Connecting instead of convincing, unwinding hustle and is your business accidentally speaking to a false audience?

There is a strange underlay in the business landscape that has us subconsciously believing that our future clients and customers are people who we need to ‘convince into’ our business. That we need to somehow overcome their resistances and objections, relentlessly prove our value compared to other businesses and consistently “show up” in a very outward way. Only then, will they be willing to buy from us.

Social media I think has played a big part in this, creating a norm that sees endless peddling of one’s business and creative work to people who are often receiving the content of hundreds or thousands of other people. The suggestion to counteract this frantic field of micro-information is for business owners to show up so persistently online that they cannot help but be noticed.

Alongside this, lies an undercurrent of needing to subtly cajole people into our business. The noise of the online space has subtly encrypted the belief within creators, that unless we are shouting, we will not be heard. Unless we are ‘overcoming objections’ we will not be received. Unless we can convince others that they need us, we will drift aimlessly amongst the noise, unheard and unseen. Unless our presence is relentlessly consistent, we will be forgotten.

Within this, we are taught that people need convincing in order to invest. That business is a game of hustle and comparison, where we are jostling for attention amongst an audience that needs to be subtly manipulated into action.

This was definitely unconsciously seared into my understandings of business, even before I had any experience in the business world.

And once I actually dipped my toe into the hustle of modern online business (aka observing tentatively from the sidelines in an almost frozen state of ‘Is this really the only way?!’), I soon realised that yes, this did seem to be the norm in business.

I also very quickly knew that this comparative, scarcity-minded idea of business was not what I wanted to buy into.

It felt deeply important to explore a softer way of creating a business, where sharing and selling online felt natural and gentle.

Where marketing was not underlayed with subtle force, comparison and a persistent sense of needing to convince.

Where there was trust, faith and gentle curiosity around what compelled and magnetised people to invest, rather than a conditioned sense of scarcity, doubt and fear.

As I deepened into my own business, I realised more and more that this idea of competition, comparison and convincing was not something that inspired me into action. Instead, it left me feeling disheartened and frozen, unable to move forward or make decisions. It tangled me up in self-doubt and gave me an overriding sense that I would have to abandon naturalness for force, feminine design for masculinised expression and slow, nature-filled living for hustle and relentless screen time. All feelings and beliefs that were not conducive to creativity, aligned action, and ultimately, creating a thriving business.

I found that to counteract this, I had to actively re-choose how to look at business, unraveling a lot of what had been presented to me as the norm, and choosing instead to believe in a different way.

This included choosing to believe that there were people out there who were naturally and deeply aligned to what I offered. That I did not need to convince, cajole or subtly manipulate people into my business,

It meant choosing to believe that I did not have to be bound to hustle culture or social media to create a business that felt nourishing and sustainable.

It meant choosing to believe that there were a bountiful number of people who I was naturally equipped to serve in my own unique way (even if I needed to spend some time messily experimenting and figuring that out).

It meant creating, expressing and connecting in a way that organically spoke to those people in a way that made sense to their challenges, desires and values.

It meant softening into the truth that marketing my business was not about convincing or trying to make my work seem compelling to as many people as possible, but instead about finding nourishing ways to connect with the right people for my work.

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Something that I found deeply helpful to shift into this more natural way of perceiving and engaging with business and marketing, was to understand the power and ease of speaking to my true audience, rather than being hooked into convincing those who were not actually the right fit for my business (I refer to these people as the ‘false audience’ in Content that Connects).

This is something that I also see through my 1:1 clients, where they often realise that they have been subtly speaking to the “wrong” audience. That they have been unintentionally creating content and expressing from a place of thinking they need to ‘push people over the line’. That they have inadvertently created barriers and obstacles that they think their audience need to ‘overcome’ before they could possibly be willing to buy.

This unintentional focus on the false audience is something that is very understandable and a natural result of being immersed in the frantic conventions of normalised business and marketing.

Yet what I have found, is that this inadvertent focus on speaking to those who are not right for our business, keeps us apart from the genuine ease of attracting those who are right for our business.

When our business is speaking to our true audience (which is the people we are naturally equipped to serve without needing to contort ourselves or our business into something that it is not) everything becomes simpler. We are able to share authentically and organically, without feeling like we need to be pushy, salesly or “convince-y.”

Instead, we can focus on how to best translate and express our skills, insights, knowledge and wisdom in a way that we know will deeply serve and connect with the right people.

We can stop speaking to those who we have to (even subtly) cajole and convince, and instead allow people to enter our business in a way that is rooted in possibility, resonance and naturalness.

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I have found that one of the biggest shifts we can make as gentle solopreneurs and feminine creatives, is to re-orient wholeheartedly towards the people we are naturally and deeply designed to serve. Not those who we think we ‘should’ serve. Not those who we think 'need our work but just don’t know it yet.’

But instead those who are ready, waiting and yearning to discover the exact creation, service, artistry, words, message that we offer through our business.

When we focus on this, our job is not to convince and cajole, or play into the hustle culture of business. It is not to contort ourselves or the way we market our business into something that does not reflect the true heart of what we are here to offer.

Instead, our job is to deepen into understanding the deeper layers and unique value of our business. It is to understand who we are speaking to and who we are truly for. It is to authentically express who we are (beyond just the commodity of our business), and to invite our people into the conversations and messages that are naturally interwoven within our work. It is to stay connected to the creative desires of our own hearts, while also staying curious and open to who our organic audience really is when we are rooted in our most authentic expression, creativity and service.

From here, business, marketing and content creation becomes an instinctive and meaningful dance of connection and service, where we naturally cut through the noise without needing to override our deeper values, desires and nature.

Where instead of hustling, convincing and contorting, we can trust that there is a natural and unforced way for our business and creative work to be seen and received in the world.

Belinda x

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