These are real life comments and messages that I have received from clients just after buying one of my products or services.
Yes, you read that right. No sleazy, icky sales process. Just genuinely excited customers who were not only happy to buy from me- they thanked me for the pleasure of being able to do so!
Do you know what feels better than that, though? Having people message you questions like: "How much are your packages?" out of the blue
Proof that you have built a brand that allows you to attract rather than chase your ideal clients consistently with ease and grace. Wondering how I did it and you can too?
The short version can be summed up in 6 words: content marketing through blogging and PR.
Too vague?
Okay, here's the longer; more value-packed version:
I have always had a burden for women. I guess this is what happens when you grow up seeing most of your female role models sell themselves short or stay in abusive situations due to factors such as tradition, control and low self-worth.
As much as my elders loved me, and invested me with great skills and values, I didn't have any older women (in my immediate circle) that I really looked at and felt that I wanted to be like; or have relationships similar to.
I knew this to be true of most of the people in my social circle too; yet I saw many women of my age group taking up the mantle of our fore-runners and repeating their history.
Not wanting to fall victim to projected social norms myself, I became really interested in comparing these notions to what the Bible had to say about topics such as women and womanhood (particularly since it was this that I typically saw weaponised against us).
I also became really interested to see whether there were any feminine representations of God, other than the ones I knew about at the time, that I could model myself after.
I wanted really in-depth studies on, not only the events of Biblical females' lives, but what we could learn from them- similarly to what is available for the patriarchs of the faith in terms of sermon series, books, audios etc. However, I was disappointed to discover that such analyses were not as readily available for the women of the Bible and that, if they were, they tended to cover the same women and therefore the same topics, This led me to start going through the Bible looking at each woman and the spiritual truths that we can garner from their stories myself.
Not only was I desperate to find women that I could see myself in, in scripture- I also wanted this in my everyday life. Surely there had to be examples of fiercely independent Biblical matriarchs as well as modern day women who felt the same as me? How could I go about either locating or building this community? And could this also be a means of breaking the cycle of victimhood and abuse for women, as I’d seen growing up?
Not only did these questions and realisations lead me to go through the Bible looking at each woman and the truths we can garner from their stories, it led me to record my findings. They also led me to start interviewing other Christian women- all of which became the content of this blog, which I launched in November 2016. By Spring of 2017, having realised that "if you build it they will come" is a big fat lie, I started to expand into writing and being interviewed on other people’s platforms as well. However, given that talk of female empowerment and independence is still quite a taboo subject in my (Christian and Nigerian) communities, I remained afraid to share my true thoughts and feelings too deeply- keeping my analyses to the Biblical matriarchs’ lives alone and away from mine. But, by Summer 2017, that all changed…
I was having quite a lazy Saturday afternoon in bed, leisurely scrolling through one of my favourite Nigerian gossip blogs until stumbling upon a headline that would pique my interest. I read many posts that afternoon, but the one that really stuck with me was about Chimamanda Adichie and her statement that she felt she would be better received in Nigeria if she weren’t so vocal about her feminist ideals.
I had been an avid fan of Adichie’s books for years but it was not the piece that disturbed me so much as the comments left on it. The majority of the responses to her post basically proved her point — they were scathing, not just in their judgment of Adichie, but in their assessment of feminists and feminism as a whole. I saw statement after statement demonising feminism as against God’s will and I became enraged! In that fit of anger, I sat at my laptop and typed an article entitled “5 Misconceptions about Feminism within the Church”- breaking down my journey, research and exactly why I had come to believe that Christianity and feminism are not mutually exclusive. Relevant Magazine was the only evangelical magazine that I knew at the time audacious enough to post such content (catering as it does to Christian millennials) so, spurred on by adrenaline, I formulated an email and hit send.
Honestly? I didn’t expect my article to be published. Relevant is a world-renowned platform; so I knew that they’d be inundated with article pitches. For me, it was about the catharsis of releasing my anger and frustration; so once I had done that, I continued with my life as normal. That is until a few weeks later, when I noticed a sudden influx of new subscribers to my email list one evening… At first I didn’t know what to attribute it to; then I had a sudden flash of realisation.
“The Relevant article!” I gasped out loud.
They had not emailed to notify me that my article had been published but, sure enough, once I googled it- there it was!
