Forget formulas. Follow your tribe
sun-trees, unsplash
"A different way to grow for a more beautiful way of doing business."This is my mantra. My meditation. My philosophy in a nutshell. And it came from reading "Raw Lessons from My Second Year of Entrepreneurship: Learning to Trust my Creative Wisdom" by Becca Piastrelli, The Dabblist. Somewhere in the midst of this story, that line flew into my head - or maybe Becca had written it elsewhere? All I remember for sure is that the idea was seeded here:
An example: In May, I found myself pitching investment in my company to a room full of older, rich men (they were angel investors). I was almost done with my perfectly rehearsed presentation when one of them stopped me mid-sentence and asked me, “so….what do you do again?”
It was at that moment I fully comprehended that what I am doing is very unconventional and I had better get used to that if this mattered to me enough to ask for investment in it.
I backed up and began again letting them know that The Dabblist was a website with a growing community of creative women all over the globe who yearn to work with their hands again.
The only person who nodded along was the one woman in the room (bless her for giving me the courage to keep going in that presentation). I am grateful for that meeting because all those tough questions about my business model, financial projections, and vision for growth helped me realize what this business is not.
My business is not a traditional blog or website that runs off of advertising income. I tried that a few times (once with re-targeted ads and most recently this past summer when I experimented with working with small business artisans and etsy shop owners) and it never felt fully right to me.
I want The Dabblist to feel like a sanctuary away from all the usual noise on the internet.
Like Becca, I come from what some of my clients might call a "tribal belief" that business is done one way. The old-guy way. The man-in-suit way. The boardroom with starched shirts and uncomfortable pants way. Online, it was a little different, but also surprisingly the same. You had to have one type of website, an advertising strategy that had X,Y,Z ingredients, and toss around jargon like ROI, target clients, conversion metrics. Now, I like ROI (return on investment), am totally enthused about specifiying exactly which clients to reach, and I love me some metrics. I really do. Solid proof that my writing works? Yes please. Can't get enough.But there's a culture that goes with these things that didn't fit with what felt good to me.What feels good to me is bringing the people together who should know each other. See, I'm a great hostess. You come to a party of mine, and I will introduce you to your new best friend, because in my mind - you two should have known each other all along! I love finding that perfect fit and making the introduction happen.Take this, twist it, punch it a few times and put a tie on it, and you've got the modern sales method. In the words of Hubspot: "Attract! Convert! Delight!" All great things. But the way most inbound marketing companies approach these goals is still grounded in traditional, manipulative, hard-sell methods.I want what I do to "feel like a sanctuary away from all the usual noise on the internet," like Becca says.All the usual noise is people trying to persuade, sell, attract, grab your attention at any cost. It's exhausting, isn't it? As a consumer, the person on the other end of this equation, it's draining.I believe that bringing people together can be beautiful and energizing. In a very wooey way, but also a very practical one, you can cut through the noise with honesty, transparency, and the kind of truth that speaks soul to soul.Formulas for sales pages, home pages, landing pages, social media strategy - what have you - are a great place to start, but when everyone follows the same formulas, it all becomes just more noise. I prefer a different method that begins with an in-depth study of, yes, the "target client." Or "ideal client" if you like. I've found some truly amazing epiphanies just from compiling testimonials and finding the common themes. If you really want to understand the goals of your audience and the language to reach them, start there. They'll show you how to grow in precisely the right way to reach them.