What your 10-year old self can teach you about marketing

It was 1998 and once upon a time there was a boy... a boy with a dream.

He had the creative vision but lacked the strategy. So he employed his mom's video camera to set out to do just what he intuitively knew he needed to do: create content.

At first, he simply iterated the only format he knew: commercials.

(While I appreciate the catharsis this leads into by the end, I can't help but feel that it's a little... cringey?)

Yet cringey is how we can come off as full-grown adults, too, when we're trying to sell our real products. Especially if we find ourselves desperate.

(Note in the video, how I kept saying "please buy it because I'm poor and need money." Obviously as a 10 year old, that's what I understood: why would you sell something if you didn't desperately need money?

But I would also argue, that in one way or another, that scarcity was my psychological framework for making money until very recently.)

I was going to paste in some cold call DM sales pitches I've received on Twitter lately, but decided maybe it's not cool to call people out. But sometimes it feels like my 10 year old self shouting at me: BUY THIS NOW!

And we can't find fault in ourselves for this, or blame each other--after all, it's only natural we learn to sell from a culture that glorifies consumption and financial stressing.

I'm learning this through experience, just like many others. We get so fired up and passionate about what we are building that we forget a relationship needs to be built with our people before they'll take out their credit cards.

That's all I'll say on marketing. It's been one of the busiest weeks of my life activating this creation stuff as a business and I know these messages have a tendency to get long.

Have you ever found yourself marketing cringe? What did you learn from it? Let me know in a reply to this email!

Next time maybe we'll talk about the self-gratifying pleasures can be found in the editing room. For example, this same 10-year old LOVED making the credits for the beginning of movies (and bribing teachers too, apparently):

Getting Creator-ed

Speaking of having fun, I realized that my main purpose now is to encourage others to start creating. So it really simplifies the intention of my content: make it fun.

Podcasting & the Stars

Obviously I've learned some things about western astrology over the years.

But this week I learned that in Vedic Astrology (a much older practice), readings are done based on the CURRENT POSITION of the stars (not the Gregorian calendar dates).

So according to my guest Radha Home, perhaps that 10 year old boy is finally coming full circle with his video bonanzas. Here's a link to the episode on all the podcast apps: