Facebook. LinkedIn. Twitter. Google+. Speaking. Writing. Blogging… The list of marketing tasks goes on and on. I just want to bury my head in the sand and never come out.

I’ve tried Twitter. Everyone who is anyone is doing it. Well, I hate it. It gets my head spinning, my stomach hurting and never got me a single client.

Google+ is powerful. I get that. It’s where all the cool people hang out. But when I go there, I feel like a pimply, awkward Junior High girl who is never asked to dance.

There are myriads of marketing techniques that work well. But can I muster the courage to say, they work well for other people, but not for me.

So, why is it that I feel pressured to use them – each and every one? As my mother would say, “Just because everyone is jumping off a cliff, doesn’t mean you need to, too.”  Wise woman, my mom.

In his grace, God has given us different gifts for doing certain things well
(Romans 12:6 NLT).

Play to Your Strengths

Over a decade ago, Gallup unveiled the results of a landmark 30-year research project that has since ignited a global conversation on the topic of strengths.

The first discovery they made was that every person has been born with a cluster of signature strengths that endure over time and a variety of situations. Not a big surprise, but good to know.

However, their next discovery was shocking.

Don’t Focus On Weakness

They also discovered that most organizations, and most people, spend their lives focusing not on these strengths but on their weaknesses. They point them out, regret them, ruminate about them and try to remediate them.

Yet in spite of all these efforts, these weakness-focused corporations continued to slog along in mediocrity.

Likewise, Christian coaches feeling insecure in their marketing efforts spend hours and hours learning to ‘friend’ and ‘tweet’ and ‘like’ and speak and write and podcast and hold teleseminars and more. After all, everyone is doing it.

Yet, in spite of all this time and effort, their coaching practice never quite fills.

While it may seem logical to spend time and energy working on improving our weak areas, in reality, it’s like a baseball team taking their star pitcher and using all his practice time trying to improve his hitting.  Not time well spent!

Constantly trying to shore up your weaknesses takes away precious time and energy from the things you do phenomenally well.

Gallop’s research shows that when we try a different approach, we get different results.

The Secret to Success

20% of the organizations studied were strengths-based, concentrating on helping people discover and work in the areas where they were strongest.

Their motto? Maximize strengths, and as much as possible, delegate weaknesses.

These organizations weren’t just successful, they were wildly successful.

To set yourself up for marketing success using your strengths requires two things:

1. Discover and market in strength- and gift-based areas.
2. Say ‘no’ to doing everything so you can say ‘yes’ to doing the best things.

Out of all the marketing activities in the world, some of them play to your strengths. You enjoy them, you are good at them, you look forward to doing them and because of that they actually work. People respond, and clients come.

Don’t spend your limited marketing time learning to do things you hate and will avoid at every turn. Try out different tools and techniques until you find the ones you love.  Spend your time there, and you will see great results.

Powerful and effective marketing comes from building on your God-given strengths.

What are your strengths? How can you use those as the backbone of your marketing?  Share in the comment box below.