I’ve been teaching Sacred Selling for years, in various forms. Hundreds of people have been through the live seminar version, previously called the Sacred Moment, and now folks are completing the live telecourse version. I just wanted to put this post up so that folks who have participanted, or who have taken similar courses in the past, can share their experiences, fantastic or ugly, all unedited.
See if it what they say below resonates with you. (Lord, please let someone post something…)
50 Responses
Dear Mark,
I had a touch on my shoulder from above and I am here to answer your prayer and blogpost. Ha!
First of all, acknowledgement that WP Themes question above must have stung, since you have been answering that question for a long long time. Oy vey, How Long? How Long?
What taking your class on Sacred Selling meant for me was getting clarity on something I was already doing by helping me understanding the mechanics (if any sacred act could be defined as having mechanics) of the sales process. Perhaps syntax is a better choice of words…and now that I am writing, I do recall that word being used. The syntax of the selling process.
I came to an understanding that my client-to-be had a problem causing them pain. (And since they are parents, a particularly sharp pain, usually in the heart region connected with feelings of deep betrayal and anguish.) They want it to stop because they are hurting in their heart. But because this is their child, whom they want the very, very best for, they have to really trust the source of any help they might receive.
Its a tall order.
I love to help. I know a LOT about parenting. I have suffered. I ‘GET’ parenting. I know how to get parents from pain to empowerment. I do it all the time.
A typical sale goes like this: A mom calls on the verge of tears. Breastfeeding is not going well. Her baby is screaming in the background. She got referred to me.
What I learned in your class that if I say: “Rah! Rah! You can do this! Its only a screaming baby. All babies scream and before you know it she’ll be a weaning toddler”, she’ll be gone. That mother WILL NEVER call back. All she wants to do is get thru THIS NIGHT of howling baby. She is at the point of chucking the baby out the window. She can’t see beyond 10 o’clock tonight, even if I can.
So I meet her where she is. I offer hope and reassurance. I tell her that she can do this. All she has to do is get through the next hour. And then, see what happens. I have her take a few deep breaths and connect with her baby by smelling the baby’s head. I may give her another thing to try, or not.
I tell her I can see her in my office in the morning to see what is going on and talk about solutions. Would that work? And I wait for her answer, in SILENCE, so she can think of all her possibilities. In her mind, she can mentally try on an appointment and see how it fits.
She probably says: “How much does it cost? I tell her and again, I wait for her to try it on. I don’t have a vested interest in whether she takes the appointment or not. I am interested in what is best for her (and I might not be best for her). She can make up her own mind. I also know that if know that if I am disinterested, centered and grounded, she probably will take the appointment.
If she takes the appointment, I offer her choices of payment. I tell her my cancellation policy and what to expect and what to bring. The whole process is at a slow pace–almost meditative. It is a healing process for the mother and a spiritual practice or prayer for me.
If she doesn’t, I offer my newsletter or coming to a mother’s group so she leaves with a gift.
I can not thank you enough for making this understandable to me. I always did it with heart connection, but it was hit or miss. I skipped steps or mixed them up. I lost sales and alienated the very people I wanted to help.
Love,
Donna
PS I Love and appreciate that you are signing your newsletters with LOVE! I find it sometimes takes courage for me to do it. Then I think: even the school principal and the credit card associates need love.
Dear Donna,
What a fabulous comment! I love your sense of humor. And your wisdom is so great that I plan to print a copy of the “crying baby” story just to remind me of how to help someone who’s on their last nerve. The course has really done us all a lot of good! I hope I’ll get to share experiences of it with you if I come to New Paltz – or just the phone. Blessings, Shyama
Oh Hey, Shyama!
That’s so cool,l to meet you here!
Thanks for the love and kind words. I always look around when people tell me about my “great wisdom”. “Who? Me???”
Why, I believe it was just this morning, my 17 y/o said he wants to be a “Formula One Race Car Driver” when he grows up,..and I was wondering how I got myself into this job of mothering him.
I mean…I know HOW it happened! (Harp music in the background) It was a moonlit night… and Don was whispering sweet nothings into my ear….(more harp music)
What I realize now, is that I failed to read the “Full Disclosure Notice” ….. and that is “Far From Wise”.
Give me a call!
Love,
Donna
As a long-time business owner, I’ve invested in several very good courses on enrollment before doing your course. They taught excellent strategies and techniques for navigating the sales conversation but things still often ‘stalled’ for me at the point of asking for the sale. At some level I felt my heart constrict at the prospect of turning sacred connection into a ‘sale’, largely because of the way I’ve experienced manipulative sales tactics in the past. On some unconscious level, I think I’d decided I’d rather not have a client than to even subtly manipulate them.
What your course did for me – more than anything – was help to ease the fear and resistance I had to my own sales process. Why? Because everything you teach has SO much love and integrity behind it. It eased my heart, helped remove the ‘bumps’ in the conversation that really came from my own fear of being inauthentic or turning my client (or our relationship) into a commodity.
I don’t consider myself a master of sales after this course but I’ve come a long way. I walk away with a sincere curiosity and interest in continuing this journey of turning a ‘sales opportunity’ into a sacred, loving experience for both myself and my prospective clients.
Beyond this, you are a powerful inspiration for healing the troubled field of business, and a stand for love and integrity in the marketplace. My sincere gratitude, Mark.
