Three: To Sell Ourselves is Female

What, exactly, is a brand, and why are we all trying to become one? While bestselling author Daniel Pink says that “to sell is human,” exactly what is it that women are selling?

In today’s episode, we examine why even feminist women end up objectifying themselves in the pursuit of the almighty dollar.

Transcript

Sarah Vance 0:00

We still don't get paid what I believe we're worth

Tiana Dodson 0:03

I had secretly been wanting to try health coaching

Carrie Ingoglia 0:06

women have been dropping out.

Andi Zeisler 0:08

Your body is the next frontier of liberation.

Stefani Ruper 0:12

You have to monetize.

Sarah Banet-Weiser 0:13

We buy into this idea that anyone can do this

Victoria Ferriz 0:16

your body becomes proof

Kelly Diels 0:17

whether or not we're trying to sell a service or a product. All women are brands

Brenda Swann 0:21

now I'm a health coach.

Kaila Tova 0:24

My name is Kaila Tova, and this is your body your brand. Episode Three, to sell ourselves is female.

Stefani Ruper 0:34

Okay, so at the beginning, I was just writing sentence in my head. At the beginning, I was just writing to help people.

Unknown Speaker 0:45

Meet Stephanie Ruper, the creator of paleo for women hosted the well fed women podcast and author of sexy by nature.

Stefani Ruper 0:54

I very much believed that people just like, needed to know and deserved to know the stuff that I was saying. And I went to a HS the ancestral health symposium, which then was the only, you know, paleo meeting on the block. In August of that year, just like four months after I had started, started my blog three months, I was fortunate enough to have come on Diane's radar before then here. Stephanie's referring to Diane, San Philip, co author of practical paleo and the 21 day sugar detox. And so I went to HS and I was sort of like in the, you know, in the know, I was always allowed into the circle. And I had a lot of very productive conversations there with people who had been doing this as a career. And the most common thing everybody there said to me was Steph, you have to monetize Steph, you have to monetize. And I was like, no, no. And I like that's all that's the conversation I had all weekend was me saying, people just deserve to know, and other people telling me look like you're creating value. You're spending your energy creating value to give to people and it's not unethical for you to ask them for some kind of payment in return. And you can also make it such that this was there were a couple things that were really important to me, one, someone told me that you need to remember that people invest emotionally and things in which they invest financially. And so if you ask them to invest, and also they want to spend money he kept he was always telling me people want to spend money. So if you ask your financial investment, you might there might be a better chance that you'll actually be able to help people.

Kaila Tova 2:45

I met Stephanie Ruper in 2012. After I became a super fan of her blog, she was writing about the things that mattered to me, eating disorder, recovery, healing, polycystic ovarian syndrome and secondary a mental Rhea, which means no longer getting your regular Menzies when you're not getting menopause, and more. All will following a paleo diet. Steph represented a model of the perfect career. She was studying to become an academic, she was writing books, she got to think about food and exercise and health all day, and most important, she was helping people and getting paid for it. I first discovered stuff in the health coaching world. Around the time when I was fully immersing myself in the workforce. I was commuting two hours each way for work and working from five or 6am until almost midnight for less than the cost of living. And worse, there was no payoff for the work I was doing. I was helping a CEO get richer, sure. And I was engaging in the exciting work of getting a startup off the ground. But other than that, I didn't feel like I was making much of an impact with my career. So I started blogging about eating disorder, recovery, exercise, addiction, and the Paleo diet. And all of a sudden, other women started reaching out to me, my little unpaid blog was making a difference in people's emotional and physical health. Whereas my stressful, underpaid corporate job was wasting fuel time and creative energy will making someone rich even richer. That's when I decided it was time to do the thing I saw others on the internet like Stephanie Rupert successfully doing, it was time for me to sell myself, because it seemed like I was the product that people wanted. Over the past several years, I've wondered why I was so eager to find something to sell, and why the product that I became most excited about was my own brand. I reached out to Daniel Pink, who is an expert in the business world on sales and motivation. He's the author of several New York Times best selling books, but I wanted to speak with him specifically about the one that stood out to me to sell is human. And I asked him, is it really human to sell?

Daniel Pink 4:58

Yeah, that's a great, I mean, I think it's a great question. Yeah, they're different. They're different levels, that they're different levels of that. I mean, one of them is that in a business setting, we want to sell stuff, because that's how we survive. That's a bit the most base answer to that question. But I think at another level, we want to sell stuff, because we believe in something and we want to make a difference. And I think that's the most exalted version of it. And, and for most of us, our efforts fall somewhere on that spectrum, between this kind of noble, I believe in something so deeply, I need to tell others about it and convince them because that's going to make the world a better place to, I need to sell this Toyota Prius this this month, or else I'm going to get fired and not pay my mortgage. Right. So you know, and so all of us live on one, you know, spectrum, you know, one part of it, some part of the spectrum, and we don't stay on that part of the spectrum all the time. So like, any given day, given week, a given year, we're moving across it.

Kaila Tova 6:00

It's true. In a capitalist system we sell to survive, you can't barter your way to a new iPhone any easier than you can for food or shelter. But the internet, specifically coaching taught me that the most noble way to make money was to be inspiring to help other people. And at this particular point in history, the people who are best at inspiring seem to be the ones who also sell the most.

To do you think in a way to sell is human? Like, I know that it's a clever title. And that's sort of the thrust of the book. But is that is it the system that we live in? Or is it just something that As humans, we just want to do that?

Daniel Pink 6:43

Yes, absolutely. And I think it's something that as humans that we do want to do, I, you know, and it's something that we do, that's the most I mean, that, in some ways is the most important thing that, you know, for this batch of research, I did some surveys, a big sample of workers in the US. And I found that, you know, people are spending on the job a huge portion of their time in this thing. That's kind of sort of like sales, they're persuading, influencing, convincing, cajoling, they are sitting in a meeting, and they're trying to get someone to see things their way, they are trying to get someone to come and work on their team, rather than another team, they are trying to convince their boss to not do something stupid, or they are a boss, and they're trying to convince their employees to do something different or do something in a different way. And if and if you look actually at the content of what people do on the job, a huge portion of it is this thing that's kind of sort of like selling I mean, it's it's something that in some level, it's it's a hugely important component of what we do for a living, even beyond simply selling a product or service.

