Most peeps in small business — ESPECIALLY creatives, the bulk of the peeps I work with — think they’re annoying the ever-loving snot out of their customers by contacting them.

They send e-mails out to their peeps MAYBE twice a month, more like once a month, or maybe…okay, let’s be honest.  Twice a year.  

They freak about what to say (my ultimate newsletter template can help), how to say it, and how much they’re “bothering” their peeps.

🚨ALERT ALERT If this 👆🏻sounds like you, pick up How To F*#*ing Communicate!  This class will help you talk to your peeps with a regular newsletter while a.) making dollars and b.) not freaking the fuck out.

Let me tell you a story about bear pants.

See, I bought these pants for a friend’s birthday.

I don’t normally shop in Eddie Bauer, but I unwittingly unleashed the hounds with this purchase.  Turns out, I bought a flannel-printed marketing deluge.

I’ve gotten multiple e-mails every week detailing the sales, promotions, specials, and just-for-me offers Eddie has waiting.

15 e-mails in 3 weeks.

15.  E-mails.  In 3 weeks.

You think YOU’RE being pushy or annoying when you softly raise your hand to say, “Hey, I’m alive, you might want to buy my stuff” — you’re not.

You’re hardly making a noise, digitally speaking.  We’re all drowning in message after message after message.  You can choose to withdraw from the game entirely, which will likely result in your business imploding, or you can increase both the quality and frequency of your communication.

Share your secrets.  Tease your peeps with new offerings.  Make offers they can’t refuse.  Find the best articles or games or graphics humanly possible.  Make ’em laugh.  Make ’em cry.  Encourage them to come see you or meet with you or play with you.

Most importantly, make your marketing calendar and then stick to it.

Clearly, Eddie Bauer is a corporate entity with a pretty killer marketing plan that involves sending one bajillion e-mails per season.  They’re all basically the same: SAVE, SAVE, SAAAAVE

You’re a smaller, faster-moving ship, so you can be more creative than that.

Start a hashtag.  Hold a flash sale.  Meet your customers in person.  Attend an event or two.  Host an event.  Accept a speaking gig and give everyone in the audience a free prize for coming — in exchange for their e-mail addresses.   Double your newsletter open rate with one tweak.  There are countless ways to be more insightful, more fun, and more effective than by sending out a deluge of e-mails.

Just don’t think you can get away with sending a single communication missive. 

You can’t expect your promotion to work on the first try.

One e-mail, one Instagram image, one Facebook post and you’re SOLD OUT is what everyone hopes for, but it’s a little like wishing one green smoothie would make you lose twelve pounds.  Unless you’re consuming that green smoothie with a side of E. Coli, it’s not going to happen.  Push yourself to communicate more often than you find comfortable and your peeps juuuuuust might start to be able to maybe hear you if they put their ears to the ground and listen closely.

Your peeps probably can’t hear you.

If Eddie Bauer is burying me in e-mails, think of what happens to peeps who actually LIKE that store.  They probably have Patagonia and The North Face and Buff People Who Enjoy Hiking Weekly crowding up their inboxes, too!  It’s harder to get your message heard than ever before.

So go ahead and say something interesting.  Talk about it more frequently than your brain tells you is acceptable.

And please, don’t go buying any bear pants. 😉

P.S. You’re right.  Marketing sucks.

I work with insanely talented, passionate entrepreneurs who are making and doing incredible things, only they’re facing down a common enemy: hiding.  Not wandering off into the woods and going off the grid.  Not playing hide and seek.  Hiding, like self sabotaging to make sure no one takes notice of their work.  

Sound familiar?

You keep doing the work and making insanely awesome stuff happen in your business, and then…

making absolutely sure no one sees it in wildly creative ways.

Failing to mention your work anywhere — on the internet or off.
Not mentioning it when clients ask.
Offering to do it for free instead of getting paid.
Staying so afraid someone will “copy” it that you never show it to anyone.
Refusing to get on stage even though that’s where you’re happiest.
Not telling anyone about that new thing you made up.

It’s common to hide when we’re talking about your life’s work.

This isn’t some whim or flight of fancy; this matters. Deeply.

Worse, you’re facing down a directly proportional amount of fear based on HOW MUCH this matters.

If you’ve got three novels in you, you get three novels’ worth of fear and resistance to battle.

If you’re deeply and inherently talented, you’ll have to fight the fear that says you are deeply and inherently flawed. (The more talent, the bigger the insecurities.)

Today, I invite you to come out of hiding.

Tell the world about what you’re doing.

Show us what you’re working on.
Ask one person to buy what you’re selling.
Let one person love your work instead of pulling it aside to judge it as useless, worthless, or incomplete.

No, really: COME OUT OF HIDING.

Maybe that means getting serious about taking the next steps in your business, like actually getting paid for the work you do.

Maybe that means telling everyone you know about Product X or Service Z or that you have a business in the first place.

Maybe that means you learn from my encyclopedia of 29 ways I’ve hidden and pick one way to step out of your comfortable routine.

Whatever it means for you, I can assure you that on the other side of hiding, you’ll be met with more understanding and joy than you thought possible.

P.S. It’s difficult because it matters.

In my bikram yoga classes (clearly this was written in The Before, forgive me pandemic reader!), teachers are required to follow a script. For ninety minutes, they’re told what to say, when to say it, and how long each pose should last. Everything is timed to the second, and everything is strictly regimented. The room must be 105 degrees. The humidity must be set to forty percent. The lighting must be overhead and unflattering. The mirrors must be placed at the front and sides of the room. (You get the idea.)

You’d think there’d be no major differences between teachers, right?

WRONG.

To protect the innocent, we’ll change names and run through the teachers I’ve worked with recently.

Let’s-call-him-Brandon is a new teacher. He barrels through class without any variation or ad-libbing because he’s so clearly afraid of forgetting his lines entirely. He hardly pauses between poses, anxious to get on with the next one.

Tiffany is ALL. RULES. She keeps the room at precisely 105 degrees with precisely 40 percent humidity and makes sure class lasts for precisely 90 minutes. She does not tell stories, she does not deviate from the script, she hardly cracks a smile. She often demonstrates poses from the front of the room, but provides no personal interaction. She’s a stickler for the rules.

Leon is from South Philly, and he struts around the floor displaying his many tattoos like a peacock during class. He’s all brawn, but he talks about yoga as if he’s made of fairydust and stars, pondering the nature of yoga between poses. The juxtaposition is striking, and it works. He also stays in the room during the final savasana so nobody sneaks out early, which students are prone to do.

Tim walks around and carefully corrects students one-by-one using gentle touch. He’s sure to ask if he can adjust you first, then puts approximately one ounce worth of pressure exactly where you’ve been getting the pose wrong. Your hip magically aligns, your knee screams with thanks. When he’s not on the floor, he teaches from the back of the room, high up on the steps, where it’s easier to see every student, and has complimented my toenails on numerous occasions. He tells incredibly brief and specific stories about his own experiences to help us through particularly awkward poses.

Kirsty, however. Kirsty throws snowballs into the 105 degree room when it snows outside. She calls people out by their last names like a gym teacher if they’re slacking, and gently supports those who are new to the practice with reminders that staying in the room is succeeding. She makes jokes between poses and tells stories that are meant to let everyone in the room catch their breath. She gives out foot massages by standing on people’s feet and kneading her toes when they’ve done an exceptionally good job at a pose, and she invariably refers to everyone as “friend.”

Even though she’s sticking to the script.
Even though she’s following the rules.

I would pay twice as much to attend Kirsty’s class as any of the other teachers, because she’s the most distinctive flavor.

As much as you can say, there are three thousand photographers or painters or dancers or lawyers in your town…there is infinite room for variation.

For making the practice of being in business your own.

You don’t have to follow tightly wound rules and you don’t have to follow a script, so you have unlimited ways to set yourself apart from the crowd.

Subtle ways, like telling people exactly what to expect instead of assuming they’ll know what you’re talking about — do you know how excited I would be if my divorce lawyer had said, “Hey, I’ll bet you’ve never done this before, so let me help walk you through this process?” instead of acting like every interaction is an unwelcome pause in the work day?

Clear ways, like claiming a title like Best Hair Stylist of Short Hair and then daring other people to dispute it.

Cheeky ways, by telling jokes that people may find off-putting or that could cause them to unsubscribe. (For every one person who sends me one of those “um, you say fuck too much” e-mails, I get three “I FUCKING LOVE YOU” all caps e-mails to let me know I’m doing this Fuck Yah Club thing my way, and it’s working.)

Allow for variation, and make it as subtle or distinctive as you’d like. No one is asking you to dye your hair pink and start a punk band in order to set yourself apart.

You are being asked to mine your experiences for distinctive qualities, then show them off for potential clients.

Ask yourself what clients would like to see, or what annoys the crap out of the people who buy from you, or where you’re tamping down your personality instead of letting it shine.

Then, express yourself. There’s nothing better.

P.S.  How to be weird in a way that draws your peeps to you.