Ahhh…..what do I love the most? As much as I like to think I am continually connected to my “trusted source,” and although I pray with my Christian clients before beginning each coaching session, it never occurred to me to connect and “bow” to the Divine before reaching out to prospective clients. I love Remembrance. I love Appreciation. I love thinking of the enrollment conversation as a way of being in service to the Divine while being in service to the person I’m speaking with. I love that everything is OK — even my “neediness.” This is an excellent course taught by a masterful teacher. Mark, you are a beautiful example of how one can teach spiritual principles without imposing your beliefs on others. If I can model you even a little, my clients and students will reap the benefits for years to come–as will I. Thank you for sharing your gifts, wisdom, and experience so graciously. Inshallah I will be your student again and again. Blessings on you, your family, and your business. Jory
Hi Mark-
I just finished your Sacred Selling course and want to share that it was exactly what we needed in our business. We had completed other marketing training previously and have worked hard to build our business. But despite understanding the mechanics of selling on an intellectual level were still weak in sales conversations. We lacked confidence and weren’t sure how to get the kind of agreement we needed and wanted. For some reason selling just felt icky. We’re in business to help people and we don’t want to feel like we’re pushing ourselves on anybody, persuading or manipulating. Plus, what we were doing just wasn’t always working and if we don’t figure out how to get paid well and consistently then it’s hard to keep going.
As a result of this course we had our first sales meeting with a prospective client that truly felt comfortable and fun. Granted, this was a prospect who was well affiliated with us, but there was something new. A new level of ease and confidence with the understanding of new subtleties about what was really happening on a heart level during this conversation. The clients wrote back right after the call to tell us how they felt “a weight had been lifted” by our conversation. We felt appreciated and fulfilled to be able to give in a real and meaningful way. They easily agreed to the work we proposed to do together for their new website.
This is all still fresh and new and we’ll need time to know how much of it will stick and work over time in practice. Right now I can say that I have a new love and appreciation for sales and I feel that the content of this course has been well integrated for me so that I truly feel I know it. The course material was a joy to read and the sessions completely captivated my attention, making me think and feel in new ways not only about selling but about spirituality, my self, and relationships in general.
“Clients feel as if a weight has been lifted”
This happens to me all the time! We have only just started and already they feel better. I think it’s because they have been suffering in isolation and this process creates a heart connection with me and the Divine.
Hey Mark. I thought of something else I’d like to share with you with the hope that it will inspire others to take Sacred Selling. How lovely if all business could be conducted with heart & soul.
Before your class, I had resistance around making calls and now I know why. I’d been encouraged by other business mentors to head right into the Second Journey as quickly as possible and “go for the sale.”
I love the idea of the first appointment being to get to know each other (First Journey) and inviting the prospective client to come along on the Second Journey with me. That’s what I’ve been doing the past week and it’s worked much better. I understand that, if things go faster, great. But not to push/hope for it is liberating.
Thank you for that gift!
Oops! Correction on my comment above! I’d been encouraged by others to go straight to the Third Journey even in the first-ever conversation, bypassing the Second Journey if at all possible. Your approach suits my heart and soul much, much better. Again, mil gracias, senor!!
Oops! Correction to my last comment. I’d been encouraged by others to head quickly into the THIRD Journey (even in the first-ever conversation), bypassing the Second Journey if at all possible. Thank you for modeling another way. My heart & soul are much happier, and I’ve got to believe the people I’m connecting with are much happier as well. Thank you again!
You go Jory! I am thinking about all those additional people you can now reach and help with the natural gifts, grace and goodness that are so much a part of you and your work.
Mark,
It was truly my pleasure to participate in the Sacred Selling course these past couple of months. Something you said on the very first call really resonated with me and I wanted to share it. You mentioned something to the effect of believing that the world needs this kind of thinking in business, and you felt called to provide this teaching as a way of healing the planet.
It feels like finally, after over a decade of consulting, providing client service, etc., there is a process that feels really good about selling. I’ve become so turned off by how the corporate world works that I even found myself having negative reactions to the words ‘business’ and ‘profit.’
Thank you for showing me a way to participate in the sales process without feeling slimy and contrived. I now realize that selling can be a beautiful process and my offering is truly a gift to those I serve. I don’t think I would have come to this point without the course.
I’ve recommended this course to so many people – I hope some of them follow through and sign up. It’s been a huge source of inspiration to me and my business.
Thank you for everything!
I just completed your Sacred Selling course and I want to speak to my before and after states. Before taking this course with you, I felt very uncomfortable and inauthentic during the sales conversation. I knew I was here to help people and organizations who are change agents get very clear and focused so they can make the difference they are here to make. Up until now, I have been strictly referral based and so I stopped growing and reaching out, just waiting for people to come to me. Even though I listened to the “best in the business” on sales and marketing, nothing resonated, I could not find my stride or a means to have heart based conversations with potential clients. My hatred of all things salesy, forumulaic or inauthentic was hurting my ability to grow a sustainable and profitable business. And, even more painful, my inadequacy in this area was inhibiting my ability to show up for my “peeps.” I have been looking for such a way for years. My search has cost me thousands of dollars, loads of time, and a lot of missed opportunities.
Then, a little gun shy but still hopeful, I signed up for Sacred Selling. With each of the Sacred Selling calls and exercises, I experienced a reduction of tension around sales, a greater opening up to my clients and finally saw a way to both serve them and create a more sustainable and profitable business at the same time. Your step by step, heart based process, neither salesy nor mushy, has finally given me a way that works to be authentic, open and transparent with potential clients. My work with you has been both healing and revealing. Thank-you for showing me a way to be who I am and serve my quadruple bottom line: people, purpose, planet, and profit. P.S. My next step is to work with you in the Momentum Program and start showing up on my website, which has been without content for months!
