The need for integrity is one of the biggest roadblocks to marketing your business. Of course you don’t want to manipulate people to buy through fear or other hype-tactics.
So you soft-peddle your offers. Or avoid offering at all.
Need integrity? Check. Need customers to purchase? Check. What to do?
What is ‘Hype’?
One definition has to do with “extravagant or intensive promotion.” Another definition is to “stimulate or excite (someone).” (Both from the Oxford American Dictionaries.)
The assumption about hype is that it involves deception or outright lying. Obviously, or not so obviously to some, this is NOT a good way to go.
But, when we talk about ‘extravagant,’ ‘intense,’ or ‘stimulating’- I think we could learn some lessons here from a spiritual master.
What my Sufi Sheikh did at 2am
One of the spiritual practices in my lineage is the all-night prayer retreat, or ‘khalwah.’ On certain nights during the year we gather from sundown to sunup, and make repetitions of certain chants and prayers.
Incredibly invigorating… not. I’m just not a late-night person. I have trouble staying up past 10pm many nights. When it gets to 2am, I’m more likely to slide down in my seat and start drooling on my prayer beads.
Except that I can’t. Why not? From time to time my Sheikh, sitting up at the front of the room, calls out prayers very loudly. Sometimes he walks among us, and calls out prayers.
Wake up!
Your readers are shnoozing.
Ever notice how easy it is to live an unconscious life? To just go to sleep at age 25 and wake up ten or twenty years later, wondering what in the heck happened?
It’s good to wake people up. And what wakes people up? Well, the way our reptilian mind at the base of our skull is programmed, we wake up in order to avoid being eaten by some predator.
That’s right- our good friend fear wakes us up.
You do need to introduce some fear into your marketing.
Fear is critical to our growth. As I wrote about in another article, fear is the constriction that gets the toothpaste out of the tube. Fear keeps us from running heedless and unconscious in our lives, and falling off the sides of the mountains.
Too much fear is a bad thing. And fear at certain points in your marketing is just plain wrong, as well as ineffective.
Where’s the balance? How does it work? Well, if you don’t keep reading, you’ll miss out on what you really need to know about this. (Did that scare you?)
Keys to Hype and Fear
• Use fear or hype only to wake people up.
You do want your readers to wake up to what’s important. You don’t want to traumatize them, or have them running on their reptilian brain (slither, slither).
That means once you have their attention, lay off the fear.
• Fear needs to be based on truth.
You’ve seen those announcements: ‘Only 2 left!’ or ‘Prices go up tomorrow!’ These kinds of announcements can wake up the ego.
However, they have to be true. If it’s true, and it helps to wake up your audience a bit, that can be a very good thing.
• Once they are awake, it’s heart-time.
You never want a customer making a choice to purchase from fear. When you come to the point in your writing where you are asking for a decision, don’t use fear to prod them. I always use phrases like: “If this resonates with you.” “If your heart wants this.” etc.
The point is, I don’t want anyone making a decision from fear. Decisions made from fear cause regrets, and regrets mean that your business is potentially doing harm, not good.
All in all, don’t be afraid of fear. Wake up the folks who are shnoozing their life away. But, once they are awake, trust that their heart will have them make the right decision on whether to buy from you or not.
What do you think? Let’s talk about it- leave a comment here.
The Sacred Moment: A two-day seminar on how to talk to potential customers with integrity, and still get paid.
Only a few seats left.
It happens Friday! Today’s Wednesday. Last chance to jump in and learn how to talk to potential clients with integrity and heart, and still get paid. It won’t be offered again in 2007.
Did I scare you? Good. Now, check with your heart and see if you want to jump in at the last moment.
In Portland, April 20 and 21, this is going to be a profound two-days with me and other heart-centered business owners.
Practical strategy, conversational energetic diagnostics, as well as deep spiritual access – we’re going for the big one, folks. All in service to you getting paid.
Please join me- if this seminar resonates, I’d love to meet you..
Questions? Read the link, and ask me anything you like.
