Nicole, Author at Nicole Strychaz

Why Customer Avatars Can Block Your Creative Muse

Digital marketing friends! We need to chat.

It seems every person in the digital marketing space asks me this question. “Who is your customer avatar?” “What do they like?” “Where do they hang out virtually?”

They go on to talk about the magic bullet when it comes to knowing who your customer avatar is. Even the “manifestation-style” online marketers will say you need one.

“If you picture them reading your book, loving your product, oh then EVERYONE will come and you will be rich, rich, rich!” they say.

Ugh… Just Ugh…

I say this because if you are an Intuitive Content Creator, this is NOT natural.

What is a Customer Avatar?

A customer avatar represents your ,ideal client, aka a “marketing persona” or customer profile. It’s used to help you narrow down who your ideal buyer is and how to reach them. You could also look at it as the information you get from your market research and even from years of selling and recognizing who is a “raving fan” and who is not.

My problem is not using a customer avatar or conducting marketing research, it’s that the Creative Muse (Intuitive Information) doesn’t fit nicely into a box.

It comes TO you.

And it comes to you because you are the closest person to the person that information wants to reach (see: On The Map: How Do Spirits Find Their Mediums?).

The thing that bothers me about the customer avatar question is that it can shift your focus from “Who needs this information and how do I reach them?” to “My ideal customer is…”

And shifting the focus of the message can seal the energy off from those who it is meant for.

The Creative Muse is a form of “open channeling” and then suddenly you’re trying to fit it into a box because you enter the online marketing world.

How Intuitive Writing and the Creative Muse ACTUALLY Works

Let me tell you something about Intuitive Writing because unfortunately, it does NOT work that way and I’m truly feeling if one more person asks me this question I’m going to SCREAM!!!!

Yes, that would be great, I guess if I knew exactly who my target market was and I marketed directly to them.

Maybe it would’ve saved me 10 years of confusion and struggle and I’d be in Bali right now in my dream villa and private pool from all the passive income.

But that isn’t what happened.

And I believe, a big part of why that didn’t happen is because I kept TRYING to answer the customer avatar question and think like a “traditional” online marketer!

Honestly, not knowing WHO helped me turn inward and figure out who I AM instead of who THEY were.

Why I stopped thinking about avatars and how it helped.

It wasn’t until one day I decided “I don’t know who my customer avatar is and I don’t care!”

So far it’s people who feel a call to write (scribes who don’t yet know they’re scribes) and they show up as male, female, younger, older, and somewhere in the middle. Sometimes it could be a mom, a single person, someone married without kids, therapists, midwives, PR people, marketing firms, and podcasters.

You see how there seems to be no pattern or rhyme or reason to the people who show up as my clients and say “You kept popping in my head for some reason”?

Well… that’s because I do soul mate client meditations! And then apparently, my soul mate clients get a thought in their head and find me somehow.

Which is pretty amazing if you think about it.

Let me explain what I mean.

The Creative Muse and Marketing

I want to talk for a minute about the Creative Muse as it relates to marketing.

First, when you are “open channeling” or an Intuitive Channel for your creative endeavors it will feel as if it COMES to you.

You don’t say, “What does my customer avatar want to hear today?” No.

You are likely doing something else entirely. Taking a walk, sitting at the beach, taking your shower, waking up in the morning.

You usually aren’t asking! That’s a big key, it’s coming to you.

It feels like a calling. A quest even. A message that needs to be delivered and you have no idea what or to who.

Like those fun posts you see on Facebook that say “I don’t know who needs to hear this right now. But if you’re going through a rough time… don’t cut your bangs”.

And we all laugh because who DOESN’T need to hear that?

Here’s what I’ve learned and that I want you to know if you’re still with me here.

Don’t worry about who your customer avatar is! Someday, as your business is established and you have figured out how to niche down, and niche again, you will know.

Until then, trust that the universe knows.

The universe already knows. They know who they are writing to and you are that closest point.