Amen, Stacy girl! LOVE IT!!!! 🙂
Hi Mark,
I wanted to say thank you for the extraordinary Sacred Selling Course. This wasn’t just a course touted to be another authentic sales course, which didn’t hold up to its name. This was truly a very deep, profound and effective course on how to be in the Highest Service and receive the person in front of you, stay connected in your heart, unattached to the outcome and allow them to gracefully step into their YES. With implementing just a few concepts from the complimentary telecall preview you held for the Sacred Selling Course, I booked over $12,000 in clients. Now with the the entire Sacred Selling Course integrated into my heart, the sky is the limit. Thank you for sharing your paradigm-shifting teachings from your heart. You are indeed a gift to the world.
Blessings, Tami
Hi Mark,
Working from the heart is what we all love, and you are a perfect guide. Thank you for the light you shine on our path.
Monika
I thought my sales skills were just fine, and my work already felt sacred to me. I signed up because I am developing some new services, and had a desire to launch them freshly and wholeheartedly.
I am astonished, and deeply touched by Mark’s innovative and expansive offerings. I knew Sacred Selling was going to be good, but I didn’t imagine a business course (and sales, specifically!) could really be THIS good. Well, it is!
What used to be about sales which always included a little bit of stress, is now simply a natural, loving communion with my own Self, the Divine and the World. How sweet is that? Mark’s approach dissolves fear, risk and separation and infuses trust, honesty and compassion – true connection is the effect.
Well worth the investment (and then some); it brings surprising returns in wondrous ways you just can’t imagine – but you do deserve.
In heartfelt appreciation,
Kathryn
Greetings, to you, reading this,
I committed energy, money and time to do the Sacred Selling course; an investment I have no reservation recommending to you. If you are willing to “show up,” you, too, will benefit. I learned processes that help me work with and honor the Heart and the full range of emotional experiences I encounter as a sole proprietor. This alone, was worth every penny. Yet, I also received a great deal of sound, authentic, immediately applicable guidance about business and sales/selling that always felt resonant to my own Heart. I am discovering a seamless flow in connecting with potential clients. Savvy, heart-centered, sincere, concrete and without hype, Mark is a terrific guide. Importantly, he guides people back to themselves. I do not feel I cannot do this without him (one sign of a trustworthy teacher!). But I’m sure glad he’s here and I’ve no doubt I’ll work with him again. Enjoy Sacred Selling!
Love and blessings, krayna castelbaum
I am so grateful that the course gave me ways to connect to a potential client that feel genuine and helpful. Believe it or not, I didn’t have a handle on Compassionate Questioning and now I do. I was able to prove this to myself tonight in a first-time conversation with someone a client had referred to me. Before I would have stumbled and felt crass – now I focused on her and felt totally comfortable. Thanks so much!
Thank you, Mark, for convening a sacred circle to bring the process of sales into our hearts and the hearts of our businesses. The lessons and your powerful modeling (especially of doing Remembrance and stopping to breathe) within each class gave us plenty of ways to learn and soak up all the good vibes. Putting together practice partners really enhances the effectiveness of the experience overall. I open the flow of Divine appreciation for YOU and this amazing course and wonderful group of people.
Thank you Mark – this was a beautiful class filled with so much goodness!
You bring a structure to the conversation that allows for an open flow, connection, and allows everyone just to be themselves, as imperfect as we are. It allows us each to be vulnerable and to accept the help that we both need – help from what my business does and help to pay the bills.
The practice conversations that we had through the partnering really let me go in deep into what works and what doesn’t in a no-pressure kind of way. I also get to hear several examples from what my partners are doing on top of what we covered in the class.
It also acknowledges my spiritual self and my client doesn’t even need to know that I am doing this, although I am sure they feel the energy and beauty around the conversation. It allows me to be connected and to know what is true.
You bring everything in this course together and I have to say that along the way I have been implementing these strategies both practical and spiritual in my business and it is working out so well. I have had two new clients in the last week and more conversations that are lined up. This class has made such a big difference! Thank you! It isn’t scary anymore! 🙂
One of the struggles I had was integrating my spiritual practice/business with earning money and receiving clients. The traditional sales process seemed slimy, cheesy, and has the “I need to get” attitude. I knew there was a better way to sell because people need and want my message.
Well, the sacred selling course was the exact fit to ground my business and sell from a heart perspective. Sacred selling provided me the structure to express my heart, genuinely help others, and feel good to get paid. Not one part of the sacred selling process felt salesy or manipulative. The whole process feels authentic and from the heart. Sacred selling makes the sales process fun and enjoyable and it dramatically improved the success rate for hiring clients.
The day after the last class of the course, I had a sales conversation. I used the sacred selling process and the client hired me on the spot. The client told me that the sales process was so much fun that she is blessed to have a relationship with me.
The final thing I like about sacred selling is that it dealt with my neediness. I was able to heal a lot of money issues and I stopped projecting out my neediness onto others. I discovered that “I” can give everything my heart is thirsting for and do not need anything from potential clients. This was huge because potential clients can sense that I am not trying to get something from them. They sense I’m truly interested in serving and having a relationship.
I appreciate the bite size teachings and room to integrate the course. The seven lessons, once a week was perfect.
