You're Not Bad at Marketing. You're Just Telling the Wrong Story.

One of the most consistent themes that comes up in my coaching sessions is a deep-seated revulsion towards marketing. I don't use that word lightly. The moment the word leaves my mouth, I can see it — a subtle shift in body language, a slight wince, an almost physical recoil. Dread is the only word for it.

What's interesting is that when we start to explore this reaction at a deeper level, it's rarely simple. A few distinct threads tend to emerge, and they're worth unpacking one by one.

Perception: "That's not what I do"

The first thing many creatives do when the subject of marketing comes up is distance themselves from it — and honestly, given what they associate with the word, that's completely understandable. When I ask what marketing means to them, they're not thinking about connecting with an audience or telling their story. They're thinking about the hard sell. The relentless reel makers on TikTok and Instagram making wildly overconfident claims. My own instagram feed constantly bombards me with coaches promising six-figure salaries within a year if you just enrol on their £997 course.

Do even a small amount of due diligence and the claims fall apart. But that's not really the point — the strategy works by sheer volume and repetition. Somebody, somewhere, will buy in. It's not quite a scam, but it operates on a similar principle: keep pushing the message and eventually someone will believe it, but it doesn’t mean its a strategy for you nor does it mean it will sit comfortably with your values.

The problem is that this kind of marketing is entirely the wrong model for a maker whose work is rooted in authenticity, craft, and the value of the individual piece.

Belief: "I'm not a marketer, I'm a maker"

Perception shapes belief, and belief is where the dread really takes hold. Many creatives see marketing as a separate discipline — a field they haven't trained in, don't belong in, and would outsource immediately if they could afford to. They trained to throw pots, make films, design interiors, write fiction. Marketing feels like something bolted on from outside their world.

The irony is that when creatives do outsource their marketing, they're often disappointed. The feedback I hear repeatedly is that it loses something — a quality of voice, a sense of identity. They end up checking every piece of content before it goes out, which defeats the puropse of contracting it in the first place. A personal brand is precisely that: personal. It's hard to hand the reins to someone else and still feel like it sounds like you. No agency, however skilled, has lived your creative journey or personal stories.

Skills: The rabbit hole of tools

There's also a practical anxiety around skills that quietly drains a lot of energy. Scroll through Instagram reels and you'll encounter a staggering array of editing software, effects tools, and AI-powered features that can make someone's social presence look like a minor film production. It's impressive, but its also makes you feel completely overwhelmed.

I've watched clients disappear down this rabbit hole — spending hours at a desk learning software they didn't ask to learn, when what they actually wanted was to be in the studio. The question I find useful to reflect back is: how much of your time do you actually want to dedicate to developing technical marketing skills? What's the genuine added value for your business, and what would you be better off prioritising? There's no universal answer, but asking the question out loud tends to cut through.

The thing that actually works: authenticity

All of the above matters, but here's the point I come back to again and again. The most successful creatives I know — the ones who seem to have marketing genuinely figured out — are the ones who lead with their stories. Not polished, sanitised, carefully branded stories. Real ones. The commissions that went sideways. The period where they couldn't make anything they liked. The moment something clicked and changed how they work. Humans relate to failure and things that go pear shaped as much as the successes and the big wins.

Think about the films that stay with you. Almost always, it's the true stories — the ones where you recognise something human and honest, without embellishment or performance. That's what people respond to, and it's exactly what makers have access to in abundance.

If you can weave that authentic story into content that also plays to algorithms, or SEO, or whatever platform you're using — brilliant. But even without any of that, a genuine story told simply will always outperform slick content with nothing underneath it and baseless claims.

You don't need fancy software. You don't need to invent a persona or exaggerate your success. Start with what's real, keep it consistent, and resist the urge to compare your approach to someone else's. If another creator's marketing catches your attention, ask yourself what it is about it that hits a note with you — and whether that quality is something you could bring to your own story, in your own way.

Make a short list. Pick one thing. Start there. Find out more about my coaching packages here or make a booking for a free discovery call.