Last week I met with a new client. He told me about his business. Then we discussed what he wanted to achieve and why he wanted to work with me. 

At the moment his customers come to him by word of mouth exclusively. He has no web presence at all, he’s not on social media, he has no website and so if you google him, as I did, nothing appears. Before I go on, let’s just take a moment to acknowledge what an achievement  that is in our digital focused world. He runs a successful business with zero web presence.  That’s a serious achievement. 

However, he came to me because he wants to increase the number of clients he has. We talked  about the ways he could do this. We discussed a very simple website and social media profile.  We talked about promoting what he does, what he is brilliant at. As we did this, his body  involuntarily shuddered. The idea of promoting himself filled him with such horror that he had a  bodily reaction. He went on to talk about how he hated self promotion. He hated the idea of  telling people that he was good at stuff. I think there are so many people in that position. I’m  definitely in that position. Maybe it’s a British thing. Maybe it’s just the sort of client that I seem  to attract. But shouting loudly about what we do and the change we can bring about in people’s  lives doesn’t come naturally to a lot of us.  

Let’s turn the concept of self promotion on its head

Lots of businesses exist to improve people’s lives, improve the world, to make things better in  some way. If that’s you – keep reading. 

I want you to stop thinking about self promotion in terms of saying how great you are. Start thinking about it in terms of the customers out there who you are currently denied the improved  life they could be leading because you’re not promoting your services so they don’t know about  you and your product. 

Let’s break that down a bit 

I work with small business owners who want to improve what they’re doing. When I don’t  promote my business, I deny those business owners an opportunity to work with me to  maximise the potential of their business idea which, in turn, denies potential customers the  ability to benefit from their services.  

Here is another example – let’s say you’re a chiropodist and you can fix customers’ painful feet  and that means that people can walk pain free for the first time in forever. If you have that skill  and you don’t tell people about your business, then they will continue to be in pain all because you haven’t told them. You are denying people the ability to have a better life, because you  won’t promote the services that you offer.  

Stop thinking about self promotion – start thinking about meeting a  need

So let’s stop thinking about self promotion. This isn’t self promotion. This is about enabling  people who are at their wits’ end with incredibly painful feet to find somebody who can give them  a pain free existence. Right? That’s how you need to view marketing your business. This isn’t  about promoting you. It’s about enabling people to find you so that you can change their lives.  That’s what promotion of your services enables. So don’t quiver involuntarily. Don’t get  squeamish about the idea of saying how brilliant you are. See it as meeting a need. When you  stop thinking about self promotion and start thinking about meeting a need it enables you to  change lives. It will grow your business, which in turn means you are meeting more need. It will  enable you to pay your bills and mortgage while changing your customers lives.  

If you need someone to help you change that concept of self promotion in your head and think  about meeting a need mindset then get in touch. Book a free call with me now, or email me at holly.davies@sycamoreobm.co.uk, we can set up a call for me to understand more about what  you do and for you to decide whether I’m the right person for you. I look forward to hearing from you.