Kaila Tova 7:45

So as humans, we're used to non sales selling, as Dan calls it. And with the rise of the Internet, we've gotten used to using these skills on a consistent and even constant basis. So one of the things that you said in the book, again, this is, you know, not written recently,

Daniel Pink 8:02

right. But that's about this book about five years ago.

Kaila Tova 8:05

Yeah. And so the pace of the internet especially has really, really picked up just in that, in that five year period is insane. And, you know, you mentioned the technologies that were supposed to make salespeople obsolete. In fact, I've transformed more people into sellers, which is an incredible statement. But also when you look around, like, for example, my entire Facebook feed, I don't know if there's anybody who isn't selling something on Facebook, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a link to their Etsy store, or to their group coaching program, people are selling everything from their events, trying to sell a little bit of their personal brand, getting people to like them, getting people to comment or share that in its way, in its own way, rather, is a sale in and of itself. And I'm wondering kind of what your thoughts are in terms of how just that statement has transformed you the past five years since you've written the book?

Daniel Pink 9:02

Yeah, I mean, I think that the deep changes started before that. But certainly they've they those changes have deepened and accelerated. So if you just look at what if you just look at what you do, I mean, you're an online marketer, like that was not a thing 20 years ago, okay. And so, you know, so in, you know, and you're like, all of us, you're, you're selling to, and so the idea that we have these platforms, whether as you say it's an Etsy or something else turns more of us, more of us into sellers. Now, it also has, you know, the online world also has a profound effect on a profound effect on selling and persuasion and influence of of every time. More broadly, because it's, you know, it's it's, it's, it's basically, we made the entire terrain of persuasion and influence and used to be, we used to live in this world of information asymmetry, where sellers always had more information than buyers. Now, we live in this world of complexity, the information parody, and that I just can't even I can't say strongly enough, what a big deal. That is, I mean, just think about an historical and historical context for a second. So just think about, like, all of the all of commerce in human civilization go all the way back. So you know, the very first commercial transaction might have been some some dude selling a goat to somebody for shells, right? So the guy, the guy selling the goat, at that time, knew a lot more about goats in general, and that goat in particular, and the person buying it, okay, that's information asymmetry. And that persisted throughout human civilization, you know, you know, not, you know, Middle Ages, Dark Ages, Renaissance, enlightenment, industrial revolution, you know, into our own lifetimes, but basically the entire 20th century and then like, if you were as into the 21st century, all of a sudden, this information asymmetry that defined what sales was, disappears and become something closer to information para. And there that is profound on at least two dimensions. It's profound in a sense that it is. It is it basically disrupted I hate that word. But it's basically, you know, but you know, I mean, it disrupted, essentially thousands and thousands of years of how we believe the world work. Okay, that's a big deal. And I think part of that is that we haven't quite realized how significant that is. And then when you look at any form of persuasion, influence or selling, it's monumental. So this is a huge deal when it comes to persuasion. You know, we've gone from this world of information asymmetry, which as I said, is a is a world of that we can think of as a world of buyer beware, buyer have to be where when sellers have all the information. But now when both sides have the information, I think more and more and every round every facet of sales, persuasion influence, we are in a world of celery, where now the sellers aren't notice.

Kaila Tova 12:04

Alright, so why is this relevant to our discussion here on the podcast? as Dan mentioned, in the past, people had to rely on sales people to give them the information they didn't have. Today, however, because we're so inundated with information, and because the algorithms that determine which information we get our fine tuned to cater to our preconceived notions and biases. Buyers feel like they already have all the information, what they care about is not necessarily what the information is, but who is giving us the information. In order to rise above the noise of social media algorithms, paid ads and search engine optimization, people have had to change their tactics from making a hard sale to something that's a lot more subtle.

Scott Stratten 12:52

The marketing itself started out, you know, move to be almost 20 years ago, where was almost like, going with your grain marketing instead of against it, which was what felt natural to you. And it was created as an alternative to people pitching only cold calling and advertising and push messaging. So it was getting yourself in front of your target audience when they have the need for your product or service. They choose you.

Kaila Tova 13:22

That's Scott Stratton known on Twitter as at on marketing, he and his wife, Allison are the authors of marketing and selling and their latest book on branding. Well, they focus primarily on the branding of corporate entities, the lessons that Scott has learned and shares about in his talks also apply to the people who want to brand themselves online.

Scott Stratten 13:42

I hated all the classical techniques of it. And I thought there's got to be a world out there, there's got to be a crowd out there. That thought the same way I did, which was interruption was not the best way always to to market. So I picked the name because I thought it would look good on a book cover eventually. And if I do say so myself, I think it looks fantastic. And that's kind of where the odd thing started. For me in my brain. First and foremost, it's always about hooks. I always have hooks, it's always about looking to hook somebody, and a book or a company name or a talk name is like, okay, your goal of your title. The goal of the brand name is for people to say, you know, all right, I want to figure out more I want to learn more like what is that? And it's it peaks curiosity, which I think most of marketing is.

Kaila Tova 14:36

Scott mentions this interesting word, brand. It's in the title of the show. So obviously, I think it's important, but what exactly is it? And why is it important? Well, historically, branding was a way of showing others what you owned. When you think of branding, think of cattle, right cattle are physically branded with someone's logo with a hot poker to help distinguish owners ship. In the modern sense of the word. However, branding is less associated with ownership and more with consumption. Over time, people who had something to sell would put their brand or logo onto a box Or sign or the packaging to give people reassurance about the quality of what and from whom they were purchasing. And as brands, logos became signals about quality, they began to stand in for value. When you purchase from one brand over another, you make a statement about what kind of value you can afford. And as brands became even more ubiquitous parts of our lives, about how you could be valued in your own community. A brand distills a company's message into something that's easy to understand. Marketers understand that in a world where the buyer has a choice, the seller must be aware, and the seller better make damn sure that their message is clear and concise and easy to consume. brand is by necessity, in order to make it easy for people to make a choice about what to buy. And that's all well and good when the person in quotes doing the advertising and marketing is a corporation. But what happens when a solo entrepreneur begins to think of themselves as a brand?

Kelly Diels 16:17

I mean, essentially, a brand has a story. And there's two components to it.

Kaila Tova 16:21

I spoke with Kelly deals who has branded herself a feminist marketing coach.

