Consciously Connected to Establishing Your Responsibility Within Marketing So You Can Attract Aligned Clients

This week I had a healing session that was all rooted in my personal responsibility and it facilitated huge reflections on the responsibility I feel within my business. The truth is simple: I am not responsible for my client's results BUT I am responsible for painting the picture that I am.

In this episode, we dive into how to ensure you are not taking responsibility for your client results within your marketing and how to instead encourage them to take responsibility for themselves.

All of this information is KEY to insuring you are marketing ethically, sustainably and enjoyably. 

Come and share with me what you thought of this episode:

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Transcript

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Hi, I'm Emma and you're listening to the Consciously Connected podcast, a space where I chat to creators and quite often to myself around forming a connection within to connect to our outer world more clearly. I myself am a yoga teacher, an aerovedic practitioner and a womb science facilitator. Combine this with five years in marketing and you have me trying to tour both of my world together to help creators create consciously. If this is something that you're interested in learning more about, you can find me over at consciouscreativecoundstagram. For now, let's get on with the show. Hi and welcome back to another episode. This episode is going to be one that really requires me to sit and hold myself accountable. And my intention here is that maybe it inspires you to do the same. And the topic we're going to be diving into is responsibility. Now this is a big, big one in business because there are very blurred lines and I'm sure that you have been on the receiving end of the blurred lines and maybe you've also felt within yourself that you're not really sure where the line sits. And what I mean within responsibility is how you as a business owner have responsibility and how your clients also have responsibility specifically in the relation to marketing. Is what I want to dive into in this episode. Because what I'm seeing is that these lines are blurred. And a huge reason for that is because marketing isn't clear enough. The reason it isn't is because when we can make these big promises around what our offerings can do, it makes them a lot more sellable. It makes them exciting. It means that people can really clearly see their transformation. And hands up. This is something that I have done in the past, I've advised clients to do, is make that transformation tangible. Make it clear, make it so that people really know what they're getting from the offering, not just what's going to be included, like six zoom calls or some one on one time with me, whatever. But actually, how are they going to walk away from that offering? The nuance here is that we have to be really mindful of making false promises within that and also of taking away clients responsibility within the role. So I'm going to break this down with some different examples. But first I just want to take you into this healing session that I had specifically on responsibility, which has created so many shifts within my mindset. So the session itself was one that began with what one of my clients has actually just told me is called the pendulum something. The pendulum method maybe? I feel like that's right, maybe not. And it essentially is muscle testing. So if you have no idea what muscle testing is, it's essentially getting your body to respond for you. And it's really funny because my only experience of this has been at a breathwork festival and one of my friends, who is absolutely hilarious, got us all muscle testing because none of us could decide which breathwork session to go to. Like, it was one of those things, you know, and they put so many on at once, and you're like, I just want to go to them all. And we couldn't decide, so she had us all muscle testing, so nothing really serious. I've never kind of done it in any healing sense. But this session began with Lee, who I will leave information about below, because she is incredible, asking me different questions whilst I stood up. And then my body would either lean forwards or it would lean back. And essentially, the premise here is that instead of my conscious, rational minds trying to put together maybe what I think I want to say, maybe what makes most sense, maybe what I wish was true, your body responds. And so you can do this standing in your room right now, say, Is my name Emma? Or am I feeling happy today? Or whatever you can do with really surface level stuff. But actually, what was coming out was some things that I was like, whoa, I did not realize that's how I felt. And just for a bit of context, I'm currently in the process of moving, and I haven't spoken about this because it's one of those things that you're terrified of jinxing it. And I don't even know if I believe in jinxing it, but when it's something that's big, you're like, I'll be superstitious. I'll do everything to prevent anything from getting in the way of this. And by the time this episode comes out, I may have already done an entire episode sharing on it. I never really decide the orders of my episodes, but essentially that's what's been sitting with me. And I've had this huge do. I want to move 5 hours away from home because the property is in Cornwall, and I live back in Brighton with my family right now. And I've had so many fears, I want to say, because I don't even know if there are doubts. I think it's just that it's a scary process. And what I've been doing is being like, oh, well, it doesn't matter if, you know, I decide I don't want to live there or I don't want to spend my whole year there, because it's literally on the ocean. It's surrounded by ocean. I can just airbnb it or rent it out or whatever. And that's been my what I referred to in this session with Lee is my eject button. I can just be like, okay, I'm out. And that is a theme for my life. And what we identified was huge things around commitment, which is a whole other topic, which I actually do want to go into in an episode, because commitment comes up in your business a lot. Commitment, accountability, they are something that is really challenged when you own your own business. So I do want to dive into that. But essentially the questions that were being asked of me were things like, do I want to move away from home? Really? That kind of clear. And my body was straightforward, yes. Like, it just leant forward and sometimes it's really funny. It literally feels like you're