heart-of-business-logo
heart-of-business-logo

The 3 business elements that
are a huge help in gaining real traction
and
are most-avoided by heart-centered people.

Niche

Having a specific audience/type of client that you are reaching.

Packages

Moving from selling a single session to having a package offer.

Problem-based Marketing

Speaking to the struggles faced.
Nearly everyone struggles with these topics, for really legitimate reasons. They’ve been done so badly, so toxically, that of course you don’t want to touch them.
Sure, you’d love to have your marketing work, you’d love to have clients be committed for way more than just one session, and you’d love to feel some clarity around what you’re doing.
 
But… but… do you have to do the gross things you’ve seen people do? Do you have to jam yourself into a box, or spew out some pain-point marketing that feels gross?
These three topics, can be done with beauty and integrity and care. And then they will make a huge difference in helping your clients and in helping business thrive.
They are also the topics that I’ve heard most consistently from our clients,
“Wow, I wish I had just taken your advice and not resisted for so long…”
Unblocking each of these can give your business a measurable boost, band bring some ease at the same time.

Course: The 3 Big Blocks

3 Tuesdays, May 26, June 2 & 9, 2-3:30pm eastern.

This three-session course is intended to help you have a deeper understanding, and to end the resistance to these topics without taking on any toxic, manipulative, painful strategies, to bring some real healing here.
 
The topics themselves are not difficult to work with once the resistance is gone, although to be fair, niching does take some wrangling.
 
But, when you are able to embrace these three topics, the people you want to help will feel seen and cared-for. They will step in with you much more easily and then really get the help they need. This will put your business firmly on the road to thriving and momentum.

My intentions for you.

I’m offering these three together because they are important foundational elements, and the ones that are most often avoided. Yet together, when they are done effectively with love, they provide a solidity in your business that you will really feel.
 
Through this course, I want you to be able to embrace these three elements in a way that feels like you. I also want you to make real progress in implementing them, so you can see the benefits, for your clients, and for your own financial well-being.
Mark Silver is one of the rare people in business, deeply invested in your success while holding spiritual values as the way to move forward. His unwavering commitment to business and spirit joining together make Mark a profound leader in our world.
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Deirdre Fay, past client

Who is this for?

Honestly, anyone in a small business who feels challenged by any or all of these topics. Or, similarly, anyone who feels like they can’t get traction, or that people are confused by what you do. Or, people don’t easily approach you, and even when they do, they don’t stick around.
 
It’s powerful for folks who are in earlier stages of business development, and it can also benefit folks who have been in business for years and still feel like it’s too hard to gain any kind of momentum.
 
In general, Heart of Business works with:
  • Tiny businesses: generally one person up to a small handful.
  • Service businesses: there may be products involved, but the core of the work is a service, very often in the healing arts, but any service professional.
  • Spiritually-centered: We are unabashedly spiritual (from a Sufi perspective) and have worked with folks from many different traditions, faiths, paths, and none at all. If you aren’t spiritually oriented, that’s totally fine, but you may not enjoy how we work.

Who is this NOT for?

  • Not spiritual: As I said above, if you don’t have some kind of spiritual orientation, you won’t really enjoy what we do.

    Or, if your spirituality is intolerant of the many diverse ways that humans celebrate the sacred, this is not for you.

  • People who are only about the money. We want you to succeed and thrive, people need to get paid. But if money is your only focus, and you don’t care how you get there, you won’t like us.

  • You don’t care about the world. We’re in the midst of a polycrisis, including a climate catastrophe, end-stage capitalism, and a whole bunch of isms, including white supremacy, patriarchy and rising violence against queer and trans folks.

    If there isn’t room in your heart for all of us, this is not for you.

After 20+ years as CEO of a leadership training and business coaching company, Mark remains one of my most recommended teachers and coaches, as well as someone I turn to for guidance myself. To Mark I send client who look for more than the typical misguided business support. The clients and colleagues who have worked with him report that what he teaches gets to the root of stuck places, bring meaning to work that had become a chore, and with that sustainable revenue streams, and results. Additionally, I hired himt o speak at my even, Wealthy Thought Leader, where he was one out of 6 speakers - he received a standing ovation on the topic of selling from the heart. The work he does is useful and doable, and I hope he knows how much is commitment to entrepreneurs is a blessing.
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Andrea J. Lee

My approach

For twenty five years Heart of Business has been working at the intersection of practical and effective small business, spiritual nourishment, and social justice.

