The strange blend of selling stuff and being stuff.

A brief tale about getting my toes wet in marketing

Alright, check this out.

About a week or so ago I started getting into an email marketing class, because, and I don't know if you know this, but I do love my job and I do want to do well at it. Email is still a major currency in the world of business so I figured it would be a good investment to actually learn something about this thing I'd been saying was hot garbage for ages.

And just so we're clear: the curriculum and the people I've met and talked to, they're great. Love them. They've been welcoming and kind and friendly. Even the skeevy ones who straight up tried convince me ditch this thing I just joined and join their marketing "trainings" instead were nice until the sales pitch came out.

But it is weird.

Imagine putting on a sweater that fits but it's made out of material you don't make sweaters out of. Like wax or aluminum foil. That's what this stuff feels like to me.

Because holy shit on a crackers, everyone's selling something. Everybody's doing that thing where they say they want to connect with people, but only to the point where people open their wallets. I'd love to connect with wallets, but I still like the whole person too.

Let's put aside the bougie centrist mayonnaise of all the scripted language and the hype machine of emails all about click rates and openings and funnels for a second. At the end of the day you tell stories. And you turn those stories into books and then you sell those books to people.

The story comes first. It's creative. It's art. It's this wild-space of who-knows-what-going-to-who-knows-where and that is not the experience of all the people selling classes and products and trainings and consultancies.

And this marketing world doesn't want story, they want "a story" optimized for maximum marketing engagement, to make numbers go up, and we're right back to connecting just to the wallets and no further.

I'm struggling with this. I don't want to. I don’t want to struggle with this. I understand on some intellectual level that I will, because it’s new to me, and struggling with new things is normal. But past the John-doesn’t-know-this part, I’m left here sitting with feelings like these:

1. Do these people know how many people don’t have $300 to their name and can’t feed their families on the regular?
2. They know there’s still an airborne pandemic just flying around massively affecting people and we no longer talk about it because it’s not social media friendly?
3. Isn’t it kinda bullshit to tell people you want to connect and that you care about them, but your demonstration of caring involves them opening their wallet?

Is there some gene they’ve got that I don’t have? Because I can do marketing, I can tell you about the appointments you can make, I can tell you that I’ll edit your book, I can tell you that I think every single one of you reading this is good enough now and can get better later at writing a book that goes out into the world.

But I’m swimming in these waters of content-creation, which is something I feel a little dirtier every time I hear, where I’m supposed to be writing a ton of stuff and selling you a lot and somehow also helping you while also somehow having enough money to pay hundreds of dollars a month to a platform so I can turn the class I teach in bits and pieces in Zoom calls and in short messages into a big class where I have all this material nice, neat, and pretty.

I’m supposed to be doing that. That’s the undertow taking me out to commercial waters.

People who I’ve asked about this commerce-and-art balance for the most part report making art and applying some version of the philosophy “if it sells, it sells”, which is great, but I an’t help but notice that some of the people with this attitude, myself included, aren’t exactly swimming around in a money vault.

Maybe I’m doing a poor job of describing this. Maybe I’m just rambling all my early morning thoughts because I need someone to tell me I’m not losing my mind or I’m not alone in feeling like you have to lose a little of yourself to sell what you make with the ferocity you’re allegedly supposed to have.

So here’s my question: Did you go through this? Are you currently going through this? Does this make any sense to you? How do you still be a person, an artist, and still capitalism good?

That’s where my head is at. I’d love to know where yours is.

Love you. Talk soon.