When I do the soul mate client meditation, for example, I’m just saying “I’m open to receiving a new client”. Then that person’s higher self is saying to them “We’ve found the person who can help you”.

Likely that client has been thinking “I could really use help with my writing…I feel I should be writing and I don’t know why.”

The universe, or our higher selves more likely, connect us.

It works in the case if I’m also looking to outsource something. I will think “I can use help with x, who is the best person for me?” And I pay attention to what thoughts pop into my mind or when someone will “randomly” tell me about someone who does that exact same thing.

With one caveat.

I do think you can be a niche without knowing your customer avatar. If you are Boss-Moms and you target men in your advertising – good luck with that.

Or in my case, if one isn’t open to talking about awakening to your gifts, I’m not your gal either. So I do choose people who would like Hay House, Manifestation Babe, or Intuition in my marketing because they are more likely to be more open to my style of being.

It’s not my calling to convince someone they are meant to write if they hate writing. Instead I want to support them as they discover it, the same way I needed support as I was figuring it out.

We DO need to wave our “freak flag” in the places our soul mate clients are most likely to see it.

While you’re figuring it out, show up!

But what I’ve found is that if I show up, fully myself, express my feelings without hiding them or pretending that I’m not an Intuitive Channel, people connect to me who I NEVER would’ve in a million years thought of as my ideal client. Often not even in this country and I can’t figure out how they find me!

So create and avatar if you want to, but if it isn’t creating miracles in your work LET IT GO.

Just go on the quest like the Knight or Knightess that you are.

Questions you can ask instead

If you don’t know who you customer avatar is or how to do market research yet, try asking questions like “What would you like me to share today”? and then write it down. Or “How do I reach them?” And write it down.

“What should I write about in this moment?”

“What does someone need to hear today that I can help them with?”

“What skill do I have that I can share and someone out there will find it beneficial?”

Letting go can be more POWERFUL than honing in on your imaginary person.

And even if you LOVE this whole “customer avatar” thing, just stop asking me about mine!!!

No matter what, as I heard Dana Malstaff say “Marketing is a bit of a mysterious fig” no matter how you look at it.

Attracting customers with your strong energy to the point where they want to know more, is also a good strategy. And who wouldn’t want to hear what you have to say?

Look at WHO is showing Up

One other thing I’d like to mention. There are clues for your marketing that support your creative muse in the feedback you receive.

I get emails that say “I booked an appointment with you and I just started writing again”. They will tell me how they used to write and stopped and how just booking a session with me they found themselves typing away and emailing me about it (amazing, right?!). I’ve even received pictures of writing in other languages from ferry trips where she was inspired to write again and sent it to me.

Pure Gold receiving feedback to help you understand how this channeled content is helping those it reaches – if you just ALLOW IT.

I want to make sure you don’t misunderstand me and think that I don’t believe in passive income, digital marketing, or creating a living online.

I just want this notion that everyone NEEDS to know their customer avatar to get out of my conversations because it doesn’t allow for us to experiment, grow, and get there when we get there.

IT CAN BLOCK YOU FROM MOVING FORWARD!

If your customer avatar is working for you…

If this idea of a customer avatar is working for you and you are getting great results knowing all about them and who they are – then keep doing it!

If ANYTHING works for you then you should be doing it, no questions asked.

I’m mostly speaking to online marketers who have this as their stock question for anything you are working on. “So who’s your customer avatar? Where do they hang out? How old are they and what do they do?”

I’ve heard it so many times I could cry.😭

I just don’t think we’re all supposed to spend time figuring this out on the front end, instead of just letting our SOUL SPEAK AND SEEING WHERE IT TAKES US. Good old fashioned trial and error.

What would we write and share if we didn’t think we would be criticized or ostracized? If we had all the money in the world, what would we write then? How would we share it?

There’s more than one way to do business my friends.

Think of someone who has a physical product, something like the Elf on the Shelf. It started with an idea to write a book about a family tradition she had growing up.

