(excerpted from his book, Indie Marketing Power: The Guide for Maximizing Your Music Marketing).

How many times have you thought this: “I’m just not cut out to be a salesman”; “I don’t like promoting myself;” and “I’m too busy to spend my time marketing”?

Marketing your self, your songs, your CDs or your live shows is imperative in this dense media market we inhabit. But getting your signal through all the noise out there often seems like a hurculean task, leaving us feeling paralyzed or powerless.

At one time or another we’ve all shared these feelings. They are real.

Fortunately, to get the business you need, you don’t have to have a “sales personality,” or try to become someone you’re not, or grit your teeth to do things that you find offensive.

It is true that until you become visible in the music marketplace and sought after (that is, “in demand”), you will need to find ways to “toot your own horn” that you’re comfortable with, ways that will produce the results you want.

The way you think about the fact that you’ll only have as much business as you can generate will have a great deal to do with how much business you get and how easy, or difficult, it is for you to get it.

If marketing feels like a burden or toil you’d rather not do, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for you to communicate the kind of enthusiam and excitement that will draw fans and customers to you.

Or, if marketing is something you only think about when you’re desperately in need of business, and you must force yourself to do it begrudgingly, you’ll have a hard time developing a creative and effective plan for getting the business you need.

Developing a Marketing Mindset

I’ve found that people who have plenty of business don’t think about marketing as a drag. Whether they’re shy and retiring or outgoing and effervescent, they’re so excited about what they have to offer that they want to make sure people know about it. In fact, they feel eager, almost compelled, to reach out and make contact in whatever ways come naturally to them so people will know about their products and services.

So even if you have no marketing or business background, even if you’re starting out in a brand-new community without any existing relationships, even if you’re competent but not yet outstanding at your work, you can develop a positive marketing mindset that will enable you to create effective and affordable ways to attract business. By making the following three mental shifts in how you think about getting business, you, too, can project a positive mindset and make getting business easier and infintiely more enjoyable.

1. Think opportunity, not obligation. Instead of thinking about what a drag it is to have to get business or how difficult, unpleasant, time-consuming, and costly it is to market yourself, shift your attention instead to how eager you are to let others know about what you offer. If you’ve chosen the right niche for yourself, you obviously like your work and think it’s important. You know it’s needed and that it improves the lives or the businesses of your customers. Your work is more than a good idea or a way to make some money; it’s a benefit to those you serve. Focus on that.

Without the funds to pay for elaborate marketing efforts and the ability to hire top-notch professionals, your own compelling sense of passion for your work will be the most essential element in attracting business to you. This kind of passion is contagious. It will come through in all your spoken and written communication whether you’re introducing yourself or have created a classified ad. So, start to think about marketing as a way to share your enthusiasm for what you do.

2. Think contact, not activity. Marketing is about making contact with people who need what you offer. It’s not about keeping busy. If you’re offering a product or service that addresses an unmet need or solves a problem, you probably have a pool of potential customers who need what you have to offer right at this very minute. But chances are they all don’t know about you and you don’t know about all of them. Somehow you need to find each other. And that’s what marketing is about.

Often people ask, “What’s the best way for me to market what I do?” They’re looking for the one steady, reliable way they can count on for making contact with clients and customers. But there is no single business-getting route that’s guaranteed to reach everyone. There is probably a wealth of activities that will work well for you and your business. Finding the ones that work best is an experiment. In fact, marketing is an experiment and not an exact science. People who are motivated to make contact with those who need them are always experimenting with new possiblilties to get their message out.

3. Think communication, not manipulation. Often people think marketing is about being cute and clever, creating a lot of hype or sizzle, especially in the entertainment biz. Worse, they fear it’s about being manipulative. Sizzling, cute and clever hype may attract attention, but it doesn’t build trust, respect, or value.

Marketing is, essentially, communication. Every word you choose, the font that expresses it, the tone of your phone message, the colors on your liner notes, and the way you shake hands at a networking event are communicating, marketing, always, incessantly.

But it’s a particular kind of communication. Marketing is communicating with your market so well that it wants to know more about you.

So instead of worrying about being cute and clever or manipulative, think about getting your message across. Shift your attention to what it is about that you do that’s important to your customers. Think about how you can communicate your message to them in terms they’ll understand. Think about how you can help them see the benefits of what you offer.

Peter Spellman is Director of Career Development at Berklee College of Music, and author of numerous music career guides. Find him at mbsolutions.com

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