going to fall over because your body's so like yes. But what I had been feeling is that I did want to move out. And I love Cornwall and when I lived there, but I really love my mum. If you've seen and followed me for a while, you know my mum was my best friend and she's been really sad this week because I'm getting ready to move and she's been really trying to be like, yeah, you're so excited for you. And let's look at the interior stuff. And then every now and then, I'll walk in on her and she's crying into her cup of tea. She felt like I should have even saying that. And so there's that kind of bitter sweetness. She's so, so happy for me. It's also really sad for her. And I feel the same. I'm so excited. But also my mom. I love living with my mom. I love having her around. She really is my best friend. And so when they asked me the question, do you want to move away from your mum? And my body lean forward, I was like, what? I was like, what the hell is going on here? Do you want to live close to your mum? But he lent back, no. And actually so we uncovered some things that I believe that's really the point of the testing. And then, Lisa, you want a journey into your subconscious. And I won't delve into every inch of my subconscious mind with you, because I'm sure you don't want to know. But basically what came out of this was this real sense of the responsibility I feel for others. And this isn't new to me. This has come up in counseling and coaching before, and I remember my counselor always asking me if I said something. I'm just really feeling like this one of her first question would be, is this yours? And this was kind of the theme of this session of actually, I think it's going to be really good for me to move far away from home. I think it's going to be amazing for me to live in Cornwall. And Lee kindly pointed out to the fact that she's like, it sounds like this is a holiday place that you're staying in. The way that you're describing it. Like, oh, you just put it on airbnb and you'll do this. And we uncovered a lot around this fear of sitting with myself and making home somewhere. When you're someone that always just travels and runs away guilty, it's really, really hard to sit with yourself. And people always say to me, how do you travel by yourself? How have you traveled all around the world alone? I'm always like that feels easier to me than this next step of moving into a house by myself and being there, being home, being in one place. It's funny because I keep saying I'm going to spend the winter in Bali and it's like my body is like nope. It really wants me to ground and sit with myself. But anyway, I digress. What came up with in terms of responsibility is how I do feel responsible for others and how my worth feels like it is tied up in what I'm able to do for other people. And obviously, beginning a business from that place is a very slippery slope because it's so easy to fall into tendencies of over delivering, overgiving feeling responsible for clients results, feeling guilty if clients don't get what they need from what you offer. And there's always room to be better when you own your own business. It really is this process of sitting with yourself and being like OK, how can I take feedback here? How can I improve? How can I make sure that I'm in alignment with myself? How can I make sure I'm growing? But at the same time there's a line and I think each of us know where that line is. For us, maybe we don't know, but deep down we do. And it's when it starts to cross over into that territory where you go from I want my business to serve people, I want it to create transformations, I want it to have a positive impact on people's lives, to I need to fix my clients problems. And there's a couple of issues with this and Lee so beautifully articulated to me you are not responsible for anybody. And that became our kind of mantra because when I was asked at the start if I feel responsible for others, it was a very strong yes from my body. And we went deep into this whole process. And then when I did the muscle testing at the end it was do you feel responsible for others? And I went back instantly and was like no. And this is really important to sit with where you feel like it is your duty to ensure that clients get X amount of results and they're loving every single thing you put out there and they're finding everything really helpful and beneficial and everything that they wanted from the space that you've created is what they've got. And the reason this is an issue is because you cannot fix anybody, because nobody needs fixing. And this is something I think it is so easy to forget. When you have a business, when you're marketing your business, when you're creating these offerings that do facilitate transformation for people, what is your role in that? Because when you imply that a people need to be fixed and B you are the one to fix them, it is incredibly disempowering. The reason being you're actually making promises that you can't keep. And this is something I feel really passionate about in marketing. And again, there will be whole other episodes on this. You're making promises you can't keep so that your offering looks attractive and appealing and people want to do it. And no shame here, I've done that. I think every person I follow has done that to some extent, but it also completely takes away the power from the individual. It communicates this message that they have to seek outside of themselves. They are unable to fix themselves. They have to spend thousands of pounds on something to facilitate that change. What this means is that not only are you going to attract clients that are really reliant on you, and you're probably going to feel resentful of that, by the way, but they also are going to lose that sense of autonomy. They're not going to feel like they need to do the work because you've promised a fix. And this really does lead back to marketing because the way that you present your offering really creates influence on this. And I'm going to dive into some examples of this now. So one example that I like to use, which is really just like the clearest example for me in my mind, because it is really tangible, is the statements around like, I make you five k months, six figure months, years, whatever. When we use that kind of messaging, I'm going to pretend that I'm a client who has seen that on Instagram. Let's just role play this. Firstly, I'm going to want to invest in you because I think you can do that for me. You can make that money for me. Secondly, I'm going to take a little step back because I think, well, you're going to make me. That because you've literally said