Authentic Marketing

Don't let Perfection keep you from doing Good. Authentic marketing, E-Business Coach Patrick Pitman says, calls for us to do something to communicate our story, some detail of product design, some anecdote about why we created this product as we did, a special piece of product-shaping feedback from an early customer. Being authentic, whether in crafting material for our websites or interacting with people who happen by our table at a trade show, can summon a sense of vulnerability. But vulnerability is crucial to living wholeheartedly, according to researcher Brené Brown, and an element of vulnerability in combination with competence powerfully evokes trust in whomever encounters it, says Adam Grant, the author of "Give and Take". Wholeheartedness and competence has brought us to where we are now, engaged in our respective human scale businesses, so for us, authenticity is Good.