Kelly Diels 16:27

So one is what are the values that you're trying to articulate? What's the story that you're trying to articulate to other people, you're trying to control the narrative, right? You're trying to put a particular story out about you and your work? And then the other element of brand is the sort of external in part, which is how do people perceive you what's the story that they read on you. So the so and then a brand is like all the collateral that you disseminate that story and and you try to control the narrative.

Kaila Tova 16:58

In other words, branding is a way to reduce yourself to a version of yourself that's consumable. In business and economics, a corporation is defined as a fictitious legal entity separate from the people who own it. So there's a literal legal delineation between the person who owns the business and the business itself. But health coaches and personal trainers, and bloggers and Instagram influencers are very rarely corporations, that takes a lot of money and a lot of paperwork, and would be completely unnecessary. If all you wanted to do is sell ebooks about smoothies online. Legally, when you start a solo business, you become what's called a sole proprietor, which means that you are not actually separate from your business, you're liable for all of the things that your business is liable for, you can take out a fictitious business name to slightly separate yourself in the business in the eyes of the public. But in the eyes of the law, you and your business are one in the same, I find that to be a good metaphor for what I see happening when we begin to brand ourselves to make our bodies our calling cards, our logos, our value.

Kelly Diels 18:18

So I'm going to be real radical here. And I'm going to say all women are brands, whether or not we're trying to sell a service or a product, all women are brands. And that's a function of patriarchy. And what I mean by that is women are trained to present themselves as consumable objects. We're trained to control how we're perceived and constantly be sort of perimeter patrolling to see how we're being perceived and make sure we're being perceived in a political way, because we know that we are saleable objects, and we have to present ourselves to be consumable. So what I see in the intersection of online marketing and lifestyle marketing, and this notion that women are brands is that we have to sort of turn the volume up on making ourselves saleable. But it's part of feminine conditioning to make yourself saleable. So what we're doing now is professionalized it and turning the volume up on it, right. And we're sort of legitimising it by saying, well, but this makes you money. So dot dot, dot, right? Well, I mean, a lot of things make you money. robbing a bank makes you money, it doesn't mean that is a very good point.

Kaila Tova 19:42

It's your job as an entrepreneur, as the keeper of the brand, to help people understand what to think about you in a concise way. We exist in this world where the noise of social media and blogging just keeps getting louder. And we need a shorthand in order to take in and process all of that information quickly. Bessemer. Of course, I've gotten that figured out that shorthand is visual, it's a brand, it's a reliance on images to help us communicate our point quickly and easily. And in the world of social media marketing, where information comes in a flood and becomes disposable in seconds, it makes it even more imperative to use those images to press on people's emotional triggers and create quick associations to help us make our point and then sell

Lilly Garcia 20:24

the way I see a brand. It's, at least for small businesses, it's the way that you're presenting yourself out there in the world.

Kaila Tova 20:31

That's Lily Garcia of wild all of branding, when we met in Episode Two, all of us are these just beautiful, complex, deep individuals.

Lilly Garcia 20:42

But when you're putting yourself out there in the world, I'm trying to grow a business, that's not necessarily, that's a lot for somebody to take in and get behind. So a brand is a way to kind of narrow things in so that the people who you're trying to reach can actually see you and, and see why they need whatever you're offering. Rather than kind of getting lost in all the details of your life.

Kaila Tova 21:16

In other words, if you present yourself as more than your smoothie recipes or your marathon times, then Google will know how to tell people about you when they search for blended drink recipe books or couch to five k programs. And once people follow you, it's your job to continue to create the experience for your followers that they believe they've signed up for, like Pepsi or Apple, when you are a company, you have to stay consistent with your image and your messaging, if you want people to remember you have something to sell. But at the same time, you're a real person and you're not a fictitious legal entity, you're more than a color palette, or a sales page, or a series of carefully staged photos. And there are consequences is to not telling your audience the whole story, especially when that audience is vulnerable and receptive to your message. And that's exactly what happened to tie into Dodson.

Tiana Dodson 22:10

So I'm Tiana Dodson, and I am a fat health coach. So really, I'm a mechanical engineer. And that's a really big difference, right? But like, you know, I was married and thinking about family. And just like, the lifestyle that I wanted as a person who was, you know, a member of a young family, I didn't want to have to balance kids and a career. All of this time, it just seemed a little bit much that basically all led up to the decision. Well, okay, what are you going to do with yourself now? Because after three months of being Martha Stewart I was born. Um, you know, I mean, I was, I was, like, I can't DIY anything else. This is the whoo boy, this is getting much. So, like, I had secretly been wanting to try health coaching. And that was because I thought a health coach after I'd gotten back from Germany, because of course, you know, I was going to lose the weight for good. And she had the answers. So I thought so, yes, but when I found out with like, Oh, I really like this. She's working from home, she's got time to like, go shopping at Whole Foods. She's helping people she's even, you know, able to, like, work out when she wants to, and go and bow in the grass and be happy. She just seemed so damn happy. And I was like, I want that, you know, so I decided to nutrition has ended up being like, super, super cool. And, like, I want to work from home. This is great. Let's try health. And so I did.

