Marcia Yudkin shares insights on myths about introverts and marketing and tips for how to market in your own way as an introvert.

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Welcome to Episode 21 of the Create Your Story Podcast on Marketing Tips for Introverts. I’m joined by Marcia Yudkin, author and specialist in the area of introverts and marketing, based on many years’ experience as a marketing coach and consultant.

You can listen above or via your favourite podcast app. And/or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below.

Show Notes

In this episode, we chat about:

• Myths about introverts
• Ways of being bold as an introvert
• Myths about introverts and marketing
• Push vs pull marketing – and what works best for introverts
• Authentic marketing for introverts
• Content marketing and pull marketing – what’s the difference
• Being clear in communicating who you are and how you work
• Substack as an option for free and paid offerings and writing
• Being inclusive of introverts in marketing
• What we can learn from introverted characters in fiction and real life

Transcript of podcast

Introduction

Welcome to Episode 21 of the Create Your Story Podcast and it’s the 18 November as I record this.

I’m excited to have Marcia Yudkin join us for the podcast today.

For more than 10 years, Marcia Yudkin has stood up and defended introverts as worthy of respect and understanding. This developed out of her work as a marketing coach and consultant. She’s the author of 17 books and too many ebooks, online courses and so on to count. Her current focus is a Substack newsletter called Introvert UpThink, which critiques society’s misunderstandings and disparagements of introverts.  She lives in the woods of Western Massachusetts, where she walks or runs five miles every day in the company of chipmunks, beaver, deer, porcupines and occasionally bears.

I was so excited when Marcia and I connected to be able to explore more about the area of marketing for introverts and to share these insights with you. Bringing an incredibly rich background as marketing consultant, coach and author together with personal and professional experience on marketing as an introvert, it was fabulous to dive deep into this topic. We explore myths around both introversion and marketing as an introvert with so many tips for helping you to share more about you and your work with the world if you are an introvert.

I had so many personal aha moments in this conversation. There are many powerful examples that illustrate the tips provided. It is a fantastic reminder to be ourselves in how we market including as introverts and how this can be a successful path. Take some time too to learn about Marcia’s work and books and connect with her via her fabulous Substack newsletter, Introvert UpThink. Plus Marcia has many valuable books and resources on this topic as well. Links in the show notes as ever.

So let’s head into the interview with Marcia.

Transcript of interview with Marcia Yudkin

Terri Connellan: Hello Marcia, and welcome to the Create Your Story podcast. It’s so great to connect with you and to chat about introversion from many perspectives today, including marketing and media.

Marcia Yudkin: Hi Terri. Thanks for having me.

Terri Connellan: So to kick us off, Marcia, can you provide a brief overview about your background, how you got to be, where you are today, and the work that you do?

Marcia Yudkin: Sure. As a kid, I was a bookworm. I loved words, and I was very much a classic introvert. My mother wished that I had more friends, and I found out recently that in this, she was just like, Ayn Rand’s mother who was always bugging her. Can’t you find some more friends? But I turned out fine.

In school. I studied philosophy in college, in graduate school. I taught philosophy for a while, quit academic life. I became a freelancer, because remember I said I had always loved words and so I thought, okay, writing is the next thing for me. And that morphed into becoming an expert in publicity and that developed into becoming an expert in marketing, which also used my love of words. And at some point I discovered that I’m an introvert. I think this was in the late two thousands, like 2008, something like that, and I started making more and more connections between things I saw in myself, things I saw in my clients, things I saw in my past, and reading that I was doing about what an introvert was.

And now I’m transitioning from marketing to concentrate on a newsletter that I started called Introvert UpThink, which looks at the prejudices against introverts in society and gives people resources for thinking positively about themselves as introverts.

Terri Connellan: Fabulous. And I love how your love of words is just woven through everything that you’ve talked about in different ways.

Marcia Yudkin: Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Terri Connellan: It’s just fantastic. And, love the focus that you have through that weave of your life, bringing together that love of words, marketing and understanding about your own introversion and then helping others with theirs in areas of your strengths. So that’s really fabulous. So you’ve been working in that area now for more than 10 years in the area of marketing for introverts. Can you tell us a bit more about why you chose to focus there and how you help people?

Marcia Yudkin: Well, one thing I discovered when I was looking around and thinking about. What I was doing on a daily basis is I noticed that about 75% of my own clients were introverts, and I think that was because they saw in me a reflection of themselves and they wanted to work with somebody they could admire and who was like themselves and therefore was not going to push them to do things that did not come naturally to them.

