Charlottetown Harbour © Sarah Marie Lacy, 2011
I was really determined to write a great blog post today. It was on my list. It was my marketing activity for the day.
I started writing about 5 lessons I learned about life from the movie, Mulan. It just began to sound cheesy though. So I left it. Maybe I’ll go back to it later.
Sometimes, the fire goes out. I am pretty exhausted. I’ve worked 3 weeks straight, through weekends and late nights. It was worth it and I wouldn’t have done anything else, but I’m running on a pretty low battery.
Yet that marketing voice in my head said “Consistency, consistency! You’ve got to keep putting yourself out there, or they’ll just forget about you!”
Sometimes, that marketing voice in my head is very useful. He helps me quadruple my income in 10 days so I can go to France. That’s great. But when I’m at the end of my rope, he can be aggravating.
Marketing is about creativity, just as much as art is. It’s a different kind of creativity, of course – right now I’m almost dry of marketing creativity, but I’m riding high on painting creativity. I can’t wait to spend more time in my studio. There are paintings practically spilling out of me.
But if you’re a solopreneur – especially a creative one, selling art or writing or handmade bonnets – your business will be organic because it is an extension of you. That means it’s going to go in cycles. There’s a rhythm there. As much as capitalism has tried to convince us that business is cold, hard, and robotic, at the end of the day, it is an entity run by humans – there will always be a spark of life in there, somewhere.
So sometimes your business will be gung ho, and sometimes it will need a breather, a time to cocoon slightly, to draw its energy in.
This week, I’m going to give my business a chance to regather itself, to rearrange and breathe. I’ll still be posting here – the marketing voice in my head is right, abandoning all connection isn’t smart – but the tone will change. It will be softer, slower, more ponderous.
It’s a different kind of sharing. When I share my art to sell it, there’s a more – hmm, I don’t want to say aggressive, but that will have to do – an aggressive voice and strength. I’m all fired up, loud and proud. I feel sassy. I want to flaunt what I’ve got.
Now, my sass has metamorphosed into something calmer, quieter, more reflective. I’ll spend some time with this energy, discovering where my business wants to go next. I’m brewing ideas for my next French campaign events but you don’t brew anything out in the open. It’s always covered, protected, given it’s own space.
I’ll be giving my business its own sacred space for a couple of weeks as I plan the next phase of my money-raising.
So now I turn it over to you – do you find your business is cyclical? Do you find you need to take time to cocoon after a big promotion? Do you honour your business’ need for renewal? How do you do that? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
(p.s. If you’re intimidated by technology and all of this online stuff, but hankering for a website of your own, Diane Whiddon and I will be teaching a class this weekend on how to get your own professional website, with a very small budget. Click here to read more.)