Kaila Tova 24:13

In 1895, Gustafsson have been published a book called The crowd, a study of the popular mind, it was one of the first and what would become a deluge of texts prescribing the application of this fairly new field of psychology, to the manipulation of public opinion and the marketing of goods and services. Crowds, the bomb wrote, have always undergone the influence of illusions, whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master. By illusions. He meant images, and by images, he meant public relations and advertising. He goes on to say, when studying the imagination of crowds, we see that it is particularly open to the impressions produced by images, a crowd thinks in images, and the image itself immediately calls up a series of other images having no logical connections to the first. Our own reason shows us the incoherence within these images. But a crowd is almost blind to this truth and confuse this with the real event what the deforming action of its imagination has super imposed there on a crowd scarcely distinguishes between the subjective and the objective. It is the images evoked in its mind, though they often have only a very distant relation with observed fact. Alright, put plainly, Lubben was saying that images are a powerful way to manipulate people's emotions and result into actions. Well, you may not think of yourself as the crowd. Every single one of us being human and subject to human psychology is susceptible to persuasion, and especially susceptible to persuasion by images. Well, Yvonne believed he was just writing of the lower classes assuming that he and his educated middle class readers were above persuasion, he actually touched on something universal images matter, and they are powerful, powerful tools of persuasion. As a result, the boss writing would go on to influence the creation of the field of public relations, as well as help us shape our understanding of effective marketing psychology. By the 1920s is the concept of public relations was being codified in books like propaganda and crystallizing public opinion by Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, the image came to be seen as a prime tool for marketing and advertising. In his book PR the history of public relations, Media Studies, Professor Stewart you in quotes Harry Overstreet from The New School for Social Research, who believed that images give marketers the power of selective emphasis and the power of suggestion. Overstreet says that these powers can induce an imagined experience in the mind of a viewer a serviceable mental occurrence that could guide a person unconsciously towards certain desired conclusions or actions. With the added benefit that the spectator will be another aware that he is even in the process of being persuaded. Professor un sums up the secret of all true persuasion is to induce the person to persuade himself. The chief task of the persuader is to induce the experience the rest will take care of itself. And per Overstreet. The secret of it all is that a person is led to do what he overwhelmingly feels practice and getting people to feel themselves in situations is therefore the surest road to persuasiveness. Again, in other words, the job of the marketer is to make you see yourself reflected in their imagery to help you feel like you belong. So when it comes time to make a sale, you're already sold, you just have to hand over the money. Whenever you like, and follow a coach or a nutrition brand, or a personal trainer, or an athletics where company you've already bought in even if you haven't actually given them a single dollar, you've told them that the images they've used is selling a version of you to your self that you already identify with, or that you aspire to, which is I believe why so many of us willingly hand over our money to anyone who looks the part of healthy or fit, and why so many of us turned to coaching or training or trying to start a blog and an Instagram as viable career choices. We see the Instagrams of coaches who looks so happy, and free and healthy, and we can't help but be seduced. And when we get an email from somebody we follow telling us how easy it is to start our own business just like them or friends post an affiliate link to a health coaching program and an effort to grow their own income streams, which I admittedly have done in the past, we're already primed to want to buy, we've bought into the lifestyle, we're wearing the leggings doing the workouts are cooking the food, we too can have the life we've always wanted, since the first time we saw it on Facebook. And now there is a way for us to fund it, we just have to literally become the brand.

Summer Innanen 29:02

You see these other people and I know I'm one of them see it, you know, because I know people like will see come to my website. And obviously like, that's my website, so I want it to look professional and polished. And, and, and so I think you know, you, we just have this natural tendency to kind of see a person and then automatically think, oh, wow, they must be super successful, their lives must be perfect. And it must be so easy. Like you just get the training, then people are going to come knocking on your door to work with you, then you're going to make lots of money and your life is going to be perfect. It's the same kind of magical thinking that diet culture instills in us. And I think that, you know, I kind of went down that, that that's what I initially thought, like, when I wanted to become a nutritionist or become self employed as a nutritionist, I just thought, Okay, I'm gonna get this training, and then, you know, I'll just, I've got my blog, and then people are just going to come and show up. And I didn't really think, Oh, I'm gonna have to spend a lot of my time, you know, marketing and selling my services. And you know, and I think that, that that side of the equation, I mean, maybe it is being told out there, but at least I didn't really hear that I didn't really hear from people how how hard it really is, and a lot of the hardships that come in order to build up a successful a successful practice as as a solo practitioner, whether it is being a nutritionist or dietician or a coach, like whatever it or yoga, like any kind of. So solo endeavor comes with a lot of hardships, and you have to be selling yourself and your services, people don't just come knocking on your door. That's, that's not really how it works, you have to build it up. And it takes a long time to do that

summer innanen, the body image coach whom we met in Episode Two says something really interesting. You have to be selling yourself. In a world of seller, beware where the customer already has the information. The real product isn't what you're selling, it's you. It's the story you're telling about why people should trust you enough to buy from you, which is why there is a push for you to not only become a brand, but an authentic one.

Tiana Dodson 31:13

When I was working as an engineer, I was working for the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, which sounds really impressive. And so you know, to dress it up. For those who might not know what that is any of those words. I would, you know, make sure that I would write it out as Princeton University's Plasma Physics Laboratory, because the Plasma Physics Laboratory is a part of Princeton University. And, like, just kind of dress it up as much as possible to make it just fancy. And that would be like, you know, my lead in I work for ppl. Hi, I'm Tiana. I worked for ppl. You know, I was always just, you know, one of many not wake up thing. It was, I was always putting myself behind that shield. And that was my pedigree, you know, that was my ticket into the door. And, like, as a health coach, I don't have that anymore. Like, all I can be is who I am. And there is no shield. Besides, you know, the ones that we tend to put up boundaries, you know, boundaries. But like, I don't have that fancy, well known business card anymore. It's like, you know, I'm Diana Dodson. And this is one beautiful. Yes. And people are like, yeah, okay, that's, that's great. You're a fat health coach. Okay, what's that mean? You know, like, people were asking like, Plasma Physics Lab. What's that mean? Like, you know, with there was a, like, a, like an enchantment like, wow, oh, plasma is a keyword for Princeton. Wow. As opposed to like, oh, you're out, coach. That's cool.

Kaila Tova 33:08

As Tiana says, All she can be is who she is. health coaching really isn't defined by what type of diet you follow, or which holistic remedies you're suggesting. It's defined by the person who is selling the coaching, it's defined by the coach themselves,

Tiana Dodson 33:23

I didn't realize that I was becoming a brand. I backed up into it, I didn't realize that's what was happening. And, but like, when I hear people saying things like, this is my brand, it always sounds so plastic. And just like, you know, this is my facade, this is the makeup that I put on, this is the filter that you see my life through. And, for me, like, it's so important to be authentic. And I know everybody says this, right? Like, everybody's got to be authentic, you know, as they take 37 photos of the same thing to make it perfect. Like I, I really tried to be authentic, like, you're going to see the bumps, and you're going to see the lumps. And though I do spruce up my hair, and make sure there's no crust on my face, when I'm photos. You know, I try not to do too much by way of like, you know, trying to hide the double chin, the or the fact that there's laundry on the sofa, you know, I try to be as real as possible, because, for me, like, I guess that's my brand, my brand of the anti plastic. I'm my brand is this is my life, and it is what it is. And it's pretty fucking awesome. But it's also pretty fucking messy. And like that. That is what it is.

