What does overwhelm with marketing look like?

In today’s Musings on Marketing and Magic I talk about the different forms of overwhelm that empath and highly sensitive entrepreneurs can experience as they are building their business. Overwhelm is a common description that empaths and highly sensitives use when they describe their experience in life. I’ve been thinking more about how that actually shows up if we are building a business and doing marketing. So far, I’ve identified 5 different forms of overwhelm:

1. Overwhelmed Making Business Decisions

The first one is around decision making. Especially for those of us who have worked in a corporate setting before where there was a lot of structure in place, this can be a really difficult thing to get used to. Where before it was very clear at what time we would start to work, end work, go to meetings (on the hour every hour…) and so on, all of a sudden we have to make our own decisions, we have to create a structure for ourselves.

One thing I looked forward to when I left my corporate job was the freedom entrepreneurship would give me. It turned out that it’s actually been quite a process to build my own structure and not get overwhelmed by everything I could be doing right now and making constant decisions about it.

2. Overwhelmed Taking on other people’s “stuff”

The second form of overwhelm I see with empath and highly sensitive entrepreneurs is connecting with other people and taking on their “stuff,” getting sucked into the social media “vortex,” etc. I believe that connection building is the marketing of the 21st century and as empaths and highly sensitives it is one of our strengths as we are wired to deeply listen to others.

But it is also a big source of overwhelm for us. What has shifted this for me has been learning about my larger subtle energetic structure and its natural boundaries and then practicing to occupy this larger structure whenever I engage with others so I don’t have to take on their emotions, feelings, and thoughts.

3. Overwhelmed with marketing – “where do I begin?”

The third form of overwhelm gets more specifically into marketing: it is the sense of overwhelm with “marketing as a whole” – where do I even begin??? There is SO much information available about all different kinds of marketing activities and the sheer volume of it can be simply overwhelming. This is where the Chinese proverb comes in handy: “a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step” – start very, very small. I usually tell my clients to forget all the complexities and intricacies of marketing and to feel into your body: what kind of activity gives YOU a feeling of “yes”?

4. Overwhelmed with the technical aspects of marketing

The forth form of overwhelm is usually around technical marketing implementation, e.g. “I want to start small, sending out a newsletter to my clients and contacts who have expressed interest in what I have to say, but I have no idea whatsoever how to create this, the thought of figuring out the technical details overwhelms me.” The first question you might want to ask yourself here is “am I willing to learn how to do this or am I better served to find some help?”

5. Overwhelmed creating a cohesive marketing strategy

The fifth form of overwhelm happens when you’ve traveled a “few miles” of marketing, based on recommendations of what worked for others, you’ve been active in some form of marketing activity, but you haven’t seen the desired results. There’s that moment of realization: “oh, I actually need to develop a cohesive marketing plan that leads my ideal clients through their own journey of connecting with ME before they are actually ready to invest.”

That realization then is often followed by a sense of overwhelm what that plan might look like and how much effort it will take. I find that this is usually the place where you have to make a decision: are you serious about building your business and claiming the role of a business owner or can you be okay with where you are at right now?

If you decide to embrace the role of the business owner, then the first step might be to realize that this again is a step by step process and you start by becoming clear on your awareness strategy. Also, I have found it helpful to remind myself that I can outsource more and more of this as my business.

What version of marketing overwhelm are you familiar with? And have a missed one?

Until next time – be magical!