In fact, it’s really just offering the results of your passion and excitement to the niche that is just as excited about it as you are. The second example is the basis for the infamous “evil marketer” archetype that’s been shadowing our conversations since the beginning of time.

I’m not saying you can’t make huge wads of cash selling something you’re uninterested in, or ignorant about—many people do. But why the hell bother! You’re only making yourself and others miserable and you could be doing the opposite and still making huge wads of cash. Yes? In fact, I believe you will probably make vastly greater wads of cash if you market a product you love because everyone can’t wait to hear the latest story about your experience.

In the end, you know you’re doing it right when it doesn’t feel like work at all to you and it doesn’t feel like so-called marketing to the person who’s thrilled to buy what you’re selling. Seth Godin alludes to this same idea in his post, Workaholics.

“The passionate worker doesn’t show up because she’s afraid of getting in trouble, she shows up because it’s a hobby that pays. The passionate worker is busy blogging on vacation… because posting that thought and seeing the feedback it generates is actually more fun than sitting on the beach for another hour. The passionate worker tweaks a site design after dinner because, hey, it’s a lot more fun than watching TV.”

So take a moment sometime and have a look at your passion and excitement levels around what you’re doing. Are you doing it just to make “huge wads of cash”, or are you genuinely so damn thrilled to be doing what you love that you can’t wait to rip the covers off in the morning and dive back in?

[Please note that I'm not actually advocating blogging on vacation as that's a recipe for unhappiness too since we have to have a little balance. I'm just using this example to emphasize how important it is to love what you're doing since it makes your marketing effortless and very unmarketing-like. Obviously, part of loving what you do is learning to have balance among all your needs. I say this in response to Greg Verdino's disagreement with Mr. Godin's post.]

Welp, that’s all I’ve got today. Man that was a long post . . . Next post is gonna be wildly different. I have some interesting WordPress plugins and some basic marketing tips I want to tell you about, so look for it soon . . . and in the mean time, hope your conversations are superb!