The next few days were a whirlwind as the article gained traction and became viral, being shared over 2000 times by the end of the week (it has now been liked and shared over 5000 times and translated into Portuguese to date). On the one hand, I was absolutely terrified! This was the first time that I had been so candid and vulnerable in sharing my personal beliefs and story. It was also the first time that I had been so publicly and radically controversial; so I knew that I had opened Pandora’s box in terms inciting other people’s outrage, judgement and backlash. And boy did the trolls and naysayers come out in full force in the comments! Their remarks about how wrong I was and how ashamed of myself that I should be put me in a tailspin, causing me to question why I had opened myself up to such targeting and criticism. I literally hid in my bed and under my duvet at times because I felt so overwhelmed!
On the other hand, I felt elated and validated. I mean, first of all, Relevant Magazine appreciated my points and felt them worthy of publication! Also, for all the backlash that I was receiving in the comments, people were also thanking me for shining a light on this issue. More and more women were joining my email list too via my freebie and once they did, not only were they saying thank you, they were sharing their stories with me. For example, many of them confessed that they had, had similar thoughts and feelings to me for a long time but felt like they were alone in their convictions, giving way to feelings of isolation. Others still, shared that I had given them the language to finally voice their beliefs and experiences- thereby affirming them and helping them to realise that they were not alone. Literally, women from all over the world (America, Africa, Asia- you name it!) were flooding my inbox with love, support and validation.
With such outpouring, I realised that the ability to positively impact these women’s lives outweighed all of the backlash. They helped me to step into my calling and come out of hiding because the more they shared, the more I felt compelled to open up. The more I opened up is the more that they began to feel comfortable to ask me questions- to the point that I found my advice and expertise also being sought out via email. This then escalated into providing private 1:1 sessions when a lady from South Africa emailed asking me to mentor her, having also read my article and joined my email list.
Looking back, I think that the general consensus was “you’ve shown us what our purpose is not but how do we now go about the process of discovering what it truly is?” This is when I realised that the Faraboverubiescollection.com was bigger than me. Everything that I had seen growing up and how it had shaped me was for a reason. It was necessary and so was I. Now, in addition to changing the narrative for Christian women- one Bible story at time, it has become my mission to help them know their worth, power and purpose so that they may speak up, step out and shine as women of God. This is why I do all that I do and why I'm sharing all of this with you.
You see, I want you to walk away knowing first and foremost that:
#1 “A woman’s place is wherever God calls her” (Marshawn Evans Daniels)
Your experience, skills and expertise are priceless, sis. In fact, their collective "worth is far above rubies"(Proverbs 31:10) so you don’t have to conform to anything that feels out of alignment for you in the name of tradition, religion or societal norms. I also want you to know that:
#2 You are here for a reason
Just as my experience with Far Above Rubies has shown me:
You are significant
Your story matters
You are enough
You can inspire people just by being you
You have a particular set of people that you represent and they need to SEE you succeed so that they know that it's possible for them too
There is also purpose in your pain and frustration- just as there was mine. Don’t ignore it, hoping that it will go away. Instead, do what seems counterintuitive- ask questions, explore it; seek the light in your wound and, when you discover it, blog and share it with those who need it. Lastly, please also note that-
#3 If I can do it, so can you
As alluded to earlier, I learned that "if you build it they will come" was only true in Hollywood the hard way! I remember stalking the pages of the influencers that I most admired and seeing them score media opportunity after media opportunity, rub shoulders with big named industry experts who would also grace their platforms, having these same big names endorse their products/services, invite them to speak in summits (both online and in-person) and more- and wondering (slightly resentfully at times, I can admit it!) how they did it.
Can you relate, lovely?
Well, through research, I realised that what they had going for them was the knowledge of how to leverage PR to maximise their content marketing efforts and grow their business on autopilot.
I finally decided that enough was enough and took the plunge to invest in coaching so that I could get out of the rut of feeling stuck, stagnant and frustrated once and for all.
After years of studying and implementing, I developed my own system for pitching that I've stuck with for years and everything changed!
Now I;
Am an award winning content marketer and PR specialist, #1 international bestselling author and international speaker
Have been featured on over 40 platforms, including Thrive Global, The TEDx blog, HuffPost, Bustle, Mic and more
Help coaches, consultants and professional service business owners, like you, to leverage PR so that they can get more visible, attract their dream clients and get paid what they want.
And, like I said, if I can win with PR so can you!
Even if you're at the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey, starting from scratch; with no connections (like I was), are an introvert and/or live in a small town.
Ready to get started?