Something I Have To Tell You About Marketing

I’ve been fielding some questions from folks about the Momentum course, and I’d like to answer a couple of them before digging into the topic for today- “Something I have to tell you about marketing.”

Q: How far along do I have to be/how big an email list/etc, etc do I need for the Momentum course to be worth it?

A: This course is good whether you are just considering the idea of going into business, or have been at it for a few years and are struggling.

How can I say that? If you’re brand-new, the course will give you a deep understanding of what you’re in for, and whether to focus from the very beginning. This can shave months and years of struggle off the process of building your business from scratch.

If that sounds like a glib answer, it isn’t. You may be overcome with a desire to get it all done now and wish you were further ahead, but that’s the human condition, isn’t it?

Sigh… Seriously, though, this kind of a course, with the combination of Big Picture, Nitty-Gritty and Heart, could be a huge gift to yourself at the beginning stages, without having to spend a lot of money to figure it out.

And another one…

Q: Because of my (time zone/prior commitments, etc) I can’t make the calls live. Is it going to be a wasted effort to join the course?

A: I know how powerful it is to attend a live course. It’s easier to make yourself show up for a live event sometimes than to listen to the recordings.

I don’t expect everyone to be able to make the live calls, and especially if you opt in for the community version of the course, I think you will actually do great. For one, the recordings will be available the same day, often within 1-3 hours of the call. For two, the recordings will be split into tracks, so if you need to be efficient you can zero in on exactly what you want/need to hear.

Then there’s the community version which includes two additional elements that will make the course incredibly effective.

1) Partnering: you will be matched up with other participants to get mutual support and accountability between classes, and can schedule to meet with each other according to your schedule. For years our clients have said that the partnering is where the biggest breakthroughs happen.

2) Small Group Mentoring with Mark: You will be invited to join a small group mentoring call with no more than 12 participants (often fewer than that). I’ll schedule the options for mentoring calls on different days and at different times to make it easy for folks that were having trouble making class time to make the mentoring session.

Okay, hopefully that answers at least two big questions. If you have more, take a look at the course description, and please ask!

Now… on to the hot topic.

Something I Have to Tell You About Marketing

Marketing is allegedly all about “attraction.” Attracting attention, attracting clients, attracting money…

It’s all a big misunderstanding, because that’s NOT what marketing is about.

What is attraction? Attraction is a derivative of Love, with a big “L.” We are attracted by love to love. Love is, as Dante wrote, the “primum mobile” – the prime mover. We know this in our hearts.

If you try to make your marketing attractive, that’s when it starts to feel… squeezed… strange… That’s when the gross panting of manipulation and other strange marketing tactics feels off. The attempt to manufacture love and attraction just doesn’t sit well with the heart.

For your heart to be attractive, you need to be full of love and generosity. That’s why we spend an entire class in Momentum focused on the heart, as well as bringing a focus to the heart into each of the other classes. It’s that important.

The hearts of the people who need you most will feel that and be moved toward you.

But will they respond and actually make contact?

What Happens When We’re Touched by Love

Our hearts yearn for love. Yet when we encounter it, love freaks us out. The mind starts spinning, “Are you just going to take my money? Are you an axe-murderer? Is this for real?”

Think about any time you’ve encountered love and caring from a stranger, and think about how skepticism so easily arises in us.

The heart yearns for love; the ego needs safety.

That’s why we need marketing.

The True Job of Marketing

Safety. That’s all. The job of your marketing is to help the egos of the people you most want to help feel safe enough to slow down and heed the call of love in their hearts.

As crazy as the ego can be, it’s very rooted in the physical world. The safety it needs has to do with details and results, with what it looks like and whether other people liked it.

The ego can also be very emotional, needs to know it’s not broken, and the crazy emotions it feels (fear, anger, sadness) are okay and acceptable. It needs to be witnessed.

Safety in the physical world can sometimes be a little complicated, and so marketing is not a monolith. That’s why in the Momentum course we split marketing up into Three Journeys and devote at least two full classes to explaining what and how of marketing. Safety looks different when you’re talking to a stranger versus when you’re talking to someone who already knows you somewhat.

Take a Deep Breath

Knowing what you now know, take a gentle breath and look at your efforts at marketing. Were you trying to “get” people? Instead, think about just providing safety for the folks who already want to believe there’s help for them, but are maybe a nervous about it.

How does that feel? If you were to take your next attempt at marketing and make it a love letter full of safety for the reader, how does it feel to approach it like that?

If This Resonates With You

If you’re tired of trying to rah-rah your clients into buying, if you feel slightly ill from trying to do marketing in a way that doesn’t honor the heart, if you really need your business to be in full integrity with your heart, please join me for the Momentum course.

It starts Tuesday, November 6, and the early-bird deadline is this Friday, October 26.

For full info and to register: Momentum Course

“The Momentum course has been fantastic for me. It’s a wonderful blend of spirit work and concrete, practical information about getting your business going. It’s also exciting how the spiritual tools and practices he teachers dovetail perfectly with actionable tasks.

The structured homework and the weekly partner calls have also been a huge part of deepening my understanding of the material and getting me to do the work. I honestly couldn’t be happier about this course, and I think it’s such a steal deal.”

– Sarah Bush

If you have any questions at all, please ask. Hundreds of previous participants in previous years have loved this course. Join me in November.