Why Marketing Feels Like Pushing (And How to Make It Feel Like Connection)
Lessons from Shakespeare in Love on why the safe path isn't always the sustainable one
Marketing.
Even the word can feel heavy, can't it? Like it requires you to be someone you're not.
If you've built something valuable and put it out there, but not enough people are booking calls or buying, the missing piece might not be what you think it is. It's not that your offer isn't good enough. It's not that you lack experience or credentials. It's usually not even about your strategy or your website setup.
What I notice time and again is that when marketing feels hard, it's because the foundation underneath isn't quite solid yet … the connection between what genuinely moves you, who you're really here to serve, and how that translates into words and presence that helps people find you.
There's a moment in Shakespeare in Love where the Queen challenges Viola with a question: can a play show people the essence of true love? The Queen says no - it's all performance and artifice. Viola says yes, when it comes from truth.
The same question sits at the heart of your marketing: can it show people who you really are and what you genuinely care about? Or will it always feel like performance?
When someone books a call, it's like a door opens.
When Will (Joseph Fiennes) first sees Viola (Gwyneth Paltrow) at the ball - masked, unknown, but immediately there's this sense that something special is about to unfold.
That's how these calls feel to me. I'm curious about what will emerge, what their dream is, what stories are waiting to emerge. So when someone found me on Google recently and booked a call, I was genuinely looking forward to the conversation.
She had big ambitions. She and her business partner wanted to replace their six-figure corporate salaries within three years. They'd got a few clients initially, but then the ads stopped working. Thousands of dollars spent with nothing to show for it anymore. Now they wanted to create a course, build a network, bring all the pieces together. She'd heard about my Barefoot Businesswomen's Network (which vibed with her introversion), my on-camera confidence training, my marketing and course development background. She'd decided she was going to work with me.
As we talked, though, something shifted in my awareness.
This business felt born more from a desire to escape corporate than from genuine passion for the work itself. Good at it? Yes. Purpose-driven? Well, that depends on your definition.
I recognise that pattern because I see it show up in different ways:
Escaping the structure and expectations of corporate or traditional work, but not yet clear on what they're building towards
Escaping who they used to be before menopause shifted everything, wanting their business to reflect who they're becoming but not quite there yet
Escaping the mask they wore before that late ADHD or autism diagnosis, trying to build a business that fits their actual wiring but unsure what that looks like
Wanting freedom and autonomy (escape from being controlled or performing) but haven't defined what that freedom is for
Knowing what drains them but less clear on what genuinely energises them
Building a business that looks successful on paper but doesn't actually light them up day-to-day
Focusing on the business mechanics (strategy, funnels, offers) to avoid the scarier work of "what do I actually stand for now?"
None of these desires are wrong. But there's a difference between building away from something and building towards something that genuinely lights you up.
In my experience, when people have a deep emotional connection to their purpose, their marketing evolves with effervescence and energy. It's not purely cerebral. It's about connection to something bigger.
When your marketing isn't working, or your programmes aren't being created with clarity and confidence and ease, the answer isn't usually more tactics.
What brand foundations actually means
My recommendation was to focus on brand foundations first. And I don't mean the box-ticking process of creating an ideal client avatar called Jill, designing a funnel, and getting AI to write copy for a WordPress template.
The business foundations that matter are in the personal connection to purpose.
The space you can see isn't being tended to.
The experience people are having that you know you can mend.
The life you want to create for yourself by doing work with people you relate to and care about, so it lights you up to get out of bed every day.
Then converting that felt sense into an identity you know in your bones, which inspires messaging that resonates so deeply that clients find you rather than you doing the chasing.
A 1:1 session wasn't going to magic up her message. There's internal work to be done first. Personal connection and truth-finding work.
I tried to think my way through this once
I remember going through this process of reinventing my own business back in 2014. I'd been a video producer and director, working with CEOs and marketing directors of large corporations. I'd left the agency world and done work I was genuinely proud of - museums, environmental documentaries, Al Gore's Climate Reality Project, Serena Williams for Black History Month. But I knew I needed to find a different focus, something that felt more aligned.
I wanted to work with women closer to home, closer to my lived experience of being neurodivergent, women who had the potential to make a difference like nobody else can. At the time, trying to figure out how to refocus all my diverse skills and passions felt like a cerebral exercise - analysing my experience, identifying market gaps, building a logical case for what I should offer. It took me years to break through my own fears and biases and assumptions.
I stood on the precipice of the unknown, trying to make sense of it with logic and strategy.
Ultimately, the breakthrough didn't come from more analysis.
It came from finally trusting myself - who I actually am,
what I'm really here for,
what I'm genuinely good at,
where I see a deep gap that lights me up to fill.
The Barefoot identity didn't come to me as a logical process but a genuine reflection of my values and ways of being that resonated with the women I feel called to elevate. It's based on that foundation of being real and grounded and free of the rules.
It wasn't about logic. It was about self-knowing and trust.
That's when my marketing could finally show people the essence of what I cared about. Not a polished performance of what I thought a business coach should be, but the truth of who I am and who I'm here to serve.
This client wasn't ready for that foundational work, though she was still keen on the 1:1. I had to set some expectations about what I thought the priorities for that call would be, because I can't conjure up a message she can run with after an hour of exploration when the foundational clarity isn’t in place. So much more goes into bringing a creative and compassionate woman entrepreneur's brand story to life.
She hasn't booked that call yet. And I understand - when you're still in that phase of developing a business from a logical framework, it's hard to feel ready for work that sounds intangible and internal. The foundation piece doesn't make sense until you've already experienced how exhausting it is to market without it. Maybe she'll circle back when the time feels right, and I'll be here. Or maybe she'll find her way through a different path, and that's okay too.
The dream you can see but don't know how to reach
There's a pivotal moment near the end of Shakespeare in Love when everything hangs in the balance. Viola is already married to Lord Wessex by this point, but she sneaks away to watch Romeo and Juliet being performed at the Curtain theatre. Backstage, disaster strikes - the boy playing Juliet is going through a voice change. His voice is too deep. There's no Juliet.
Viola has a choice: stay hidden in the audience where it's safe, or step onto that stage and play the role herself.
She steps onto the stage.
This time, she's not disguised as Thomas Kent. She's playing a woman as a woman. Fully visible. Fully herself. It breaks every rule - women aren't allowed to perform on stage. She's risking everything: her reputation, her marriage, her future.
But the performance is magnificent. The public loves it. Even the Queen, somehow present despite her gigantic dress, declares that Will Shakespeare has finally portrayed true love.
The thing that makes this moment possible isn't technique or strategy. It's trusting what genuinely moves her enough to risk being fully seen, even when the safer choice would be to stay hidden.
You can have all the ambition in the world, but if you're building from a place of escape rather than genuine desire, you'll always be performing someone else's version of success.
When "if we build it, they will come" becomes a trap
It's easy to believe that creating a course and running ads will naturally lead to clients and income. The formula looks simple on paper: identify a problem, create a solution, market it to the right people, watch the money roll in.
But who are "they"? How well do you actually know their lived experience, their frustrations, their desires, the voice in their head at 2am? Can you speak to that authentically, and more importantly, do you genuinely care? Can you craft a presence that helps them find you and then feel truly seen? Can they trust that you see and understand them specifically, not just as another avatar in your funnel?
That's what it's all about, fundamentally.
The corporate playbook doesn't translate to building a business that's genuinely yours.
It can't tell you why you're doing this beyond escaping what you don't want.
It won't help you connect with people who need what only you can offer.
And it definitely won't sustain you through the inevitable moments when things get hard and you question everything.
What happens when the foundation is solid
When you've done the internal work, when your business is built on genuine connection to purpose rather than escape from something else, everything shifts.
Your marketing stops feeling like pushing a boulder uphill.
You're not constantly second-guessing your message because it comes from a place of truth.
When you sit down to create content, you're not staring at a blank screen wondering what to say.
You know what matters to you.
You know who you're speaking to and why.
You can feel when something's right.
Course creation becomes clearer because you're not trying to reverse-engineer what you think people want to buy.
You're sharing wisdom you genuinely care about with people you understand deeply.
The structure emerges from your authentic teaching style rather than forcing yourself into someone else's formula.
And here's the thing that sounds almost too simple to be true: clients actually do find you.
Not because you've cracked some algorithm or perfected your funnel, but because your presence online and in person reflects something real. People sense it. They feel seen by your message before they've even spoken to you.
Like Viola eventually proves to the Queen, when the performance of Romeo and Juliet moves everyone because it IS true love being expressed, your marketing resonates not because you've perfected the formula, but because people sense the truth in it.
The courage to do the deeper work
If you're reading this and something's stirring in your chest, that uncomfortable recognition that you might be building from escape rather than genuine desire, I want you to know: you're not alone in this realisation, and it's not too late to change direction.
The foundational work I'm talking about isn't a weekend workshop or a fill-in-the-blanks workbook. It's an ongoing practice of tuning into your truth. What actually lights you up? Who do you genuinely want to serve? What space in the world needs tending that you can see clearly? What life do you want to create for yourself through your work?
These aren't abstract questions. They have real, specific answers that live in your body, in your emotional responses, in the moments when you feel most alive and most yourself.
When you know these answers, everything else becomes easier. Not easy, but easier. Your message becomes clear. Your ideal clients reveal themselves. Your marketing feels more like invitation than persuasion. Your courses and programmes flow from genuine understanding rather than guesswork.
You can't shortcut your way to a message that resonates.
If you're ready to trust something deeper
Maybe you've been running ads that aren't converting. Maybe you've started and stopped creating that course three times because you can't quite land on what it should be. Maybe your marketing feels exhausting, like you're constantly performing a version of yourself that doesn't quite fit.
If you're ready to do this foundational work, I'd love to explore how I can support you. Book a free call and let's discover what approach feels right for where you are now.
Book a free exploration call here
And if you're in Melbourne (or willing to travel), I'm launching Barefoot Marketing School in February 2026 - 8 weeks in person in Northcote to do this work together in a small, supportive circle. Sessions will also be available as a private podcast with workbook for those joining online.
Learn more about Barefoot Marketing School
Your business deserves to be built on truth, not escape. And you deserve to wake up every day genuinely excited about the work you're doing and the people you're serving.
