My Ethical Pledge

I’ve been on the receiving end of shitty and dishonest marketing over the last decade.

I started my business without any real knowledge of what was involved, and so when I started to do my research about how to get myself out there, I found lots of people giving advice on how to do it.

They weren’t professional business coaches, with credentials and proven track records, but influencer types flooding the internet and hitting the top page of Google due to their huge social media followings.

And what was worse, they made it all look so easy.

So I signed up to their newsletters, followed them on social media and listened to their podcasts to the point where my head was in the clouds thinking that just “clearing my money blocks,” meditating or simply thinking positively would get me a wave of sales that would enable me to quit my part-time job.

While I generally think we have a different mindset towards challenges when we are able to see the positives, being told to invest thousands of pounds on a course hailed as a “blueprint for success” leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

Couple that with images of these “coaches” posting images of themselves on private yachts and living a really glamorous life and I started to feel massively inferior rather than encouraged or empowered.

It was just what they wanted: to make their potential clients feel inferior, fill them with self-doubt and then offer the solution at an unachievable price point.

It was through an online conference that I heard about The Ethical Move, a website and community who are striving to make marketing more honest. Consumerism is built on scare tactics and the fear of missing out, and many businesses follow the cycle and fuel the fire.

I’m choosing not to.

It’s doesn’t feel right for me to be pushy with my products and services.

I don’t want to make people feel crap about themselves or play games with them to manipulate them into buying what I sell.

And I don’t want to pay people in products so they splash it around social media for me, flooding the market with mass produced shite that will be landfill by next year.

Instead, I prefer making connections with people, as that’s what matters to me.

I charge what I believe to be a fair price for the work I do, which reflects the quality of materials I use and the amount of time I put into designing and making my pieces. I don’t over-inflate my prices, nor will I undercharge when I know the effort that goes into the pieces I create.

I’ve chosen to stay small, as small to me means something. It means quality, attention to detail and knowing who you’re working with.

Being made to feel inferior and insignificant through horrible marketing tactics fuels me to make sure that I never do the same to anyone who’d like to work with me. I’m flying the flag for consciousness over consumerism - fancy joining me?