Kaila Tova 35:06

One of the things that really struck me as I was recording this podcast was just how many people whom I interviewed wanted to talk about authenticity, Authenticity, and digital marketing has become such an interesting and loaded and messy concepts. And in many cases, it's a meaningless buzzword. We live in a post Photoshop era where we all know that the images of perfection that have been marketed to us are fake. While we may still be psychologically primed to react, when we see idealized images of people, I think a lot of us just yearn for something that feels more real, more tangible, closer to us. And that's where authenticity comes in. in marketing, we have a concept called know, like and trust. The idea is that the more you know, like and trust a person, the more likely you'll be to purchase from them. Social media helps us get to know brands in a really unprecedented way. We've already gotten used to the idea of having friends who turn around and sell to us. And now we're even used to wanting to become friends with the people who are already selling to us. With platforms like Facebook and Instagram, helping us to blur the line between our personal lives and our personal brands, we've entered an age where we really have to navigate this fine line between what is authentic and what is professional. And because in the health, nutrition and fitness world, we use our personal struggles, stories and habits as our marketing tools, we've actually begun to perform our humanity for one another for money.

Tiana Dodson 36:41

All I can do is sell myself, you know, not not an aspirational version of myself, but just who I am. Because, for me, to come to me, say, I want you to guide me, I want you to help me, I want you to hold my hand through this very, very volatile, and tender process. I feel like you need to trust me. And I think that's the thing that maybe I've taken really to heart this know, like and trust thing that they try to tell you in marketing, like people only buy from those they know like and trust. And so it's been very important to me to when I'm when I'm writing, or when I'm taking photos like to make sure that these things these representations are as real as possible so that you actually are getting to know me. Because as you get to know me, I hope you get to like me. And with those two things. I want to develop trust. And I feel like if I'm trying to make everything beautiful all the time and performing, you know a version of myself, then how can you really trust me? How can you really come to me and be vulnerable and open with me. If I have not been open and vulnerable with you

Kaila Tova 38:19

want to introduce you to a concept called parasocial relationships. A pair social relationship is a one sided relationship in which one party is invested in the connection with the other while the other party has pretty much no idea that the first party even exists. Let's take for example, podcasts. Have you ever listened to a podcast and felt like you've gotten to know the host? You can hear the host you can learn about their life, but the host themself is just pushing media into the world unaware of who's actually listening. You know, when I had my old podcast finding our hunger, I had people who would send me emails asking me about my dog or express concern Dolan says for the stressful week I had just talked about, and I'd never met them before. The common refrain in those emails was, I feel like I already know you. Traditionally, you know, before podcasts, people have mostly formed parasocial relationships with celebrities like Hollywood stars are famous athletes or TV personalities. Social media has acted like this great leveling tool, allowing ordinary people to achieve extraordinary and celebrity status within their niches and communities. platforms like Facebook and Instagram prey on our tendency to form these Paris social relationships. They prey on our desire to connect with celebrity and to build community. And they give us a way to feel like we're actually literally friends with the people we follow. And becoming a friend is the ultimate marketing tool. Because as we've discussed, good marketing is built on the principles of know like and trust, the better I know you like you and trust you, the more likely I will be to buy something from you. Whom do you know like and trust more than your friends. That's why as a coach, trainer or blogger, you need a clear brand that's specifically built around your personality first, and you're offering Second, you need people to want to follow you. The Institute for integrative nutrition is churning out health coaches, anyone can sell you the advice you want to hear. Remember, there's information parody, as Dan called it. If you want the advice on keto, or veganism, or high intensity interval workouts or beach body, it can be found, but only one person can sell advice your way. So what you're selling is not really advice, you're selling yourself first. But because you aren't a business, or at least not all of you, you also have to continue to represent your brand message to remind people that you have something to sell. Here's Allison Stratton of and marketing and branding.

Alison Stratten 40:54

Well, that's that you don't make friends. So you can sell to people like that's the thing, right? We talk a lot when we're talking individual entrepreneurs, right, or small companies. And we say like both of us would say we've connected with more amazing people online talking about music, talking about kids talking about sports talking about, like, these are the Super Bowl. Yeah, these are, these are the things people connect over, they don't connect over buying your product. And so it's about positioning, right, which is what's God's talked about, it's okay for your, the people you meet online to know that you're a realtor, it's okay for them to know you own a software company or some kind of company. And if they trust you, when they're seeking out that service, they're going to come to you and it's okay to provide helpful information. We've talked about blogs, and all these different things you can do, or a great app that helps people in your area in your area of expertise. But that isn't the same thing as going online, to make friends to sell to them. Because that's not really making friends, people don't have dollar signs on their forehead with how much money they're worth you if that's what it is, you're not really there to make friends.

Kaila Tova 41:53

And that's the thing. I don't think most people, people like Tiana, like those of you who are listening to the podcast, and actually go into health coaching, because they see people with dollar signs on their heads. I believe they go into this field specifically because there is a true desire to help. That's where authenticity comes in, to carefully cultivate our friends lists and curate our connections to create relationships, while also carefully positioning ourselves as experts in whatever it is we're selling. Whenever we post podcast or private message, there's a certain amount of authenticity that just gets lost when the end goal of the relationship is to drive toward a sale or referral or some sort of transaction. No matter how much you truly believe in the friends you've made as a result of your marketing. There is an air of inauthenticity inherent in the relationship.

Scott Stratten 42:42

Yeah, and one of the problems with authenticity, too is it's it's gotten to the point of being inauthentic. You know, the inauthentic authenticity, which is trying to be authentic trying to be like if it's if authenticity is a is your marketing plan this quarter, it's not it's not a it's not a campaign, right? being authentic and being being true or transparent is not like a marketing tactic.

Alison Stratten 43:05

To me, Hey, don't try it out for like, you know, a quarter and

Scott Stratten 43:08

you either you are you aren't. And I think that individuals can create connections and create friends but brands that's not their job brands is to be able to be providing a product or service for their customer base and, and be there when they need to be on the service side of things. And I think the problem is we've skewed it all the other to the other side.

Kaila Tova 43:30

brands are not your friends, but friends are becoming brands. And that's where I'm worried. At the same time, there's a push to move away from using the word authentic, even as we simultaneously position ourselves as real, and build a professional brand out of our personal lives. I spoke with personal trainer Kelly Coffey of strong coffee, who feels pretty strongly about the word authenticity. I asked her why she doesn't like it.

