14 Sep Don’t cheat, just market

If you were to ask me how to make more sales in your business I’d say: stop trying to cheat the process and just market better. Marketing is the simple act of adding value to someone’s life before you ask them for anything in return.

Examples of marketing done well:

You’re a guest on a podcast of someone your future clients listen to. You’re talking about your journey, you’re sharing your wisdom, you’re helping people believe they can do it to.

You write a LinkedIn post sharing the 3 biggest mistakes people make when approaching [your industry/topic], and you explain how to avoid them.

You run a live networking working and walk through a key process you teach to your clients.

You make a YouTube video explaining the best way to solve a problem your clients have, and break it down step by step.

On your sales page, you explain why you’ve set up your offer in that way, rather than just list the features.

You write a blog post walking through the reasoning behind a trend or decision in your industry, helping your audience feel informed.

You go live on social media and answer the top three questions you get asked most often, but you actually share useful insights.

The mistake most people make in marketing:

The mistake most people make in marketing is that they focus on the hooks, gimmicks and ‘promise’ of the offer. It is important to know what the one big promise of your offer is, but you will find it so much easier to sell if you spend time explaining or showing how your approach will help you to deliver on that promise.

For example, I could say: “When you join Straight Line Through, you get access to weekly calls”, or I could say: “Each Wednesday in Straight Line Through I go live at 12pm. Often I lead with a live teach on a core topic around sales, marketing, and mindset, but there is always room for your questions. You could bring me your sales page for review. You could think out loud about a problem you’re struggling with. You could get advice on how to market your new offer. The purpose of these calls is to give you somewhere practical and inspiring to go each month, to make sure you have somewhere to get your questions answered, and to introduce you to other entrepreneurs in our community.”

Which of those two is more compelling and more likely to lead to a sale?

The same is true of marketing in general. You could talk about the big six figure year, or talk broadly about how you turned your luck around in business, or you could try to articulate the process you mastered, or the five biggest things you’ve learn on your journey, or how you overcame the biggest obstacle in your sector.

People are looking for mentors, coaches, guides, leaders all the time. The difference between the ones that sell and the ones that don’t is that good leaders show people how they can get there too. That’s all marketing is, done well, and compounded over time.

Seth Godin’s Approach to Marketing in ‘This is Marketing’

Seth Godin’s book This is Marketing had a profound impact on me as a marketer because he put into words something I knew intrinsically to be true: marketing isn’t about shouting the loudest or tricking people into a funnel. It’s about earning trust over time through consistency, generosity, and empathy.

That means:

• Consistency: showing up over and over again so people know they can rely on you.

• Generosity: giving away your best ideas and insights, not holding back until someone pays.

• Empathy: taking the time to really understand the fears, hopes, and struggles of the people you want to serve.

This isn’t fast. It isn’t flashy. And it won’t give you overnight results. But what it does give you is longevity in your market. It builds a loyal audience who actually want to hear from you, who share your work, who want to consume all your content, and who eventually buy with confidence – because you’ve already proven, over and over again, that you can help them.

That’s the essence of good marketing. Not hooks. Not gimmicks. Not tricks. Service.

That’s what we explore in this week’s episode: