Expand your vision of your self promotion and small business marketing practices

What can our best self promotion and business practices be? That will depend on how we answer the fundamental questions of authentic business: For the sake of what am I engaged in this enterprise? How will I measure success? How do my business goals and measures for success stand up in the context of my community? What is my community? How do I define it? How do I validate this definition?

This presents a significant challenge for anyone who believes there is a necessary split between ethics and commerce, values and marketing or self promotion. It may be necessary to "Fake it 'til you make it."

Faking it may seem to be the very antithesis of authentic practice. It is therefore important to differentiate a healthy, generative form of faking it from a false and even destructive fakery.

Healthy faking is undertaken in the service of a specified goal that aligns with your values. It is informed by a vision that inspires and motivates you to try on a new way of being. It recognizes that there is a gap between how it is now and how you imagine things might be, and it helps you to bridge that gap. It is inherently developmental rather than absolutist; it serves growth rather than control.

Unhealthy faking takes place without an overarching vision or in the service of outcomes that are not fully in alignment with your values. Some forms of unhealthy faking ignore the gap between where we are and where we want to be, leading us to expect impossible results and to quit in discouragement when those results fail to materialize or to live in fantasy rather than face our discouragement.

It may be helpful to make an analogy with stretching our muscles. In his acclaimed book on the topic, Bob Anderson gives multiple reasons why stretching is good for you (the vision and purpose that make it worth trying on a new way of being). He goes on to differentiate healthy from unhealthy stretching, emphasizing that a healthy stretch always begins with an easy stretch, a position in which the amount of tension is comfortable (recognizing the gap).

From the easy stretch, we are advised to move into a developmental stretch, reaching for a position in which we experience a mild increase in tension. He further counsels against what he terms the drastic stretch, a move that actually stimulates muscle fibers to contract - the opposite of what you want (inherently developmental).

Time and again, this website and my book on self promotion and building your small business will invite you to stretch the way you think about marketing and promotion and to stretch your vision of what is possible for you as an authentic person in the marketplace. Ease into these stretches. Pay attention to the size of the gap you want to bridge. Remind yourself of why you are on this journey.

In sum, being yourself in this process means stepping back from the way you have always approached your small business marketing and self promotion, detaching from your biases and fears about business (without closing your eyes to real concerns), and consciously reconciling the needs of your business with the realities of the marketplace and with your humanity, values, and strengths.

The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology defines "reconcile" as "bring into friendly agreement, make compatible." We can learn to regard marketing challenges as opportunities to achieve this sort of reconciliation. What's more, when we do so, promoting our businesses can be a vehicle for personal and professional transformation as we learn to bring our work lives into alignment with our highest and best selves.

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Learn more about Authentic Promotion - a comprehensive small business marketing resource that turns your small business marketing and self promotion practices into a path of increasing self-awareness, authenticity, and right livelihood. You can look forward to promoting your work. (It is possible.)

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Self Promotion Index || Self Promotion, Small Business Marketing, and Your Business Values || Expand Your Vision of Your Small Business Marketing and Self Promotion Practices || Your Effective Self Promotional Marketing Tool - The Rule of Threes || Preparing Your Promotional Marketing Materials - Inventorying Your Unique Appeal || Preparing Your Promotional Marketing Materials - Inquiries || Elevator Speech || Self Promotion Resources: Websites and Books || Reprint Terms for Self Promotion Articles

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Contact an acknowledged expert on self promotion Molly Gordon at:

Shaboom Inc. Life could be a dream…
PO Box 195
Suquamish, WA 98392-0195
mgordon@authenticpromotion.com

As a business coach and small business marketing consultant, Molly Gordon, MCC, is available in Greater Seattle Area and internationally