Why Women Entrepreneurs Will Do Anything to Avoid Marketing
When I was in writing grad school, I had a professor who used to say, “It’s easier to clean your desk than to write your novel.” (Having written a novel, I can tell you that this is absolutely true.) When we don’t want to do the “hard thing” we’ll find tons of smaller, easier things to take care of instead. Wash the dishes, walk the dog, bake. This is called “constructive procrastination,” which is really just plain old procrastination dressed up in a cute outfit.
These days I talk to a lot of women who tell me they want to grow their businesses. Often, they’re extremely talented and skilled having trained in their fields for many years. But instead of figuring out how to market themselves and drum up more clients, they’re busy taking another 500-hour yoga teaching program with a more intensive focus on alignment. Or studying Mayan herbalism Level III, or copyediting in French, or whatever they can reasonably pass off as a valuable training to bolster their portfolio. In other words, they’re constructively procrastinating.
For the most part, aspiring women entrepreneurs already have everything it takes to provide a great service. They are passionate about their work, so passionate that they often undercharge or give away their services for free. This is their comfort zone. Learning, which is essentially passive, is also their comfort zone. Getting together with other women — preferably at a retreat center in Costa Rica— to talk about their businesses is another social comfort zone. You get the picture.
Many women small business owners spend a lot of time doing these safe and seemingly productive things, and there’s nothing inherently wrong with them. But it’s important to notice what actually brings in revenue and creates opportunities for exposure. What pushes us to step out powerfully once and for all? While you’re heading out to your third casual networking coffee of the week, someone else is writing a blog or designing an online course. Someone else is developing a product that’s going to launch their business to the next level.
For most women solo entrepreneurs, marketing is not a comfort zone. At best it’s a chore; at worst it’s something they dread and steer clear of at all costs. Marketing is active and demanding. It means emerging from the shadows and into the spotlight, something that many women have been trained to avoid. It involves public speaking, public writing, and being seen. To market, you have to tell people what you’re all about and, plainly, what you think they should buy. Because if you’re in business you’re selling something. And if you’re a solo entrepreneur you’re selling yourself: the unique work you have to offer to the world.
The bigger your comfort zone, the smaller your life. If you really want to run a business you have to stretch and do the difficult, and amazingly rewarding, work of getting in front of an audience of strangers and telling your truth. You have to have the gumption to ask people to pay for what you do. You have to take risks.
Here’s the hard truth: if you’re undercutting yourself or working for free, but not marketing, you’re running a charity. If you’re getting certification after certification, but not marketing, you have an expensive hobby. If you’re always chatting in groups about your entrepreneurial aspirations, but not marketing, you’re a socialite, not a businesswoman.
That said, if you’re willing to face your own fears and self-limiting beliefs it doesn’t have to be this way. You might be much closer to having a successful business than you realize.
Katherine Jamieson, MFA is a Business and Writing Coach for women leaders. She works with women around country to find their voice, develop a marketing strategy and create authentic content. She holds an MFA from the University of Iowa, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow, and her writing has been published in The New York Times, Slate, Boston Globe magazine, Ms., Orion, and anthologized many times in The Best Travel Writing and The Best Women’s Travel Writing. Learn more about her work here: www.katherinejamieson.com