Recently I heard a major hard sell Internet marketer say:
“Traffic equals money. “
Traffic = $
That’s true of course. Without traffic (virtual or physical) no business can survive.
That means you are traffic. I am traffic. We all are traffic.
But here’s the question —
Do you like being perceived as walking money . . .
The wallet end of the transaction?
This past Wednesday and Thursday nights we held two panel calls with the Speakers for our next Bridging Heart & Marketing conference (September 12 -14 ).
We know there is a far-reaching and deep hunger for information about the Soft Sell approach to sales and marketing and we are enormously pleased and very excited to be proven right.
718 people registered to attend the two calls! And we did an Ask Campaign (basically a survey asking what people wanted to know about Soft Sell marketing), and we received 765 questions with only a few duplications.
In discussing this huge turn-out and what it means, Judith and I were talking this morning about how Soft Sell isn’t a marketing revolution. It’s a marketing evolution.
Judith and I just spoke at a conference focused on wealth building. This is not a usual venue for us and we looked forward to what would happen.
It became clear that most of the people there were interested in real estate investing—many of them focused on very high-end real estate—even though the event producer had scheduled a variety of speakers and topics.
He asked us to speak about Internet marketing and our “Bridging Heart and Marketing” conference.
Our focus was to introduce the participants to the joys and benefits of Internet marketing as well as invite them to register to attend our next conference, “Bridging Heart and Marketing II” -September 12-14 at the Ayres Hotel in Manhattan Beach, right near the Los Angeles Airport.
We decided that the people there wouldn’t be in the mindset of Soft Sell Marketing so we designed our presentation to minimize our Soft Sell approach. Read the rest of this entry »
In my post of 7-6-08 titled “What Are the Real Values of the Soft Sell Point of View — Interdependence” which you can read below if you haven’t already, I wrote:
“. . . we all exist within the interdependent nature of being alive in this universe. Nothing stands alone. Life IS relationship.”
And . . .
“We need each other, not just to get what we need to stay alive, we need each other to co-create the way we go about that getting.”
Two days ago, my friend and colleague, Robert Ware, (Melbourne, Australia) sent this passage from The European Dream, written by Jeremy Rifkin.
“For Europeans, freedom is not found in autonomy but in embeddedness. To be free is to have access to a myriad of interdependent relationships with others. The more communities one has access to, the more options and choices one has for living a full and meaningful life. With relationships comes inclusivity and with inclusivity, comes security.”
Let’s look at two points from Rifkin that bear on Soft Sell marketing:
Recently we attended a weekend Internet conference.
As Judith and I settled in on the first day we were looking forward to what we were about to learn.
The first person up, the conference organizer, began with aggressive intensity telling us that if we couldn’t take the heat we should leave the room. And after that the door was going to be locked.
“This information is too valuable and too powerful for anyone who can’t handle it.”
Judith and I were really put off but I figured it was just bravado, trying to be impressive and macho tough. Well, I was wrong. Read the rest of this entry »
When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.
John Muir
The community stagnates without the impulse of the individual. The impulse dies away without the sympathy of the community.
William James
How more clearly and elegantly can the fact of our interdependence, our interconnectedness, our mutual need of one another be expressed!Interdependence is the foundation upon which Soft Sell marketing stands.
Imagine it this way.
Every time you’re involved in a commercial transaction—whether you’re selling or buying— a lot more is going on than just an exchange of product or service for money.
The product and the cash are the external, obvious ingredients—that part of the transaction everyone can see and takes for granted.
But there is more. In fact, not only more, but far more important.
Because it is the internal ingredients that make up the exchange of intention(s).
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This afternoon I began reading a book on subliminal persuasion. It’s not the first persuasion book I’ve read, but it is the first with an emphasis on subliminal.
And it goes against everything Judith and I believe in as Soft Sell marketers and advocates for the Soft Sell, heat-centered perspective—i.e. marketing with consciousness and conscience.
Just the use of the word “subliminal” is enough to go against how we want to market. But in case you might not have a formal definition, here it is (from www.dictionary.com):
Subliminal — existing or operating below the threshold of consciousness; being or employing stimuli insufficiently intense to produce a discrete sensation but often being or designed to be intense enough to influence the mental processes or the behavior of the individual
And for persuasion:
Persuasion—to induce one to undertake a course of action or embrace a point of view by means of argument, reasoning, or entreaty.
There are a number of problems with the juxtaposition of “subliminal” and “persuasion” as they are here defined, contradiction being the obvious one.
But I want to focus on what the author of the book I’m reading has to say.
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A Special Bonus for You
“How To Build Your Soft Sell Marketing Platform”
1 hour audio download
Go to Bridging Heart and Marketing - Platform Bonus
*******************************************
We define Soft Sell Marketers as care givers and change agents, and ordinarily medical doctors should fall into that category. After all, they aren’t trying to sell you stocks or get you to refinance your house. And typically they’ve taken the Hippocratic Oath which, according to Wikipedia, confirms, “I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone.”