So in addition to making those kind of observations, I also interviewed people who I saw as introverts, as successful introverts, especially in the marketing field and also in the writing field. And I wanted to find out, okay, what were their strategies for becoming successful as an introvert, not making a lot of compromises with their own personality.

Interestingly, some of these people weren’t themselves sure that they were introverts, even though I was sure that they were. And, I also analyzed things that I saw commonalities in my introverted clients. One of the things I noticed was that, Initially they were very set against marketing. There was something that didn’t sit right with them and I think it was because they were being told they had to do it in a way that didn’t fit their personality.

And then once I showed them that they could think about marketing in a different way, then it made a big transformation. In their ability to bring in clients. So that was gratifying, watching that happen with them. I’m not coaching clients anymore, but I’m still writing about things that I’ve learned, throughout my life and in working with clients.

Terri Connellan: Fabulous. And, it’s interesting what you say about introverts having a set against marketing and that idea of there’s a particular type of way that marketing should be done that might not be in line with introvert preferences.

Marcia Yudkin: I was noticing that, well, as a marketing expert myself, I wanted to see what my colleagues were saying, and a lot of them were saying really nonsensical things or things that would be downright harmful to introverts. Like, just get over yourself, don’t be such a wimp. Go out there and be aggressive and you didn’t have to do that, and we’ll get to that. What’s the alternative to that? But, I just noticed that there was so much in the marketing guru space that was only applicable to extraverts, really. And in order to follow that advice, you would have to be an extravert or skilled at pretending you were an extravert. And as you know, that’s really a strain and that’s a drain on energy.

Terri Connellan: Absolutely. It’s like we have our natural preferences and when someone’s trying to push us into what is not natural. The natural reaction to that is to just move away from it, as you’ve said, to avoid or just to step away from that space altogether.

And I think as you’ve highlighted from what you’ve learned and what you’ve experienced for introverts often, and it’s part of why I called my business Quiet Writing, you have to find another way to share who you are and what you do that may go against the grain a bit or may involve new practices that will go through as we chat.

So, let’s talk about introverts and myths about introverts generally. So what are the most common myths that you see and how do they impact people with introverted preferences?

Marcia Yudkin: Well, I’ll just talk about two of the myths. There are a lot of them, but the first one is that introversion is a weakness, a personality weakness that you can get over, that you can overcome, and you can learn to be like all the extroverts and you can learn to get business the way that they get business.

And to some extent that’s true. You can, you can try those things, You can force yourself to do those things, but it’s exhausting. So my perspective is always to try to figure out a way to work with your natural preferences rather than against them. So introversion is not a weakness and it’s not something you can get over. If you were an introvert as a kid, you might learn to adapt in certain ways, but you’ll most likely still be an introvert when you’re grown up.

And the second myth is that introverts are timid and retiring. And from the way I look at it, we just have a different way of being bold. So, an amusing example of this is I have an extroverted friend. And, she does things that I would never do and I do things that she would never do and we surprise each other. So one of those surprises was, maybe 25 years ago, a big way that I kept my business going was by sending out postcards and they would be these hot pink postcards with announcements of my upcoming classes and special coaching programs.

And, my friend Shifra said to me, I could never send out postcards like that. I said, What do you mean? What do you mean you couldn’t send out postcards? She said, I don’t know. It’s so out there and to her that that was something that she couldn’t see herself doing, and to me was totally natural, totally easy and, you know, I wrote the postcards and I even put the stamps on them and everything. But for me to go up to strangers and start a conversation, that’s much more difficult. And for her, that was the most natural thing in the world. So, of course, If I were giving advice to her about how to market herself, I would set her up all these different ways she could have those conversations, and for me, that’s not what’s the best way.

Terri Connellan: Absolutely. And there are two really key myths about introversion, aren’t they that just pop up and are persistent. Even though we’ve had a lot of books and focus on introversion as a strength, I think it’s still something that we need to continually be working on personally and as a society. Introversion is not a personality weakness, as you said, you can overcome. It’s not something you can get over. And I loved your point too about the fact that you can force yourself to do things in a different way, but it’s the impact on people who are introverted, that it is exhausting. Cause again, you’re working against your natural preference, everything is harder.

Marcia Yudkin: Not only do we still hear this idea that introversion is a weakness, we sometimes hear it that it’s a mental illness. And, I’m researching this for an upcoming article about different ways in which people who should know better, identify certain aspects of being an introvert as being some kind of abnormal tendency and downright mental illness. But I still see this a lot when I read general interest things.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, it’s out there on the public domain still. And, I loved your example too, of the different ways of being bold. That was great because, it’s true, there are things that might be again, quite natural for us that we do that don’t feel bold at all. But it’s interesting, there’s lots of ways introverts can be bold, be quite rebellious at times, be quite different. Exactly. Yeah. And, it’s just natural for us.

