Marketing and yard sales.
This weekend, I’m having a yard sale.
A few weeks ago, I basically just started feeling really disconnected from about 99% of my belongings….dramatic, I know. But it happens to me from time to time. Usually once a year or every other year. It’s one of the first signs that my former identity is dissolving and my new identity - or energy frequency - which is currently still unbeknownst to me - is on its way.
I’ve gotten used to it. This sort of ongoing, somewhat consistent need for a good material purge.
And this morning, as I walked down my street carrying a nail, a hammer, and some hot pink signs (because you know we do our yard sales in style), I started to think about the parallels between having a yard sale and marketing.
Marketing is one of those concepts that the business world puts a lot of emphasis on. Marketing is one of those things that will absolutely be stressed in business school and any entreprenurial course. Lots of business owners will tell you marketing is the key to attracting your dream clients. Therefor, it is part of the heart and soul of your business. Or some of the meat and potatoes, atleast.
I don’t disagree.
But my problem with this perspective is my problem with most modern, traditional, capitalist-adjacent business perspectives - it’s undeveloped. It’s immature. It’s boring. And it’s flat.
Plus, most marketing advice I’ve received from those in the traditional, capitalism-adjacent business realm seems to bear no consideration for metaphysical reality - that is, how the universe actually works.
When I work with my clients on marketing - and even when I coach myself through marketing - I can see just how neurotically obsessed we’ve become with “putting our products or services or gifts” out there in such a way that resonates with our ideal audiences, makes them feel a certain type of predetermined way, convincing them to trust us (and our services/offerings/products) in one fell swoop. We’ve become literally fixated on what the marketing world calls "funnels” to entice our dream clients, creating clear cut, step-by-step onboarding systems, and fine-tuning sales scripts.
To this I say: what in the actual fuck!
My off-the-cuff theory is that this is a sort of entrepreneurial codependence (I also have a liberatory mental health/therapy practice, so I make a lot of psychological references) that is just another way we attempt to exert our power, will, and control over what scholar Bayo Akomolafe calls a rather promiscuous universe.
Which I find disrespectful. Entitled. And honestly, a bit absurd.
But then again. Those adjectives could describe most things our human species are up to these days.
But you’re here because you want to be different. You want to do different. You are different, and no matter how hard you try, you can’t find comfort, peace, or momentum with approaches that require you to objectify your potential customers/clients, dishonor their autonomy and consent by assuming you know their feelings, wants, and needs better than they do, and stripping down your most complex, revolutionary ideas so they are more palpable to whoever it is you think you need to sell to. You’re here because that all makes you feel like your brain, heart, mind, and spirit are on fire. And not in a generative way.
Some other thoughts philosophical and practical questions floating around my head right now:
What’s the energetic difference between a marketing funnel and something like the school to prison pipeline?
Sure these are systems that exist in two totally different contexts entirely - but then again - do they? Aren’t they both snuggled pretty comfortably within the safety of white supremacy, anti-Black racism, and capitalism? Aren’t they both kind of predicated on the idea that we can make certain bodies go in certain directions because those doing the directing believe it is “best” and “just” and “right” for society - and for them?
This is what I’m saying people.
Call it a stretch, but in my practice, I’ve learned that if we don’t get clear about the type of energetic systems we’re recreating, we’re never going to find our way out of this oppressive realm.
Now back to the yard sale.
What I love about yard sales is this: they’re simple. Clear cut. Low stakes. Communal. And largely stress free.
The most stressful part about it is the weeks leading up, trying to get the weather to cooperate, doing the logistics like driving over to a friends’ house to load up a vinyl table I’m borrowing, then, dealing with my own anxiety, which is pretty generalized and attaches itself to basically anything at this point in life. Luckily though, these are three stressors I’ve learned to really lovingly manage. Partner with. And work with. I understand them all as part of the process. They are there for me to engage with. Not to control.
This time around, I did something different - I bought a bunch of those circle price tag stickers and pre-priced everything before I even displayed the items out front. Why did I do this? It simplified the process for me. It meant when the day came and lots of people where on my front lawn wanting to buy things from me, I’d know the prices exactly. I wouldn’t have to do a bunch of calculating.
And if someone wanted to negotiate with me, they’d have to do it on the spot.
Them: “Hey, I notice these shoes are priced at $10, would you take $5 instead?”
Me: “Hell no! Those are brand new Jeffrey Campbells that have never been worn, and I bought them for $85. They’re already a steal.”
Ok, that’s what I’d say IN MY HEAD.
That is probably not what I’d say outloud.
But what I would say is something like: “I’m so sorry love, the price is firm - but I’m so glad you’re interested, and I’m happy you were able to ask for what you need.”
What the person does next would be entirely up to them. They may choose to buy the shoes. They may put the shoes down and stick their tongue out at me. They may respond politely and just go about their merry way. I don’t know. That’s their business.