Practical small business

Capitalism is relatively new, while human commerce and trade have been around in many different forms as long as humans have been on the planet.
 
We can reject the toxic versions of the things we need to do to make our businesses work, and instead embrace a heart-centered approach that is human and feels good. There are beautiful, connecting, full-of-integrity ways to approach these three topics. You can show up in the marketplace offering your work in a way that feels great to both you and your clients.

Spiritual nourishment

We believe that every act of business should be, and can be, an act of love. To support this, many of the Heart of Business teachings are interwoven with universal spiritual truths that we teach through a 1400 year old Sufi lineage in a way that is easily accessible to everyone.
 
Spiritual connection and healing is a nourishment needed in life, and in business. We do not need to bring love to business, but rather we need to uncover how it’s already here, and bring it out.

Social justice

We have, as humans, an obligation to care for each other. To protect the vulnerable, to share wealth when it comes to us, to embrace and support diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging on a personal, group and institutional level.
 
We also believe, and know, and have experienced, that liberation work is incredibly good for business development. It’s about love, it’s about being the earth for one another, and lifting each other up. We mirror the natural world, which is stronger and healthier when diversity is honored and nurtured.
 
Practical and effective business skills, spiritual healing and nourishment, and a deep caring for the world and people around us, all come together in Heart of Business.

About Mark Silver, M.Div. and Heart of Business.

I’m Mark Silver, M.Div., founder of Heart of Business, and author of Heart Centered Business. I’ve been teaching and running groups for over thirty years.

In addition to the dozens and dozens and dozens of small intimate groups, and large classes of 100+ that I’ve run within Heart of Business over the last 26 years, I have some other experiences that are really relevant.

In a former career, I was a paramedic in the San Francisco Bay Area, and as such, I was a Field Training Officer, mentoring student paramedics on 911 calls on how to apply the learning from the classroom to actual patients in the field. I was also an instructor for ACLS, PALS, PHTLS, and of course, CPR for health professionals, where I taught medics, nurses and doctors advanced courses in emergency response for the SF Paramedic Association.

Also, in studying with my Sufi teachers, I was a graduate of a three year healer training, and a one year Sufi Teacher Internship Program for Sufi teachers, as well as attaining my Masters of Divinity (M.Div.). What’s more, I was hired as faculty, teaching the Sufi Teacher Internship Program, as well as being taught how to hold and run groups in multi-day spiritual retreats as part of my M.Div.

In short, I have a LOT of teacher and group training, and adult teaching experience, both extremely practical, skills-based, as well as spiritually-focused groups.

In the context of Heart of Business, I’ve developed curriculum for dozens of short and long courses and groups, and been praised for my courses and group structures by Instructional Design professionals.

mark silver

The spiritual aspect of this work.

Spirituality in business has become all the rage, and I’m grateful for that. The acceptance of spirituality in business has been the work of many people over decades, and it’s a relief.

However, it’s not all equally effective.

Many versions of business spirituality take what I call the “gas tank” approach: fill up on spiritual connection, like filling your gas tank. Then, when your tank runs down while “doing business,” stop and go fill back up again.

Other approaches seem to be connected to versions of “think and it shall be” that can get caught inflating the ego and trying to use the world as a big shopping cart.

Neither of those approaches have resonated with me, and some versions of them do real harm.

This course does have a great deal of spirituality in it. That’s because there is no realm of human life that isn’t touched and permeated by spirit. What’s needed is not to integrate spirit and business, but to see how it’s already integrated.

Our relationship with spirit directly affects our relationship with the nitty-gritty day-to-day details of being in business, in profound and helpful ways. Instead of a gas tank or shopping cart approach, we’ll relate to the larger reality as a humbling, sacred mystery.

Those Crazy Sufis

The Sufis, which is the spiritual lineage Heart of Business teachings are based in, cling to a notion of devotional surrender, which attempts to live every moment of life with awareness that the Divine, the Source of Love (which is not, incidentally, an angry beard in the sky) is always present.

