You Are The Media (YATM) is the home for marketing misfits. It started in 2013 at the seaside, in England 🌊 The community is built around creativity, interdependence, visibility, experimentation and co-learning.
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Hi YATMers, I'm Kerry Pocock (on the right), I work for Dorset HealthCare NHS Trust as their Workforce Wellbeing Lead.
This entails coaching, encouraging, and supporting our hard-working staff to place importance on their own wellbeing, so they can keep on caring for our Dorset population. I’m also in training to be a coach supervisor.
Through YATM, I have found a love of sea dipping this year (I started in January because, well why not!). This is me with my good friend Debbie who has encouraged me to level up and take part in the Surfers against sewage ‘Dip a day’ in October this month!
Through evidence, mind-blowing research and exceptional storytelling he describes the causes depression and anxiety, and then in hope generating way, how ‘reconnection’ can be the antidote.
The YATM community encapsulates one of the most fundamental elements, genuine connection with other people, so…
The clearer and quicker you can explain what you do, the easier it is for people to join in.
The opposite is to do more. More content, more platforms, more explaining. What if, instead, we made clarity the priority?
The ability to say who you are and how you help, allows people to instantly see themselves in what you do.
Why Clarity Matters More Than Ever
I’ve realised that for many years, much of what I delivered was led by enthusiasm, but it didn’t mean other people felt the same. They just couldn’t see where it fitted for them.
The biggest hurdle comes when you want people to buy into your idea, not an industry practice.
Getting someone to buy into ‘marketing’ is easy, as people already know what marketing is. Getting someone to buy into learning together, that’s harder and we do that in YATM. It’s not an industry, it’s an idea.
People instinctively look for something familiar before they can believe something different.
It’s far easier to follow what’s already established than to step into an unfamiliar perspective, especially one that asks people to co-create, collaborate and participate.
That’s the challenge many of us face when our work doesn’t fit neatly into a single category. We’re not selling a service. We’re inviting people to see the world our way.
When You Try To Explain Too Much, You Lose People
A few weeks ago, during a Sense Check session in YATM Club, I shared how I wanted to position YATM. Sense Check is an open forum for people to share ideas that aren’t quite fully formed.
I prepared something thoughtful, layered and full of meaning and how I saw YATM. It went like this...
“YATM is a professional learning community for people who want to grow their audience and reputation without relying on middlemen.”
When I said it out loud, it fell flat. The group didn’t see themselves in the picture I was painting. I now read it, it makes me feel like I am making a shopping list.
That moment made me feel slightly dejected, not because they disagreed, but because they couldn’t feel it. Sense Check sessions always deliver what you need to hear, perhaps not what you want to hear.
I realise that whilst it sounded credible and professional on paper, it didn’t have meaning for other people.
What you think works doesn’t always equal understanding. As the saying goes “a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” Too much detail can be a recipe for invisibility.
I was cramming in too much, so I adjusted so I can share with you. Here’s what YATM represents as a community where you:
Find your voice. Grow your audience. Learn together.
Short. Honest. Meaningful.
What you share has to help someone else see themselves in it.
You can read more in this article where I explain what it takes for people to join in. They do so because it’s good for them. They stay because it gives them identity and belonging. They grow because the value compounds when each person adds to the mix.
It’s not about how clever your positioning sounds. It’s about whether it feels right to the people you want beside you.
The Power Of Shared Identity
When you aim for shorter, everything else starts to work better.
In 2025, we uncovered another layer of clarity, identity.
The people who gravitate toward YATM share something in common, a sense of being misfits.
Not misfits in a negative sense, but people who don’t want to fit neatly into corporate boxes or industry templates. They want to build something in their own way, on their own terms.
That’s what belonging looks like in 2025, finding others who make you feel understood.
When you get clarity right, people don’t just understand what you do; they see themselves in it. It becomes a mirror, not a monologue.
How To Share What You Do Clearly
Here’s how to frame what you do so others understand and decide to stand alongside you.
Clarity isn’t just about cutting words. It’s about showing people where they belong.
1. Start with the familiar.
Use words and examples people already recognise. The moment someone hears abstract phrasing, they disconnect. The clearer and more familiar your language, the faster people understand how it connects to their world.
2. Say it out loud.
Can someone repeat what you said ten seconds later? If not, you’re still too close to it. Reading something makes it sound smart; speaking it reveals whether it’s memorable.
3. Get to the verbs.
What do you help people do? Action words give life to your message. Find, grow, learn, share, verbs people instinctively respond to. They show movement and possibility.
4.Check if it sounds like everyone else.
If your explanation could sit comfortably on another company’s website, start again. Your phrasing should make people nod, pause, or smile, not skim.
5.Test it with others.
Clarity isn’t achieved in isolation. Ask people, “How does this sound to you? Can you see yourself in it?” The moment someone else mirrors it back in their own words, you know it’s landing.
6.Aim to be happy in the fewest words.
Clarity isn’t about being perfect, it’s about being settled. When you reach a line that feels simple, honest, and true, stop there. You’ve found the essence of your message.
Let’s Round-Up
Clarity always converts.
It’s not about simplifying for the sake of it, it’s about creating space for people to connect with what you stand for. The clearer you are, the faster others can decide if they belong with you.
If you can explain what you do quickly, you won’t lose people, you’ll invite them in.
The goal isn’t just to be understood, it’s to be remembered, trusted, and for someone to say ‘I’m in.’
P.S. Let me show you my hand and what's now on the homepage.
This is what YATM represents and this process of finding clarity. It used to be a hefty paragraph. I'd love to know what you think? Why not reply and let me know?
Time Wasting
Enter a thought you are worried about and a 60 second meditation.
👉 The workflows that quietly push you and your work.
Where Did It Start For You?
Finding your start glues everything together.
Your advantage is the story that surrounds what you do, not the industry you serve.
Where was the place that started your path? What were the choices you made? Has it taken years to resonate but it was always there?
The story you tell is based on your feelings and perhaps even hard-earned, it sticks with you.
When your audience connects with your origin, everything else follows.
Nick and me found funding to make a free event...
It’s time to put what I’ve learned around audience building into a workshop environment.
When it’s with YATM friends, it’s even better. Nick Whitnell and me are going to deliver a live event at Patch, in Bournemouth, on Wednesday 19th November 9.30am to 1pm.
The goal is for people to understand what they stand for and believe in and how that coincides with the businesses they run. It is easy to sound like everyone else today and what is becoming even harder is connection, trust and meaning.
We’re calling it The Power of You.
It is free to attend, but only 25 spaces available (I shared with Club members yesterday and think it's now 20 places). It's for businesses within the YATM HQ postcodes. Read more and book here.
Get Freelancer Magazine for £1...
It’s the Freelancer Magazine 5th birthday party for the Creator Day after party (May 14th), so we all have a good reason to celebrate and sing when the karaoke comes out.
We have a YATM a code, where the first magazine is £1, for either a print or a digital subscription (you just need to pay for postage for the printed copy).
You Are The Media (YATM) is the home for marketing misfits. It started in 2013 at the seaside, in England 🌊 The community is built around creativity, interdependence, visibility, experimentation and co-learning.