Here’s what Christ Pitts, the co-creator of Elf on the Shelf said about it:

“It was during that time at home that I looked up and I saw our elf that we grew up with sitting on a shelf,” said Bell. “I was like, ‘Mom, why don’t we write a story about the elf on the shelf?’ I can tell you honestly, at that time, there was no ― and I do mean zero ― intention of starting a business or really doing much of anything other than a fun project for mom and I to work on together.”

This has grown like wildfire and I can’t say for sure, but I doubt she was wondering who her customer avatar was when she developed it. Likely, she had a passion for her product and wanted it out there for KIDS. Not only for one little girl, ages 3-10, who likes to do x, y, and z.

There are many ways to be in business and to create quality digital and physical products. Once they catch on and start selling, THEN you can begin to figure out who your customer avatar is by looking at the demographics of people who are responding to your offer and clicking on your links.

Without your demographics, it’s the cart before the horse.

You need to be passionate about your offer, get out there and market it, and THEN figure out who is buying it and how you can reach more people like the ones who love it (scale it).

I’m telling you, if someone says they don’t know who their avatar is, just leave them be to go forward and figure it out their own style of digital marketing.

Not everything in business is all neat and tidy or one-size-fits-all.

Online business is hard, messy, and exciting all at once!

Plus, the universe will hook you up if you show up consistently like my clients who say I pop into their head. If you think about it too long that will seem impossible and yet, it happens! All the way from sunny California to Australia and Norway.

I’d love to hear from you if you’ve been able to create an online business WITHOUT using a customer avatar? Or, if you have felt stuck when trying to come up with one? Let me know in the comments if you too if you are sick of people asking you this!

XOXO,

Well My Closet Writers, Now Is the Time….

Are you feeling it yet? The call to act? The call to speak your truth?

It’s okay if you are not. You may be taking everything in and adjusting to how quickly our lives have changed this past year.

Pre-Quarantine and Pandemic, it was so easy to get everything we needed and quickly. Including our exercise fix and much needed social stimulation.

We experienced a new reality where we had to rely on ourselves and live knowing we might not be able to buy toilet paper, thermometers, vitamin C and cough syrup. Even treatment for cancer patients was put on hold in some cases.

We learned that there could be circumstances where we can’t access everything we need in 24 hours or less…

As the quarantine part of pandemic hit, I quickly found myself grateful that I’ve been developing a strong meditative practice for the past 10 years and that I know how to go inward. I know how to quiet my mind, detach from the collective fear and be the calm in a storm.

I also felt complete empathy for those who hadn’t been developing their ability to detach, because holy sh*t is there a lot to keep you discombobulated right now! It was in these moments of gratitude that I realized this is truly our time to shine.

Those of us who can skip the news for a week and still make an informed decision.

The closet seers (see-ers) that know there is more going on than it seems and are willing to share it in writing.

So many of us are feeling called to step up and lead.

A call you may not be comfortable with or that you may not want to answer.

But it’s more important now than ever! When crisis stirs up the world, the government can fill in the gaps of what happened and offer solutions that are likely not natural and don’t really address why this could be happening on a spiritual level.

The news is happy to lead with FEAR in exchange for RATINGS, completely ignoring the power of mindset and positive thinking.

Our thoughts are so powerful! We need people who able to go inward to counteract the energy drain that comes with sadness, uncertainty and the heaviness of fear energy and also give space for grieving.

It’s time for the CLOSET WRITERS to ACT.

If you study literature, you will see the real history is NOT told in the history books. It’s in the stories. It’s in the literature and the poetry of the time. I learned more about how people were feeling and what they were experiencing by being an English Major than in history classes.

That hasn’t changed. I know it’s not easy and you may be thinking “Why me???” But why not you? Isn’t it you who is feeling the desire to write but second guessing it instead?

It’s time to ask yourself why you are having those stirrings and the call to write.

There are so many ways this can express itself from fiction, to blog posts, to non-fiction and even social media posts.