Marcia Yudkin: I’m very bold in writing, so I’ve had a lot of success writing letters to perfect strangers where I’m proposing something and I know how to use words to get attention. That’s one of my strengths. And I’ve said things that some other people wouldn’t say or that they wouldn’t know how to get attention.

So I’ve made a lot of connections with editors, especially earlier in my career when I was a freelance writer, I was able to contact these national magazines. And just in half a page, this was before email, just in half a page of a letter, get their attention and have them call me and say, Let’s talk. Come to New York and meet with me. I want you to write for us.

Terri Connellan: That’s a great strength and a great skill and my learning in this space is that it is taking the time to become more self-aware and educated. That’s why I use that term self leadership, like understanding yourself and what your strengths are so you can as you’ve shown through that beautiful example, deploy them effectively to meet your needs and to share what you have to share with the world.

So, we’ve talked about some of the myths around introverts generally. What specific myths do you see around introverts and marketing, and what’s their impact?

Marcia Yudkin: Well, we talked a bit about the idea that you need to be aggressive, that you need to get yourself out there. Another idea is that you need to interrupt people and pressure them. And introverts absolutely hate that. That’s like one of the things we most hate because we hate being pressured. We hate being interrupted. And what I tell introverts is that instead of being pushy, you use attraction. So you can pull people to you instead of pushing them toward you.

And there’s a whole genre of marketing that I call pull marketing, which is that you put things out there in the world and the right people, the people who you want to be attracted to you and who you want to work with, will find it and come to you. And that’s a very natural, very comfortable process for introverts. There’s nothing pushy whatsoever about it. It’s very authentic. It’s very natural, and it’s very effective.

Terri Connellan: And is that the same as content marketing?

Marcia Yudkin: I guess you could say content marketing. I like talking about it in terms of push and pull because I think that makes it very clear what the advantage is for introverts.

Terri Connellan: Mm. Yeah. I love that. I do. And it’s that idea of putting ideas, putting content, putting information, branding out there that will help people find you, be drawn to you, as you say. And it’s that natural attraction I guess that brings people to you and to the ideas that you share. And so what about discoverability in that space? Cause a lot of time, I think a lot of introverts can feel they’re putting information out there, but it doesn’t get read or it doesn’t get seen. So how could introverts be seen?

Marcia Yudkin: There’s some strategy there that you have to think through. So you have to think about first, who do you want to be speaking with, and you find out where they hang out, what do they read, what do they listen to, what do they watch? And you need to figure out how to get in front of the media that they’re already using. So, maybe that’s an online forum that your ideal clients exchange ideas on, and you can go there and depending on the rules of the forum. You find out, okay, what can I do to participate and become known, and then have those people want to find out more about me and so on.

Terri Connellan: Great. No, that’s really, an excellent idea because it’s probably easy for introverts to just think, I’ll put this information out and people will come and it’s not always the case. So, I think the sort of area that you’re working in to really articulate what we can do is just so powerful.

Marcia Yudkin: Let me say one more thing. The reason I hesitated about when you asked about content marketing is that there are other ways of attracting people that don’t have to do with creating content. So, for example, one of the people I worked with, was a Reiki practitioner, alternative medicine practitioner.

And she said she felt really alienated from marketing, from the whole idea of marketing because, to her, it had to do with communicating with these faceless masses of people that she couldn’t relate to at all. However, her strength was, she told me that when she got face to face with someone and was talking with them in a conversational way, that she was able to explain to them in a very persuasive, very compelling way what reiki was.

And what it could do for them in a natural conversation. So we decided that her marketing strategy would be to figure out ways in which she could have those conversations. So that’s not content marketing, but it still is pull marketing because you’re not being pushy. So she would, attend health expos for example. She would offer free sessions at places where people were already going. So she would make a deal with a yoga studio or a health club to offer free sessions there at a certain time and place. And that really, really helped her build her practice.

Terri Connellan: Mm, thank you. I really appreciate that distinction and additional comments about that idea between content marketing and pull marketing. I can see what you’re saying because, I think, content marketing perhaps can seem a little bit passive. And I guess what you are describing there too is that actively identifying how you might do things, including in a face to face way. So it’s not necessarily all putting content out there, it might be putting yourself out there in a different way.

