The core of authentic marketing…

is to bless and let go.

The more attached we are to the results of our Marketing, the more inauthentic it gets.

“Results-driven marketing” eventually leads to manipulation.

If we “must” get a particular result, we become manipulative of others. If the result doesn’t happen, we experience suffering.

Instead, when we focus our energy on inner-exploration and outer-service, then our marketing becomes authentic. No matter the result, we can enjoy the activity. Our marketing also becomes sustainable.

Let me explain:

Most marketing is tied to ROI (return on investment).

Yet:

Marketing that is creative or innovative (by definition: doing something new) cannot accurately predict the ROI.

So there’s this illusion that you’re supposed to be able to Do X thing that I’ve never done before, and get Y results. I send this cleverly-copywritten email and get $1,000 in sales. I buy $1,000 of Facebook Ads and I get $2,500 in revenue.

If you’re growing an authentic business, you know that it rarely works in such predictable ways. (The reliable systems and predictable investments can be built eventually, but even those will need continual updating to remain authentic and service-oriented.)

You’re in business to express your soul and serve others’ positive transformation.

You’re not in business primarily to get money. (If you were, you would be in the finance industry instead.) You’re doing your business because of a calling.

If you’re faithful to your business calling, which includes serving people in ways they find valuable, then healthy money is a natural result.

Yet when we start learning business and marketing from experts, they assume that we’re doing this for the money. The way they get our attention is using ideas like “Get more traffic and profits!” and “Build a 6-figure income!”

They’ve made Money the God of their business.

They’re doing marketing for the sales, not for the joy. Therefore, the mode of operation is manipulation. The natural result is cycles of short-term highs (when campaigns are profitable) and misery (when campaigns don’t meet planned results.)

If we learn marketing in that way, we become attached to results.

We start to see marketing as a means to an end.

Marketing becomes a necessary evil, to build a business that we eventually want.

Compromising your values isn’t going to build a business that fulfills you.

I’m here to present a different path, one that feels deeply true to my heart and perhaps will feel true to yours as well.

Just like business can be a calling, so marketing can be a soulful expression.

Instead of “do X so that you can get Y” (a means to an end), what if X itself was worth doing, regardless of whether you get Y?

That’s how I see “marketing” —when done authentically, marketing is an activity that is joyful in and of itself.

Authentic marketing is the intersection of the exploration of one’s soul and one’s genuine service to the world.

It is not “so that I can get more traffic and make more sales”… although that is sometimes the result.

When you share your soul’s expression in service to the world, others sense your authenticity. That is where real trust begins to build. And trust is where sustainable sales are made.

Yet if you focus on the sale, you’ll eventually lose their trust.

So it’s really about where you focus your attention as you do your marketing and outreach: On the soulful expression, or on the results?

During the marketing itself: Be in the authenticity of inner exploration and outer service.

After the marketing is over, with some distance of time, we can then look at the outer results — how the audience responded — in order to tune our marketing intuition for more connected service next time.

When you are doing any of your marketing — whether it’s your article writing, your video creation, your webpage design, your email sending, your advertising campaigns, your webinars, your conversations with prospective clients — may something like this be your inner mantra:

Bless and Let Go.

Be in service to your ideal audience, knowing that even your marketing itself is an offering.

I wish for all of us the ability to do our marketing from a deep place of trust, seeing it as work we do from an inner spark of joy, so that we can be joyfully sustainable in our marketing.

And if we are sustainable (and therefore consistent) in doing authentic marketing, it is inevitable that we get positive business results.

Persistence pays.

Yet rather than persisting from a place of “hustle” (suffering), and “I’m only doing this as a means to an end” (necessary evil), let’s transform our relationship to the activity of marketing: make it worthwhile in itself.

Let marketing be an exploration of your authenticity, and a genuine offering of service to your audience.

Then, no matter what, you find joy in your business.