I went into a shop the other day and was guided through to a purchase by the store owner. Just as I was handing over my credit card I asked if the product came with batteries. To my great surprise  the store owner snatched the product off me, threw my credit card on the floor, grabbed me by the  wrist and shut me out the door shouting “and don’t come back!” . Hard to believe? Well it wasn’t a real bricks and mortar store, it happened online.  I’m still coming to terms with why I was treated so shabbily.

One of the realities of being a performing artist is that you have to spend just as much time, if not more, telling people about your art than you do creating it, that is, if you want to be making some kind of living from it. In the last year I’ve come to the conclusion that I cannot rely on DIY marketing alone. Just like the professionals that I pay to help me with graphic design, website programming, music recording and filming, I need professional help to make my creative services for Christian ministry visible.

So the past six months I’ve been following a very popular marketing blog in the UK. I came across it during an internet search and decided after some months of randomly checking in to this guy’s blog, to subscribe and receive regular posts. The posts I enjoyed as they often made good sense and cleverly gave enough interesting information away while creating a thirst for using this man’s services. I wasn’t gullible I read and considered hiring this guy’s services based on the quality of his thinking and how he presented himself.  In time I began to trust ‘the voice’ and I decided to contact him and request his fixed price 90 minute Skype session.  There was long term committment, just a one off charge, so I didn’t feel it was a huge risk.

Several e-mails went back and forth, with the nine hour time difference it was a little tricky finding a time that was suitable for both of us, and invoice was sent and just before I went to pay one hour later, the guy sends me a rude and abrupt e-mail saying that he was no longer interested and I should seek help elsewhere. He complained that I had wasted too much of his time.  Ouch.

When I showed my wife what had happened she said, ‘you cannot know what has gone on in this man’s life in the past day to make him do this. Let it go, there’s nothing you could have done.’ She makes sense but I can’t let go of the fact that I am made to feel like it is my fault. When it isn’t.

She’s probably right. Maybe his wife made him a really bad coffee. Or more likely, I’ve come in after three or four other people have stuffed him around, only I’m the one to absorb all his frustration.

What did I learn from this? A very old fashion lesson actually:

Buyer beware: People project an ideal version of themselves on the internet

People are less likely to live up to the hype about themselves especially when you consider that this guy’s services are intertwined with the skills of marketing plus the busyness and  pride that comes with being a kind of internet celebrity.

I was devastated. In one sentence he effectively undermined everything I’ve learned from him through his blogs in the past six months, such as:

-marketing is all about people so treat others the way you want to be treated

-make your service remarkable so that others talk about you

-everything you do is marketing

Yeah, “Mr. Marketing genius” you really overwhelmed me with your service and gave me a great story that I’m sure I’ll be telling people about for the next 10 or 15 years to come!!

Shock and anger pulsed through me:  ‘if only I was a big celebrity and I had a twitter account with millions of followers I could give this guy a real marketing headache’.

We can talk about how great we are at our business, but rarely do we live up to our own hype.

What does it mean if you are reading this blog? What does it mean for my services? Can you believe the hype?

Walking the talk

The Scripture says, “Watch your life and doctrine closely”.  In other words make sure that your walk reflects your talk.

We are all frail human beings. It’s easy to talk, much harder to walk the talk.  We all fail. So we do need to be gracious with each other and I need to be gracious with this man, even though he has hurt me.

At least this guy wasn’t a Christian. In fact I kind of rejoice at the knock back because as a follower of Christ, I was treated the way I expect to be treated from the world. I was initially pleasantly surprised this guy was willing to use his expert skills to help the furtherance of the gospel. When he spat in my face and threw me out the door I couldn’t help but perversely think, ‘yeah, that’s more like it!’

It hurts but doesn’t hurt as much as when your own Christian brothers and sisters do it to you. But I am nonetheless, feeling mauled and bruised. I’m left looking to Jesus. He's the only one to always walk the talk. We all need him. We all fail to live up to the image of God we bear. We all fail to treat others as we should. We all need to know his perfect love for us when others fail us so badly.

Celebrities will often let us down. They can’t possibly live up to everyone’s expectations. But I still can’t figure this guy out or see anything I could do differently that would have altered how things turned out. I chose a celebrity marketing expert and I got treated like a dog turd. Classic celebrity brush. What was I thinking? I was thinking very un-Australianly that my art was worth this guy’s time. I’m proud of that. I was going for broke.