Marcia Yudkin: Right. And I’ll give you an example of how this stuff works. So, years ago I gave a class on writing websites basically. And I had 12 people in the class and my idea was that everybody in the class would use what they were learning to create their own websites. But what happened was that, and this was totally not my intention, some of the people in the class realized that this wasn’t something that they wanted to do themselves. And they took what they were learning from me to ask me to do it for them, and that was a very natural outcome of something that I was already doing.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. That’s a really great example and it’s often working through areas that you’re working on and finding the best way for you. A lot of, it’s about finding a fit for a personality, cause there’s introverts, but there’s different types of introverts as well. So everybody needs to find, what works for them.

So what insights, practices and tools can help introverts with marketing themselves, their work and their business in the world?

Marcia Yudkin: Well, the first thing I would say is that You need to realize that you’re fine the way you are. And, 1 sentence I came across not too long ago was, No one wants to do business with a wallflower. You see how insulting that is to introverts, but also it’s just not true. Because what I saw again and again was that everybody’s not the same. So everybody doesn’t want to do business with dynamic, talkative, chatty people. There are many people who prefer to work with us quieter, less flashy, less pushy people.

And, so for example, in one of my surveys, I asked the introverts in the survey, if they found out that there was a local financial planner who was nationally famous, would they want to work with that person because they were nationally famous?

And one guy said, it was very surprising, he said, No, I definitely would not, because first of all, I would think that they would be too busy to give me any attention. And secondly, I don’t want somebody who’s spending half their energy trying to be famous and deal with that. I want somebody who’s just going to be doing client service.

And this goes against a lot of the advice that marketing experts are giving to people. You know, you have to build this big reputation. Well, not everybody wants to work with somebody who has a big reputation and somebody who’s just a local person and very good at what they do and has good referrals may be just perfect for a lot of people. That’s the kind of practitioner that some people want to work with, they actually prefer. So you don’t have to brag about yourself. You don’t have to boast, you don’t have to pretend. You can just be your best self and be how you like to work and use your strengths.

So the second thing I would say is, Figure out what you most enjoy doing and where you’re at your best vis a vis potential clients, and then engineer that. So if your best communicating by email, then you want clients who are comfortable that way and not everybody is. I’ve had a couple of clients who don’t want to settle anything by email. They want to settle everything by a phone call. And that’s stressful for me, honestly. I mean, I’ll put up with it to a certain extent if I really, really like the client and it’s the kind of work that I enjoy doing. But it’s a pain in the neck to me. And, it’s not the way that I prefer to work with people.

So figure out what works best for you. And there’s nothing wrong with telling people that you do most of your work by email, not over the phone. And that way you get the people who want to be working with you and you get the people who you want to be working with them in that way.

Terri Connellan: Great. I love that. It’s interesting as you described that because phone calls are not a preferred way of working too. So everyone has their preferred modes of communicating and their preferred ways of working, but I love that you stress that it really helps to be upfront about that and communicate that because as you say, people can often think that it’s not okay to say I use this preferred way of communicating where for somebody else that’ll make their heart sing.

I had to laugh a little while ago cause I was talking with someone about the phone and he said, Oh, I only use my phone for phone calls. I said, goodness. I use my phone for just about everything but phone calls. It was just hilarious. Both introverts interestingly, but it’s just interesting how we do have such preferences, personality driven or otherwise for how we want to be communicating.

So that’s a great point. And I also really appreciated your point about, you know, just being who we are. And as you were talking, I was thinking of Paul Jarvis’s book. I don’t know if you’ve heard of his book, Company of One. And it, he talks there about how he actually loves just being a company of one person and he doesn’t want to scale up. The way he wants to work is have a small team around him. He doesn’t want too many people. He doesn’t want to go big and his business and his marketing is driven by just keeping it small. So I think that’s really refreshing too.

Marcia Yudkin: And the thing to remember is however you like to work, there are people out there who also like to work that. So tell them. So for example, if somebody’s thinking of me as a writing coach, I need them to know that I’m candid, that I’m frank, that I’m not a touchy-feely kind of writing coach who’s going to always say, Oh yes, it’s wonderful. It’s wonderful. That’s not the way I handle things. If that’s what they want, they should go to somebody else. And so it’s really important to know yourself and to communicate those things so that you get the kind of clients that you enjoy working with.

Terri Connellan: Absolutely. And are there any particular practices and tools that you encourage introverts to explore, to help with marketing themselves?

Marcia Yudkin: Well, as I said, I always start by asking, what is it that you do best? So I’m always surprised at the variety of answers that I get. So there was one woman I was coaching to be a marketing consultant, and I never met her face to face. We just talked on the phone. I never saw a picture of her. So my sense of her was just how we related over the phone and by email and my impression of her was that she was kind of mousey and quiet and retiring and I worried a little bit about how she would find her place as a marketer.

