Help Clients Overcome Fear? A Soft Sell Analysis

We’ve been asked: How do you help clients in overcoming their fear of a new venture?

This is a question all healers and care-givers must address.

When we see our clients struggling with worry, depression, frustrated ambition, confusion . . . tied up in the knot of their fear of failure, their fear of the unknown, fear of a new venture, of growing bigger, of making money—more money than they had ever been able to imagine—our first impulse is to help.

The question is—help with what?  

Our first answer is help clients overcome fear, because we believe overcoming fear is the doorway to what they say they want. 

But is this really the best approach to help with overcoming fear?

 Research has demonstrated that, across all cultures, there are five principal tenets behind human willingness to enter into new experience:

Protection from Harm
Fairness
Membership in a Group
Need for Authority
A Sense of Purity

The first two are at the base of the liberal, progressive personality, and the last three form the core of the conservative persona. Each has its advantages and limitations.

The liberal mind is characterized by an openness to experience, and the conservative mind looks to safety and dependability. So the impulse to help, no matter how sincere, must be situated within these two personality types.

Offer the liberal minded person an adventure and he or she may spring at the chance. What this personality needs is containment, integration of the new into who they are to stabilize their character structure.

Don’t assume that a conservative personality is eager to overcome fear. Suggesting a new venture might be the very idea that instills even more fear and sends the person even more deeply into their unwillingness.

So how do you apply this awareness to your soft sell marketing?

Your answer will inform you as to what kind of personality profile you want to work with and that describes and dictates who your audience is.

The danger to your marketing efforts is to remain ignorant of the five features we listed above and to assume that everyone of us is the same. We’re not!

So your understanding of the psychology of personality doesn’t require that you get a degree. Your awareness of the distinction we listed above will help prevent your marketing messages from confusing your readers. And just that kind of marketing clarity is what we provide through our Soft Sell Marketers Association. Weekly training calls focusing on helping our members clearly and effectively market their products and services to those who need them.

Go to http://www.softsellmarketerstassociation.org and click on the “Member Benefits/Join Now!” link and find out for yourself what we can do for you.

Because It’s All in the Connection,
Judith & Jim