You can answer the call and write material to help people stay calm when they can’t access care and resources so they envision the best outcome rather than the worst. You can let them know the intuitive hits you are receiving and also create thought provoking content. Why not entertainment – who doesn’t need that?

The seers (see-ers), the intuitives, the energy healers, the essential oil advocates, the holistic practitioners, our spiritual mental health professionals – they’ve all been building their tool kits, not even knowing how much we would need them.

It can feel scary to speak up.

You may feel your words will be deleted anyway.

But humanity has a long recovery ahead because the energy word for the year was “INTENSE!” So much to process, beyond having our hopes on a quick fix like a vaccine.

Being a clear channel for your words is so important. It’s the difference between putting out solutions and good energy versus feeding the collective fear and panic. A HUGE distinction!

My question to you is, “What is awakening within you?” What is stirring inside… what thoughts are popping into your mind? Do you dare to see it?

I’ve spent much of my journey afraid to say I’m a medium. I guess I thought my house would be full of spirits if I admitted it rather than feeling them all the time with me anyway. Just right there waiting for me to say “okay”.

During these challenging times I have stepped up to say “Okay. Let’s do whatever it is we’ve come here to do!” (Otherwise they keep me up at night which I talk about in THIS POST “How to Set Office Hours for Your Creative Muse”).

If you are ready to embrace your communication tool of writing, UNLOCK Writer’s Block is a very supportive process that helps you to clear your energy so you tune into YOUR words and YOUR mission, rather than the collective energy of chaos and mistrust.

I’ve developed it over the years as a way to keep our egos out of our Intuitive Writing process. The ego has a very important place in your life, but not in your writing (unless you want fear driven, small perspective content ).

LEARN MORE

Unlock Writer’s Block can help you get on track with your writing, embrace your highest Inner Writer and feel supported by your Spiritual Support team as you do.

Well? Are you feeling called? I’d love to hear what’s calling you right now and how you are supporting yourself to answer it.

Let me know in the comments.

XOXO,

How to Set “Office Hours” for Your Creative Muse

Your creative muse, your intuitive messages, your psychic insight… it can come at odd times and all hours of the night. It is generally inspiring, intriguing and something you want to capture but because of the irregularity of it, you may not have the ability or time to write it down.

Instead of the creative and beautiful messages, if you aren’t ready to receive them it can become an annoyance or hindrance to your life – and who wants that to happen?!!!

I’m going to let you in on something. You can set “office hours” for your creativity so that you are able to receive it and capture it rather than have it be a mysterious feeling in your life that comes and goes.

It begins with setting boundaries.

Let me share with you how I figured this out, because it started out more subtle and GREW!

When I finally committed to “this writing thing”, I started to become aware of this voice inside my head that spoke in blog posts (weird, I know!). I would hear it as I was walking, as I was cooking dinner, as I was resting my eyes, but most annoyingly – as I was trying to sleep!

It literally kept me up at night with a feeling of both excitement at the words coming through and struggle because I was tired and wanted to sleep.

I tried EVERYTHING to find a way to capture the words AND be able to sleep through the night but it was feeling so out of control.

Meditation, quiet before bed, falling asleep reading all failed. At 2:00 a.m. I’d be wide awake with words such as “Time to wake up Nicole and help others do the same,” followed by an entire page of words that went with the title. It was the same, night after night until I would finally get out of bed and write it down.

I didn’t understand it at first. It was like my voice but it wasn’t.

I finally realized “I’m not having these thoughts!”

That’s why I couldn’t quiet them. Those messages, blog posts, words… they were determined to be delivered and when I wasn’t able to write them the muse showed up in the middle of the night when I wasn’t able to ignore it.

Saying “I’m not listening” with my fingers in my ears just wasn’t going to cut it.

You see, spirit comes when you are most likely to hear it. So if you keep your life hectic and busy with no time to listen, well then my friends they will come to you while you are trying to sleep because there’s nothing else going on to distract you.

Intuitive writing is a form of receiving and it can sneak up on you.