But one of the things I recommended to her was that because she was looking for local clients, I said, Why don’t you go try BNI? And if you’ve heard of BNI it’s a certain kind of local networking arrangement. They have chapters all over the world, so I don’t, I’m sure they have it in Australia as well, but, It involves a weekly face to face breakfast meeting with about 20 people.

So it turns out she was really good in that situation because she was able to relate to people one on one and have conversations about what they did and what she did. And she was able to explain what she did in a way that was not intimidating to her. And she got her calendar all filled up to start with from this networking group and it helped that the structure, BNI has a certain structure that facilitates those kind of one-on-one conversations within the group. And they encourage referrals within the group, but she was off and running much faster than I would’ve imagined, and it was great. I was so happy for her.

Terri Connellan: That’s great. I love that example because to me again, that can be a real introvert strength. That ability to have really focused one-on-one conversations and to find an organization that provides that sort of structure to enable that to happen, that’s a really fantastic way of looking at marketing yourself and putting yourself out there. Again, the stereotypical idea is you must talk to a room full of people and for many, that’s not the best way to reach people.

Marcia Yudkin: No it’s not. And when I lived in Boston, it’s a big city as big cities go in the United States. And I did a lot of networking when I was building up my business, but, I approached it in a certain way. My idea was that if I go to a meeting and I have one really, really good conversation with a potential client, I’m happy. It’s not a matter of collecting business cards. It’s not a quantity thing, it’s a quality thing. So I remember one time there must have been 200 people in the room and I somehow got talking with a certain woman and we really clicked and she became a client for 20 years.

Terri Connellan: That’s fabulous. And again, it’s just tapping into, strengths anyone can have. But I think particularly, for some introverted types, that ability to really have, focused meaningful one-on-one conversations is a real strength and something that we can be really good at and we can tap into and use that as a way of weaving into our practices. So we’ve got ways of connecting with people. So that’s a great example. Thank you. As someone with INTJ preferences for introversion, intuition, thinking and judging as I also have, what works for you in marketing, Marcia?

Marcia Yudkin: Well, some years ago I did a report called Marketing in Tune with Your Personality, and I interviewed one person from each of the eight introvert personalities in the Myers Briggs system and asked them how did they succeed in their marketing and what did they like and what did they hate? And then I wrote it all up. And so I went back and looked at what the INTJ person in the report said.

And he said what worked best for him was a free initial consultation, which unlike many other people, he did as an actual consultation. So instead, it was not a sales thing. It was really giving the other person advice, and here’s a quote from him. He said, ‘the one-on-one client first session does not feel to me like selling. It feels more like giving them a valuable gift and enjoying the transformational process of seeing them really get what I’m all about.’

Mm. So that was him and for me, I actually don’t do free initial consultations. I’ve never done them. Someone wants to work with me, I always made it, okay, you can read all about me on my. You want to work together, let’s get started and get started with a real paid consultation. And that worked for me.

But in terms of marketing, what was my secret weapon. My not so secret weapon was for more than 20 years, I did a free weekly marketing newsletter. It was called The Marketing Minute. And at its highest point, it had, maybe 15,000 subscribers. I don’t know if that sounds like a lot or not, but it was like a money machine because every week I would have literally something that took a minute to say out loud, 180 words. And then I would have a special offer. So anybody who was reading the tip of the week or the example of the week or whatever it was, then their eye would naturally go to the special offer. And some of them worked, some of them didn’t work, and some of the ones that worked, worked really, really well.

So it was like, My marketing minute went out and a couple hours later I would look at my inbox, how many orders did I get, how many inquiries for consultations and so on. So that was my secret weapon, and it was something I really, really enjoyed doing. So, the only thing that got me to stop doing it was when I decided on my new newsletter, Introvert Up Think, and only then was I able to close down the other, the Marketing Minute newsletter.

Terri Connellan: Mm. And you’re using Substack for that, aren’t you? Which, um, Yes, I am. Is becoming quite popular, isn’t it, as a way of reaching people?