Yet, many people experience the medical profession as sadly lacking in heart, money-hungry rather than placing a sincere care for patients’ well-being at the top of their priorities.
Just the other day I ran into a vivid example of why MDs suffer the fallout of their unconsciously hard-sell approach.
I called a local medical office I was referred to by a friend and was shocked by the rude lack of care in the outgoing phone message.
Follow along with me and imagine how you would feel when you phone the doctor’s office and the phone message is, “If you are a physician or hospital press one. If you need our address or fax number press two. If you need medical records press three. If you have billing inquiries press four. If you are a patient and wish to make, change or cancel an appointment press five. If you need to speak with a medical practitioner press six.”
How do you feel when you realize that you, as a patient, rank at the very bottom of the doctor’s priorities?
Bad enough. But it gets worse. When I requested an appointment for Jim (who’d had a couple of peculiar fainting episodes), the woman at the appointment desk said, “We can’t make an appointment without a referral.” I said that we’d been referred by someone who worked for the medical school and was not an MD. “As I said, we can’t make an appointment without a referral.”
So I said, “Okay, I’m a psychologist. I have a PhD. Can I make the referral and describe the symptoms in my referral?” “Yes. The fax number is xxx-xxx-xxxx.”
So I wrote up the referral and faxed it in - not mentioning that the patient was my husband, of course.
When I called back to make the appointment I was struck by the blind bureaucracy running the place. Why? Because, even though I am not an MD, my referral counted. It was all about bureaucratic protocol.
And then for the next shock. We couldn’t get an appt for 2 ½ months. When I complained that having to wait that long was completely unacceptable, no one suggested the possibility of seeing any other of the MDs who worked in that office.
So we called our friend who’d made the referral, and through his influence, we were able to get an appointment just three days later.
Hard sell, buyer-beware business tactics don’t just belong to the realm of finance and real estate. It’s lurking all around us, ready to be brought to light and transformed for the benefit of all.
Because Its All in the Connection
Judith
PS — Be sure to downlaod “How to Build Your Soft Sell Platform” by going to
Bridging Heart and Marketing - Platform Bonus
I can’t believe that it’s been nearly 2 months since I took an unanticipated hiatus from writing to you through our “Bridging Heart and Marketing”blog.
At first I was consumed with trying to get our new book organized and ready for a Fall publication date (which we see we’ll never be able to make). And BTW, the book is tentatively titled either “Bridging Heart and Marketing: Selling Without Selling Out” or “Selling Without Selling Out: Bridging Heart and Marketing To Sell With Integrity and Mutual Gain.”
(Any comments on the title that you’d like to make will be greatly appreciated!)
Then Judith and I found ourselves reevaluating how we want to use this blog. And I apologize for not including you in the discussion. You see, since both Judith and I are used to being independent and have only recently begun to learn to ask for help - we’ve been wrestling with the issues by ourselves. Again, mea culpa.
We’re now clear that we will use this blog as a forum for Soft Sell marketing principle and tactics (as we have) as well as exposing non-conscious, non-conscience marketing which hurts all of us including those who do it.
Our objective is inspire Soft Sell Marketing — what we see as marketing with consciousness and conscience.
So, we welcome and encourage your comments. They will inspire topics in the future and support us in coming to you with more of our own process.
Because It’s All in the Connection,
Jim
We just signed the contract for our 6th book (yet to be titled) - which will serve as the initiation document of the Soft Sell Marketing Movement . . .
And we’re asking for your help.
From time to time we will have questions we’d like to get your input on.
In exchange we will do everything we can to include your response and name in the book. We can’t guarantee this because the editorial staff at the publishing house will be part of the process . . .
However, we can assure you that if you respond your name will be included in the Acknowledgments section of the book.
As far as what you write, don’t worry about length or grammar, etc - if we can use your response we will edit it if necessary and then return it to you for your permission. We’re looking for what you say to come straight from your heart.
So here are our first questions. Please copy and paste them into the Comments box and then type in your answer under each question. Be sure to put your website under your signature at the bottom of your entry to let the Google spyders know you were here.
Thank You! And remember, there will be lots of traffic to this site with many people reading these answers - so you’ll get exposure as well!
1) Why are you attracted to Soft Sell Marketing?
2) Why are you NOT attracted to Hard Sell marketing?
3) How has awareness about the Soft Sell Marketing approach changed your view:
of yourself as a marketer?
of how you value your product(s) or service(s)?
of how you relate to your prospects and customers?
4) What kind of impact do you hope Soft Sell Marketing will have on the Internet marketplace?
Because It’s All in the Connection,
Judith & Jim
Just copy and paste the questions into the Comments box just below and then type in your answers under each question.