Kelly Coffey 43:55

Oh God, because it's just so overused. I just I hate I hate hate marketing, I hate it. I hate the machine, you know, I actually am in the process of getting my website sort of cleaned up. And the guy that does my website, you know, showed me a sample new homepage. And, and the first word like it was authentic. It was like authentic wellness for the real woman or something. And I immediately broke out in hives. And I was like, yeah, that word off of my website. Yeah, you know, and what's really funny, of course, is that, you know, arguably, I'm the most authentic wellness professional, on, you know, in a lot of different spheres, like I'm an open book, I'm I'm there's nothing that I won't talk about, there's nothing that I'm not comfortable sharing, like I am, I am all out there. And, and, and, and still, like that word has, it's just been co opted for money. You know, you can you can go out, I could, I could walk out my front door right now and come home in an hour with an authentic t shirt and authentic, you know, cotton woven t shirt and authentic pair of fairly traded freaking shoes. You know, it's that word is on marketing, flyers and banners and boxes, all over my little New England town. And if you can buy an authentic pair of shoes, then you are not using the word authentic appropriately anymore.

Kaila Tova 45:35

One of the things that's difficult about the push towards authenticity and branding is that while we're performing our lives for one another, we also have to navigate what's appropriate and our performance as our personal and professional brands merge. How much can you really share? And if you share something difficult or political or truly personal, will it ruin your profitability? And if you don't share those things, are you truly being authentic?

Lilly Garcia 46:00

I don't know how digital marketing can be authentic. It's a balance. It's something that I think will have to work on for a while. Yeah. You know, I don't know, it's, it's hard. And I'm struggling with this idea of authenticity online. Because I don't think it I don't think people really do want to see your authentic self at all. You know, like, I feel like I've lost family members because of it literally had to block people because they expressed distaste with the way that I was posting truth about my life. And it was like, Well, so what do you want to see, you only want to see the happy, shiny, fake thing that I post to make you happy? Like, what what? How can I be myself online? Or be myself in general? And also make money? Is it possible, like to keep connections when you're when you're being authentic about the things that you struggle with? and not the things that you're performing struggle with, but literally struggling with?

Right. And that could be anything from like politics to mental health to really anything? Yeah, I agree. I think that's really I've seen that. instances like that happen in the workplace a number of times over the last year, whether it's someone who's dealing with a mental health struggle, and then it's like, well, so sorry, but you can't do that here. You know, like, you should definitely take care of that. But not in front of these people kind of thing, or, you know, whether you have strong political beliefs, and that comes out and what, can you do that in front of clients? Like, what's the appropriate line? And how do you Yeah, I think that's a really tricky place to be. And I agree, most people don't want to see everything. And even I don't want to see everything from everyone. But that's what you have friends for, right? And not everyone to online is your friend. So there is a certain amount of authenticity I think can be showcased if you can showcase authenticity, it's a weird combination of words. But I do believe that you can show people a slice of who you are, without showing them everything.

Kaila Tova 48:08

But I believe that people using the internet want to believe they're seeing everything. And they want to believe that they're friends with the people they follow. When a blogger shares their transformation story, or an Instagram or post a picture of themselves crying after a panic attack, we want to know, we click read, like and share the stories that are filled with drama, struggle and redemption. we long to find ourselves in these stories. We tag our friends, we repost and write our own version of the story. We film reaction videos, stories are what drive marketing. And right now, authentic stories are a hot commodity. And stories about our bodies and about our health are really easy to come by. We have the tools and the encouragement to stage and perform and capture that authenticity, and then sell it back to our followers on the internet. Here's Lily Garcia, again. You know, I'm still kind of fighting this, this internal battle between like, I don't want to be a brand in the sense that I'm not a business, right? I'm a person who has a business. But it's pretty clear at this point that I can't have a business, if people see me as a person.

Lilly Garcia 49:21

I mean, I can have a business, but it's not doing well. Um, yeah, it's, it's a really tricky balance. And this is something that I'm figuring out right now, too, because I'm just, I mean, just a couple of months ago, you know, that's, that's kind of what it was for me to like, Well, you know, this is who I am. And so I'm going to put it out there. And that's going to attract my people, because of me as a person. But just going through some, just, you know, personal tragedies has kind of changed that. And I realized, well, I want to have room for myself and my family. So that we can heal and grow and, and have space for that. And not necessarily have to do it so publicly. And you know, I it's it's funny, I started feeling this, this obligation to kind of live every part of my life on my Instagram feed. And at the same time, I was like, Well, how does this relate to my business again. And so there, it's kind of this this money thing that I'm I'm trying to figure out for myself and, and trying to help my clients figure out for themselves to

Kaila Tova 50:47

one of the best ways on the internet right now, to build a following to sell things is to tell your own story. Right. And I think that what happens is, we start to mimic the the people that we want to bring in and they start to mimic us as as purchasers if that makes any sense. And I'm curious, how do you remain authentic? when you're when you're telling these stories, when you're being a storyteller and trying to talk to your persona? If say, the story that you're telling, maybe you've moved beyond, right, like this guy who's now written nine diet books, is it, you know, like, he's probably has to go through the same transformation story over and over and over again, this will hopefully help make my point, because I realized I'm getting into the weeds, but right, so he's telling the same story about I gained the weight, I lost the weight, I hated myself, I love myself, etc, which then mimics kind of what you want your audience to feel when they purchase or when they make their purchasing decision. Right. But at some point, it stops being authentic, because either you really truly do have this belief that you're, you're, you're bad, then you're good, then you're sad. Yeah, yeah. Or you're just mimicking what you want your audience to feel like how do you how do you stay authentic?

