This year’s CIEP conference was held online, from 12 to 14 September. Attendees from all over the world logged on to learn and socialise with their fellow editors and proofreaders, and a number of delegates kindly volunteered to write up the sessions for us. Kate Sotejeff-Wilson reviewed Your marketing mindset, presented by Malini Devadas.

Changing your mindset to market your business

Malini broke down marketing itself into three stages.

1. Messaging: Choose a niche. Who do you help? How do you help them? Create a message that this audience cares about.
2. Marketing: Be visible. Share your message and connect with your ideal clients. You need to be where they are.
3. Money: Ask for the sale. Invite interested people to work with you.

One word comes up in all three of those stages: your marketing mindset is all about you.

In the context of marketing for sole traders, your mindset consists of your beliefs about yourself. It does not mean denying systemic injustices or negative feelings. But it does mean taking action. Selling your services involves you as a person.

Is what you tell yourself about your marketing true? What could you change?

Mindset blocks

Fear of rejection is often behind mindset blocks. One resonated with me: doing ‘busy work’ that does not get you clients (like designing the perfect logo). Another is mistaking beliefs for facts, such as ‘no author will pay more than £40 per hour’ (so I won’t raise my rates). Self-sabotaging is one more: you might miss a deadline to send a quote (‘they wouldn’t have hired me anyway’). All this is normal. Most of us have thoughts like this, as the audience affirmed. Successful business owners keep going anyway.

To identify and reframe these thoughts, you need to be honest with yourself. Malini sets out how to do this in six steps.

Breaking down the blocks

1. See where you got stuck. To do this, you need to have specific goals (eg not ‘work on my website’ but ‘write my ”about me” page for an hour at 10am Wednesday’). If you are still stuck, you need to …
2. Notice the thoughts and feelings about the task you are avoiding (eg ‘I don’t have enough qualifications’ or ‘I’m scared people will think I’m a fraud’).
3. Sit with the discomfort. Do not try to ignore it.
4. Explore the thought. Try journaling or coaching to express it.
5. Reframe your beliefs (eg ‘writing an ”about me” page is not conceited – it is sharing my skills to help authors’).
6. Take action (or not). Which is worse: doing nothing (eg not earning enough) or doing something (eg some may think you’re conceited)? Decide to continue or stop.

Next time you wonder what’s stopping you from doing something to market your business, try those six steps. You might just change your mindset.

Kate Sotejeff-Wilson translates, copywrites and edits for academics at KSW Translations, and facilitates Ridge Writing Retreats. Born in Wales to an English father and a Polish mother, she is now also a Finn. An Advanced Professional Member of the CIEP, she is deputy coordinator of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting Polish Network and vice-chair of Nordic Editors and Translators.

 

Posted by Abi Saffrey, CIEP blog coordinator.

The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the CIEP.