My Top Three Takeaways from Reading Quiet Marketing by Danielle Gardner
The Peak District on a clear day
On my way to a recent weekend hiking trip, I downloaded Quiet Marketing: A calm minimal approach to business and online visibility for highly sensitive solopreneurs by Danielle Gardner.
I stumbled across one of Danielle’s Youtube videos while looking for marketing methods that could help me grow my business while removing traditional scarcity and fear-based strategies.
Naturally, I fell down a rabbit hole and bought her book.
If you don’t know Danielle Gardner, she is on a mission to help solopreneurs build successful businesses and create an online business that’s authentic to who they are.
As a business owner, you might find it energetically, mentally or physically difficult to constantly engage and be visible in the online world.
Quiet Marketing offers a small and easily digestible format of actionable steps you can take to share your message and deliver your offerings in your own unique way.
Here are my top three takeaways from what I learned.
Focus on discoverability over visibility
Ever feel like you want to step away from the constant engagement of social media and focus on real-life relationships? A couple of years ago I did exactly this. I found the need to show up and engage a complete pain and it wasn’t something that came naturally to me.
Danielle describes visibility as a “proactive engagement and energy-intensive approach to marketing”.
For many of us, we just don't have the bandwidth to create reels, stories or show up live every day. Instead, we should focus on becoming discoverable.
Creating intentional content that can be found in search results and providing helpful resources and insights for your audience will help you become discoverable.
I’ve had clients on a consult call tell me how excited they are to discover my portfolio after spending hours searching for a designer. That excitement going into a design experience is what I love. There’s an energetic reaction that takes place and it’s often a ‘hell yes’ from both of us.
Looking for the wisdom in your irritation
I LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS!
If there’s something irritating or frustrating me in my business, then there’s a truth that’s ready to be uncovered.
Danielle encourages you to get creative in the shape of your offerings and gifts. What can you learn from the frustrations you are experiencing? How can you provide your services differently?
When I’m experiencing an irritation, I find it useful to journal about it and get my thoughts on paper. Then I take action to improve or change how I am doing things.
Practice tunnel vision
“Practising tunnel vision is about doing whatever it is necessary to close yourself off from seeing other people’s content, messages, and offerings.”
If you find yourself needing to do ‘all the things’, you might be distracted by what others are doing and saying.
Traditional marketing tells us to keep an eye on what our peers are offering. However, this can often stifle your creativity and leave you feeling confused with your messaging.
By removing these distractions (the unsubscribe or unfollow button is your new friend!) you can avoid going off course from your own path.
Being intentional about what I consume has helped me free my creativity and the way I do things in my business.
I regularly delete Instagram from my phone. Actually, I don’t have social media apps on my phone at all. If I want to go on the Gram, I reinstall the app and delete it after I’m finished using it.
I hope this post is helpful for you! Here’s a link to Quiet Marketing. It’s not an affiliate link! I genuinely really love the book and honestly, it’s given me the shift that I need to continue on my own path of doing things a little bit differently. :)
