In this episode of the Creative Introvert podcast we have fellow Cat, fellow ginger and fellow INTJ: Cat Paterson. Business strategist extraordinaire, Cat has a super interesting background, which includes heading up intelligence analysis for a covert agency… and it makes total sense as to why she’s a personality profiling geek, like me.
Apologies for the airplane sound effects - that was 100% my fault, it’s just one of the side effects of recording this podcast while I’m travelling...
This podcast is made possible only by means of my generous supporters on Patreon. Thank you! Supporting the Creative Introvert podcast also gets you lots of goodies, from a Monthly Ask Me Anything to a copy of my new BOOK, The Creative Introvert: How to Build a Business You Love on Your Terms. Hitting milestones also funds future projects, and ideas guided by you, my supporters.
The biggest challenge the creative introverts face when it comes to marketing their work is… Fear of coming across as sleazy or gross or inauthentic.
Yep. That’s the number one obstacle. Not things like figuring out Facebook or Instagram, not worrying about paid advertising or email campaigns, not even having not enough time, though that is up there.
It’s having the confidence to go out there and share your work, the thing you love with all your heart - at least most days - and communicate what you do to people who may actually give you money for it.
OK. I’m not going to pretend there’s a simple 10-step guide to marketing that doesn’t feel sleazy, that actually feels good and normal and easy… At least, if there is one I don’t know about it.
But in today's podcast am going to attempt to share with you what I’ve come to see about marketing, and help you find a way that feels good to you - and helps you get your work in front of the very best clients or customers for you.
This podcast is made possible only by means of my generous supporters on Patreon. Thank you! Supporting the Creative Introvert podcast also gets you lots of goodies, from a Monthly Ask Me Anything to a copy of my new BOOK, The Creative Introvert: How to Build a Business You Love on Your Terms. Hitting milestones also funds future projects, and ideas guided by you, my supporters.
Today’s podcast guest, Morgan Stapp is the chief brand strategist at Specht + Co. She specialises in helping businesses communicate their message. We talk about her experience in starting to work for herself, how to handle being an introvert when going to conferences (something I also dived into in depth on the 99th episode) and why she decided to invest in a Mastermind group.
This podcast is made possible only by means of my generous supporters on Patreon. Thank you! Supporting the Creative Introvert podcast also gets you lots of goodies, from a Monthly Ask Me Anything to a copy of my new BOOK, The Creative Introvert: How to Build a Business You Love on Your Terms. Hitting milestones also funds future projects, and ideas guided by you, my supporters.
Today I’m celebrating my 100th episode of the Creative Introvert Podcast!
Technically, I’ve recorded many more shows – nearly 50 ‘Year of Fun’ minisodes, plus two 10 episode series, one on Self-Knowledge and one on the Enneagram.
I know every podcaster who hits an arbitrary number with some 0’s on the end says this, but I really am surprised I’ve been going this long.
I’m a serial quitter. And I don’t mean that in a bad way, I’m actually really proud pf my ability to switch gear or to acknowledge when something isn’t for me any longer. I’m definitely not one for flogging dead horses.
And amazingly, this podcast has kept me entertained for over two years. And whilst I’d love to say it’s because I’ve got some knack for podcasting, I’m certain it’s 50% because of the awesome guests I’ve had the pleasure to chat to on the show, and 50% due to YOU the listener, who keeps my faith in humanity alive on a daily basis. The sweet emails I get, the comments on Instagram and Twitter – this is the stuff that fuels me when I have to scrape together my incoherent thoughts, and record something for you. So… thanks for that.
So before I get too mushy, I figure I’d share some of what I’ve learned from this podcast, the thing that started as an experiment way back in January 2017.
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This podcast is made possible only by means of my generous supporters on Patreon. Thank you! Supporting the Creative Introvert podcast also gets you lots of goodies, from a Monthly Ask Me Anything to a copy of my new BOOK, The Creative Introvert: How to Build a Business You Love on Your Terms. Hitting milestones also funds future projects, and ideas guided by you, my supporters.
Let’s imagine your industry’s biggest conference is coming up. Three days of back-to-back presentations, workshops and panels, with endless opportunities to network, pitch influential people and evenings spent keeping the party going…
If you’re an introvert, this may sound about as appealing as a punch in the ribs. Unfortunately, conferences are generally not designed with the quiet-seeking, introspective and highly sensitive type.
Conferences are designed for the many, not the few. If a quiet meeting over tea with a friend is pole fishing, conferences are ocean-floor scraping. They prioritise mass engagement, not one-to-one connections.
Highly sensitive introverts have it even harder. A highly sensitive person tends to feel overstimulated with bright lights, lots of noise, lots of action and before long they burn out.
If you’ve ever been to a conference and felt like you’ve been run over for days afterwards, you’ll know how this feels.
If you haven’t attended a conference yet - don’t let this put you off! Remember introversion is not an excuse not to do something because it’s hard. If going to a conference aligns with your goals - and if getting your work out into the world and making a living from your creative pursuits is one of those goals - then it’s more than likely going to a conference is something worth considering.
I’m recording this just after my final day at one of these big conferences, with over 2000 attendees, Alt Summit. I travelled 20 hours to get here, gave two 90 minute presentations and spoke to more people than I have done in the past year or two combined.
Worth it? Well, the sunk cost fallacy, a cognitive bias we all have that leads us to judge things we’ve invested time or money in as positive regardless of whether they were or not, could be at play. But: objectively speaking, I can honestly say that even after my first day of the conference I had:
But as great as all that is for me, I was hyper aware of (1) my jetlag and (2) my need to conserve my energy. I already had a game plan mapped out to minimise the damage, and I really think it’s what has helped me keep my energy and enthusiasm up.
Regardless of your conference experience to date, I want to show you the simple strategies I mostly managed to apply over the past few days. So hopefully you can put these into place should you have a conference in mind and want to make sure it’s manageable, valuable and maybe even… enjoyable.
This podcast is made possible only by means of my generous supporters on Patreon. Thank you! Supporting the Creative Introvert podcast also gets you lots of goodies, from a Monthly Ask Me Anything to a copy of my new BOOK, The Creative Introvert: How to Build a Business You Love on Your Terms. Hitting milestones also funds future projects, and ideas guided by you, my supporters.
If you leave a rating and review on iTunes (here's how to do that) I will be as happy as a kitten playing with a laser beam (or sob into my pillow, depending on what you write.)