I can only mind mine.
And note this - whether a person chooses to buy that item or not, I don’t take it personally. I know it’s not a reflection of me or of my pricing or even of the items’ worth. Their choice rolls right off of me, like water rolls off the waterproof wings of a duck in the middle of a raging thunderstorm. I’m protected. I’m built for this.
You are, too.
This is how I want you to think about marketing from now on.
Strip it down, bare bones, and throw out anything you’ve ever learned from business books.
I want your sales and marketing to be as simple as deciding how much to price the stuff you’re getting rid of.
And then I want you to stand behind that decision - like you do when you sit out with your items in your front yard.
Just own it. Because quite literally….you already do.
You know the price better than anyone. All you can do is offer it.
And as hard as it may be to watch people repeatedly pass it by, do you know what 100000 times harder? Agreeing to an exchange that requires you to diminish your value and worth. Do that over and over again and watch it take a huge toll.
Trust me. Most of my clients come to me in this demoralized state.
Often with a lot of stories, like:
If I don’t lower my prices, I’ll never make a sale
I want to come up with an agreement that works great for my client
I’d rather work with this person than not work with this person, so I offer a deal
I only recognize these stories because at some point or another, they’ve slipped out of my own mouth as well.
As a response to these stories — my wisest self might say something like this:
Stop trying to play God.
You don’t actually know that you’ll never make a sale if you don’t lower your prices. You just know that’s how you’ve been able to make sales in the past.
You don’t actually know what works great for your client - you can only know what works great for you. Have you lost sight of that in your desire to people please? Have you abandoned yourself before you even start working with them? If so…it’s time to reevaluate. Your responsibility is to pitch your price, and your client’s responsibility is to respond to the options available, and/or counterpropose an alternate agreement that works for them. It is literally their responsibility to get the thing they want, the thing that you are presenting to them. At which point, the responsibility is yours again. Is the agreement workable or manageable for you? Think about it. Then let them know. Repeat the process if it feels generative. End it when there’s a felt sense of resonance….That’s it.
You don’t actually know if working with this person is the best current path for you. Maybe the Universe has something better planned and you’ll never learn about it if you try to force something with someone who isn’t enthusiastic about what you’re here to give.
Ouch. I know. But pretty accurate, right?
Listen - I know how much you cherish your offerings. And I know that, more than anything, you want to be a person who is doing your work. Every opportunity there is to help people, you want to take it — no matter the cost.
This is that purposeful part inside you, propelling you forward towards your path, letting you know it won’t stop at anything because it’s here to help you fulfill your destiny. Thank that part. Then, try to help it mature, develop, rest, or move along.
Because there’s another part inside you — a part we really need to talk to — that is carrying people-pleasing and co-dependence into the business realm. This part feels incredibly unworthy. This part feels like a total loser. For this part, all the external validation in the world would never be enough to make it feel better about itself, but it doesn’t know that. So it reaches for it compulsively and repetitively. I want you to consider whether or not this deep-seated behavior is a source of self-harm or self-sabotage for you.
It most certainly has been for me.
But this weekend — at my yard sale — which has now happened already because I took a 24 hour break between writing the first part of this and then the second — I allowed myself to let that pattern go. I practiced talking to my neighbors with love, care, curiosity, and kindness, regardless of if they chose to buy some lawn items from me or not. I practiced sitting out front in my total dignity, feeling the success of having dragged all my shit outside from the third floor ON MY OWN!, feeling proud and accomplished just because I have been needing to do this for weeks…and finally, it was done. Whatever happened next was just icing on the cake.
Fulfillment and validation came first. And it came from me. From that place, I could show up in relationship with everyone who passed by as the most honest, present, and available version of myself — who already KNOWS they’re enough. Not logically, but energetically and spiritually. The version of me that radiates enoughness from my blood and bones.
The yard sale would have gone completely different if I’d drug my items down there out of resentment, desperate for a certain amount of money, setting external goals that would deem the sale a success or a failure. I would’ve been more bitter. I wouldn’t have met new people in my neighborhood. I wouldn’t have sold what I sold and I wouldn’t have had the beautiful conversations I did. I saw some items I loved and cherished going to people who loved and cherished them, at a great price, but not one that ever compromised the value. This, I realized, is the true beauty of any exchange.
The enthusiasm.
That’s how it should feel when you offer someone something and they engage with you about buying it or not.
Then, a warmth that permeates your whole body and says: “wow. I just got something really right.”
Now, is selling used stuff on my front lawn absolutely different than selling business coaching packages and experiences? Absolutely. But what I teach myself and what I continuously teach my clients and students is this:
The simplest experiments matter.
The more simple you can make your meditations on marketing, sales, finances, and all things business, the better.
Find the lessons in the everyday.
Find the lessons where you can understand them energetically — not where they are force-fed to you intellectually, via books, online courses, and talking figure heads.