Last week it was Marketing Deadbeats. Now it's Martyrs!

Honest, I'm not planning a series of eZine articles that focus on everything you are doing wrong about your marketing to make you feel bad about yourself. 

But this topic of being a marketing martyr or victim came up in a conversation last week with one of the members of the Marketing Mastery Group, Aly Pain. 

Aly had been struggling with some issues with her business partner. We worked on ways for her to take responsibility for well-being and balance in her life so that she would have both a less stressful time as a business coach and would also find more time to market her services. 

What she told me was that she realized she had been acting like a martyr which was only making things worse. This clear observation was the tipping point that turned her into a victor, not a victim.

The question is, how do you know you're being a martyr or victim? Here's are some indicators: 

1. You find yourself blaming someone or a group of people for something. It could be your prospects who are hard to pin down or an associate or partner who won't cooperate with you. 

2. You blame external conditions that you have no control over. Of course, there's the economy or overall business climate in your area. You complain a lot about these things. 

3. You blame yourself. It might be that you're not working hard enough or that you're procrastinating about marketing. You are your own victim if you keep beating up on yourself like this.

4. You resist suggestions for changes you could make. Looking from the eyes of a victim, you know your troubles, stress, etc. have nothing to do with you, so why should you change? 

5. In the advanced stages of victimhood, your feelings of hurt, being betrayed, or treated unfairly, amplify. Blame and frustration only accelerate until you are paralyzed. 

The funny things about martyrs or victims is that they feel they have a just or noble cause. And yet they feel powerless to do anything about the situation. This feeling of having a just cause and being unfairly treated becomes an obsession. 

Victims also know that, "Something out there needs to change before I can take any positive action." And until that happens, the only action you'll take is complaining, worrying, procrastinating, ad nauseum. 

Like my client, Aly, the way out of her martyrdom was first of all realizing that she was playing that role unconsciously. It really, honestly looked like it was someone else, not her that was responsible for her distress. 

As soon as she realized this (at a certain point, this may come as an insight.. "Wow, look what I've been doing!"), she was open to taking positive steps to change things. 

She's now talking to some clients and renegotiating their contracts; she switching to phone coaching with several clients so that she doesn't need to travel as much; and she's making new marketing agreements with her partner that work for both of them. 

She has stepped out of her martyr/victim role and is excited, motivated and back on track. 

When I told her I wanted to write an eZine article on this topic, she even said, "Go ahead and use my name. I have nothing to hide!" A martyr/victim would never say that!

The More Clients Bottom Line: If things aren't going well for you; if you're stuck, complaining and procrastinating, consider if you've unconsciously stepped into the martyr/victim role. If you have, how long are you going to identify with that role? When are you going to take your power back? 

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