Marcia Yudkin: I like the platform actually, because almost everything that I wanted to do, it has an easy way of doing it. So they’ve created the infrastructure. And, I’ve read a couple things by the founder of the company and I like his whole philosophy as well. So he’s trying to create a culture of readers, and a culture of writers writing for readers, and the whole ethos of the company seems to be around quality writing. It’s not so much sell, sell, sell kind of marketing writing. I mean, maybe there’s some people who using sub stack to do that, but, the way the company talks to its customer base and the way it sets things up, it really is set up to make it easy for writers to communicate with an audience.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, I’ve been looking at it too. I think it’s really interesting. And for those who might not be familiar, and correct me if I’m wrong, Marcia, but my understanding is that, Sub Stack works as a free platform where you can create content and it looks really beautiful. It looks a bit reminiscent of blogging in some ways, like a combination of blogging and newsletters, but then people have the opportunity to pay for additional content. So, yeah, so I think that’s a really beautiful, easy way, isn’t it, to bring people to services.

Marcia Yudkin: You can also import a list from some other platform without any problems. That was a big thing for me because I had so many subscribers from My Marketing Minute, not all of whom chose to go to the introvert newsletter, cause not all of them are interested in those issues. But anyway, I was able to import those people who wanted to join the introvert newsletter. That was easy. It has a free platform with no problem whatsoever. So maybe you’ll never charge anything for anything, for any of your content.

And if so, Substack is happy to have you as a customer. They’ll never make money from you. That’s okay. But they also make it easy to start charging for extra content from your subscribers, and they tell you what they think the the going rate is. People in these subject areas can charge more and if you’re not, don’t go there and so on. So if you set up an option for paid subscribers, then Substack will take 10%.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, which is great. So there’s not huge upfront costs, which I think is a really great model in this day and age where there’s a lot of costs isn’t there, and running a business. So it’s excellent. And encourage people to have a look at Introvert Upthink. We’ll put the link in the show notes cause it’s a great platform and great ideas there. So if people are aiming to market to introverts or be inclusive of introverts in their marketing, what might they think about in their marketing approaches?

Marcia Yudkin: Two things. The first thing is don’t force them into your paradigm. So if you have a certain paradigm that you think is the bees knees, it may not be right for introverts. Don’t try to cram everybody into it. So for example, I had a job coach who approached me and her number one question was, how could she get her introverted clients to do informational interviewing.

She thought that there’s no way that you can get a job in this day and age without doing informational interviewing. So in case somebody doesn’t know what that is, it’s where. You find somebody who’s in the job or in the industry that you want to get a job in, and you call them up and ask them, basically to mentor you for the space of a lunch or a breakfast.

And so you can ask them questions and so on. And it’s an unpaid thing and you’re basically asking them to do this huge favor. And I told her, forget it, . This is not something that introverts are ever going to be comfortable doing or be good at doing.

And in fact, if somebody asked me to do an informational interview, I don’t know if I would even agree to it, and I certainly would not agree to do it if I were looking for a job because I don’t like asking favors of people. Hmm. It’s just something that’s unpleasant to me. And because if I wouldn’t do that favor for somebody else, why should I expect somebody else to do that favor for me? And so she wasn’t happy with this. She wanted me to tell her how to convince introverts to fit into her system and that wasn’t going to work.

And the second tip is to respect their privacy. A lot of introverts are really conscious about and protective of their privacy. So here’s an example of something that that is respecting privacy. So I signed up for a writing class and they have an online forum where the people in the class can interact and ask questions and so on. And it’s set up so that all the students in the class appear when they post something with their first name and their last initial. I’m really comfortable with that, and it made me happy that I wasn’t outed to all the other people in the class by my full name unless I chose to do that.

And so that’s the kind of thing that an introvert may be very attentive too. And, I’ve had introverted clients who wanted to give me a testimonial, for example, but they were very unsure about the idea of having their city and state put at the end of the testimonial, which is customary that a lot of people do it that way. And so I said, Fine. You know, we don’t have to do it that way if, if you’re not comfortable with that.

Terri Connellan: Yeah, absolutely. And I think there are two great tips, particularly the idea of not forcing, trying to get introverts to do something that might be good for them is almost what it sounds like from what you’re describing. And, it’s just finding that shoe that fits for the right way of doing things, both in terms of privacy and in terms of paradigm. So thank you for that. I was really interested to see that you run an introvert book club, which highlights the work of introvert creators and introverted characters, which is a great idea. So what can we learn from introverted characters, whether it’s in fiction or real life?

Marcia Yudkin: Well, this introvert book club is part of my Introvert Up Think newsletter. So once a month I have a post that is, focused on the book of the month, and that’s for my paid subscribers. So that’s my added value that I’m giving to the people who pay for the newsletter. So I’m going back through a lot of classics, the kinds of books that we may have read in high school or in college. And I’m going back to them to see what we can pull out of them or learn from them specifically about introverts. And it’s just been so interesting to me.