Peace,
– Nick Pfennigwerth
There were many lessons in Sacred Selling that I have applied in my professional practice…not for selling! I can see how it is shifting *me*. Of course, everything we learned was great and I am starting to see the fruits of the work from the class. Sometimes, though, what you expect to get can far be surpassed by the true gifts you actually receive. Mark is personable and available. Though there were many in the class, I always felt “heard”. I have met some great people through the partnering, too. I have been in business for 8 years and though this is rather simple stuff, it is very profound. Highly recommend it to anyone ready to go beyond selling and into true service, which the world needs a whole lot more of right now!
Mark,
It was an honor to be able to attend the Sacred Selling course. In some sense, it feels funny to say that, because the course comes at a monetary price. On the other hand, the course is such an enormous gift on so many levels – physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually – far exceeding any monetary outlay.
This course brings such ease, love and natural flow to a part of business that usually feels SO “icky”. It’s provided me a framework within which I can construct a beautiful presence that gives me the ability to really show up to be of service to my potential clients. Additionally, the process you teach in the class not only paves a clear pathway to make it easy to be hired, but also a way for the call itself to be healing at best and nourishing at worst. What I learned in the class brings clarity, ease and joy even if the conversation does not result in immediate business. I can end a call with deep satisfaction, even when the answer is no. That is brilliant!
Lastly, I will say that the healing that occurs in this class, especially as it relates to my relationship to money, is so important – transformational. What I’ve found is that when I have unhealthy feelings, beliefs &/or needs regarding money, these show up in my conversations and actually interfere with the connection which is so necessary to a successful and sacred conversation.
Thank you for this class, your presence, the teachings, process and love you bring to this process.
Mark – dear Mark
I want to respond to your request to say a few words about my experience of your Sacred Selling class, even whilst knowing that I’d like to report back in a few weeks’ or months’ time when I can give you more information on the impact on sales… and even as I write this, I recognise that there is already an impact on sales for my business.
Part of signing up for the class was to get clear on what I wanted from it and this alone was important for me – setting the intention that the sales process I go through with potential clients should have the same feel – the intimacy, honouring and respect of the client, the sacred quality – as my coaching work with clients.
Some of your teachings have reinforced what I already knew and through the acknowledgement I have stepped more fully into my skills and the way I can use them in my conversations with potential clients – I am thinking especially about your teachings about connection.
Some of your teachings have been new to me and they have increased my confidence enormously in the sales process. And because my aim is both to serve the person in front of me and to honour them as being able to take the right decision for them – how can I describe this? I find I am increasingly able both to maintain connection with my clients and to support them in taking the decision that’s right at any particular point in time. It helps that I know the conversation with a potential can continue – ‘no’ is an indication that the time is not right for someone to work with me.
I’ve been taking this class whilst also taking the Open the Money Flow programme and I notice how many pieces are coming together now – not that I have everything DONE, but that I know what I need to do.
And I do notice how I have been supported during this programme with a number of real live potential clients to talk to. Perhaps I’ll tell you in a while what the outcomes from these conversations are.
Meantime, I simply want to say
Thank you
Dorothy
Hi Mark
With reference to your Sacred Selling course:
I have yet to get under way with my business enterprise – so I can’t yet report back on how it all works ‘at the coal face’.
I CAN say, though, that I’m looking forward to it all with a great deal more confidence than I felt before your excellent course. The sheer common sense of what you teach, blended with a rare sort of insight and underpinned with true spiritual wisdom and integrity, leaves me feeling that being ‘in business’ IS right for me (something I had a question mark over, before) and indeed it’s the only way I can share what I know I’m here to share with others.
More than that, I feel that I can be successful without having to abandon the sense of being myself – in fact I can be more myself than ever within the style of business operation that you so ably communicate/share. That’s probably the most important thing to me.
Many thanks, and may you continue to bless others, and be blessed, as I feel you have blessed all of us through this teaching.
Grahame
Hi Mark,
I can’t thank you enough for making the Sacred Selling course available to heart-centered (and socially conscious) entrepreneurs. I’m wishing I’d taken it at a much earlier stage of my journey down the self-employed path.The sales and marketing processes have always been the two aspects of business that I’ve struggled with the most over the past couple of years. I knew they were skills I needed to learn, and at the same time–because mostly my experiences I’d had with them was being on the receiving end of some really “icky” marketing and sales strategies that felt pushy and disrespectful–I cycled between feeling ambivalent about and outright resistant to engaging with the processes.all the while feeling more convinced that I just wasn’t cut out to be self-employed after all.
Ref-raming the sales conversation as a conversation that is intended to build and nurture a heart-centred connection with a potential client while also appreciating that it is mediated through the Divine demystified (and detoxed) the dynamics/process for me and took a lot of pressure off me. Now I don’t feel as though I have to adopt some weird sales person persona or use strategies that feel thoroughly discordant to me when I’m talking to a potential client.
The exercises and assignments have also pushed me out of stuck mode and into taking a few concrete steps (crafting an offer, developing a list of compassionate questions and a checklist, identifying all the details that need to be sorted out) as well as remembering to be compassionate and gentle with myself as I practice the new approach to connecting with potential clients and having a sacred sales conversation.