(If you’re unfamiliar with Sufism, perhaps you’ve heard of the poet Rumi? Or Hafiz? They are both considered Sufi saints and masters. I, Mark, have learned Sufism at the feet of a Sufi sheikh from Jerusalem, who was the inheritor of an unbroken 1400 year old spiritual lineage.)

The Heart of Business approach was born out of the realization that certain esoteric spiritual teachings are present within many nitty gritty business practices. The awareness of this already-existing integration means that the work of business itself can be a spiritual practice. There is no “tank” to run dry, just the always present invitation to remember Love even while you get your hands dirty… and the dirt is Divine as well.

Hi All, a celebration…I just enrolled a new client today, quite effortlessly. It was a friend of a previous client, who I saw at a social event this weekend. We talked casually, then she felt called to schedule a discovery session, which we did today. And, she was just ready. I feel myself supported by this community, and I feel that the inner work of remembrance, and drinking in the nourishment that I need for myself, is helping me to start cultivating a more authentic and vulnerable confidence. I am learning to trust this process. Thank you Heart of Business community.
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Lev Natan

So what exactly will be covered?

These three topics of niche, packages and problem-based marketing all need some care, reframing, healing, and clarity on what they look like when performed with love.

Niche

Niche is NOT about limiting who you work with, it’s not about boxing you in, or turning people away. What it’s really about? Intimacy. Connection. Clarity.
 
It’s less about you finding your clients, and much more about your right people being able to find you. There are myths about niching, there are overly-strict understandings of niche, and there are just terrible, miss-fit ways of doing it.
 
Thankfully, there is beauty and power to be found in niching, once you let go of all the mess. When you come from love and care, niching can be healing for both you and your potential clients.
 
The intentions with this class are to:
  • Clear out all the misunderstandings around niche;
  • Give you a visceral, embodied feel of what niche actually does for you and your clients,
  • Walk you through three elements that will help to clarify your niche.
 
Will you have a clear niche at the end of 90 minutes?
Although possible, especially if you’ve been playing with the topic already, it’s unlikely. Of the three topics, this one probably needs the most wrestling, musing and testing.
 
But, at the end of 90 minutes, you will have your arms around this in a way that you will be firmly on the journey with niche. Just a little more clarity can help tremendously in your business, even if it takes a bit of time for it to become crystal clear.

Packages

Packages are NOT about “buy 13 for the price of 12”-style discounts. They are not about locking someone into a commitment that doesn’t work for them, or making them spend a lot of money upfront.
 
And it’s definitely not about turning the healing process into an out-of-integrity promise, “in six sessions you will be healed and enlightened completely! Welcome to the Rapture!” Hah!
 
Packages, instead, are about a safe container for a client. Not using a package with clients, when it’s appropriate, can actually create more difficulty and uncertainty. Clients can actually feel abandoned instead of cared-for.
 
And, of course, packages, when done well, creat not only a container for the client, but also support real viability and dependability in your business.
 
The intentions with this class are to:
  • Clearly show the impact on clients when packages aren’t (appropriately and lovingly) in place.
  • Show you how to implement packages with integrity, without making terrible, unkeepable promises.
  • Learn the difference between useful versus non-useful package structures.
  • Understand where commitment in a client comes from, and how longer commitments allow them to rest into your care.
 
Will you have a package to put in place by the end of the 90 minutes?
Actually, with this topic, you probably will! Between the teachings, the exercise, the dyad work, and the coaching, there is every reason to believe that you will emerge with a package of sessions that you feel good about implementing.

Problem-based marketing

Problem-based marketing, when it’s done with love, is not a trauma-fest, and it’s not manipulative. It’s not a bottom-feeder strategy, and it’s not gross. But, only when it’s done with love. Otherwise, it can be all of that.
 
Problem-based marketing, surprisingly, can actually be about safety and care. It can help people feel seen in a way that they don’t often.
 
Actually, and I’m serious about this, it can be a beautiful way to help your marketing be a healing presence.
 
The intentions of this class are to:
  • Understand what happens when problem-based marketing is absent.
  • Learn the difference between re-traumatizing problem-based marketing and compassionate problem-based marketing that is actually healing.
  • Embody the heart-perspective that brings out healthy problem-based marketing.
  • Experiment with your own version of problem-based marketing, noticing how it feels.
 
