Marketing As A Sensitive Person
In my role as a marketing consultant, I often work with therapists who are clearly creative and brilliant. We brainstorm ideas, shooting marketing and content strategies back and forth like Don Draper, sans Old Fashioned.
However, an almost universal feeling I pick up on from trauma therapists around marketing is a feeling of heaviness, caution, and overwhelm that holds them back.
Here is my attempt at articulating the problem (and solution) of marketing as a sensitive person.
The Problem
It’s not about introversion or extraversion.
It’s not about depression, anxiety, or any other daily malady.
It’s not even about imposter syndrome - the inescapable belief that you are not ‘worthy’ to exist in the spaces you find yourself in.
I believe it’s a matter of common sensitivity.
Putting stuff out there about yourself, your practice, your life’s work is … heavy.
Somedays it feels like a chore.
And other days it feels impossible.
Nothing in your body feels like sharing anything.
You may cringe at the thought of someone else reading your words, looking at your website, or judging your graphics.
To have your work exist in the public sphere, of any sort, is an act of courage. Full stop.
Healing professionals are often truth seekers
Their work takes them to the depths and realities of human experiences. Facing head-on the lasting impact of trauma hour after hour, after having trained for these moments in simulated clinical settings for years.
No therapist thinks their work or chosen modality is ‘phony’ or an ‘opinion.’
Their work calls to them because it feels true. It feels like the best available option they’ve observed at addressing human suffering. It is based on scientific merit and anecdotal celebration.
It’s a weighty conclusion to draw here, but it’s likely one that trauma therapists carry with them everyday at work.
Nailing the technique while also providing a warm, nurturing bedside manner requires several dimensions of classic and emotional intelligence and natural intuition that cannot be taught.
This fine line of clinical excellence, again, is in the pursuit of the truth. It acts as a steward of greater beliefs about human existence, motivations, and purpose:
Are humans self healing?
Is addiction a life long affliction?
How and in what ways is trauma stored in the body?
Will uncovering trauma memories help this client today? Or perhaps hurt them?
These intrinsic questions (and many more) are massive and are baked into the approach of every clinician practicing today.
They’ve arrived at this point from a unique set of life experiences - having personally and professionally tested these assumptions and methods of addressing the unaddressable.
The build up to the clinical session includes all of this and much more. The potency of each word, gesture, and decision has dozens of second order effects on the clients and, consequentially, on the therapist’s practice.
As suffocating as I hope I’m making this sound, now imagine trying to communicate this approach to an unknown audience. Via methods and materials that are NOT your area of expertise at all. In fact, it’s in a language that is quite foreign.
Unwrapping all of these assumptions and life lessons, grad school theses, practicum pearls of wisdom, and golden feedback buried deep in the clinician’s brain from their cherished mentor or supervisor - into a semi-clean marketing message and strategy. This seems like an impossible task.
That’s because it is.
I’m here to discuss how this must feel - having experienced a version of this myself.
But taking it a step further to discuss how much harder it must be for therapists (vs a consultant like myself).
And taking it a step even further to discuss what types of practices or methods one could carry out to honor your practice and make marketing seem a little less impossible.
Here are 4 practices and considerations to take when marketing as a sensitive person.
Marketing as a Sensitive Person.
Creativity doesn’t look like what you think it does.
It’s often a counterintuitive process. To brainstorm blog topics, social media posts, or any external facing content - it helps to not force it out. Pepper your week with a good dose of walking, exercise, meditation, yoga, and location switching. Get out of the office. Interact with people and space. Get off your phone. You’ll find inspiration naturally as you include these practices in your life.
2. The smartest people are not on LinkedIn.
Here is my attempt at busting Imposter Syndrome: Those who are vocal on social media, are not the smartest ones in their field. Whoops. They communicate well and can translate complex ideas into manageable messages - but as far as expertise or even clinical craft - I will guarantee you that most of the best therapists and healers don’t do social media at all (LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.). It’s important to consider this reality because we always equate marketability with expertise and mastery.
To challenge this assumption allows you to entertain the fact that you don’t need to post or market yourself any specific way to validate your expertise. “If I don’t post anything for my followers to read, how will I know I’m smart?” Marketing is an additional skill. Doing it well (or at all) has absolutely zero bearing on your abilities as a healer. In fact, I’d wager some of the best in the world do not feel the need to create and post content regularly.
3. Create to heal.
We often create marketing assets (graphics, websites, etc.) with the end user in mind. This consideration, perhaps, is over-indexed. For some of these marketing assets, they should fill your cup. They should help take weight off your shoulders. Sharing the excitement of your work, providing valuable context of your life’s work and practice, and extending your offerings of intentional healing should, on some level, give you energy.
If you are creating content, editing your website, and trying to hard to craft the perfect online persona to a point of feeling drained, I would pause what you’re doing. Zoom out. Ask yourself: Am I doing this for strangers? Am I doing this for my ideal client? Am I doing this for myself? I assert that creative marketing should be done with yourself and ideal client in mind, perhaps in that order. We want to extend the invitation of warmth, ease, and acceptance through our messaging, and that begins with infusing those intentions in the creation process.
4. There is no right way to market, only your way.
I learned this early on in my MBA program: My networking style is going to look different than everyone else’s. Instead of ‘working a room’, keeping an internal clock in my head that goes off after a 90 second conversation, bouncing from shallow interaction to shallow interaction, I realized I liked getting deep.
I would pick 2-3 folks at an event. They would also need to show me some implicit signs of interest and exploration: humor, a willingness to listen and give thought to my questions, the ability to make connections between worlds that otherwise wouldn’t seem obvious. By acknowledging this and setting this intention, I felt 1000% more comfortable in my skills before and after a networking event. And the best part is, I got good at identifying these folks at events and even out in public life. You could argue I was attracting them with my new approach. It’s critical to have your own comfortable style of networking and connecting. From group events, to digital networking, to cold intros and more - there is an infinite combination of skills and styles that can make up your organic approach to market and connect.