Day 10: An Introvert’s Guide to Loving Marketing by Loving Your Customers

Have you been struggling to get yourself out there and find clients?

Anne Melnyk

Would you rather poke pins in your eyes than attend a networking meeting?

Have people told you that you suck at Twitter?

If so, you might be an introvert!

If you’re an introvert it’s a safe bet that you consider marketing a necessary evil and avoid it as much as possible. As a result you may not have developed a level of skill and comfort with it, but believe it or not, even an introvert can learn to love marketing and do it well.

If you’ve chosen to be in business, you also chose to be a marketer. Unless you’re a masochist, it’s time to reframe your experience with marketing and make it a more comfortable endeavor. To stop struggling and find a way to make marketing fit you, instead of you fitting it. It’s simply a matter of playing to your strengths.

Imagine that marketing is like going to a party.

I know. You instinctively recoiled at the thought. Parties can be intimidating and uncomfortable for introverts, but if you think about it, you’ve probably managed to enjoy one at least once.

My suggestion is to discover what allowed you to enjoy it and market like you party.

1. Find a comfortable corner to stand in – Choosing a comfortable marketing platform gives you home court advantage. People can come to you rather than you having to chase them. Would you be most comfortable working in a particular organization, association, community or working online using Facebook, Linked in or Twitter?

2. Find your people – Your target market should be people that you know, like and identify with. If you understand them, conversations and relationships will be built more easily and effortlessly.

3. Talk to one person – Imagine you’re speaking directly to one person. If you’re talking to people in general, you minimize your impact and connect with no one. Speaking and writing to one person ensures your words will resonate more powerfully.

4. Make the conversation about them – Introverts tend to feel self-conscious.
It helps to remember that successful marketing conversations are all about the other person. Get to know people. What do they think, want and need? When you discover that, if what you have is a fit for them, there’s no need to sell it, just offer it. If it’s not a fit make a friend by pointing them to someone who can help them.

5. Have conversational prompts at the ready– Introverts spend a great deal of time observing, understanding what goes on around them. Understand the problems and the solutions relevant to your target market, so you’re ready to instigate and engage in conversations that allow you to share your expertise and to be of service to others.

6. Find a community – Similar to finding your target market, it’s also important to build a community of peers. People support, partner with, recommend, promote and buy from others that they know and respect. Find a community that appeals to you, get involved, build relationships, be yourself and be generous in your support of others. If you’re a writer hang with writers. If you’re an entrepreneur, hang with other entrepreneurs and if you’re a customer lover hang with #customerlove on Twitter!

7. Stop selling, start loving – If you’re passing the hors d’oeuvres at a party and someone turns their nose up at the smoked salmon, you don’t launch into a sales pitch on its merits. People don’t care what you have to sell them, they only care about what works for them.

Take the pressure off yourself and others. Just stop selling. Share what you have to offer, and the people who want it will take it. Selling to reluctant buyers is what made you dislike marketing in the first place.

Shift your attention to loving your customers, building relationships, giving them what they want and need and respecting them by not trying to sell them stuff they don’t want.

Action Challenge

Spend some time journaling about your feelings about marketing. Identify what holds you back. How can you play to your strengths? What can you do that would make marketing more comfortable and effective?

Create a marketing recipe that is uniquely yours, and will be comfortable, authentically you and effective. Then? Follow your strategy. Consistently. Experiment, refine, and market some more.