Namaste and bright blessings,
Susan (Sue)
I am truly grateful that I have discovered Mark’s work with Heart of Business. I have just finished the sacred Selling course and this has been quite a transformation for me already. The material is really well-structured and you get to appreciate the importance of both the preparation and clarity of what your offer as well as the entire energetics that take place during the sales act. A big bravo Marc for transforming spiritual (and very natural btw) principles into a grounded, simple, heart-felt and down-to-earth process. I have rarely come across spirituality so well translated into something concrete, useful and vibrant. Also, beyond the content, your presence, your guidance, your fine-tuned intuition is worth doing this class even if sales is not an urgent issue.
As for me personally, in many ways, this course has stirred a lot of things and made me realize I need to work on my offer and make it clearer in terms of structure and quite some more. Phew! On a subtler level, I feel a kind, healing force taking action, a sort of re-education in healthy boundaries when it comes to giving and receiving, being clear and loving at the same time. The whole course is a live demonstration and fine-tuning with the energetics of relationships. I recommend it whole-heartedly to anyone who has issues with boundaries, clarity, structure, pricing and common sense questions as to how to deal with clients in a sales conversation.
Smiles from the heart,
Ioanna
Dear Mark –
Just finished your Sacred Selling Course and I am humbled, amazed and so very grateful! The biggest gift was being able to drop into my heart, feel the remembrance, and honor my clients as well as my self and the spiritual relationship we are joining forces for. I truly understand Namaste’ now. It truly is honoring the Divine in each of us, and beginning and deepening a Holy Relationship! What an honor and a gift!
The course is taught so simply, and transparently, so that I “got it” from the first day! I’m so excited and inspired to bring the Sacred into my Web Design and Communications work! Another gift.
There is plenty of time to integrate, practice and understand the materials and it was a pleasure to meet each partner! The synchronicity with each partner was profound and enlightening.
If any one has a problem selling, (who doesn’t?) 🙂 then I highly recommend they take this course. It has set me on a path towards greater freedom, joy and realization that my gifts are important to share with the perfect clients that are attracted to my service. And it comes down to service. I realize now how important service is, and I’m so grateful to be able to do this every single day.
I made a $600 sale for services before completing the class! And it wasn’t a struggle at all. It was an easy, flowing client relationship that I hope to deepen through the years. Thank you!
Thanks so much Mark. Your gifts have been received so gratefully and I look forward to learning more from you in the future. Blessings!
Carole Cross
Wow. I have just completed taking Mark’s Sacred Selling course. Yesterday was our last class. And today, I have just read through all of the other posts here on this blog, many of them from participants who took the course in 2011 and 2012…
I am so moved to read others’ testimonies about their own wonderful experiences, and to feel so much resonance with what others have shared above. In one way, I could just say “ditto ditto ditto” to what everyone has said… how gentle, how powerful, how effective, how profound yet simple to grasp this course has been…
how profoundly ethical, generous, and freeing this approach is…
and how grateful I am, to have had this amazing experience.
And, in addition, I am realizing that there IS something else I want to say, another magical dimension to this journey. It’s extremely moving to me, that this has been a SHARED experience… that it’s not just one or two of us in each class who are raving about it… but that instead, it has been such a shared journey, and that so many of us have derived so much benefit from it. Clearly, one of Mark’s many gifts is being able to create a group experience where SO MANY OF US can feel welcome, valued, seen… and where so many of us, can experience such powerful transformations, in such a relatively short amount of time.
This is the real stuff, folks… if you have the opportunity to take this course, and it resonates for you in some way, give yourself an amazing gift and go for it. I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet that you, too, will be enormously grateful to Mark, to your fellow participants, and to yourself, for having gone on this journey!
I will be forever indebted to you, Mark, for the very essential work that you do at Heart of Business and in this class. YES! IT WORKS!
I entered this class with a long and deep issue of not being able to be ‘comfortable’ with my prices. I had been working with a healer for a year on abundance issues which had been working well for me. But I was at a place where I felt like I was hitting up against a brick wall over and over again. Then your offer to join the free portion of the Sacred Selling course came via email. As I read through the description I could feel that it might help me see my issue from a different angle to help coax further healing. I figured, “Why not?”. You were making it so easy for me with the very first stuff for free and an unbelievably reasonable price.
I entered thinking that you were using different language to describe the ‘sales conversation’ just to jolt us out of our ‘issues’. I immediately realized that you were using different language because the ‘sales conversation’ for you was a real relationship and a real conversation with another human being that you wanted to treat as you would be treated.
Though every teaching in this course, in hind sight, is logical and a ‘no brainer’, I had never been able to articulate them myself. Yes. I had felt every single feeling that you highlight in each teaching both as a business owner and a customer/client but I’d gotten lost in not trusting my own knowing. I’m sure it was not a ‘no brainer’ for you to re-analyze this conversation that goes on between business owner and prospective client. I’m sure it took you plenty of contemplation. But this is what makes you and your course so special. You actually take the time to go deep within so that you can take spiritual teachings and apply them with full integrity as real business practices respectful of our fellow man/woman.
My challenge in my business was that my product is naturally upscale but, because I was so essentially uncomfortable with my prices, I was not able to attract the right customer – someone who could and would pay my prices. On this end of the course I am miraculously feeling ABSOLUTELY comfortable with my prices! The new insights I have been given into this conversation have served to totally ‘readjust’ my whole understanding and view of my relationship with my customer. My comfort is a real thing. I am attracting customers who have higher budgets to work with me. Alleluia!!!
