Show Notes
Have you ever heard of the Gentle Business Revolution?In this episode, Driven Female Entrepreneurs Podcast I speak with Sarah Santacroce, an inspiring entrepreneur, who introduces a different way of leading a business and a more meaningful approaching to marketing.
I first met Sarah about a decade ago when we were both in the early stages of building our own businesses.
At that time, Sarah was a leading LinkedIn Consultant, and I really connected with her approach. It was all about building clarity, sharing value and creating connections, which deeply resonated with me as I strongly believe that this is the role of marketing.
I love how she has now taken this approach a step further to start a movement!
I know you're going to take a lot of value away from this episode, so have your pen and paper handy!
DOWNLOAD YOUR LISTENER GIFT>> How to Market your Business (without Breaking the Bank) eBook <<
Highlights
- Find out who Sarah Santacroce is and how she came up with Gentle Marketing.
- Discover what Gentle Marketing is and if it is the right marketing approach for you.
- Learn how you can bring the human connection back into your marketing.
- Discover how to serve without the pushy sales.
- Break away from what you think you should be doing and embrace the pace that you are setting for yourself and business.
- Find out how you can increase confidence and lessen anxiety in order to be in a better state to influence people.
Expanded Highlights
Could you just give us some insight into to how you started your business and how you came over those initial fears and doubts that we all have in the early days?
[00:05:07] Sarah: Like what Simon Sinek said, “start with the why”. Well, you know, starting with just you need a job because you are now in a different country, maybe not the best why. And so, for the longest time, or when I was on my search for my why, I thought, well, maybe I just don't have a why or my why is outside of my business until I kind of took this bird's eye view.You know sometimes when we're too much into something and we're kind of finding a solution to this problem, which I thought was a problem that I don't have a ‘why’. I was taking the bird's eye view and I'm like, well, actually what I'm here to do in business, and I never called it gentle business or gentle marketing before.That's always what I've been teaching on LinkedIn is like, how do you bring the human connection back to marketing? How do you serve your clients instead of doing the pushy sales? And so that's when I realized, Oh , that's my why. I need to bring more empathy and kindness to the business world. So that's how that all came about.
I often think that if we focus too much on having to find our Why, then we just get stuck with that and it actually doesn't allow the space for our purpose to come and find us. - Sarah Santacroce
Melitta: I think that's so true. Some have a clear passion when starting out while for others it takes time to find. I love the quote: "Nobody starts out in business as an entrepreneur. It's what you become in the process of figuring things out, making mistakes". In reality, you just have to get in there, roll up your sleeves and do something, and then grow from there. In my first business, I did this and realised at one point, Oh, that's not what I actually enjoy, it's not my passion.Sarah: Yeah, I love this. I don't know if you've ever seen this video about Liz Elizabeth Gilbert talking about finding your passion or your why.She says that there's two kinds of people. One is like a jackhammer, and that's the one that already found the passion in there, like going deeper and deeper into that passion. Then the other one, which seems closer to our journey, is like the Hummingbird, it goes from flower to flower to flower, and it kind of gets on this path and it's only looking backwards that you're like, Oh wow, I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. It just took that journey to get there.
“Sometimes we feel we're going back and forwards, but then we realise: Oh wow, I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. It just took that journey to get there.” Sarah Santacroce
Can you tell us a little bit more about how you see business and marketing.
[00:15:05] Sarah: So you know that is a big starting point is getting rid of all the should’s. My vision really is really bringing more of this empathy and kindness to the business world. And the way I think I can make a small difference is by showing people that we don't need to use fear and manipulation in marketing.What I bring with gentle marketing is help for people, at least on the business level, to increase their confidence and lower their anxiety. They can then use that better state to influence other people in positive ways.
Melitta: I love that. And we were talking just before we went live about the importance of confidence, and it's really the biggest thing that I see holding people back in business is a lack of confidence and feeling that they have to do what everyone else is telling them instead of listening to their own guidance system and doing what feels right. If your marketing isn't aligned to your passion and your business, what you're creating, it doesn't feel good for you and it doesn't feel good for the other person either.
If your marketing isn't aligned to your passion and your business, what you're creating doesn't feel good for you and it doesn't feel good for the other person either. - Melitta Campbell
Do you have any examples of marketing that is definitely not aligned with your gentle marketing concepts?
[00:23:34]Sarah: Yeah. I think it really starts by paying attention to your email inbox and noticing how you're being marketed to and how that feels. Some of these techniques, for example, are the cookie cutter approach, where someone will try to sell you their technique that has led them to millions of dollars, and basically they're sharing exactly how they did it. In a way, how they do this is almost making you feel bad that you're not there yet, and that it's so easy and it has worked for them. But it doesn't feel good.We're still helping our ideal clients to make the buying decision, because we still need to sell, but the difference is that instead of pushing them into the buying decision we're helping them along the process of the buying decision.That part of the Gentle Marketing approach brings more of you into your marketing so that you attract people like you. Because often if we look at our clients, our best clients that we love, they're very similar to us. They have similar values, similar world views. And so if we don't communicate who we are, how we see the world, what we care for, well then obviously, how are clients going toknow?“It's really your stories and your values, that attract the right kind of people to your business.”
It's really your stories and your values, that attract the right kind of people to your business. - Sarah Santacroce"
About Sarah Santacroce
Twelve years of running an online LinkedIn consulting business inspired a yearning in Sarah to create a global movement that encourages people to bring more empathy and kindness to business & marketing. She called it The Gentle Business Revolution™.
Besides a podcast with the same name, Sarah is currently working on a book to inspire heart-centered entrepreneurs to question their assumptions when it comes to marketing & give them permission to market their business their way!
When she’s not working, she loves adventure & traveling, yoga & nature walks or hanging out with her family.
Connect with Sarah
WebsiteLinkedInTwitterFacebookPodcast
Download: Sarah's One-page Gentle Marketing Plan
Read:Gentle Marketing Revolution, by Sarah Santacroce
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