Mine came the day I committed to writing “The Great American Novel” which I discovered looked like blogging for me. Once I set up a blog, the words “showed up” and didn’t stop in between writing sessions.

This was long before I discovered I was an Intuitive Writer and before I even wanted to know more because, let’s be honest, with two toddlers underfoot what I wanted most was the ability to sleep.

You may “hear differently.

I should mention, not everyone hears it in words. Some see a page completed and can fill in the blanks. Others may stand in a bookstore and they suddenly know they will have a book on the shelf one day.

Or, it may come in dreams.

It’s important to be aware of your version of the voice and the “thoughts” you’re thinking that aren’t your thoughts. I mean, where are they coming from?

You can generally notice that they seem wiser and have it all together. A more omniscience narrator for your life than you would normally be. Often it involves a message for yourself or others that can feel healing and helpful.

BUT, we all need our beauty rest and being awoken in the middle of the night with words and messages it not a great way to live.

Make a date with spirit, aka set “office hours”.

If this is happening to you, then it’s time to MAKE A DATE WITH SPIRIT (the universe, your Higher Self, whatever you want to call it).

You can literally make a deal with your words (visions or messages) so that they can come at a time when you are available. It’s like setting “office hours” for your creative muse!

The important part is that you have to stick to it for it to work. You simply say, “I will be available to write from 9:00 – 11:00 most mornings in exchange for my sleep”. Choose a time when you can be available, even if it’s only for a half hour.

I did this a good seven years ago and it has worked beautifully. The only time it stops working is when I start skipping writing. Usually when the kids get sick or life gets crazy and my whole routine gets out of whack.

And believe me, I generally know within a few weeks because suddenly there I am again, waking up with words running through my mind and an awake feeling that you probably know if you are an Intuitive writer or psychic medium.

And, if you want to get really good at hearing your words and having a time for them, you may enjoy my Unlock Your Writer’s Block Trio. It sets up your clear, energetic boundary and gives you time to write. You simply pause if you want to write more and be sure to turn it back on to experience “grounding”.

LEARN MORE

Once you get the hang of writing CLEARLY, you can take it “Next Level” with Deepen the Connection to Your Soul’s Words. Not to mention the One-Minute Energy Alignment, which has quite the story as to how I discovered the need for that (I share it soon!).

Well? I’d love to know if you’ve had this experience. Have you been woken up with messages or visions or felt them at an equally inconvenient time? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

XOXO,

If You Could Go Back With the Wisdom You Have Now…

I recently attended an online retreat with Jean Haner called The Spiritual Side of Chinese Medicine. Each day we learned about one of the elements of Chinese Medicine and discovered how to heal it if we were out of balance (and who isn’t???). On the day we were studying water, one of our assignments was to think about what we would do differently if we were to go back and do our life over – but this time with the wisdom we have now.

I would do many things differently, but the one thing that really stood out to me is that I would offer more grace.

I didn’t used to understand what grace is but I’ve come to love the word for meaning allowing people to be who they are and allow them space to heal their lives without my judgement.

When they make a mistake, letting them off the hook for it.

When someone is going through a hard time, offering support instead of criticism.

When someone hurts me, offering them grace knowing they are human and we all makes mistakes (I’m not saying let them hurt me – that is different!).

Growing up I held everyone to such a high standard and felt so disappointed when they didn’t show up how I thought they should. When they weren’t who I thought they should be.

I was such a tough critic!

If I went back with this level of wisdom I have now, I would offer everyone in my life grace. Including myself. I would offer myself grace for doing the best I could at the time with what I knew. We should be our own biggest supporters instead of our toughest critics!

Imagine what a gentler world we’d live in if we offered each other, and ourselves, grace.

Grace for your business.

I also want to mention offering ourselves grace when it comes to running our online business. There’s so much pressure to be on social media, to do this and do that – it can be too much! I’d love for us to offer ourselves grace with that too!

Allow for our own shortcomings, for the cycles of creation that come and go, for the desire to be seen and to NOT be seen at times too.

