Archive for June, 2009
The Soft Sell Partnership – What Does that Mean?
Posted by: | CommentsIn our book, The Heart of Marketing, we say that the buyer/seller relationship should be experienced as a co-creative partnership, both sides creating the transaction spontaneously as they interact with one another.
That’s all well and good, but just what is a partnership? What does it look and feel like and how does it function?
Most understand partnership from an external reference, that is the division of tasks, or shares, or legally defined commitments and responsibilities usually spelled out in the form of a contract.
But what are the internal elements of a partnership—the physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual dimensions that make a partnership real and effective? Read More→
Buying – Do You Have An Aversion To It?
Posted by: | CommentsRoz Fruchtman (http://www.SayItWithEcards.com) commented on the previous post about how so many people have an aversion to selling. Rather than leave it in the comment box, we’ve decided to use it as the center of this post.
Roz’s Comment:
Hi Judith and Jim:Unless I am missing the point, it is the same old thing… people like what you are giving as long as you do not offer anything! I wonder if they would go to work for free!
Did I miss something here?
Roz Fruchtman
I agree, Roz. People like being given to but not having to reciprocate, in this case, in the form of money.
Your comment got me to thinking, however, about why we want things for free.
The obvious answer is financial. We don’t have to let loose of our money.
But I think there is a deeper answer. Read More→
Selling — Do You Have An Aversion To It?
Posted by: | CommentsIn response to our blog post below: You’ve Got to Know What You’re Buying !!! — we received the following comment:
From — Carolyn Morgan
Comment:
I appreciated the critique in your blog. Results are what we seek.But, I liked it better before I came to the pitch for your own marketing information.
Rather than including Carolyn’s concern as a comment, it’s so important that we decided to build this post around it.
Because . . . we assume that Carolyn is a service provider and not a hard sell marketer since she was put off by what she called our “pitch.” No hard sell marketer worth his or her salt would be put off by a pitch.
So, Carolyn represents one of the problems — in fact a major problem — that service providers and/or soft sell marketers and consumers experience:
The aversion to selling. Read More→
To Care or to Dominate?
Posted by: | CommentsRaine Eisler, noted social scientist, attorney, and author has analyzed the deep structure of historic Western civilization and she coined the term “Dominator Model”—the top-down, hierarchical social structure that ranks men as the superior gender, women as second class, and winner-take-all as the “natural” code of conduct not just for human behavior but for life itself.
She wrote:
If we look at our current fiscal priorities, we see that policymakers always seem to find money for control and domination—for prisons, weapons, wars. But we’re told there’s no money for caring and care-giving—for “feminine” activities, such as caring for children and people’s health, for non violence and peace. — The Real Wealth of Nations, Berrett-Koehler, 2007
We add to her list of care-giving activities caring for the health and well being of the planet.
We have for a long time made the same argument. How is it that governments’ can fund armaments and not teachers’ salaries?
Reparations for the damage done by the Exxon-Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska were fiercely fought by legions of attorneys while at the same time we do not even drop to our knees in shame before the fact that “38.2 million Americans now live in households that suffer from hunger . . . an increase of 43 percent since 1999″ from the report entitled Household Food Insecurity in the united States, 2004.
It’s as though caring is a disease but warring is not.
Our awareness of this culture of abuse propels us, Judith & Jim, , in part, to champion a new consciousness in commerce — to help heal all that needs healing on this beautiful planet.
We ask you to support us in the work we do by purchasing our marketing support products and programs whenever it’s right for you and your needs.
If you don’t already have our much-praised Soft Topic Copywriting Secrets course, get all the information you need by going to http://www.softtopiccopywritingsecrets.com
And be sure to get our new #1 bestseller The Heart of Marketing – Love Your Customers and They Will Love You Back (Morgan James, May 2009) by going to The Heart Of Marketing and get your 62 Gift Bonuses as well!
Because It’s All in the Connection,
Judith & Jim
You Got To Know What You’re Buying !!!!
Posted by: | CommentsThis morning we received an email pitch letter hyping a coaching program that claims you can make millions following the program. We’ve seen them before, these type of seductive pitches, as we’re sure you have.
