Marketing as an Exercise in Virtue?

Generosity. Patience. Courage. Ilise Benun as Aristotle?

When I signed up for Ilise Benun’s 21 Day Challenge to Land Clients (as a Writer), I did not expect to exercise virtue. I wanted to learn how to use Linkedin to land clients as the name of the course suggested. And yeah, I’ve learned how to do that.

But as Ilise and her guests have helped me to see, marketing yourself and marketing your business will push you to be generous with your gifts, patient in developing them, and courageous in showing them off.

First, generosity. For me, marketing has a bad reputation. It’s all about getting you to part with your money when you really don’t want to. It’s about interrupting dinner so I can have 5 minutes of your time. It’s about manipulating you, preying on your weaknesses so I can get you to buy my product.

But Ilise showed me that marketing is about generosity. Instead of what can you do for me, it’s what can I do for you? Instead of give me your money, it’s how can I help you? Instead of here are the 6 ways your website is terrible, it’s how can I help you with your blog? How can I help? How can I give of myself to make your life better? Ilise showed me that path.

And then there’s patience. 21 days? Really? Can we please get this over with in an afternoon so we can make the sale?

No. It’s 21 days. It’s really 21 months. 21 years. If you want to market yourself, if you want to develop yourself, if you want to reach an audience and make a difference in their lives. If you want to become a better networker, a better writer, a better person. It will TAKE TIME. All good things do. Ilise reminded me of that.

Finally, courage. I reached out to Ilise a week ago and asked her, how do I know if I’m ready? Ilise gently reminded me that life, business, marketing, writing — make it a laboratory. It’s about mistakes and learning from them. That’s the only way to grow. As a teacher, I tried every method known to humankind. Some methods worked. Some didn’t. I tried to learn from them. Thank you, Ilise, for reminding me of the importance of putting myself out there, knowing that the only way to grow is to “do the doing,” take your lumps, and begin again.

So if you’re wondering what it takes to better yourself and your business, you’d do worse than lean in to the ancient virtues of generosity, patience, and courage. Try ’em out — as Ilise told me, “what do you have to lose?”