Going forward, I can now allow my success. I don’t even have to think about it anymore. I can feel the door wide open and that there is no ‘rush’ for things to come through. I trust that they will now instead of expecting that they won’t.
I am so grateful for this class and all your work Mark. The work you are doing is so rooted in integrity that it is making a new way possible for each one of us. You are holding the door open and showing the way. Your work is a blessing on this planet with it’s dysfunctional economy. And, by the way, it was you who brought my attention to this fact – that our economy is dysfunctional. Its not just that we’re in a ‘bad’ economy that makes things difficult. Things are not right for a lot of people even in a ‘good’ economic climate because its DYSFUNCTIONAL! Thank you, thank you, thank you for all your hard work and perseverance to create courses that can help us each make profound inner shifts that make us more functional so that we can hold the door open and show the way for someone else.
You are a blessing on this planet and you have been a direct blessing to me. May everyone be able to receive the blessings of this course that they can feel the opening to allow their fullest and brightest success.
Showering you all with blessings of peace and love,
Jasmine
This course gave me the confidence to ask for what my services are worth and allowed me to separate my own self worth from the clients willingness to enroll. By the end of the 7 weeks I felt that I was able to approach the subject of money in a much more heart centered way, without as much awkwardness or apology.
Thank you, Mark, for this truly great course!
It opened up a doorway to a different way of working for me. Even though this different working wasn’t new to me it always vanished after some time.
Now my work feels like I’m starting over. My pricing and offering feel true to my heart and just ME.There are some details I want to change. I’ve learned to take a breath and just stop from time to time instead of going on in just any kind of way.
Instead I’m asking my heart and watching the response of the Divine.
And after that if anything in my business comes up I take action in communication with the Divine.
Thank you for this new kind of freedom in my business and I wished I had found you sooner in being an entrepreneur!
I just completed the 7-week Sacred Selling course and enjoyed it very much. It has given me more confidence in speaking prospective clients – something was was pretty uncomfortable doing. My increased confidence comes from a) having a clear structure and sequence to follow, and b) being able to relax deeply into the integrity inherent in the Sacred Selling approach.
I must say this: I was getting little ahead of myself by taking Sacred Selling right now because I’m in the early stages of designing my business, and still have a lot of work to do to clarity what it is that I offer, and who my work is for.
Thus, it is really a tease to finally have the skills and confidence to talk with potential clients, but not have the clarity about my offering yet!
The course element about resonant pricing was helpful, but I discovered that there are some deeper challenges for me about pricing and valuing my work (which, I guess, in and of itself is a valuable recognition). I think Mark could do a class just on the pricing piece alone!!!
Mark’s approach might be easier to implement by people who are already somewhat comfortable with their value and pricing. It frees things up for the pricing be more right, comfortable, and nourishing for you.
Beyond Sacred Selling – – I just want to say these things about Mark:
1. Total Integrity – Mark is a brilliant mix of heart and mind, with a capacity to respond to people’s needs and questions with both compassion and clarity. His access to his own humanity is a breath of fresh air, and his commitment to his work and his clients unwavering. The combination of humility and genius makes Mark very trustworthy – a great ally to have indeed!
2. Total Integration – Mark has done such a great job bridging heart, soul, spirit and business, and is expressing it so fluidly, that it can be easy to miss his genius. In other words, you know how a masterful musician can make even difficult-to-play music sound effortlessly simple? Well, Mark is so masterful at the business-spirit integration (and the teaching of it!) that he makes it seem so smooth and integrated. He is modeling a truly beautiful and transformative way of being in the world and doing good business.
It took me about five years from the time I first found out about you to taking a course (this is my second), but now that I have, the response has been tremendous. I find myself much more able to get out of my own way, recognize problem areas, and utilize practical tools that go to the depths where the real issues are. I’ve been recommending your courses to many people I know in the healing arts field – people like me that are more interested in treating people than doing business. I feel confident from your courses that business in its true form is about relationships and a spiritual journey. This has created great resonance for me and allowed me to engage more deeply with the places I get stuck and move through them. I feel well on my way to creating a vibrant practice. 🙂
Mark, I’ve studied selling with Bill Baren, Susanna Maida and others in the heart-centered marketing field. Nothing made sense like this does. I feel quite blessed.
Now I wish I could report success in the form of new clients, but so far none. However, I did have a very wonderful experience last week, after the last Sacred Selling call. Like so:
I had had a very good initial convo with Jan a couple of weeks ago, she was a yes, let’s do this at the end. Needed to talk to her husband about finances, but was going out of town, so we made a Bridge appointment. Day before the appointment she wrote an email saying: “There is something holding me back from as full a commitment as I would like — as though I don’t quite believe in what I’m doing. For a ‘body of work’ that is so tied into my own feeling & sensing, I have to be fully committed …… It isn’t just the cost — I have been known to part with sums of money & then move on to something else — but it is also, as I can’t afford to do that, at this time. So I think I have to ponder some more, in my own time …….. so can’t continue at this time, though I really liked what you offered ….Grrrrrrr”
I wrote her back, from a place of looking at this with her, and wrote back: “Hi Jan, I totally get it. You know, I would be happy to keep our call time tomorrow, and spend some time together looking at your heart, and your commitments. I think I can help you get the clarity you deserve, regardless of the outcome. I’d be delighted.”
We had another call, and in it I coached her around her frustration, with her, not trying to sell her, feeling very connected. It was so powerful! Now she’s looking at her finances, and will tell me her final answer tomorrow. It was a powerful conversation!