Will you have usable problem-based marketing by the end of the class?
You very well might! While it probably won’t be your final draft, the aim is not so-called perfection with endlessly-polished perfect copy, but instead a conversational, connecting way of expressing care to the very people you can help.
I’ve been helping business owners for 25 years get at these, and other, business topics, to find the love and the beauty within them. When used with awareness and care, they become important supports for both your clients and your business.
 
In this course I’ll be revealing the beauty and sacredness in each of these. I’ll also walk you through really practical ways to step into using them.
"Why I decided to invest in HOB was the experience I had digging through teacher/guru testimonials, googling names, checking LinkedIn profiles, and other fact-checking to see both how successful and resilient these fellow student-businesspeople were. There are times when taking a big gamble can pay big wins, but I've also both seen and personally experienced the disappointment of investing in a product or service that simply didn't deliver as promised despite maximum effort and sacrifice. It was particularly eye opening to learn that many people quoted on some business coaches pages had no trace of an existing business, much less a searchable online professional presence. I can only assume they folded, or else pivoted so hard away from their original business that the remaining connection was tenuous at best. Where I was most impressed with HOB was not only the glowing reviews from peers I trusted, and the significant shift in approach that I got to taste when you came to Edmonton, but that every business testimonial could be traced to a living business with a unique offering, that was professionally presented, and that all of HOB's marketing tactics were transparent and offered plenty of space for acclimation and consent. Too many times, false scarcity, pressure, and over-promising is the game of marketing and I am so tired of it. Tired of the ultra-capitalist, patriarchal, colonial-minded, family-unfriendly BS that such tactics are perpetuated from, and not exclusively perpetuated by white men (or other typical places of privilege). While some businesses and business people may not have the bright shiny exterior of a 5 or 6 figure book deal, or features in the NYT, my entire experience with Heart of Business has been one of community, ethics, reciprocity, generosity, brave and safe space, accountability, and unconditional support.
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Christina Ignacio-Deines

How the program actually works.

The course is meant to be simple, actionable, healing, and straight-forward. And these are topics I’ve taught for years.
Three Live Classes
Each of the three classes will be 90 minutes. We will start each class with a few minutes of heart-connection.
I will then present an in-depth teaching on the topic, for about 30-40 minutes which will include a guided exercise.
Typically we’ll work in dyads, and then the final 40 minutes will be coaching to help you implement it.
Healing Processes

The things we’re teaching are not rocket science. You can do them, thousands of others have. However, real emotional and spiritual issues can get stirred up, and some people get stuck there. And this can touch on shame, because one can see that the doing isn’t hard… but following through can feel difficult. 

Healing has been an integral part of Heart of Business from the get-go, and we’ll be digging into different healing processes, heart meditations (called Remembrances in Sufism), and openings, that will lighten the load and clear the way.

You do not have to be anyone else, or change who you are to be successful. You just have to be yourself. This can be tricky, scary even. Yet when you embrace yourself and your business honestly, and immerse in love, it all becomes so much easier.

Check-in assignments

Before the next class, there is an assignment form for you to fill out if you choose. These are important for three reasons.

1. It’s part of adult education best practices. By answering questions, checking in, you end up integrating what you learn much more deeply.
2. It’s a way for me to understand what’s going on with you all as participants. I can spot trends, misunderstandings, or stuck places, and address them.
3. One of the main complaints with live classes is that there just isn’t time to get to everyone’s questions. Each check-in will have room for you to ask me questions about the material. More on that below.

Written Q&A

I can answer more questions in a written format than I can get to on the live calls. What’s more, it helps to even out participation. Some folks are shy or otherwise uncomfortable with speaking live on a call. Others have schedules that conflict and cause them to miss a live call. Plus, not everyone processes information at the same speed or in the same way. Many folks want to sit with an idea or teaching, and then ask about a situation later. 

This way, you can. You can ask a question on the assignment form after having all week to be with the teachings.

Although I can’t promise to get to all of the questions asked, I can get to way more than we could cover on the calls live. Folks regularly comment that they get answers to questions they didn’t know they had, or that someone else had asked their question, and so they got the answer they needed.

Recordings and Transcripts

Recordings and transcripts of the live course will be available within a day, if you can’t be on the live call, or you want to review the teachings.

