Wouldn’t it be cool if finding clients worked more like Instagram? 

Here’s what I mean: The “chandelier” in my dining room came with the house. It looks… well let’s just say “historic” which has been fine because the house is also historic but my god it’s pretty ugly. So one day I google “chandelier” and I saw dozens of pages of mediocre results.

And then you know what happened. I opened Instagram where every third post was an advertisement for a funky chandelier. 

Of course I bought one. Of course.

Marketing works.

Marketing is how people who need you will find you. 

Though it might seem like Brooklin Nash is referring to a perpetual problem, you, the freelancer, aren’t helpless in this situation.

You just need to market. 

That can sound scary. Flippant, even. You “just” need to market like you “just” need to grow wings and fly to the next Beyoncé concert.

I swear, it’s much easier than you think.

Marketing doesn’t necessarily mean you’re running ads on Instagram, which can feel Big Time. (Though, honestly, I’ve been doing this for years during my Academy launches and it’s much less expensive and intimidating than I had expected.)

At the core, marketing is just telling people what you can do for them. Describe how you help solve their problems. Use examples from happy clients. 

Good marketing, if you ask me, starts by building relationships with people long before they’re actually ready to cut you a check. 

My favorite way to build relationships is through teaching what I know.

That’s how I show people how I can help them.

Wait, aren’t I just teaching them how to do the thing I want them to pay me for? Yeah, kinda. 

Let’s take a really concrete example: This newsletter. It’s a relationship-builder teaching tool first (that’s why I ask you to write back to me and, when you do, I reply). It’s a marketing channel second. 

This particular issue is about one aspect of marketing: framing the way you look at it to be less intimidating and more of a necessity to take you from where you are right now to where you can have your choice of clients. 

But this isn’t everything I know about marketing, of course. I’m not giving away all my intellectual property for free. I’ve broken out a chunk.

A chunk that’s useful enough for you to actually benefit in your real life. And in the process, trust me and my guidance that much more.

So that when Boost & Bloom opens for enrollment, my readers are in a better position to want to enroll.

See how this works?

We got pretty meta there. Let me bring this back. 

I use teaching as my main marketing tool because I like feeling helpful rather than creepy. The trick is to figure out which teaching method is the right one for you and your prospective clients. 

Any method you choose for your teaching-as-marketing will be your vehicle for announcing your services to the world. It’s how people will find you. The trick is just to put yourself out there.

Hit Publish,
Stephanie