I feel the power of connecting, of prostrating, of being the ground on which my prospects can stand, of the silence after the pivot questions, of reading Makhtub. Thank you so much, brother, for all you have given me.
Love and magic,
Sue
I want to say a big thank you for this Sacred Selling course. I
I completed all seven weeks of sacred seling course and it has changed my view on the sales process in a very deep and positive way. I now feel equiped with practical and heart connected tools to tackle the differents steps of the selling process.
This course is more than just about selling, it’s about changing your perspective, connecting with your heart and as such is deeply healing.
Mark’s teachings are filledl with heart and integrity, it’s a real pleasure to hear the other participants sharing.
Although I can’t say I’ve seen practical results in terms of new clients yet, I’m confident it will and I’m less stressed about selling.
Thank you.
Mark’s Sacred Selling course teaches a revolutionary approach to sales. Before I embarked on this course, I really had no idea how to ‘connect’ me, my services and my potential clients. Now, the process feels effortless and I have so much more clarity and confidence in what I am offering.
Mark offers the perfect balance of practical structure and heart-full connection in all his teachings and this is no exception. I am so grateful for the profound effect it will have on businesses everywhere. Thank you for your humility and your brilliance <3
The Sacred Selling course has been a pivotal, transformative part of growing my current practice in desired directions and mapping my future path in medicine and business. I love what I do yet always saw myself as “horrible with selling and awful with money.”
By the time I’d completed this course, my client load had doubled. More than that, the majority of my clients were, for the first time ever, my “ideal clients.” And, more than that, they’d almost all signed on for packages I’d never have been brave enough to create or skilled enough to sell had it not been for this course.
Crucially, these (totally unexpected) leaps were at all times anchored in Heart-centred foundations and practices (otherwise, for me at least, they likely wouldn’t have happened).
Mark and this course provided a spiritually connected, business-wise, much-needed guide and support. Sacred Selling was exactly what I needed–and, really, I feel as though I’ve only just begun to work with the material.
Thank you!
I am so grateful for the Sacred Selling course. It helped me sort out my pricing and how to have a sales conversation (no small feat) but the most important thing it did for me was to help me have more ease and confidence and less panic at the thought of how to take someone through the sales process! Because I stumble less, my clients can lean into me and trust that I am acting in the best interest of them and their health. I still don’t leap into the air at the thought of selling someone my services but I know that I need to help the people I work with understand what it will take to get better and Mark and this course helped me create acupuncture packages, which I would have never come up with on my own.
Even better, this course has shown me what heart-centered and connected and honest sales conversations look like, so when someone recently tried to sell me a $1,000 marketing opportunity for my acupuncture practice, I could see right through it and the manipulation, which I’m sure I would have felt before taking Sacred Selling but may not have been able to describe exactly, was so obvious to me that I turned the opportunity down and saved myself $1,000! Which is great because I’m using that money towards Foundations 2, which I know is going to be a much much better use of my time.
Mark and Steve and Jason and Yollana and Lincoln are SO wonderful to learn from. They share the journey with you and I felt led and held at every step.
Before I met the Heart of Business community and began the Foundations 1 course, I truly had no idea ‘how’ to conduct a sales conversation. I just didn’t know how. I went from webinar to webinar and learned bits and pieces here and there and then ended up joining a marketing course but still came out of that feeling unaware and without much hope about what I was doing. I finally dropped out because I was missing pieces, I wasn’t engaging spiritually the way I needed to and I was frustrated.
Then I had heard Mark Silver speak on a call one evening and had found what I knew I was deeply longing for – Heart of Business. I joined the community and I was very uplifted and inspired. I soon had a private assessment with one of their business coaches, Steve Mattus and within minutes he understood the difficulties I was experiencing. I then joined Foundations 1 and became really clear about ‘whom’ I was here to serve. I moved onto The Sacred Selling part of the course and I just fell deeply in love with the whole process. I had not realised it until I really got deep into the work, that my Soul and my heart had been looking for this way of being and way of working all along. It was literally as if a dream had come true for me. Business was beginning to feel ‘realis-able and accomplish-able’ and I had a way of bringing who I was out into the world without feeling bad about how to do that. I was learning ‘how’ to function in society with a full heart, being connected to Love/the Divine, fulfill my client’s need and still get paid well for all of that? Here, there are no contradictions, no feeling bad, no shame or guilt around sales and everyone is getting what they need and……we are creating a better and more trusting world everytime we engage in a ‘sacred selling conversation’. It feels as if we are carrying out and fulfulling our own sacred destiny.
I highly recommend anyone who wants to learn about ‘sales’ in a heart based most authentic way to take this course. My questions always have been answered and I have been helped and assisted more than I could have ever hoped for. The coaches, facilitators are beautiful people who are deeply dedicated and motivated to help all of us create the business that we truly most authentically long for.
My own personal inner work and transformation is also being deeply helped because of this course. I have understood that doing business is really only an “inside job” and much of it depends on our personal healing journey and the highest aims we hold for ourselves.
May all of you feel as blessed as I am feeling with the Heart of Business community and taking these courses!
I was lost in a fog of really wanting a lot of things to be clear but they weren’t. I learned some things here that have really cleared that fog.
Now, I would say the peaks of the mountains have poked through the fog, I can see the path, and the work is ahead in a much clearer way. This is so much nicer than nebulous searching.
I can’t say I have “mastered” anything here and often feel humbled by how much of it I did not actually “get” the first time through but that’s okay. I plan to more or less go through it once, then start all over again.