On the Internet outlandish claims are virtually the stock-in-trade of the multi-million dollar earners and what they are selling every time is money. How to make it by the bushel-full like they did and do (or so they claim) with minimum effort (or so they claim).
It’s a standard pitch—a king’s wealth without having to put out the time and effort to master the subject matter—so their high-ticket price to join the program is very very alluring.
But this morning this particular hypester went overboard. Read More→
Abundance or Scarcity – Which?
Posted by: | CommentsA silly question, right? Abundance any day.
However when you look at which of the two possibilities the marketplace values most it’s all based on supply and demand.
According to the market theory of supply and demand, goods which are scarce—diamonds for example—are valued more than abundant ones—common stones. We equate value with scarcity.
All you need to do is go to your local gas station to experience the case of value equals scarcity in the rise in dollar price due to the genuine or fabricated shortage of supply.
And people are wiling to pay millions for artwork that is considered rare that would astonish the artist who often saw very little in the way of cash for his or her work when they were alive.
Why is that? Read More→
Emotion – a Terrible Thing to Waste!
Posted by: | CommentsThe reality of ecological waste is familiar to all of us—waste in the form on non-biodegradable materials like foam, various plastics, etc. For example, plastic shopping bags take thousands of years to degrade (break down) in a rubbish heap.
But have you considered the idea of waste itself? What is waste?
In the natural world there is no such thing as waste. Every species’ waste products provides value to other species, most often in the form of food. Nothing goes to waste.
Waste in the true sense is something that does not—because it cannot—provide continuing value once it is disposed.
That set me thinking about emotional waste—emotions that, when not understood, not well handled, or consciously used to manipulate and injure leave a wake of damage behind that most times cannot be repaired and therefore do not continue to provide value.
And what does this have to do with marketing? Read More→
No Mistreatment for Soft Sell Marketers
Posted by: | CommentsYesterday we were asked if we would consider having a speaker at our conference – “Bridging Heart and Marketing III” October 9-11 – who had a good training program to offer but was an abusive hard sell speaker – provided the speaker agreed to calm down the hard sell style.
We didn’t even let the question be completed before we both said, “Never.”
We will never allow our soft sell marketers to be mistreated – no matter what a good program someone may have. Never.
Will we make less money from our conferences than some of the big hard sell producers – sure.
Because our events will always be intimate, caring and spiritually safe events (as safe as we can make them for you).
And, at the same time, we are committed to helping you make as much money as you want from your business!
Soft sell marketing never means sacrificing your earning potential. Never. It DOES mean making the wealth you want from within your own integrity.
That’s why one of the books we are committed to writing is “Your Millionaire Self!” (We’ve got the domain already!)
So what does Your Soft Sell Millionaire Self need you to do today!?
Because Its’ All in the Connection
Judith & Jim
Whole-Economic-Human— A Response
Posted by: | CommentsJohn Elder, a long time friend, wrote a comment to our post—Whole-Economic-Human: The Next Marketplace Paradigm—
This is our response.
My concern with Game Theory is that it is almost always take place in an unnatural environment — i.e. a prefabricated, academic, experiment-structured environment — and I say almost because I don’t know if any situation wherein a spontaneous exchange between participants is truly spontaneous as it might occur outside the game theorists lab.
So the problem is — does Game Theory really reflect what actually can take place out in the world and the marketplace? Read More→
Whole-Economic-Human: The Next Marketplace Paradigm
Posted by: | CommentsRational-Economic-Man has been the dominant marketplace paradigm since the dawn of the industrial age. It describes men (no women) who, given the circumstances of their times, make choices that optimize their chances to obtain precisely what they desire in the way of wealth. And it’s true that economic systems have emerged out of this paradigm to create more wealth for more people than any previous idea or image in history.
But no human construct is eternal. Regardless of its creative power and, as with all paradigms, rational-economic-man has reached a limit and must be transcended.
So what must be transcended? And what is the power and promise of what we are calling the Whole-Economic-Human? Read More→
