On January 18, 2013, my friend Michael Katz, Blue Penguin founder and Chief Penguin, who specializes in coaching small professional service firms and solos in word-of-mouth marketing shared a post called: Give The Gift of You – which you can read in its entirety here.
At the time, I was struggling with thinking that potential clients would be doing me a favor if they bought my services.
If I am honest, I sometimes still feel like this which is why I thought I would share with you what I am now calling the Expert’s Creed – a list I created based on Michael’s post.
- I am not taking advantage of people – I am making their lives better
- Sharing my point of view is not an imposition – I’m helping them by giving them my knowledge and perspective
- The people who contract my services are not doing me a favor. My stuff is good and valuable and they need me and what I have to offer as much as I need them.
- My business focus and the services I provide are my gifts.
- If I don’t share my gifts I am depriving people of the solutions they NEED to the problems they have.
My work is valuable. Not to everyone but to certain people in certain situations. It is my job to find them and help them!
Why are we so hesitant to share ourselves, and th solutions we have? Notice I didn’t say market yourself, because I think therein lies the problem. Marketing has become a heavy catchall term for everything we don’t like to do. We don’t want to market ourselves, or sell ourselves because it feels inauthentic.
What if we simply shared what we did on a daily basis?
Because as Mike said –
If you found a cure for a deadly disease, you wouldn’t hide it in your basement. You’d be out there telling the world, day and night, until everyone who could benefit knew about it.
Not only would people be happy to pay for it, they’d be angry if you didn’t give them the chance.
What you have is valuable. Go out today and share it!
Giselle Hudson | Clarity. Sensemaking. Aligned Action 