The Message You Need to SELL, Vs the Message Within

One of the things I’m most commonly asked is how to really package up your message so that people want to buy what you’re selling.

It seems that a lot of women entrepreneurs who KNOW they are called for big things veer wildly back and forth between selling what they think will sell (the implication here being – based on reality! – that it’s not stuff they REALLY want to deliver) or between trying to do the ‘real’ work they were called to do.

The latter is exciting and empowering – until nobody bites and you find yourself with MASSIVE frustration throwing in the towel once more about doing all that ‘deep stuff’ and going back to what you know works, or let’s say THINK you know works.

Can I tell you what the problem is here?

Actually there are two problems, and I have extreme amounts of personal experience dealing with both of them!

1) You’re not being totally honest with your clients – and probably therefore not with yourself either – about what ‘it’ really takes

2) You’re trying to choose a single message when you actually have two

Okay, so what’s that now, TWO messages?! I thought we were supposed to have our ‘one true message’ that is our real THING and that’s what it’s all about?!

Yes.

That’s true.

But there are LAYERS to that message and the layers have to do with where your FOLLOWERS are on their journey.

Take Jesus, for example.

Jesus had followers who were basically the ‘general community’ who came to him because they wanted their immediate problems and pains fixed. Heal me, fix me, help me!

They just wanted to get out of pain and maybe feel better about themselves.

Then he had his true DISCIPLES – his inner circle. Do you think that the message he shared with his disciples was the same as the one he shared to the crowds, or to the 5000? To a DEGREE, yes. But he also paid attention to their right NOW hurts and needs and pains. And spoke to them about how to fix those more ‘surface based’ woes. He certainly did so by ‘tying in’ his deeper message of transformation and truth, but he wasn’t speaking to the masses in the same way he spoke to his disciples, or even to those who perhaps considered themselves true disciples or followers but who weren’t in the ‘inner circle’.

When you speak to your community, you have to be able to differentiate between your true ALREADY converted disciples, and those who are perhaps intrigued by what you have to say but primarily because they think maybe you can help them right now with their pains and problems.

Your inner circle, your current loyal clients and followers and those who totally GET you, well they GET you, right? And they for the most part get IT, as well, even though I’m sure you from time to time have to guide and direct them back onto the path of what truly matters.

But the newbies, those who are for whatever reason called to listen to you – they are not yet that evolved! And if they were then maybe they wouldn’t be knocking on your door for help, so this is an OKAY thing.

It’s up to you to honour where your clients are at in THEIR journey. You got to go through your own journey of transformation and evolution, so let them go through theirs! The reality is that people don’t really WANT the deeper message (even though deep down yes they do want it!) when they have pressing pains and problems that they perceive as needing fixing FIRST.

So you have one message for those who are already converted, and you have basically a more well MARKETED message for those who are listening but not yet sure.

What do I mean by more well marketed?

I simply mean that you share your message of truth and what it really takes but you actively and directly link this back to how it can help that person NOW.

Jesus said “follow me, because I am the way, the truth and the light”, and some people followed for THAT reason. But many people followed him or came to him because he performed miracles and basically helped them sort out their shit in the here and now! And then over TIME they became converts.

Now you and I, we certainly have nothing like the transformative or compelling power that Jesus has, so why on earth would we think we can tout the online equivalent of ‘follow me, because I have the answers and can save you’, without first actually HELPING people with the stuff that’s bothering them?!

Pretty arrogant, right?

And foolish.

So yes, you have to have two messages.

But what about the honesty part? Well, this is where so many of us get it wrong. We ‘get’ the need to market based on what people want, and to make grandiose offers about how we can save or fix people, but we fall into a TRAP of doing it based on stuff we don’t believe in.

What this comes down to is: your marketing must match your deeper message.

Another way of saying it is that your surface ‘for the masses’ message has to DIRECTLY connect to your deeper message.

For example, when Jesus was helping people sort out their various strifes or ails he often told a parable (a story) that showed some deeper message or ‘what this is really about’ type lesson. So even as he was fixing the ‘then and there’ problem he was EDUCATING people about what really mattered.

In business it’s easy to fall into a trap of telling people that yes! You can deliver what THEY think you should deliver even when deep down you don’t really believe that’s what they need. Or it could be that the way you are delivering your service is based on what people seem to want, but the truth is you know that doing it that way is not going to ultimately get them to where they want to go.

So this is where you need to be HONEST about what you believe it really takes, and tell people. It’s where, if you are ‘helping someone put a bandaid on something’, so to speak, that you at the same time talk to them about the fact that it’s just a freaking bandaid. And that the hurt beneath it is going to take something greater to fix.

And you tell them what that something is and they LISTEN because you gave them the bandaid they wanted.

But they won’t listen if you don’t give them the bandaid, you know?

But this doesn’t mean you JUST give them the bandaid and try to SEPARATE that from your true message!

Of course in sharing your true honest message you often risk pissing people off, or having them actively disagree with you, or perhaps just flat out turn AWAY from you.

Well guess what?

That’s going to happen in business no matter which way you try to play it!

So you may as well polarise for something you BELIEVE in, right?

I know I’m kind of pushing the Jesus example a lot here, but it’s so relevant.

Jesus always knew that some people would not listen and that some people would even hate him for speaking the truth but yet he STOOD UP FOR WHAT HE BELIEVED IN and knew was true. He fought his fight. He was compassionate and genuine in his desire to help people with their woes and hurts, but he minced no words in telling them what REALLY mattered.

And those who ultimately chose to follow him were THANKFUL for that.

Do you think he could have ever caused any sort of a revolution or following had he hidden his message of truth, or tried to keep it just as an occasional thing, or just for his disciples?

Of course not!

So here’s how we bring this into action for you, for me, for today:

– If you want to cause a following and start a revolution you have to speak your truth every DAY

– You must NEVER back down from what you believe – be honest about what you stand for, no matter what others think!

– You have to meet people where they ARE though, you can’t expect them to listen to your deep shit when they come to you asking for a bandaid. Give ’em the freaking bandaid, and then maybe they’ll shut up and listen.

– Some WILL listen, and follow you all the way. Some will NOT, they will take their bandaid and be on their way, or they’ll tell you it’s the wrong colour and storm off in a huff. SO WHAT. Your job is to just keep showing up every day. Helping people with what they came to you for. And then sharing your message of truth.

If right now you feel as though you’re not really doing what you want to be doing and that people don’t GET it, I guarantee you’re either only dealing with surface shit (and probably in a way you don’t really want to) OR else you’re trying to make everybody be instantly evolved to ‘inner circle’ status.

Start meeting people where they’re at.

And then tell them the truth.

You’ve got this sister.

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