You Don't Have to Choose: Visible or Authentic

Image credit: Igor Omilaev unsplash.com

Part 1: Click-Bait or Starve?

You’ve been posting brilliant content for the past six months. Your friends and current clients love what you have to say. Some of your posts even get decent engagement online. But you’re starting to get burnt out on content creation because, despite all the time and effort you’ve put into it, you’ve gotten zero new clients.

“How much more of this can I take?” you wonder. **It takes HOURS to write your posts, make your videos, and create your images in Canva. You even enjoy creating some of the educational pieces - but without any return on your time invested, is it really worth it?

To make matters worse, you look at the content creators who are getting millions of views and see that they often resort to click-baity content that makes your stomach turn. Sure, it would be nice to get lots of views, clicks, and likes because that would lead to getting more clients or gigs.

But you’re a healer, a creative, a coach, a heart-centered consultant! Did you really spend all those years following your passion and honing your craft just to make click bait? No! You just want to do your good work with people who get what you do, not creating spammy content just to get likes, nor spending endless hours educational content that doesn’t convert.

Here’s a hard truth that many conscious entrepreneurs eventually discover: the tools, techniques, and methods that get the most attention are often the least aligned with the very values that make you great at what you do. This is why even the words “marketing” and “business” can feel icky or gross. Who would want to engage in those if it meant giving up what you care about most?

So, you face an impossible choice: either abandon your values and give into growth-hacking culture, or hold onto your values and stay small.

The tragedy here is that so many conscious entrepreneurs make the latter choice at exactly a moment in history where the world needs us to show up and do our good work with as many people as possible.

What to do?

Part 2: The Evolution of Marketing

The shift is to recognize that it’s not marketing or business that are problems, per se. It’s rather that the set of values that animate marketing or business need to evolve. Here’s a quick history of the evolution of marketing to see where we came from and where we might be going next.

• In ancient societies, marketing looks like neighbors knowing their neighbors, giving and receiving in the circle of the gift.

• In traditional societies, marketing looks like word-of-mouth and standing in the village marketplace shouting about your wares.

• In modern societies where greater population sizes mean that you don’t know everyone around you, marketing means relying on more impersonal methods like advertising and cold-calling. Such methods have a hidden dark side: when the people you’re advertising to don’t know you, it’s easier to deceive or manipulate them. This is where the US-led global culture is now.

• In post-modern societies (which exist in many highly-developed places around the world) marketing is largely viewed with distaste. However, post-modern people often throw the baby out with the bathwater, preferring either to abandon marketing altogether or rely solely on pre-modern methods like word of mouth.

• The next stage of evolution comes from “integral” societies, which are only now coming into being. My term for marketing at the integral stage is “conscious outreach.” It involves taking everything that worked from previous stages and amplifying them using the technology that is now available. In other words, it includes the previous stages and builds something new and creative that didn’t exist before.

The bottom line: Marketing need not be gross or salesy. The reason it seems so now is simply due to where our mainstream culture is in its evolution. You can be a part of helping marketing evolve by engaging in conscious outreach.

Here is a little about how I think about conscious outreach that includes a strategy you can use today.

Part 3: A Practical Conscious Outreach Strategy

Conscious outreach recognizes that the best form of marketing is, was, and always will be human relationship. For example, word of mouth is still “king” because it feels great to give or receive referrals and it has a very high conversion rate compared to paid advertising. But word of mouth also takes a long time and only works well once you have a large referral network. So, it has limited use for those just starting out and can’t be relied upon for rapidly growing your business.

To more quickly build that large network, you need to reach lots of people who don’t already know you. But instead of using expensive paid ads, counting on social media virality, spamming people with 1000s of cold emails, or braving the rejection that comes with cold calling, your job is instead to make a “warm” connections that lead with value and begin genuine conversations.

For example, let’s say you’re a creativity coach who helps artists get past creative blocks. You can begin by searching for potential clients on Instagram using search keywords like “creative block” or “#artistproblems.” This will surface posts and profiles that contain these keywords. You then go through each of these posts and assess whether this person is a good fit for your coaching and whether they would benefit from your work. Then, you comment on a few of their posts with curiosity and encouragement, and maybe follow their account. This gets their attention and starts a conversation. If the conversation seems to be going well, you send them a direct message with something of value to them - maybe a PDF on creative blocks that includes an invitation to a discovery call with you. If you handled the conversation well, and if your PDF is targeted to that person’s needs and challenges, then you will get a return on investment (both financially and interpersonally) that is much higher than social media content creation alone.

Here’s what works well in such an approach:

• Time saved. Far less time-consuming than hours and hours spent on content creation.

• Values-aligned. You choose with whom you engage as well as the energy you bring to the conversation.

• More targeted. You find exactly the people who need what you do, rather than spraying and praying.

• More customized. You’re sending messages to this particular human, rather than using templates that feel impersonal.

• Leads to human connection. Since you’re engaging in real conversations, both you and the person you’re reaching out to enjoy a more genuine and connected interaction.

• Converts better. Industry research clearly shows that warm (even lukewarm) connections convert at much higher rates than cold ones.

Part 4: Technology In Service of Human Connection

Here’s the big lesson for today. Conscious outreach does not eschew marketing or technology like social media, AI, or automation. It just does it by mixing higher-order values (like authenticity and connection) with a pragmatic and creative use of the tools we now have.

In other words, you use technology to go beyond the values that created the technology. Instagram was meant for volume and virality, not for the kind of use I suggested above. But by using Instagram on your own terms, you get the best of both worlds: greater reach and more human connection, combination that leads to greater sales and a more fulfilling practice.

Here’s your homework: Find three people on Instagram whose mission resonates with yours and leave genuine comments on their posts - no pitch, just connection. Then follow the strategy outlined above and see what happens!

Don’t let years pass watching less-qualified practitioners use click-bait to thrive while your gifts stay hidden because you refused to compromise. Instead, own the values that made you great at what you do and use the technology we now have to find the people who need you!

Overflow is the world’s first AI-powered outreach system built specifically for conscious entrepreneurs. With it, you can turn Instagram into a precision system for finding aligned clients without spending hours a week creating content, resorting to salesy tactics, or paying for ads.

Start your free 30-day trial at OverflowThrive.com (coming in mid-December 2025!)