Molly’s Story – Limitations, What’s Normal and Possibilities

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I’d like you to meet Molly, I like Molly she’s lovely.

Molly is a counselor, she loves to help people move forward in their lives and delights in freeing them from their baggage in creative ways. Molly has a degree in Metaphysical Counseling and Creative Art Therapy and when Molly talks about her business she lights up like a Christmas tree and the passion in her voice would bring tears of joy to your eyes.

So Molly set up a website and a Facebook page and began to test the waters… yes, test the waters, Molly didn’t jump right in boots and all she tentatively went forth and talked about her business, unsure of the reception her weird kind of counseling would receive. Molly was therefore a bit disappointed to realize she wasn’t getting much of a response.

So she set out to legitimize herself, she took a course in ‘normal’ counseling and got a license, got a new business name, put up a new website and a new Facebook page and came to me for advice on how to brand it and market it.

When I first met Molly, I was asked to take a look at her website and her Facebook page and and this I did and I began to get a feel for what was going on for her, without knowing about her other site and page and arranged to meet face-to-face. When we met, I asked Molly to tell me what the new business was about in her own words.

Molly said a lot of things and none of them made sense, so I asked her to tell me more about her background and out came all the information about her metaphysical counseling and creative art therapy and I saw her light up as she spoke, and heard the passion in her voice as she told me more. I than asked her if she wanted me to tell her the truth about what I really really really thought and she said yes, without knowing what she was in for, lol.

I told her that her new site, business name and Facebook page were lifeless and had no real direction to them, that I didn’t really understand what her new business really was, I didn’t see any story, any life or anything on them that would draw clients to her at all. I asked her the purpose of this new business when her life and energy were so deeply entrenched in her ‘other’ business and she told me that the new one was so that she could appeal to more people, to get more business and perhaps siphon some people into her other business.

No wonder I and everyone I asked to look at her ‘normal’ website and Facebook page could not find any energy or definition there, it wasn’t her real business or passion!

My advice, do what you love in the way that you love it, don’t even try to be something you are not, no matter what!

To give her hope, I told her about the high flying corporate coach and counselor who openly advertised herself as an alternative spiritual counselor and about the more local one charging $150 per hour and getting heaps of work. “Molly,” I said, “the problem is within yourself, not with your market. I promise you if you go for it, boots and all, and allow your stories, and the passion for what you love to do to shine our with authenticity you will get the work you need.”

Molly looked very unsure for a moment, and then I could see the change come over her and she smiled, “I think you have just given me permission to be me again and I feel as if a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.”

Are you Molly? Are you trying to normalize what you do to appeal to more clients or customers? Stop it right now! The wider your market the more dilute your marketing messages get, and watered down messages have no story, no energy and no appeal. In this world of information overload you have to find a way to stand out!  The real trick to finding your market is to find a niche an inch wide and a mile deep, and you won’t find that by trying to appeal to all those ‘normal’ people. Just remember if you don’t have a target you won’t have anything to aim for.

The very second you go for it, with all the passion you have for what you do and shine out for all the world to see without apology you will find your business start to soar.

All limitations are within … imagine the infinite possibilities instead and Go for it!