The hypothesis to why so many marketers end up disappointing people and why so many truly great experts never get noticed or wealthy with their programs.
Think of marketing and teaching like this: There is the outside of a house and the inside of a house.
- The outside of the house (landscaping, paint, shingles, etc.) are the marketing.
- The inside of the house (the rooms, furniture, fabrics, etc.) are the teaching.
When you are driving by a house (you are the customer), you’re making assessments about the houses based on the outside right? You can maybe see a tiny bit of what’s going on inside but it’s nowhere near the same as the homeowner who knows every nook and cranny of the rooms and furniture.
Marketing is what is selling you on the idea of entering the home.
Marketing & teaching are often at odds with each other in much the same way you can’t tell the inside of a house from the outside, or the outside of the house from the inside.
The marketing viewpoint is one of curiosity, desire, and demand. It’s problem focused and then also visionary and aspirational. It taps into feelings and emotions, some logic as well, and it sells an idea, a journey, opportunity.
People who are good at this have a particular set of skills that allow them to arise desire in a potential customer.
If you’re really good at this, you can arise desire for virtually any product — even if you have no idea what is really going on inside the four walls of it.
The ones that get really really really good, rise to the top of the pile. And so in a way, some of the best marketers in the world… aren’t actually good at TEACHING the thing they are selling. They are good at the landscaping, painting, outdoor work that goes around a home.
Now let’s go to the inside of the house, and look at the expert teachers.
These people can get you from point A to point Z. They know every step. They know what chair to sit in, how to get the shower working in the first floor bathroom, which floorboards creak on the stairs, all of it.
Great teachers understand action, momentum, and the psychology of completion. They can distill concepts down until they are understandable.
They are very focused on the path to the solution, so much so that they struggle to “suspend” their genius long enough to think about it from the outside only. They end up selling the details, the process, the work, vs. the desire and the demand and idea because they can’t change their perspective to a marketer who’s only looking at the house from the outside.
The ones who are good at the outside, get louder and better. And the ones that can actually make stuff happen for people, get lost in the shuffle and struggle to compete.
This is why you get a large number of “guru marketers” that are disappointing in the delivery, and a ton of really qualified experts who are frustrated they can’t sell their stuff.
How do you learn to be good at both marketing & teaching?
- Teaching well requires organization of thought. It also requires you to regularly be with beginners so you can be in touch with the problems they are facing.
- Marketing well requires understanding human psychology. Great marketing requires empathy… being able to get inside someone’s experience and see it the way they might.
- The biggest thing you can do is learn how to consciously switch from the marketer hat to the teaching hat and back. Recognize they are fundamentally different (and often at odds with each other) and that’s normal.
When I’ve looked at my own journey as a marketer and teacher, I am aware that my strongest muscle is teaching. This is where I tend to lean if left to my own devices. But with a degree in clinical psychology, a desire for learning marketing, and being a highly intuitive empath, this has made me an excellent marketer over time….allowing me to grow and audience and compete with many of the “gurus” but with the advantage of ALSO delivering a great teaching experience.
If you need to strengthen either of these muscles, or both, please reach out.
Last thing I’ll leave you with….
The best products out there, the best launches… are when the business owner toggles OFTEN between marketer and teacher. If you stay in one frame of mind too long, you end up with either:
- A huge overpromise
- An unmarketable program
Neither of which are pleasant!
Have a great day, and as always, I’m here if you need help!
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