End of year navel-gazing

I originally wrote this for my work email list so it’s chocked full of marketing babble, and it’s deeply personal. As a company of one, personal Denise and work Denise are so intertwined they exist as one.

As the title implies, this is all about me. I’m asking your indulgence because I think it might be about you too.

 
. . . Working out the root of why customers buy a particular product then building effective marketing strategies and experiences around that insight has been part of every job I’ve ever had – from a high-end specialty import business to enterprise software to wedding photography to consulting.

About 18 months ago I decided to strip off the “building effective marketing strategies and experiences” part and focus exclusively on the insight part.

Again, the verdict is still out on whether that’s brilliant or foolish.

The one thing I can say with absolute certainty is this decision makes me both scared as hell and calmly confident – if you allow that calmy confident can include moments of serious wavering.

So, why did I do it?

I ask myself that question a lot.

My typical answer is some version of “Because I’m really good at it.”

To which I reply, "Umm, that’s nice."  Also, “So what?!”

The real answer, the one that’s buried a couple layers deep, and the one I rarely talk about lives in a 4-word epiphany I had a few years ago…

Just as you are.  

These four words are the offspring of my life motto, Truth Over Strategy.

I’ve discovered that the only way for me to lead with the truth is to show up just as I am – flawed and full of contradictions.

To act in any other way is self-betrayal.

So, that’s my mission: show up as my full self and create space for others to do the same.  

The epiphany part came when I realized this wasn’t just personal.

“Just as you are” is also the driving force behind my work – to sniff out what a business is really about and what that means to their customers.

So that…

• They don’t have to pretend to be anything they aren’t.

• They don’t have to yell louder.

• They don’t have to coerce, cajole or otherwise convince people to buy from them.

Instead…

• They get to show up just as they.

• Whether that’s a super niche company of one or an end-to-end solution supported by a five-hundred person team.

• Maybe a little nervous.

• Yet calmly confident that for their ideal customer they are the only solution.

• And that's more than enough.

Steven Pressfield says, “In the moment, an epiphany feels like hell…It exposes us and leaves us naked.” I usually sit at attention, nodding in agreement when Uncle Steven speaks, but I have to raise my hand and say this wasn’t my experience.

In the moment, I felt relief, like when you’re driving on an unfamiliar dark road, wondering if you’ve taken a wrong turn because it’s taking way longer than you expected. Then you finally see your destination ahead.

And you exhale.

My epiphany was that exhale.

Abiding by it…well, that feels more like driving on the dark road. You keep moving forward despite the lingering doubt in your gut. Sometimes it feels like the adventure of a lifetime and you can’t wait to see what’s around the next corner. Other times you’re clutching the steering wheel, gasping for air.

Q4 of 2021 felt like the latter.

By Christmas day I was fantasizing about abandoning that car and hitching a ride to anywhere. The destination didn't matter just as long as someone else was driving.

By New Year’s Eve I knew I wouldn’t.

As Sarah Kay says, “…getting the wind knocked out of you is the only way to remind your lungs how much they like the taste of air.”

So, I’m reminding myself that the real reason I stripped away the excess is because “just as you are” is my air.

And I’m reminding myself, and maybe you too, that before other people can come along with you—customers, employees, the press, investors— you first have to double down on who you are.

I'll leave you with the same question I'm asking myself: What might doubling down look like for your business?

XOXO
Denise

Soundtrack

The image on the blog preview page is courtesy of Louvre Museum, used under a creative commons license via Wikimedia Commons.