This Is Marketing: You Can't Be Seen Until You Learn to See

The hard work of deciding that this is your calling, of showing up for those you seek to change. Do that first.

If you hesitate to market your offering properly, it’s not that you’re being shy. It’s not that you’re being circumspect. It’s that you’re stealing, because there’s someone who needs to learn from you, engage with you, or buy from you. Someone will benefit from your better if you get out of your way and market it.

A Pew study shows that gun owners are more than twice as likely to contact government officials about their issues than nonowners are.

And if you’re having trouble making your contribution, realize your challenge is a story you are marketing to yourself. It is the marketing we do for ourselves, to ourselves, by ourselves, the story we tell ourselves, that can change everything. It’s what’s going to enable you to create value, to be missed if you were gone.

The market has been trained to associate frequency with trust (there, I just said it again). If you quit right in the middle of building that frequency, it’s no wonder you never got a chance to earn the trust.

Because we get bored with our stuff. Our story, our change. We’ve heard it before. We remember it. But we’re bored. And so we change it. Jay Levinson famously said, “Don’t change your ads when you’re tired of them. Don’t change them when your employees are tired of them. Don’t even change them when your friends are tired of them. Change them when y

But frequency teaches us that there’s a very real dip—a gap between when we get bored and when people get the message.

The way you use stories, status, and connection to create tension and forward motion is a strategy.

Generosity in terms of free work, constant discounts, and plenty of uncompensated overtime isn’t really generous. Because you can’t sustain it. Because soon you’ll be breaking the promises you made. On the other hand, showing generosity with your bravery, your empathy, and your respect is generous indeed. What your customers want from you is for yo