In the world of beige marketing, be the colourful splash!
Sorry to pick on Athens like this but I did used to live there!
Over the course of about 7 years, I would often fly backwards and forwards between Athens and London. The landing and arrival in each place would always hit me no matter how many times I did it.
It was the contradiction of each place which got me the most.
Let me explain.
Flying into Heathrow, there would be massive areas of bright green fields and parks. This was broken up with the cobolt blue of racing rivers and static reservoirs. Glints of sunlight splashed onto greenhouses and glass buildings. A sprinkling of colourful cherry blossom on tree lined streets or large flower beds brought joy to the eye.
The shock of the return to Athens!
The beautiful azure sea danced with the sun and tempted with its cool beauty. But sadly, Athens loomed ahead in all it’s bland beigeness. The mountains were scorched pale dirt with nothing but the black stumps of charcoal trunks burned down by the relentlessly destructive forest fires.
Creamy brown marble was constantly being dragged out of the mountains and it was ever present on pavements, buildings and monumental structures.
The buildings were many tones of beige, crammed in together as if vying for space. They were higgledy piggledy and haphazardly grouped in the absence of any real planning strategy. Grey roads wrapped themselves around the blocks tightly, holding them in.
Indeed, the bland landscape bored the eye after the strong colour of the nourished ground of England.
But once landed, a different picture emerged. The Athenians are in no way beige! They are not bland in any sense of the word. They wear beautifully coutured clothing with splashes of extreme colour. They are a loud and vivacious people with a massive zest for life. Athenians are strong willed, highly political, vocal and colourful characters.
The aerial view belied the high energy, teeming streets and buzzing cafes of Athens.
And this dichotomy makes me think about how we present our business to the world.
I have yet to meet a beige Osteopath!
I know you have a terrific character. I know that you have a passion for your work. I know that you love a knotty problem to unravel and fix. I know that you don’t really do this for the money but much more for the love of it!
So why is your marketing more bland than bright? Why is your passion hidden beneath a ‘safe’ list of conditions when that is not your only skill? Why does your message undersell your incredible abilities?
As I often say, there is no shame in a person going to an Osteopath for help with a painful problem. And equally there is no shame in getting help from a Business Coach to create a desired shift.
I wouldn’t be where I am today without my own Coach and yesterday she gave me a bit of a kicking!
You see I’m closing the doors on my new course Osteobiz Success Formula and I recorded a video explaining more about it. But when she saw it, she sent me a stern message. She demanded that I do it again because she saw no discernible Gilly pizzazz! She felt I had played safe, not shown my character or my passion or my excitement at closing the doors on Good Friday and getting stuck into helping my group.
When I looked at it again, I could see what she meant. Despite my lime green jacket, I had managed to appear beige, bland and utterly vanilla!
So where are you being outwardly more Athens than London? Where could you inject your fabulous character so that you get the attention of your potential new patients?
In the land of beige, the scarlet poppy will stand out just as in the noisy world we live in a striking image, a fresh message or an astounding idea will focus our attention.
How will you stand out today? How will you verbalise your skills so that people in pain hear you?
Because we both know that you change people’s worlds on a daily basis.
And there really should be a festival of fabulous fireworks to celebrate.
