Soft Sell Marketing — a Spiritual Even Sacred Process – Part 2
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In Part 1 we looked at the first level of the marketing/sales transaction – the external level — dollars-given for solution-rendered.
Now let’s look at level two — the internal transaction.
Assume you are a marketer. Given that:
As a marketer you offer a product or service that can solve, or at least help solve someone’s problem. And your marketing efforts are purposefully designed to attract those who can benefit from your solution. But in this case, let’s ratchet up the consequences, because the move from level one into two is a matter of consequences.
Much of what’s done on the Internet focuses on helping people make more money. So we’ll use that as an example.
Someone needs more money and you say you can show them how to get it. What responsibility do you feel toward the hopes and dreams of those you call to make use of your solution? Most marketers would answer:
“Very little. I have no control over what people do.”
True. But you do have a responsibility for placing yourself out there as an attractor, a lure (in the best sense), a promise. You can’t get away from being the one who promised a solution. That’s where the depth comes in.
And let’s say your promise is real, your solution actually delivers what you promise so that more than mere hope is involved — your solution actually changes someone’s life. What’s the exchange about then?
That’s when it becomes spiritual, even sacred. Why? Because the person in need takes you, via your solution, into their lives. Not just physically, like the tank of gas, but emotionally — takes you inside, into their hope for something better, into their need to resolve the circumstances that brought them to you. That’s an internal experience, not so obvious but much more meaningful.
So when someone buys your money-making product and it works, their life is significantly altered for the better. Is that not sacred? Does that not become something of spirit?
And when that person gives you the money you ask for in exchange, is that not an act of gratitude? Their credit card payment sends far more than just “Thank You.”
When we chose to become Internet marketers and realized the depth involved in marketing and sales, we came to understand marketing as a value far beyond anything we’d previously imagined.
The recognition of marketing and sales as a spiritual and sacred process became the foundation for the soft sell approach we’ve developed for everything we’ve done since and will do well into the future.
So, if you’re a soft sell marketer who prefers a more inclusive, emotionally connected, business relationship with your prospects and customers — you’re invited to register for a free series of 10 tele-calls previewing our “Bridging Heart and Marketing” Internet conference that takes place February 22, 23, 24 at the Westin Los Angeles Airport. We’ll be sharing our spiritual approach and the soft sell wisdom of world-class Internet marketers. Just click on Bridging Heart and Marketing — and join us.
Because It’s All in the Connection,
Hi Judith and Jim… that was another great post.
I’ve been a practising psychologist for way too much longer than I want to admit!… and I know the thing I had a huge problem with was responsibility… I knew, like millions of other professionals, that many of my clients hang on every word with the expectation that whatever we talk about in the session will resolve their issue. I know that much of what we talk about has the potential to be life changing… only if the client takes it and applies the it to their own situation.
And now with marketing… the responsibility is more pronounced because you cannot guarantee who is buying your product, and how they will use it. It’s imperative for me to make doubly sure that nothing is can be misconstrued as a quick fix solve everything! Like you, I do care about the people who read my work or buy my products.
I feel that they have trusted me enough to read my stuff and that is an incredibly humbling and enriching spiritual experience!
Jeanne
http://aspirationsplus.typepad.com/uydayg
Jeanne,
Thank you for your comment. In re-reading my post to see from whence your comment was arising, I realized that I may have given the impression of sense of responsibility overly-weighted-toward-the-product-purveyor, in your case as a therapist. So I want to make an adjustment to correct that.
Your phrase . . . “only if the client takes it and applies the it to their own situation” . . . is key. Not in an evasive sense — like caveat emptor, but truly grounded in the reality of this world.
No one can make anyone do anything. Period! Successful therpay largely happens when the client does the work. As you know, many clients labor under the misapprehension that you will provide them with “the” answer, a a magic moment, a variation on the prince charming fantasy. Someday someone will come along and make everything all right.
No such luck.
So your fundamental responsibility is to be true t your own perosnal code of ethics (which you apparently are). Given that, you deliver the best assitance you can. Then it’s up to the client to take it, ingest it, implement it, and change.
And your own personal code is even more important online because you cannot see you buyers.
However, as you know, you cannot prevent someone from interpreting what you say in a way you do not at all mean. That’s true face-to-face in your office.
From my perspective the best protection against misuse of your authority and the authority people place in you is to be sensitive to the interdependence we all share and the tough-fragility we all posses in order to remain alive.
I said “tough-fragility.” It’s important to acknowledge and respect both.
Because It’s Literally All in the Connection,
Jim
http://www.bridgingheartandmarketing.com/blog
Hi Judith and Jim,
I’m new to your blog. Your post made me realize why I feel so good about what I do for my clients, and really helps me see my marketing as a contribution to others.
Thanks!
Tom Robinson
Tom,
We both had to learn how this spiritual, sacred approach could make us feel good about marketing.
As a culture we are overly saturated with marketing. We just returned home from Tucson and saw a piece of advertising on the back of the the airline boarding pass — and it wasn’t for the airline we were flying.
And think about the separator bar on the checkout counter at your supremarket.
Is it any wonder that people are jaundiced even hostile toward marketing/advertising.
But if you do have a product or a process that can truly help someone, we believe you have an ethical, even moral obligation tro let them know about it. So that sets up a double-bind.
Let them know and become just another message. Don’t let them know and cheat them, yourself, and the source of your gift (whatever you consider that to be — God, The Universe — Higher Spirit).
Selling as spiritual service dissolves that double bind because of the respect and care inherent in understanding the emotional consequences of your marketing promise.
Promises are serious. Promises fulfilled are a joy.