Our Director of Education, Steve Mattus, is no stranger to being vulnerable. He was really vulnerable about a particularly deep state of depression he was in. 
Did it work? It was a really popular and helpful article among our readers generating dozens of comments.
How did he decide how vulnerable to be? How could he be reasonably sure it would be helpful instead of hurting the business?
Here’s how he approached it. I urge you to read through it, so you can have a good sense of how vulnerable to be… and how to avoid being vulnerable in a way that might harm the business or… hurt yourself.
With love,
Mark Silver
Founder and CEO
Article: Vulnerability in your Marketing Can Help Or Harm
When we’re in business, there is a fear that often comes up: vulnerability.
What if we show a weakness? What if we’re a coach, but we don’t have all our own shit together? What if we’re a Chiropractor and we have a headache? What if we teach marketing but didn’t sell out our class? After all, people are coming to us for help – will they lose faith in us if we ourselves need help?
This creates an enormous burden upon us to be perfect. It steals away our humanity. It zaps our joy. It’s unsustainable.
We are all human. We share our humanity together, which means the sparkly, shiny parts we’re happy to share, and all the messy parts we’d rather not share (and often don’t).
Does sharing our “stuff” vulnerably help or hurt? How much is too much?
When done right, vulnerability is incredibly powerful. It can be radically connecting and transformative for you and your prospects/clients – especially because it’s not often seen. And, if it’s done with real heart, it can change your business.
Here are some important reminders to help you:
• The usual extreme we go to is to not reveal anything. Yet risking yourself and admitting to mistakes, to fear, to the whole spectrum of human emotions creates real trust and connection with your prospects. My Sufi teachings say that when you teach, “What the student wants is your Divinity, but what enables the student to take is your humanity.”
Without showing your humanity, the prospect can become discouraged, feeling like they can never bridge between where they are to where you are. It’s a lose-lose situation, and a marketing disaster!
• Yeah, but how much is too much? The other extreme is to “spew” all over people, and this can be done by bringing too much fear out, and it can also be done by bringing too much enthusiasm out. How much is too much fear or enthusiasm?
The real test: is it keeping you from seeing and connecting with your prospect? Even when being vulnerable, the point of being vulnerable is to connect with the other person. If, in being enthusiastic or showing human emotions, you’ve lost sight of the person you are talking to, or writing for, you’ve crossed a line. Not a line of showing too much, but the line of putting the focus on you.
If you can see them clearly, and see how whatever vulnerability you are showing is connecting with them, you are doing fine. If you find the spotlight is mostly on you, then you want to recheck it.
• Here’s the way I do it: I write out want I want to say. And then I go through the whole article, in addition to the editing, and check each sentence- how could this sentence help the reader, or is just for me? If it’s helpful, and passes my other editing, it stays. If it’s just for me, I keep it just for me… and you don’t see it.
I challenge you to take the next step in being vulnerable with your prospects this month. Let them see you and your humanity. We’d love to hear how it goes.
We actively practice this in our Community. We practice being vulnerable with each other, within a very safe, loving, grounded and real container of our Community. It helps make it easier to really show up authentically and vulnerably in our marketing. Come check it out… there’s room for you too!
With love and appreciation,
Steve Mattus
Director of Education and Community Manager
A quick video on a courageous, safe space
One of the challenges with vulnerability is finding a safe place to practice being courageous, and to get support with tender, vulnerable topics without needing to keep your defenses up.
Let me describe one such space to you.
If this touched you, please check out our Community.
During September, we’re offering two bonuses for those who join.
1. A free, live course on how to be sustainably self-employed, in terms of your weekly work rhythm.
2. Our home study program: How to Say What You Do In One Compelling Sentence
Both are described in more detail here:
Click: Heart of Business Community
Take a look, and if you have any questions, please ask!
With appreciation,
Mark, Steve and the whole crew at
Heart of Business, Inc.
Every act of business can be an act of love.