So for example, I did The Great Gatsby and my theme for the Great Gatsby was the mystique that introverts can have when they’re sort of distant and unattainable and on a pedestal and not very communicative. So I went through the novel and found all the places that highlighted the mystique that Gatsby had, and why is it that we think of him in terms of glamor. The novel takes place during prohibition, during the jazz age and he had these parties at his mansion on Long Island Sound. And, yet he didn’t really attend his own parties. Like a typical introvert. So you can look at characters in fiction and people in real life that we’ve heard about as famous names and try and see what are some introvert themes you can pull out?

So, for example, I did a thing on Thomas Edison. We think of him as the in inventor of the light bulb and this solitary genius. And, one interesting thing about him is that he actually built the world’s first research and development laboratory. He was not solitary at all. He set a world record for the most patents, but he had dozens if not hundreds of scientists and technologists and chemists and so on, working for him on all his little projects.

He was the brain behind it. He was not solitary at all. And the other interesting thing about Edison is that he lost most of his hearing when he was in his teens and as an adult, he said that that was an advantage because if he was having lunch with people, he wouldn’t have to listen to all their small talk because he literally couldn’t hear it. And so he could just be thinking in his own mind about his invention projects while everybody is blabbing around him. Somebody approached him once and said, You know, I’m working on some device that can help people who are hard of hearing to hear better. He didn’t want to have anything to do with it. He was happy being in his own world and it’s only an introvert that would respond that way.

Terri Connellan: So that just sounds amazing. And from that I see you’re also writing a book on what we can learn from famous and fictional introverts. So tell us a bit more about this book, how it’s going, and why you felt called to write it.

Marcia Yudkin: Well, I’m not actually writing the book per se. In doing the newsletter, I’m preparing to write the book and I’m also building an audience so that I can get a book contract.

So I’ve had book contracts from big publishers in the past. I’ve been sort of out of that for a while. And in order to get back in their good graces, I have to show them that I have people who are interested in this topic and who are following me and so on. So I have a number of subscribers that I want to reach, and once I reach that number, then I’m going to approach the publishers and I’ll have been working on the topic from all these different angles in my newsletter. And I’ll be able to put together a much better book proposal than I could if I just sat down now.

Terri Connellan: That’s really exciting and I love the way that that whole piece as you just described it, writing the book, connecting with an audience, and also preparing to pitch to publishers. So that’s fantastic and really exciting and interesting as well.

I saw you also had a session on, or a piece on Emily Dickinson, who I always find really fascinating as an introverted writer. So yes. Yeah. Fantastic. So I think people will find that really interesting. So again, we’ll link to The Introvert Up Think, and you’ll be able to find information if you’re listening and interested in that newsletter.

So, the last couple of questions, Marcia, are questions I ask every guest on the podcast. So the first one is how have you created your story over your lifetime?

Marcia Yudkin: Well, I thought about this and I wasn’t sure how to answer it. But what I can tell you is that I spent the year 2021 writing a memoir, and the theme of the memoir is Success Without Ambition.

And in my life, I talk about in, in the book, ways in which ambition led me astray and that I’m better off having come beyond that. So it’s a very philosophical book and very introspective book. It’s very much an introvert’s kind of book and I spent a year writing it. One of the things I had to do was reread all my old journals in order to get back into how I used to be and so on. And so since I finished writing it, I’m letting it sit. I need to get perspective on it and I need to get feedback on it before I go back and do the next draft. So I’m not quite ready to get back to it. But I will be, and I don’t know if that book will come before or after the introvert book. We’ll see.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. But I love that focus in your memoir around ambition and how that fits with success. I think that’s a really interesting perspective and example of, different ways we can create our story and look at the themes that thread through it. So that sounds a really fascinating project. Look forward to reading more. So the other question I ask guests is about wholehearted self leadership, related to my book, which has some tips on wholehearted self leadership and practices for women. So what would be your top self leadership tips that you would share with people?

Marcia Yudkin: Well, if you remember, when I saw that question, I asked you, Well, what is self leadership? And you gave me a nice answer and I didn’t quite understand it. And I went looking for more articles, more content about it. And there was something that was not clicking with me. And finally I realized that the reason I was having trouble with the words. That specific phrase is that to me it was a little redundant. And in my experience, probably I’ve always had self leadership and so therefore I never had to think about it.

So if I look back, even as a kid, whatever I was interested in, I went and did it. And when I was in college, again, there were things that attracted me, I pursued them.

So one of the things I did when I was in college, I went to Brown University, which is part of the Ivy League here in the United States. But what’s specific about Brown is that they have an option where you can go through all four years if you like, without having any grades from your professors.