Meanwhile, some really simple things have helped me tremendously. I feel I’m getting closer to being my real self in what I offer and also how to offer it better because of the desire to understand heart connection in all this putting myself out in the world stuff which has usually been death defying and terrorizing in some ways…introvert wants to offer jewel, has to be out in the world, how to do this? Heart connection.
It’s a bit hard to explain how deep this work went and continues to go and the things that I take away from it. Huge depths.
I’m deeply impressed by Mark, Steve, and team. They know things. Things I want to know… dig it.
Also, the rememberance is so important to my spiritual life, that really helped and added a lot. How can you think of words and metaphors to describe this work? I can’t! Just greatness that makes greatness in my heart.
Thank you…MS
Myla! So sweet to read this- bless you and thank you… here’s to more greatness in all of us, and in your business.
I came to Heart of Business to make the transition from running a non-profit ministry to starting a business teaching healthy conversations. I was concerned about the conflict between making money and serving others. I was stuck because I had written a book to use in the business but I needed to get the business started in order to promote the book. I was surprised at the transformation I went through. It was quickly apparent that serving others did not mean I couldn’t make money and making money didn’t mean I always had to ignore people who couldn’t pay. Resonant pricing met my deepest values. Every step of the way I got practical advice on how to get started right immediately and develop the business in the process. This course has served me on practical, spiritual, personal, and professional levels. It was just what I needed!
I’ve found Heart of Business Foundations 1 to be full of profound depth, heart, connection to the Divine and, of course, amazing wisdom about learning to “sacred sell” and getting to know myself in relation to my business (a mouthful…). I’ve opened and expanded and grown in profound ways. However, as the course has gone on, I’ve also become overwhelmed by it all, by the depth of the exercises. I think I reached some wall or limit to what I can process and absorb…maybe something was too much for my heart at this time? The course has gone by pretty fast, and I don’t feel at all that I’ve completed this work. At times, I’ve wished there were a way to have some individualized help within the class, although I know that’s not how it’s stuctured. I realize that’s the reason for partnering, and I know I can also purchase some coaching. So… I now have the basics and I can continue to practice all of this on my own. I think I probably need more time before I go on to F2, maybe another go-round with F1, I’m not sure. I am grateful to you, Mark and Steve. Thank you!
Brilliant material, somewhat flawed program.
Rememberance, Connecting to the Divine, the exercises wonderful. And the love and compassion that Mark and the team has comes through on the calls and recordings.
And yet I felt a big disconnect with the program. There are a bunch of minor glitches in how information is provided, descriptions, etc. even something as simple as listing the call time for different time zones isn’t done.
All the calls appear to for the whole community, besides the submission form, there is nothing that ties me to my individual program, except for partnering. Except for 1 month I never got a call from my partner. And I never made a call because I was behind on the material. The one month I did work with a partner was lovely and they were even further behind in the program then I was.
The program asks big, amazing questions that have huge impact on people, and people have busy lives, so it is understandable the delays.
And I know that I didn’t make phone calls, I didn’t complete materials on-time, etc. So while many of the gaps are on my shoulders, there is this nagging feeling that the format could have supported me better then it did, and that is the piece that limits what should be boundless enthusiasm for brilliant and loving material.
I absolutely love the ideas. I have and will continue to share some of of it with others and encourage them to at least hop on the mailing list. But I am currently ambivalent about recommending the course. I would love to be able to recommend it with more enthusiasm but I feel the gaps in support, in check-in, in encouraging action yawn widely against the amazing material presented.
I know you are a small, lean organization that cares a lot about it’s clients, as people as about their success. And yet, the gap I experienced makes me reluctant to move forward to take Foundations 2 or other programs.
I wish I had more specific tweaks I could recommend to bridge the gap and be more enthusiastic about continuing with the Heart of Business, or recommending it more wholeheartedly.
My best suggestion is a book about on-line courses I found on Amazon for 99 cents called Beyond Satisfaction by Breanne Dyck. I think it has some wonderful thoughts about how great on-line programs can provide even more value, help them move through material better and create more success for their clients. I hope some of them might prove useful to bring Foundations 1 and other programs to become even more powerful and effective.
Joel- Thank you for your honest description of your experience, your kind words about our approach and materials. And the recommendation. We’re in version 2.0 of the program, and always evolving. 🙂
Wow, Joel! I totally get the massive love in your heart as you write your comments and I bet Mark does, too… such honesty combined with so much love. That’s a gift!
Reading you, I wonder if you’re saying there needs to be more time and space between different elements of the programme to give time to do the exercises and digest? I would also want to acknowledge that this has been my experience of some of Mark’s programmes – and also the challenge of maintaining contact such that people do actually do their exercises, phone their buddies etc. in between.
Also – just checking – I think you’re saying that all sorts of things could be improved to maintain the ethos of low cost to buyer, automated and still deep value materials and, at the same time, create a smooth and glitch-free experience.
These are the two major themes I took from your feedback and I just wanted to honour your feedback and tease it out a little (as a fellow student/client of Mark’s and with deep love and respect to Mark, his team and the wonderful work they do).
I’m not sure how to properly articulate what the Sacred Selling course (taken as part of Foundations 1) is doing for me in relation to my business. There is so much.
It’s a deeply healing course, while also being very practical. I am thrilled to be learning about business and selling techniques that are rooted in spirituality, love and service.