How to Market Yourself in Times of Crisis

With the heart-breaking stories and images from Ukraine, it’s hard to know what to do for the best when it comes to promoting your holistic business. How on earth do you navigate marketing yourself when there’s so much injustice happening?

So many practitioners are struggling with what to do - and there’s no right answer. You care deeply but you also need to earn a living. You have a responsibility to yourself and your clients to keep going and maintain as much stability as possible during these times.

Start with calm

It’s important to look after yourself first. By managing your stress levels and maintaining your ability to keep calm, you’ll be fully available and ready to help your clients. Calm is especially important if you need to make decisions about your business and how you market yourself as it will help you to think clearly and creatively.

Book time in your diary for your favourite stress-busting technique or activities whether that’s meditating, getting out in nature, or doing some art - do whatever it takes to calm and ground yourself.

Your circle of influence

Imagine you have an inner circle which is your ‘circle of influence’. Those things would include anything that you have the power to influence directly: what you do, how you feel, your responses to situations, your productivity etc.

Now imagine you have an outer circle which is your ‘circle of concern’. These are the things that are outside of your circle of influence but, includes everything that concerns you from the global pandemic to Ukraine, and things nearer home like family members, or clients. These are the things where your choice is, over how you react and respond to them, rather than being able to directly influence them.

People often focus, on their circle of concern and much of their time and energy is taken up worrying about things that they have limited ability to change. This is where they become reactive to things that are happening around them.

If you focus on your circle of influence and consider the things you can influence directly, you’ll be far more effective. Work out what you can do personally, that will make the biggest difference, and break it down into simple steps that you can take one by one.

For more on the circle of influence, check out ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ by Stephen R Covey.

Review your current situation

How is what’s happening in the crisis affecting you and/or your clients? Do you need to make any alterations to your services, or to your marketing to ensure they’re appropriate? This can be anything from reviewing your suppliers, to tailoring your communications.

You may find that although clients still need your services, they’ll want to know you’re sensitive to the current climate. Withdrawing and not doing any marketing is as bad as totally ignoring the crisis and continuing to market yourself as if nothing happened.

Remind yourself of your values and purpose – remember what your business stands for and why it’s so important to you. This will help you to communicate in a way that represents you and feels authentic and filled with integrity.

Aligned action

Avoid empty gestures as people will see straight through these. Instead, consider your values and your purpose and look at how you can honour them. Look at your circle of influence and decide where you can make the biggest difference with the time and resources you have available.

You don’t need to make big public gestures to make a difference, local events can provide you with the opportunity to help, such as local fundraisers organised within your community or providing supplies at a drop off point.

Continue to market yourself and focus on being helpful to your clients. Before you share anything, sense check it to ensure it fits with your values and stop anything that may be received as insensitive or inappropriate.

No perfect answer

It’s a balancing act and there is no right answer, as to what to do as a response to a crisis. Make sure any decisions you make support your values and your clients but, that importantly, also work to the resources and time you have available within your business.

If you're struggling with this, book a discovery call and find out how I can help you.