Instead they write evaluations of you. And I really, really liked that idea. It’s a small enough school that you can get to know your professors, so it’s meaningful as well. But everybody told me, you’ll never get into graduate school if you don’t have grades.

I said, Okay, that’s fine, . And, when I went to apply to graduate school, I got into every graduate school that I applied to, so they were wrong. And I, attention to myself. Is that what you’re talking about?

Terri Connellan: Yeah, I think it’s that idea of self-awareness is one is one part of it. Like understanding yourself, an introvert, for example, as we’ve talked about through this conversation. And it’s that self mastery and that ability to make choices. But yeah, I think what I’m hearing from you is that self leadership’s been a really strong theme, or that self mastery, self belief has been really strong in you right from the start.

Marcia Yudkin: And so my tip for that is to listen to yourself. And this doesn’t come naturally to everybody. So when I was mentoring people who were learning to become a copywriter, what would happen again and again, and I noticed it and I learned from it. What would happen again and again was that we would have a conference about what they were learning.

And I would point out, you know, you really had to do such and such here. And the student would say, You know, I thought about that. And I would say, And… so over the course of this 10 week program, when I mentored them, they would have practice in listening to and respecting their ideas that they had just gone flitting through their mind.

And this was a huge step in making them confident and skilled in what I was teaching them. And I think anybody can learn to do that. It’s just a matter of attention and confidence and, you know, maybe a mentor.

Terri Connellan: Mm. And it’s that discernment in there too of knowing when to trust that voice and knowing when another thing like fear is talking, like that sort of. It’s hard to describe, but it’s a developing practice about wise listening, isn’t it?

Marcia Yudkin: Yes. And in this particular program, we were talking about ideas. So it wasn’t the fear so much that I was asking them to pay attention to, or that we were talking about. It was the ideas that, you know, had gone flitting through their mind, but they hadn’t taken seriously.

Terri Connellan: Yeah. I think that’s great advice that learning to listen to yourself, which I think is a lifetime practice, isn’t it?

Marcia Yudkin: Yes.

Terri Connellan: So thanks so much, Marcia, for your time today. It’s been really fascinating to hear more about you, about your work, particularly in the introversion space and the marketing space and how they come together, and also about your own writing and creativity, which is always fascinating. So where can people find out more about you and your work online?

Marcia Yudkin: They can go to introvertupthink.com spelled the obvious way. And, if you’re specifically interested in marketing for introverts or marketing to introverts, I have ebooks on those topics on Amazon and they’re just 2 99 each US dollars. I don’t know what they are, Australian or Euros or whatever, but, you know, just little things to get you thinking and get you started in this area.

Terri Connellan: Fabulous. That’s great. And we’ll put the link to Introvert Up Think and I can put the link to books too, if you like, in the show notes. That would be great to share with people.. Thanks so much Marcia.

Marcia Yudkin: Thank you very much for having me.

About Marcia Yudkin

For more than 10 years, Marcia Yudkin has stood up and defended introverts as worthy of respect and understanding. This developed out of her work as a marketing coach and consultant. She’s the author of 17 books and too many ebooks, online courses and so on to count. Her current focus is a Substack newsletter called Introvert Upthink, which critiques society’s misunderstandings and disparagements of introverts.  She lives in the woods of Western Massachusetts, where she walks or runs five miles every day in the company of chipmunks, beaver, deer, porcupines and occasionally bears.

Introvert Upthink: https://www.introvertupthink.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/marciasmantras

Marketing in Tune With Your Personality: A Guide for Introverts: https://www.yudkin.com/intune.htm

Marketing for Introverts: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005ETBK9C

Marketing to Introverts: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DZYGYYH/

Terri’s links to explore

Books:

Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition: https://www.quietwriting.com/wholehearted-book/ & quick links to buy: books2read.com/wholehearted

Wholehearted Companion Workbook: https://www.quietwriting.com/wholehearted-companion-workbook/ & quick links to buy: books2read.com/b/companion

Free resources:

Chapter 1 of Wholehearted: Self-leadership for women in transition: quietwriting.net/wholehearted-chapter-1

Personal Action Checklist for Creating More Meaning + Purpose: https://www.quietwriting.net/checklist 

Coaching and writing programs:

Work with me: quietwriting.com/work-with-me/

The Writing Road Trip with Beth Cregan: quietwriting.net/writingroadtrip

Connect on social media

Instagram: instagram.com/writingquietly/

Facebook: facebook.com/writingquietly

Twitter: twitter.com/writingquietly

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/terri-connellan/