I like to boil things down to basics when I face a new challenge. Like the challenge of entering a new market with my writing.

I don’t mean the writing part is a challenge, because I love the creative, but the marketing part: deciding on the audiences I want to reach and how to present my product in a fresh and unforgettable way. New techniques and formats aren’t comfortable for me until I have mastered them and then it’s a rush and I can’t get enough. But how else would we grow if we didn’t get out of our comfort zone?

This  angst came into clearer perspective recently when my photographer friend John Slemp ( http://www.johnslemp.com ) from Freelance Forum ( http://www.freelanceforum.org ) showed me the draft of a press release he was writing about a nonprofit initiative he’d taken part in. 

“It’s really good!” I told him. 

“Really?” he asked. 

“Really!” I said. “Don’t you believe me?” I asked, because I meant it. His heart was in the right place to take part in the event to begin with and I felt he was selling himself in just the right way.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, but then he grew thoughtful as he told me about being raised as an Army brat and how self-promotion was something you didn’t do. I knew what he was talking about because, as a preacher’s kid, I grew up with the same teachings: bring out the other person; don’t elevate yourself.  

I thought about my Spanish language tutor, Juan, who used to tell me how well his education in Colombia prepared him for corporate America because teachers required students to work on projects in a team, just like the software development team he found himself part of when he emigrated to the States. Why was it easier for him to picture himself as a natural team player? How did his school experience groom him so well? I’m sure he had the same collegial, team atmosphere at home, too.

So was it the words that I heard at home, ”Put others first,”  that had become my stumbling block? I’m glad my parents taught me to think of others because it helped me develop empathy but why did I find this at odds with what I picked up from school – “Be a team player” – and what I got everywhere else - ”Sell yourself.”

I don’t know why but I do know that marketing my services and products was a mysterious and foreign thing to me when I went into freelancing, strange in that I had become experienced in both business sales and nonprofit advocacy. But for anyone choosing the freelancing and entrepreneurial route, standing back is not an option. Self-employed folks, like big conglomerates, have to build their networks one on one – with one another, with companies and with nonprofits. Marketing one’s self is key to building connections, regardless of the environment or what one chooses to call it.

So whenever I feel lead feet, the method I use to trick myself into thinking that marketing is no big deal comes from my fund-raising background. I was coached by the legendary Be Haas, whose word ten years after her death is still gospel in business, fundraising and volunteerism. When she trained a group of us who had graduated from women’s colleges to raise funds for Spelman College ( http://www.spelman.edu ), she used to say over and over, ”Fundraising is friend-raising.”

That’s all. Nothing complicated to strategize about. When we asked for a donation, we were not only selling a program and a product, we were also building a relationship and making a friend for that institution, and for each talented and deserving student.

The common thread that runs through fundraising, marketing, sales, and PR is relationship-building, friend-raising, making connections. Just doing it simply and naturally, without apology or discomfort or guilt. Offering a service, not asking for a handout.

The part we don’t think about is how our efforts could truly help another individual. Sure, our goal is to inform and to invite prospects on board so we can build partnerships but the core goal should be to create a relationship with integrity.

If the process is genuine and dynamic and the fragility of the connection we are creating is respected, the outcome becomes strong and mutually beneficial. It’s not easy; it’s taken me years to learn this. Friend-raising is not about moving someone from our prospect list to our client list; relationships take constant tending. They are not hit and run and they are never guaranteed; merely adventures filled with possibility, enabling and mutual understanding.

So now I to hop to the meeting and greeting, to the helping, serving, guiding, and learning by working from the inside out; concentrating on what I can contribute rather than adding a new persona or facade that doesn’t fit.

It’s taken me longer, however, to face and combat an even more basic reason for my hesitancy – the destructive voices that have been in my head since childhood. They came from parents who didn’t say I shouldn’t market myself but rather that there wasn’t much to market, and that I always did things wrong. I heard their nagging when I first started writing, “You’re not experienced or talented enough,” but I persevered. It helps being competitive because it makes me want to prove the speakers wrong.

I’m learning how to overwrite those tapes with new ones that I create. I center myself through meditation and yoga, by eating less sugar (except for chocolate!) and more green vegetables, and getting enough exercise, sunlight and magnesium. It’s not easy but nothing worthwhile is. 

Every time I make the effort to meet new people, I think about the relationship and how I can help that person achieve their goals. Not how that person could help me through laborious tasks such as revitalizing a web site or expanding my newsletter base. Things fall into place when I work from my heart, my beliefs and my experience, and when I determine which direction I want my marketing to take me. 

Our marketing goal should be to set ourselves apart from one another, not above. And the only difference in our efforts and someone else’s is how authentically we present our unique talent. It’s important to place our individual stamp on who we are and claim ownership for all we have achieved and all we intend to do because it is good.

Really!