Archive for July, 2009
How would you characterize marketing?
Posted by: | CommentsI was at the gym recently and spoke with a man who identified himself as a lawyer.
During our conversation he characterized the law as:
Plausibly Asserted — Boldly Maintained
That got me to thinking.
I can see Science described as:
Credibly Asserted — Demonstrably Maintained.
How would you characterize marketing?
Jim
First, Do No Harm
Posted by: | CommentsJudith and I were talking yesterday about the first oath doctors take
First Do No Harm.
What if marketers had to abide by that same oath?
Hype would be the first thing to go.
As Shakespeare said —
That would be a consummation devoutly to be wished.
Jim
Sympathy or Empathy: A Soft Sell Dilemma
Posted by: | CommentsThese two words, “Empathy” and Sympathy” are very often confused.
And, so what. Who cares whether there is a nuanced difference between them. Use one, use the other, it’s pretty much all the same.
Well in fact, it’s not.
It is very likely that as a care-giver and service provider you tend, by personality, toward being an empath—enjoying a strong, dominant ability to empathize.
However, not knowing the difference between sympathy and empathy can bring your business to its knees. Because, as powerful and praiseworthy as empathy can be, empathy has hidden in it a blind trap of self-denial leading to business frustration and even a sense of personal failing.
So okay. Now what? Read More→
Soft Sell Marketing — Expanding the Common Good
Posted by: | CommentsPeople in commerce, and especially economists, have used the term “common good” to mean products and services that benefit anyone and everyone such as parks, education, police and fire protection, and the like.
And certainly they are part of the common good—the external version.
But are there others?
The internal world can be seen to contain aspects that represent the common good as well though they are not typically recognized as part of the common good.
Using the definition of a common good as “a product and service that benefits anyone and everyone,” and using a bit of re-framing, it becomes apparent that there are many aspects of our internal lives that can be considered as part of the common good. Read More→
We received the message below from George Kao ( http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://GeorgeKao.com ) in response to this blog. Enjoy.
Judith & Jim: thank you for standing for care and integrity in marketing!!
How I determine integrity in a marketing technique is:
1. would this method/technique make the world more a better place if many others practiced it? Would the world be more beautiful, more truthful, more loving? Or am I thinking that because I’m “better” than others or my cause is more important, I can use this method/technique but others shouldn’t? In other words, is it scalable for the world?2. would I be proud at the end of my life that I made my money this way? The energy/spirit/methods I spread into the world through my business… am I proud and grateful about it?
p.s. I find that when I go to my heart, and take on faith by marketing in a way I can be really authentic and proud of, I actually build genuine fans (and clients) that are sustainable — that refer me to others because they experience integrity and love. It’s so much more fun and fulfilling.
Whatever we continually share publicly (e.g. in our marketing methods and copywriting and social networking) we become more like that, without even realizing it sometimes…
George
Heratfelt, soul-based, soft sell marketing. Integrous and the wave of the future. Thank you, George.
Because It’s All in the Connection
Judith & Jim
Your Marketing, Conscience, and Your Impact on the Future
Posted by: | CommentsOne of my favorite lessons learned early in life is contained in a story I heard about Native American leadership councils.
Whenever a council convened to make a decision, major or minor, there was always one council member who represented the voice of the grandchildren of thier grandchildren.
This policy was not just about long-range planning but about the need to be consciously responsible for how their current decision would impact the future.
In other words, their sense of conscience did not allow them to focus solely on short term gains. They lived within an appreciation of time, accountability, and the reach forward of any and every decision, particularly with regard to momentous issues.
In your marketing, how far forward does your conscience take you?
Becasue It’s All in the Connection,
Judith & Jim
And to add to your understanding and feeling for soft sell marketing — marketing with integrity, care, and concern for the well-bing of we who are live now and those that follow us— we encourage you to get and read our new book (and tell your friends about) The Heart of Marketing: Love Your Customers and They Will Love You Back (Morgan James Publishing, May 2009)
Grow Your Online Business OR Develop Your Online Business. Which?
Posted by: | CommentsOver the weekend I was reading The Ecology of Commerce, a book by Paul Hawken.
In it he referenced the difference between the ideas of “grow” and “develop,” a very powerful and incisive distinction. And I was delighted because the distinction directly and beautifully bears on the internal elements—the internality—of Soft Sell, heart-based, soul-based marketing.
To grow means to increase in size and amount by gradual external addition.
To develop means to bring out the capabilities or possibilities of something or someone.
One is a quantitative increase in value by adding from the outside and the other is a qualitative appreciation of value through evolving from within.
Following Hawken, the distinction is that when your business grows it gets bigger whereas when it develops it gets better.
This is a whole new way to look at your soft sell business. So let’s do that. Read More→
The Key to Freedom From Fraud and Frustration
Posted by: | CommentsBefore entering the world of Internet marketing, we were pretty isolated from the larger world of business and business relationships. As psychotherapists, authors, speakers, and workshop leaders we pretty much ran our own ship on our own terms.
And then our world radically shifted. We took a tele-course on how to do seminars by phone — thinking that’s all we were getting into — only to find out as we went along that we were actually involved in marketing and selling on the Internet. And we snapped to the fact that this was a hugely dependent enterprise!
Suddenly the growth of our business depended on “the kindness of strangers.”
Because over and over what we could see when the big gurus had super-success – was that it was always the result of getting help from their big-time colleagues and buddies.
Only we didn’t have any big-time colleagues and buddies of our own.So now what?! Read More→
Financial Independence Is a Myth
Posted by: | CommentsNow, before you click DELETE or . . .
If you are an “I-can-go-it-alone-and-make-my-own-way” individualist and you’ve elevated your sense of separateness to the status of a metaphysical principle, just hold on and . . .
Think about this for a second.
What exactly does “financial independence mean?” Read More→
After Super Super – Where to Then?
Posted by: | Comments“Super” is the prefix of our age. Examples:
Super bowl, super star, supertanker, supermarket, super highway, super colliders, super conductivity, super power, superman, super sale, super lotto, super saver, super sonic, supreme leader (in Iran — super – supreme just two letters changing places), super soaker (a much more powerful squirt gun that was originally named Power Drencher until Super was deemed more commercial), super hero (not the world-saver kind but a very large sandwich), Super Swampers (off-road tires that, we are told, have enough tread to claw through even the gooiest slop holes) . . . . . . . . . . . . .
We live in an age of gigantism, not unlike the dinosaurs. And just like the dinosaurs, big things can’t adapt very well and so they keep plowing forward regardless of circumstances.
Did you know that some super tankers need ten miles to come to a stop?
What gets lost in all of this SIZE, SIZE, SIZE ????
People get lost — That’s what!!!!!
Reality gets trounced under the burden of this size fantasy.
Emotional intimacy become unthinkable. Size has no room for the subtle.
I’m not suggesting we return to the mom and pop corner store. Those days are gone—barring some kind of cosmic catastrophe. Besides, how would we feed the 5 billion of us?
What I long for is a sense, a real sense . . .
That being human has meaning and value versus big, bigger, and bigger things.
That simple and direct communication would work instead of hype an grandiosity.
That the whisper of real connection would be more attractive than the blaring of speakers—people or audio.
This evening . . . that’s what I long for.
Because It’s All in the Connection,
Jim
