Mindset or Marketing?

There’s a debate in the world of online business coaches: which is most important for success, mindset or marketing?

The easy answer is mindset. The truthful answer is both.

Marketing without mindset is sleasy, soulless, and inauthentic. It comes off desperate and can repel clients. It gets 10,000 impressions and 0 likes, loves, and comments. It feels sterile and corporate in a world where authenticity and realness is becoming #1.

Mindset without marketing can look like vision boards, (mentally) putting it out to the universe, and journaling. If your mindset doesn’t lead to taking strategic action, you will reach no one with your message, and get no paying customers.

The most successful online businesses balance the two for a secret sauce that creates:

1. Total clarity on who they help. If you don’t know who you help, or you are trying to help everyone, you will fall flat and reach no one. People want to work with someone who they are confident will be able to provide a solution for the problem they have, so if you are trying to help everyone with everything, no one will feel confident that you can help with their specific solution – they will turn to the “go to” guy or girl for that topic. Marketing helps you narrow your niche/target audience, and mindset gives you the peace that doing so will lead to more clients, not less.
2. The ability to speak confidently about what they offer. If you are vague about what you offer or what results or benefits your customers can expect, you are going to sell 0 products and services. Marketing helps you craft that “elevator pitch” (a succinct, clear summary of what you offer), and mindset gives you the confidence to share it with the world.
3. Visibility online so their message is reaching their desired audience. The biggest game-changer for my business was visibility online. For me, this looked like seriously upping my game on Facebook and in Facebook groups. For you (depending on where your target audience hangs out), this could be Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, or something else). Marketing is the strategy: where are your people, what should you post, and how often? Mindset is getting over your damn self to be vulnerable, risk rejection, and put your real self out there for everyone to see (and love).
4. A genuine connection that builds that “know, like, and trust” factor that makes sales inevitable. Having a clear message, being yourself, and sharing value via advice, tips, and support to help others online leads to building relationships. Nurturing those relationships over time (for me this has been anywhere from 1 day to multiple months) leads to sales and clients! You may not want to call this marketing, but it is. Mindset comes into play here because you need to get over the idea that marketing and sales are icky, taking advantage of others, and that there are winners (you!) and losers (the customer that you convinced you buy from you). To be successful long term, you need to realize that selling your product or service creates a win-win for you and the customer.