Letting ourselves be who we are and not judge ourselves so harshly.

You may enjoy this post from when I went against my nature and tried to really put myself out there on social media. I committed to showing up on social media for 30-days in a row and this is what I learned and the conclusion I came to.

I Did a Social Media Influencer 30-Day Challenge and Here’s What Happened

I’m curious if there is one thing you would do differently if you went back and started over with your current wisdom? I’d love to hear it, if you would like to share.

XOXO,

I Didn’t Want to Be the One to Tell You This…

Almost 10 years ago I began an awakening journey through writing that has changed my life – to say the least! I became more present. I learned to cherish every day.

And I began to welcome life lessons and started to explore the idea of how I could grow on a soul level instead of feeling that things were happening to me (as if I had no part in it!).

One of the first things I discovered when I decided it was time to let my writing show me why it was always on my mind – is that I channel through writing.

Words come to me, through me… but I didn’t understand why or how.

When I would ask the question “Who is talking?” Expecting a voice to say “It’s you Nicole, duh!” Instead, I would hear “Mary Magdalene” or “Archangel Raphael”. Having been raised by an atheist, many of the names I heard I didn’t know and would find myself googling them to understand more.

For a brief period, I connected to and began to channel “The Healing Council of Light”. I had first met them in a Reiki Attunement where they appeared as if in council, presiding over the event, telling me I had done this many times before.

What I would channel is what I called “Ascension posts”. It was information about the planet ascending and how to prepare (this was around 2011).

I stopped writing for them.

You see, the information coming was that the energies were intense and we needed to prepare and manage it.

But what I kept hearing was “the energies are intense” and I didn’t want to be planting that seed in people’s minds that things felt intense.

It already felt intense enough to me and I was just learning how to manage it myself.

I also didn’t know how to create a financial container that allowed me the resources to stay in the state I felt I needed to be in to channel. It takes a lot of self-care to be a clear channel and keep your ego out of the equation. Salt baths, bodywork, yoga, meditation, energetic setup – how do you fit that into a life where you are trying to budget and make ends meet?

I didn’t know how.

I didn’t want to say problems without solutions so I CHOSE to take my journey in a different direction where I felt I would be of better service.

I’m sharing this because I want you to know we have so much POWER when it comes to Co-Creation.

I felt the information coming was divinely guided, divinely shared, important, but I didn’t know how to package it in a helpful container and I didn’t know I could simply say to my Higher Self “Higher Self, Show me how to do this”.

I had learning to do.

And that’s okay.

Because they are right there waiting for me to be ready, and I’m right here learning how to be discerning about who I am speaking to (spirit or otherwise) and when. In my private coaching, I teach others how to recognize our ego and influences that are not for our highest good so I get to share it forward now too.

And I’ve learned how to ask for help!

It’s all led to me choosing when to share my gifts and where. When I feel inspired to share, I do so in videos like THIS ONE, in blog posts, or in coaching sessions.

Had I shared too soon, the ascension posts when I first heard them, I think emotionally I would’ve crumbled. I just didn’t know back then how to handle ego, interference, and everything felt so new! I really do want you to know that you can discover your gifts and develop them BEFORE you need to act on them.

Thousands of years ago our gifts used to be highly regarded and nurtured. You would work with a Shaman or guide at an early age to learn how to use them and grow them.

guide

Now, the witch hunts have left a stigma of our gifts and many are fearful to even speak of them. It’s why it is so important for you to work with your Higher Self and take your time to grow your gifts and understand them. We do so much on our own now and finding guides and help takes time.

You are worth allowing these things to percolate and nothing bad happens from saying you need to wait until you are ready.

That’s why it’s Co-Creation. The universe needs you to say “That’s a bit much” or “Yes, more please!”

You get to choose when to use your gifts. You will know when you feel ready and you can ask your Higher Self for what you need to help get you there.

You get to choose.

XOXO,

I didnt want to tell you this

Want to Stay Connected?

« Older Entries

Next Entries »