it in your language, you're going to make me. And you've guaranteed that this is this price. So as we're going through, maybe I'm putting in kind of minimal effort and I'm just like, yeah, well, I've paid £5000 for this coach to do this for me, so come on, is it happening? Like, how do we make this real now? And so I'll probably take a step back in that and then what's going to happen is going to come towards the end of the program and I'm not going to be anywhere near that, probably. And the coach is probably going to be really pissed off with me because I'm not doing the work. I'm really, really reliant on them. I'm constantly asking them questions. When I put something out there and it doesn't get a response, I'm going to be like, why am I not getting a response from this? Or constantly telling them that I'm really stressed because we're not at this point of money. And it's going to feel like an energetic drain for both people. The coach is probably going to feel like they're not good at what they do and they can't keep up with their own standards, their own expectation and the client's going to feel ripped off they're going to feel disappointed, they're going to feel disempowered they're going to feel like it's not possible for them to have five kms in their business. Because if this offering promised that and wasn't able to give it, then what hope do they have? And this is just using the example of money, like I said, because it's very tangible. But this also happens with healing, it happens with empowering, it happens with confidence building, happens with relationship coaches. This is one I see all of the time. I actually saw one the other day, which I shouldn't laugh because it's just not okay. And I'm so grateful I'm selfaware enough as a single person to have not been sucked into this. But it promised you to find your person by Christmas. Wow. Like, really? But imagine if you're in this place where you're single and you're feeling really lonely and Christmas is a hard time to be single, that feeling is really heightened and you see that and you feel like, oh my God, I could meet someone by Christmas. And you have that glimmer of hope and you invest in that person when they cannot promise that. Like, nobody can promise that. People who have come to work with me have hit five gay months. People that have come to me have experienced huge confidence growth and signed X amount of clients and lots of different things. But I can't promise that working with me would ever give you that because that's so out of my control. There's so many external factors in that. You as a client are a huge factor in that and I don't want to disempower you by taking away your role to play in it. And I'm going to be doing a whole other episode on misleading advertising claims because these two topics tie together very closely. But really what we're talking about here is responsibility. And it is your responsibility when you market your business not to be misleading, not to make promises that you can't keep, and also not to take on a role that isn't yours to take on. You are not a fixer, like I said, firstly, because no one needs to be fixed and secondly, because you can't do that, that's only something people can do within themselves. And really your role is to hold space, is to educate, is to embody, is to whatever it is that you do, that is your role. The results of what you do are not your responsibility. And so there's some things we can do within our marketing to ensure that this is effectively communicated. And the first thing is really making sure we're not making misleading claims. And like I said, I'm going to be putting out a lot more content on this. So it's really clear because again, misleading versus not misleading is a blurred line of course it is everything's a bloodline. The second element is actually really clearly communicating what your role is. So maybe being careful of the language you use because language has a huge impact. So instead of saying I make you, maybe it's I hold space or I create guidance or I educate. So it's clear within the language what our role is. And then a third element to this is what is the client's role? Something that I have written within the webpage when people have come to sign up to work with me is that you have to be doing the work alongside our work together. And I don't just mean doing the field work that I set, I mean doing the deep dives, being present with blocks, showing up, like putting in the extra work. All of the clients who have got like incredible results from what I've shared with them is because of the work they've put in. I am not responsible for any of my clients wins and I'm not responsible for any thing that they find to be a limitation. And this is really uncomfortable. Like even saying that I can feel myself be like oh God, it is uncomfortable because it really requires us to sit with our own self worth and our own value. And this is what this healing session was for me. I was sitting with the fact that I've really created this narrative. I'm worthy if and my validation is heavily rooted in what I can do for others and it is my responsibility to sit with that and not let that seep into this fix our people pleasing lack of boundaries side of self that can really become present and is especially susceptible to coming to light when you have your own business. And so I've kind of driven some of the ways that we can ensure that we aren't taking responsibility and clients are taking responsibility. This is obviously a much, much wider topic. So it is something that I want to share on a lot deeper and I will be talking about it more. I will be putting together some offerings to really go into this so that you can ensure that you are feeling good and you're not feeling like you're unable to help people and you're not feeling like there's no boundaries and you're constantly in fixer mode and you're really caught up in your clients results. Because this is what we need to make sure we get to to ensure that we're running an ethical business, a sustainable business. And an enjoyable one too. So keep your eyes peeled because a lot more will be coming on this. Thanks so much for listening to this episode. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you would like to come and connect with some fellow Conscious creators you can find me at consciouscreatorco underscore and if you would like to work with me on a onetoone or a group capacity to help you find into that conscious creation that I know is sitting within you, then you can book a free 15 minutes. Call with me in the link in the show notes. I hope you have a consciously connected day. Thank you.