A dear friend of mine recently declared quite publicly that she would no longer be doing anything sales-related in her business because it felt “gross.”
I understood exactly what she meant, and so I reached out pretty immediately.
I get it. I really, really do. When your work is heart-forward, when it is steeped in service and sincerity, marketing can feel noisy. Sales can feel slippery. Promotion can feel perilously close to obnoxious self-promotion. And if you are thoughtful, warm, and values-led, you do not want to be confused with the loudest voice in the room.
But here is the steady truth:
Sales and marketing are not a betrayal of your integrity - they are an extension of it. They are sacred skills in service-based businesses.
The Visibility Tension
Many entrepreneurs in service-based work are exceptional at delivery and deeply uncomfortable with owning their value out loud.
They coach, counsel, consult, create.
They change lives quietly.
They assume quality will speak for itself.
But quality does not have a microphone.
People cannot work with you if they do not know where to find you. They cannot be helped by an offer they have never heard articulated. Visibility is not vanity. It is clarity. It is communication. It is care.
If your work genuinely helps people, then obscurity serves no one.
Why It Feels So Hard
Heart-forward leaders are often allergic to hype.
You do not want to manipulate.
You do not want to manufacture urgency.
You do not want to commodify connection.
And when your clients become your community, when students become friends, the lines can blur. Selling to someone you care about can feel personal. You worry it will contaminate the relationship.
But selling with integrity is not coercion. It is consent-based conversation. It is saying: Here is what I offer. Here is the investment. Here is who it is for. Decide accordingly.
Clear. Clean. Compassionate.
The discomfort is not about sales itself. It is about misaligned models of sales.
The “Pick Your Brain” Problem
Let’s talk about another sticky spot.
“Can I take you for coffee and pick your brain?”
On the surface, it sounds flattering. It signals respect. It suggests your perspective is prized.
But there are two tensions beneath that request.
On one hand, it undermines value. When strategic thinking, pattern recognition, and hard-earned expertise are framed as something to casually extract over coffee, it subtly shrinks the significance of the work. It reduces years of refinement to a friendly favour.
On the other hand, and perhaps more importantly, it is truly out of integrity for me to offer “free” access to my guidance when others are making significant investments in it.
If one client pays for a 90-minute strategy session and another receives similar counsel over cappuccino, I have compromised my own standards. Not because generosity is wrong, but because inconsistency erodes trust. It dilutes the container.
Integrity is not only about being kind. It is about being congruent.
And congruence requires boundaries.
Another Quiet Struggle: The Fear of Being “Too Much”
There is yet another sticky point many entrepreneurs face: the fear of being seen as self-important.
Especially for women in leadership.
We have been socialized to be generous but not grand. Helpful but not headline-making. Competent but not commanding.
So we shrink.
We qualify.
We whisper when we should be wonderfully clear.
But when you understate your value to appear modest, you inadvertently make it harder for people to understand the magnitude of what you offer. I have been speaking to this often of late, because for more than a decade I have witnessed it surface again and again in my work with women - a persistent and powerful pattern that cannot be ignored.
Marketing, at its best, is not exaggeration. It is articulation.
Sales as Service
When you reframe sales as service, everything shifts.
Sales becomes an act of stewardship.
Marketing becomes a bridge, not a billboard.
Promotion becomes permission for someone else to step into growth.
You are not convincing. You are clarifying.
You are not pushing. You are positioning.
You are not grasping. You are guiding.
If your work transforms, heals, advances, or strengthens others, then speaking about it is not self-indulgent. It is responsible.
The most ethical entrepreneurs I know are not the ones who avoid sales. They are the ones who approach it with steadiness and self-respect.
Because when you know your work matters, silence is not noble. It is negligent.
And when you charge appropriately, communicate clearly, and hold boundaries firmly, you are not being gross.
You are being grown.
An Invitation…
If any part of this resonated and if you struggle to speak plainly about the power of your own work, I would invite you to begin with the Visibility Audit.
It is a private, thoughtful assessment designed to illuminate how you are currently being seen and where you may still be dimming your presence. Not to fix you. Not to inflate you. But to offer clarity.
From there, Free to Be Seen is the deeper work. A deliberate exploration of self-assured leadership, clean communication, and congruent visibility in business and life. This is where we untangle conditioning, strengthen voice, and build the kind of confidence that does not perform; it anchors.
And for those who prefer precision and pace, I have recently opened a few spots for 90-minute one-on-one strategy and leadership sessions. These are focused, high-calibre conversations designed to bring immediate clarity to a specific challenge - whether it is positioning, messaging, boundaries, or bold next steps. Reach out to me at jami@jamiyoung.com to explore the possibilities.
You do not need to shout.
But you do need to be seen.