Orientation Is Everything
In business (and life), your orientation is everything.
It's why you know *not* to bring up politics to your uncle, the absolute best (and worst) moments to ask your lover for a foot-rub, and the exact right window to go to the farmers market so that you get all the items you want and also don't have to run into anyone you know (heh).
Often, your 'why isn't it working' problem is a context problem. And by 'context problem,' I mean you didn't read the room. A room that, might I remind you, is full of humans.
I get to work intimately with a variety of entrepreneurs on a weekly basis. One of the top things people come to me for (that they don't actually realize they're coming to me for 🙃) is for me to give them the simultaneous zoomed-out and zoomed-in view of their business.
In translating this to them, they often realize, without me needing to say it, that the missing piece is not a complex spiritual mystery to be solved, but rather, it's understanding the context.
📽️ *roll scenes*
Scene 1 → For the last year, you've been regularly visiting a coffee shop to network. You went from being there 3-5 days a week, engaged and conversing, to dropping off without any notice. 6+ months later, you burst through the doors and yell—"MY NEW PRODUCT HAS LAUNCHED!!!!" (Then, proceed to get angry when everyone is more confused than eagerly asking you how they can buy.)
What's Happening → This is the classic, dropping off out of nowhere (with no explanation) and returning (with no explanation) and selling something.
Most of the time this… doesn't work.
Especially if you…
• don't have a lot of momentum in your business or brand
• don't have other channels where you consistently communicate with people other than the place you disappeared from
• didn't take the time to frame anything (framing things for people goes a long way)
Yet, all you have to do is flip these to understand why this works for some people, sometimes. Because remember, context is everything. Understanding the situations in which things would work and in which they wouldn't is essential.
Over the years, I've had *a lot* of business-owners come to me because they admire my come-and-go relationship with IG—where I am not hyper-consistent, take lots of breaks, and am all around pretty loose-butthole about social media. And (the most important part), we are a highly profitable company. Some of those profits come from social media.
Context:
• I did not want to be beholden to being rigidly consistent on ~InSTagraM~ to be profitable, so I experimented with a business model that doesn't entirely rely on it.
• Aside from boundless faith, the strategy of that business model has included: consistent blogs, starting a consistent newsletter *early,* tons of referrals, focusing on building high-value communities, and of course—still using social media along the way because an essential part of this model is *not hating social media* and in that, recognizing, it’s a great place to attract new people.
What many fail to understand is the context of why this has worked for me. Instead, they're focused on why one element of the model isn't working for them. Context 👏 is 👏 everything.
Scene 2 → You're dating someone new, and they're spending an exorbitant amount of time explaining to you why they're so great. They insidiously tell you how much money they're making, how much their house cost, and show you videos of them cold-plunging twice a day. They even have a habit where, on almost every single date, they show you a Stripe screenshot on their phone of their income for that day/week. You're finding it… bizarre. And while some of these things you thought were important to you, it's just not hitting.
You end the relationship.
What's Happening → Ah, one of my favorites. Here we have ruthlessly going for the hard sale, vis-à-vis our good friend, bragging, without building a relationship.
(I know, I know, this isn't you. But it's fun to see why you most likely don't like it and/or how to do it in a non-sleezy way.)
This doesn't work well if:
• you care about relationships and retention, and don't want to have to rely on a *constantly needing a ton of new leads* business model
• not skillfully paired with other forms of relationship and resonance building (I'm not saying don't brag, I'm saying, get the context right so that bragging can become trust building 🤠)
• you want to attract a high-quality mate—er, I mean customers
The answers to ‘how could I do this in a way that works’ are in the explanation.
Scene 3 → You've been getting to know a new friend. Thus far, the two of you have really bonded over both being new moms, and 99% of your conversations have lived in that realm. One day, you meet for lunch, and when she asks you how your baby is doing, you push yourself back from the table, stand up, and yell, "I AM ALSO AN ARTIST!!" Then, proceed to talk exclusively and defiantly about art. (Exuding annoyance that this person didn't get this part of you—that you've failed to tell them about.)
What's Happening → Here we have, you've doubled down on one area, topic, or identity, and then proceed to whiplash people with a new thing you're offering.
This doesn't work if you…
• go straight into hard-selling something around this new thing
• have spent no time warming up your audience—AKA, taking intentional time to introduce it and build both resonance and trust around it
• haven't, in your own perception, drawn the lines between this thing and your other things, and see it as *totally different* (your confusion = their confusion). This results in either no warm-up or an off-putting one that's riddled with rebellion and attempts to convince.
Again, flip these—and you'll find your answers to how to effectively introduce something new into your work, and eventually, be paid for it.
Here's the ultra-simplified version of one of my most tried-and-true processes around developing a marketing and sales plan: come into it with a solid connection to the creation; then, take context/temperature reads of your business as a whole, your audience, and how the offer fits into both of those; lastly, develop your plan based on the two.
One of my favorite aspects of this is that hard-leaning artistic, intuitive, and creative types often believe that the logical temperature check will dampen their creativity. When, if done skillfully, it brings it to life.
Think, you've oriented, understood what the ecosystem needs to thrive, created a solid plan, and now get to infuse boundless creativity into said plan, all informed by our dear friend ~reality~
While I don't recommend white knuckling this plan, expecting it to ensure that everything goes perfectly, it will offer you a deepened sense of presence and precision.
Because the plan itself emerged from orienting to *what is.*
Not emulating what that person over there is doing (who undoubtedly has a different context), not calling avoidance your intuition, and definitely not getting angry at your audience for the up-teenth time and blaming them for your business probs 🫠
That's all for today.
what's happening in our world
i. October in The Hive: The Practitioner Dojo 🥷
While inside The Hive, we lurv focusing on the major internal/eternal engines that drive a business, like marketing and sales—these are not the heart.
The heart is your craft. And little do most know, it’s the most powerful unseen engine of your work.
For many of you, that takes the form of being a practitioner in some way. Whether you call that coaching, healing, teaching, or consulting—it’s the great work of creating space for transformation, healing, and beyond.
As we move out of the Piscean Age, we’re discovering how this work is no longer about guru-dependency. Yet, simultaneously, we must be wary of the swing into carelessness, cloaked as freedom.
This month, we will enter The Practitioner Dojo—going deep into the soils of what makes a skillful and effective practitioner, and how to begin applying that to your work right now.