Daniel Pink 52:08

Yeah. Okay. So that's interesting. So I you're using mimicking it in a slightly different word way that I you know, that then I use it, but I see where you're I see where you're coming from the you know, I think that the way you I maybe I'm wrong, and maybe I'm naive about this. But I think that people know, when they're being inauthentic, deep down, they know when they're being inauthentic. And they know when they're being authentic. I really think deep down people are generally No, no that and the question then becomes once you know that you're being inauthentic. Are you willing to tolerate that feeling? that horrible feeling that I'm that I'm not being authentic, that I'm bullshitting. Forgive me? And, you know, please. Okay, and so so, you know, I think we know deep down, when that is happening, and we feel a certain way, when that is happening, and it's an uncomfortable feeling. And the question is, how do you respond to that uncomfortable feeling? And I think that when we have that uncomfortable feeling, the way we respond to it is to say, you know what, I can do better than this. I can do better than this. That's not good enough. That's not how I roll. Yeah. And and I think that's what you have to do. And again, I think, as we've been talking about, I think it is at this juncture of doing the right thing, and being good business person, because that, you know, authenticity is not going to last for very long, you know, and, and so. So I've really, it really goes to the question of how do you reckon with that uncomfortable feeling? And if you say, instead, it's uncut. It's not really uncomfortable feeling. It's normal. Everybody does it. All right. You know, it's not really an uncomfortable feeling. Sure, it's an uncomfortable feeling. But I'm just going to endure it for another week or another month, but another week becomes a month, another month becomes a year and another year becomes a lifetime. I just think it's really you know, that there's a there's a, there's a moment of truth, where you experience that feeling, and you have to decide what to do. And I think, I don't want to say it's an easy choice. But we all know what the right thing is to do when we confront that moment of truth.

Kaila Tova 54:20

You know, Dan's right, when it comes to people who know that they're selling bullshit, when they know that they're trying to deceive. But in this post authentic world, where we're literally being taught how to sell every time we log into Facebook, I don't think it's as easy as Dan makes it out to be anymore. Because the question isn't whether or not you're being authentic, but rather, what is that authenticity doing for you and the people you're selling to? What are the larger structures and systems that are driving that need to perform your life and your health for money? And how does believing in your own authenticity, even when you're carefully curating your online presence speak to a larger social ill, I spoke with Sarah B'nai wiser, a professor and head of the department of Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and author of authentic tm, the politics of ambivalence and a brand culture, and empowered popular feminism and popular misogyny, to try to understand exactly what authenticity is, when you're selling yourself online.

Sarah Banet-Weiser 55:21

What is authenticity, I'm not particularly invested in truth, and and what authenticity is, what I am interested in is how authenticity is performed. And in the different ways in which we invest, as, as people as citizens as communities, in different definitions of authenticity. So what I tried to do in the book is, is think about how it is that authenticity itself is a brand. And what goes into that brand, what makes some what what convinces a public that a product or a community or a piece of art or activism is authentic, and you know, what is it what is it that we think is inauthentic.

Kaila Tova 56:11

So I guess well, let's, let's step back then. So what what exactly is branding them? What, what is the purpose of a brand?

Sarah Banet-Weiser 56:19

Well, I mean, it's, it's been different throughout history. And and, you know, when I started writing authentic, the book, I, what I was noticing was that, you know, I had studied advertising for many years, I taught, you know, about, you know, interpreting advertising and, and the different kind of, you know, messages that advertising sends to us. But what I was noticing more and more was that we had moved into an era where branding was about a sort of an effective relationship with consumers, rather than an economic process, it wasn't just convinced, you know, branding is not about convincing someone necessarily to buy a product, it is much more about a kind of more diffused cultural process, not of commodification only, but of, you know, appealing to a group of people or appealing to individual consumers to an effective relations, something that you feel loyal to something that you feel particularly invested in something that you, you know, are, are, you know, interested in or, or enraged by in a particular way, something that you know, Garner's an emotional reaction, right,

Kaila Tova 57:38

right. Yeah, it's interesting. I've been thinking a lot about parasocial relationships lately, specifically, as it comes to marketing online and even podcasting, right. And I think that a lot of that has to go it goes into branding today, where we expect our audience to develop a relationship with us, even as you know, we kind of like say, Oh, I have a relationship with my, my father, I've relationship with my listeners, I've relationship with my list, right? But we don't actually know who these people are, yet they feel this intense emotional connection to who we are as marketers, as sellers as people who have something to offer, if that makes any sense.

Sarah Banet-Weiser 58:14

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, advertising has long been, you know, and I write about this in the book, it's long, you know, its basic premise is, is what a historian TJ Jackson layers, called a theory, a therapeutic ethos, it advertising, sort of its goal is to make us feel bad about ourselves. And then to offer us a solution for feeling bad, right. So you feel bad, because you're aging. So here's a wrinkle cream, you feel bad, because you don't have a cool car. So somehow that's connected to your sexual life. So here's the car. You know, it's, it's about making us feel bad. And it's about offering sort of therapeutic solution here, we can make you feel better, just by our product bring is slightly different branding is not about making us feel bad, it is about making us feel connected. And it's about making us feel like we belong with a group, you know, or in a group. And, and even though lots of the processes of branding are the same as advertising, it has a different kind of point of entry, in terms of, of how it establishes relationships with consumers. So like, for example, one of my, it's sort of a cheap exercise, but it actually works every time. One of the things I do with my students, you know, every time I teach about advertising and branding and and you know, the kind of processes that aspect of relations that it that it inspires, is I asked them I show them what arguably one of the most successful advertising campaigns in history, which is Apple's think different. And I show them all the you know, from the, from the Orwellian 1984 when the Mac first came out, all the way up until the, you know, the Pope, stars of Amelia Earhart and Gandhi and john lennon and you know, think different. And then I asked them, and I'm, you know, auditorium filled with, you know, 150 students, how many of you are using Max and, and, and make them keep their hands up and look around, and it's by far, like, 90% of the class. And so I do this to, you know, kind of demonstrate to them. We all buy into this thinking different, we are cooler because we use Macs rather than PCs. But look, all of us are doing the same thing.

Kaila Tova 1:00:32

Right? Right. And so it's interesting, because now, people are beginning to basically create their own branding campaigns, if you will. And we are kind of performing this idea of thinking different or being different well expecting to create community around that, if that makes sense.

Sarah Banet-Weiser 1:00:54

And so one of the things that I've noticed about a lot of women who are branding themselves online is that they are.

