Your Actual Job (Not the One You Think You Have)

I wear a lot of different hats as a business owner, household manager, and especially mom.

If you don’t already know this about me, I have two kids who are on the autism spectrum.?

This morning I had to negotiate over details on forms that were supposedly created to help my kids. Sometimes these forms help, sometimes they are ignored.

I never thought that when I decided to have children that I would need to add educational advocate and expert negotiator to my list of required skills.

But that’s where I am now, and it means I have to show up, be strategic, and think about the long game.

Did you know that, much like my job as a mother, your main job has nothing to do with the skills you thought you had when you started becoming the professional expert you are today?

The idea we’re obliterating today:

Your main job is to execute your expert skills.

The remake:

Whatever your skills are, your main job is to market so that you get to use those skills.

Whether you work in an organization or you own your business, marketing is a skill set that literally everyone needs. You use marketing every day, whether you realize it or not. Think about the last time you needed something from someone who wasn’t so keen to give it to you. Were you able to get it from them? That’s marketing.

And especially as a business owner, you cannot execute on your specific set of professional skills without clients, and you can’t get clients without marketing. Period.

Here are three things that will help you reframe your real job, the one that lets you use your expert skills.

?? 1. Marketing is a must. Unless you have clients or customers, you don’t have a business. A lot of people get worried or shy when they think about creating a sales pipeline or building lead generation, so keep it simple. The main goal of marketing is to get clients. Tell your brain that you need clients or you don’t have a business.

?? 2. Practicing and acquiring other skills is not just as valuable as marketing. ?This is a Jedi Mind trick your literal mind tries to use on you. Did you know that the best way to improve your skill set is actually by learning with clients by serving them in real time? You cannot do that without marketing! If you don’t have clients, you won’t be able to grow your skills in an effective way and you won’t have the money you need to live. I’m just being real with you.

Yesterday was the day to acquire the skills you need to perform in your specific industry. And you did. Well done. But today, you’re a different person and to put those skills to use, you need to market, not to build additional skills that you aren’t actually serving anyone with.

?? 3.? Marketing doesn’t have to be complicated or hard. A lot of professionals think that marketing is some mystery they will never be able to figure out. First, you are smart and perfectly capable of figuring out things. Second, it actually isn’t your job to figure out how to market. That’s what people like me are for.

When I work with clients they usually say something like, “I can’t believe how simple this is now that you explain it. Why couldn’t I figure this out on my own?”

I tell them, “It’s not your job to figure it out. It’s my job. All I need you to do is execute, which I will make super simple for you.”

Again, it can be easy to get caught up in who you were yesterday—the person trying to gather all the skills. That’s when you lose sight of the fact that you aren’t actually supposed to learn how to do literally everything. That’s impossible.

Also, objectivity is worth paying for, just ask my coach Jordan Mendoza .

One Lit Moment:

“It's no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then” –Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

What Kristin is Writing/Thinking About:

I finished the first draft of my book, Alice in Businessland: Why it Pays to Get Curious About Which Words Sell, and Part 3 is all about who we were yesterday. Whenever I work on it, I think about you and how I built this book to help you see that marketing doesn’t need to feel complicated or scary.

If you want help with your real job, marketing, I still have spaces available in my 6 week 1:1 consulting program, Marketing Foundations, where I create the big bricks you need in your business communication to finally see the growth you’ve been wanting.

Want to find out more? Schedule a meeting with me HERE.

You are amazing, I believe in you, and you can absolutely obliterate to remake.

Talk soon,

Kristin N. Spencer

About the Author:

Kristin N. Spencer is an International Bestselling Author, Writing Consultant, Value-Based Marketing Expert, and Speaker who has worked as a Ghostwriter on the bench of Forbes Books. She is the owner, lead writer, and big boss lady for Literary Symmetry, LLC where she helps companies and solopreneurs craft language through copywriting that make sales easier and faster with her proven, contrarian approaches. Kristin has hosted two top 5% podcasts, including Your Business Story, and is always excited to help business professionals share their strategic stories.