This article is the second post in a series about creating momentum for your new, emerging work and business by strengthening your foundation before you attempt large-scale marketing efforts.
Article 1: Honoring Key Themes as I Celebrate 30 Years In Business!
Article 2: Read Below
Article 3: When Business Guidance Triggers Business Trauma
Article 4: Business Development: There IS Another Way
Article 5: A Strong Business Foundation Creates Momentum in Your Emerging Venture
Article 6: The Best Way I Know to Create Momentum in Your Emerging Venture
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In the previous post, I described my quest to find a deeper way to work with clients. For five long years I kept marketing my existing work while searching for this new work. Although this was a very trying period in my life and business, I ended up discovering an insight that became the seed idea of the work I do now.
Knowing this game-changing insight will help you too!
When I was on a quest to figure out the next iteration of my work, I invested heavily in mainstream business strategy classes and business coaching groups. I wanted to build my business, and that was precisely what they promised in their marketing copy.
I worked hard. I learned a lot of marketing strategies and gained a number of insights about developing new programs, but I struggled to implement what I learned.
Every.
Single.
Time.
When one course didn’t pan out, I searched for the next one, thinking it would help me resolve whatever gap was still keeping me from making progress. This quest for five years from 2010 - 2015.
I couldn’t understand why others were so successful in implementing the mainstream business strategies that I couldn't make work. I couldn’t figure out what I was missing.
Talk about frustrating!
I can't tell you how many hours I spent agonizing over this scenario while I was in it. Hours I will never get back. The detrimental impact this experience had on my self-esteem as I began to lose faith in myself and my work. The devastating influence it had on my bank account as I invested in more and more programs without seeing a return on my investment.
I Was Not Alone
Along the way I noticed other classmates and colleagues were experiencing what I was.
- They were also investing their time, money, and energy in mainstream marketing and development courses and coaching programs, thinking they would increase their business success as a result.
- Like me, they were dedicated, creative, and committed to their work and their business.
- And yet, they too ended up receiving little-to-no-return on their investments.
At the time, I could NOT see what was getting in the way of our success.
And Then I Had a Realization...
Collectively, We Have Held the Belief that
the Mainstream Approach to Business
Works for Everyone.
It Does Not!
For those who are established in their business and looking for ways to strengthen their business success, the Mainstream Business Approach offers valuable strategies they can put into practice to create the intended results: more visibility, more leads, more clients, and more income.
The key is that established businesses already know their niche, have a clear picture of their client avatar, and feel confident in the services they offer to their clients. When they discover new strategies through mainstream business courses or coaching programs, they are able to implement what they learn immediately and start creating results fairly quickly.
For those who are bringing a new, emerging work into existence – a new business, a new iteration of their existing business, or a new body of work – the Mainstream Business Approach is more likely to trigger confusion, angst, frustration, and despair than feelings of confidence and success.
Jumping into large-scale, public outreach marketing mode
too early in your development generates so much
struggle, despair and angst, that it's easy to
get derailed before you even get started.
The Struggle Is Real!
When you can’t pull the pieces together in the way you are being taught in mainstream business courses, you:
- Find you have more questions than answers about your next steps.
- Question yourself, your work with clients, and your ability to succeed as an entrepreneur.
- Start worrying that you will never make it out of the maze you are in.
Depending on your personal style, you might respond by:
- Waiting it out, thinking the answers will eventually come to you.
- Stepping into action even though you don’t know what you are doing, trusting that something will stick.
- Enrolling in more training courses to bolster your credibility, hoping additional information will help you fill in some of the blanks in your vision.
- Freezing in place, not knowing what to do to move yourself forward.
The entire experience, which is supposed to bring greater success, ends up being debilitating and discouraging.
Get With The Program!
Within the Mainstream Business Approach, the pressure to “get with the program” is intense! You know you need to get your niche and your ideal client avatar figured out so you can get your new, emerging work off the ground.
You invest a lot of time trying to figure out your niche. Well-meaning friends, colleagues, and mentors may encourage you to choose something or even try to name your niche for you. When you still can’t commit to an idea, your sense of failure increases.
Read the next post to discover what happens when this scenario repeats over and over.
Mainstream Business Development: What’s the Source of This Disparity?
Change Catalysts who are developing a new, emerging work aren’t able to name their marketing niche or spell out exactly who their ideal clients are because their work is still coming into form. Before they can figure out the nuances of their marketing message, they must have a personal understanding of their own work.
This discovery process is a normal, natural, and essential phase of the development process that is rarely acknowledged and often overlooked and dismissed by the Mainstream Business Approach.
Download your copy of the eBook that describes 7 Vital Milestones to Turn Your Emerging Work into a Flourishing Business.
Focusing on these milestones will guide you to create a strong, guided foundation for your emerging business that keeps you in integrity with yourself and fills in the answers you need to feel strong enough and stable enough to step out into the world and share your work with those who will benefit most.