Kaila Tova 1:01:03

Well, so Okay, so I'll frame it this way, when I was really heavily into the, I'm going to create my own business world. One of the things that business coaches always say is that it doesn't matter what you're selling, it just matters who's selling it. Essentially, it doesn't matter if the niche is completely over saturated, as long as you're selling it differently. Because it's your personal, you know, it's your voice, it's your experience, it's your story, then it doesn't matter, because you'll find your people, right, and your people, of course, are your buyers, your followers, etc, economic and social capital. So, what we're kind of training ourselves to do is to, to be to find that auditorium full of 90% of people who think exactly the way we do, and then figure out how to sell Oh, we're all different. Together, I guess to that, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and so I'm wondering about, you know, what, I don't know if there's really an answer, but like, how did this become the way that we now see, we see purchasing the way that we see, I don't know how to better phrase this, if that makes Yeah, no, I mean,

Sarah Banet-Weiser 1:02:12

I mean, I think I mean, I guess, you know, and I talked about this in the book a little bit, too. I mean, I think about it, that that trajectory, a lot in terms of my students, so So, you know, noticing that my students went from coming to my, you know, office to ask me about career advice, you know, what should I do with my, you know, with my career with, I teach in the field of communication, and Media Studies, what should I do with my bachelor's degree in communication? So, it went from that those kinds of conversations to how do I develop a self brand? Yeah, that's a really different understanding of, of who we are, as people who go out into the workforce as citizens, as you know, as part of the community and, and I think that, you know, we're one of the things that happened, that really ushered in the era of the self brand is it you know, is digital media, and social media in particular, so that you start producing yourself and, and composing yourself and curating yourself online, whether that begins, you know, years ago with my space, and then Facebook to Twitter to now Insta Graham and, and Snapchat, and so that we are constantly curating this version of ourselves to perform for others, right. And that process, I found to be a lot of times really instrumental, and really, and really about thinking of ourselves as commodities as products, and I'm troubled by that, because once we start understanding, and exchange and in interacting with each others, as if we were products, we become things Yeah, right. And so some of that, some of those aspects of relationships that we so cherish, and that being something that is about a commodity and a product rather than about, you know, kind of emotions or feelings or, or, you know, just our kind of individuality.

Kaila Tova 1:04:18

Yeah. And then that, that also speaks a lot to feminism, right? So, the whole concept, at least of you know, today, I guess, today's hyper branded, you know, self empowerment, movement, whatever, you know, the whole point of feminism, at least in my understanding was to have women not be considered objects, right, like we are equal humans. And now, and obviously, that is a gross reductive view of feminism. But, you know, here we are, you know, standing on the other side of feminism is, you know, and we're looking back and going, I would like to be an object now. Right? Like, I would like to be a product and there's something that is, I mean, I guess the word gross keeps coming back into my head, because it just it is, it's, it's a complete bastardization of everything we've worked for. And yet, because we exist within a patriarchal capitalist system, we still have to kind of find where those values are. And the values of that kind of a system is, money is is commodity is, is creating some kind of power through selling, and since the only thing that we that we can sell these days in in a really effective way, I guess online is ourselves.

Sarah Banet-Weiser 1:05:35

Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really good way to put it. I mean, I think the other part of it is, is that it's about objectification, for sure, but it's about a particular kind of objectification. And the other thing that happens along with this that also ushers in, you know, that is kind of part of the ushering of digital and social media is, of course, advanced capitalism, neoliberal capitalism, which is a an economic and political formation that values the individual over all else, right. So it's like relentlessly individualistic, it's about, you know, this is when we start to hear things like self entrepreneurship, the entrepreneur, this self, this is when the self branding makes sense. It makes sense in this context of neoliberal capitalism, where it's not about community, it's not about collectivity, it's about the individual. And so to, you know, circle back to your question about the kind of current state of what I call popular feminism, I just finished a book that is coming out in a couple of months about precisely this about, you know, kind of neoliberalism media, a culture of what I call, you know, an economy of visibility, and how feminist messages, particular versions of them become the most visible, and the most circulated and those are the ones that are about individuals, like Like you said, self empowerment, you know, self love, love your body, all that kind of thing. And it's about, it's about objectification, but it's also about being an individual versus a feminine part of a feminist collectivity.

Kaila Tova 1:07:18

Right. And the irony is, we use language that's all about community to sell our singular individual self brand. Let's hear once more from Kelly Diels.

Kelly Diels 1:07:30

So I do think that performing a character, even if it comes with material rewards can be fundamentally dehumanizing, because it requires that you treat yourself as a resource and it can be a commodity. So there's like an internal split there, that that comes. And it also requires being entirely externally focused. So Leanne Raymond wrote two beautiful pieces about the difference between ambition and actual actualization. So ambitious is when you're totally focused on external rewards, so that you're totally over determined by trophies, prizes, praise, accolades, money, you know, you are completely whipsawed. By that you're, that's what ambition is, you collect those, those trophies, those external rewards. But actualization is when you are doing something that you're committed to, that comes with its own internal rewards, and you're signed up and, you know, led by your internal compass, and developing your capacities and talents and gifts and expressing your commitments in your work. That's actualization. So the danger with being, you know, a brand, even if it's creating profit, the danger with performing a character, even if it's creating rewards, and respect and affection, is that you are having to internally split to yourself, and sort of quiet the noise of who you are, in order to reap the external rewards. So you're fundamentally other in yourself,

Kaila Tova 1:09:14

or other ring ourselves, we're turning our backs on our communities while we invest in our personal liberation and economic empowerment. But it feels inevitable. Who are you in this world, if you aren't trying to brand yourself? Who is a person online without a personal brand? I mean, what's the point of authenticity, if it doesn't lead to external rewards, if that's how the internet's been set up?

Sarah Banet-Weiser 1:09:36

authenticity is something that again, I don't, I don't, I'm not invested in a definition of authenticity, but I am, I do know that it is a concept, and, and a practice that, that many, many people are invested in to go back to my students, I think that they think it's enough. Like they don't, they will not have the success if they don't build an online brand. And, and, you know, I think that that, that we have to push back about, against this discourse of inevitability of all of this, right, that that if if you know, that that is that is the rich thing about culture is that it is a constantly moving terrain, and we make it we do make it you know, even as it's made for us, right, and so, to figure out how to make culture in a way that isn't that is challenges this discourse of inevitability of profit and accumulation of numbers and, and you know, this kind of emptying out of meaning. Because of circulation of messages, the rapid and relentless circulation and messages on on social and digital media, we can do that. I just think we need to want to do that.

Kaila Tova 1:10:56

We just need to want to do that. But if to sell us human, the corporate workplace is hostile to women and the internet is giving us the tools to brand ourselves. Will we be able to push back against the inevitability of online branding? Well, we're going to discuss the intersections of identity and economics more thoroughly in our next episode.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

Kaila PrinsJuly 7, 2021