How much time will the course take?

There will be a short amount of pre-work to orient you to the course, maybe 10-15 minutes at most.

Then, each week, the live class is 90 minutes, during which I intend for you to do a significant amount of work. That may be fine. If you choose to take on deepening the work over the following week, you could spend anywhere between an hour and three hours probably iterating what we’ve worked on.

Finally, the assignment form should hopefully take you 10-15 minutes max to fill out.

So, a minimum of maybe an hour and 45 minutes per week, including the live call, and if you choose to work on it more, maybe an additional couple of hours.

Heart of Business and the support and guidance I’ve received there, has encouraged me to get creative about new ways to bring people who might need my help toward my business. The coaching calls are an amazing opportunity to dive in and have any business question on any topic you are struggling with addressed. But the very best part of Heart of Business is the focus on spiritual support that allows you to rest in your heart. If you want to make a difference but need to make a profit, Heart of Business is an excellent fit for you and your business. You will learn how to bring people towards you with integrity. No sneaky manipulative-feeling tips or tricks here. You will learn how to market while maintaining your integrity. That’s what makes Heart of Business so unique and so perfect for anyone who wants to make the world a better place.
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Monica Fauble

Priced at Pay from the Heart

Pay From The Heart means compassionate flexible pricing that takes into account both your financial situation and our need to be sustainable.

I’ve seen people struggle with sliding scales because they want to pay their “fair share.” Let me share a Sufi perspective: you can only give what you’ve been given.

We want you to feel great about the relationship- what you receive as a participant, and what you give to sustain us in our giving to you.

What is sustainable for us.

We decided, from the heart and from our financial statements, to set the minimum contribution at $125 for the course.

It is Pay From the Heart, and we’re not sustained if participants are paying less than that, because that means we operate at a loss. Not good business.

Our doing well, sustainable revenue, is for each participant to pay $200.

What this means for most participants is that if we support you to get just one additional client, or have a client shift into a heart-centered package, the course will more than pay for itself.

In the past, our sustainable price for much longer courses, 6-9 weeks, was $500. We wanted to make something more accessible, and yet still impactful.

How it works.

First, decide if you are going to join us. Let yourself feel the possibilities of what this kind of support and training would mean to you, your heart, and your business. If it feels good, then come on in!

Second, if you decide “Yes,” then make the decision of how much to pay. Take time to both think about the reality of your financial situation and the needs of Heart of Business to provide this support. Then sense into your heart what number feels right between $125 and $200. We trust what you come up with, and look forward to welcoming you!

Register for

The 3 Big Blocks Course

1

Three Live Classes on Niche, Packages and Problem-Based Marketing

Tuesdays, 2pm-3:30pm eastern, March 26, June 2 & 9

2

Check-in Assignments

To help you integrate all you’ve learned.

3

Written Q&A

Answers and coaching to far more of your questions than we can get to in the live call.

4

Recordings and Transcripts

In case you can’t be there live, or if you want to review what we’ve covered.

Price: Pay from the heart

You first decide if you want to join us, then you choose from your heart what to pay.

One payment single payment now,
from the heart between $125 and $200.
(You’ll choose the amount on the next page.)

Join Us

Cancellations and Refund Requests Policy

We have poured our hearts into this program to make it comprehensive with plenty of support while also making it as financially accessible as possible. We’ve seen other programs charge 3-10x as much as we’re charging, and yet we feel great about offering this at Pay from the Heart pricing.

One thing that adds a lot of hidden costs to a program are administrative costs. Someone will ask for what seems like a simple thing, like a special payment plan, not realizing that hours of administrative time can be quickly eaten up.

So, after a lot of prayer and discussion, here’s our policy for this program:

Cancellations/Refunds: You may cancel the program prior to May 26, 2026, and we will refund your money in full. 

Custom/extended payment plans: We cannot offer any payment plans other than what you see on this page because of the work and administrative tracking.

I know these are strong positions to take, and we’ve only come to this conclusion after spending literally hundreds, even thousands, of dollars in administrative hours to provide custom arrangements for clients.

We’re trusting you get the sincerity of our intentions here, and encourage you to combine strength and compassion in your own business.

Have a question?

If you have a question, concern or anything you want us to know, just go ahead and fill out the form below. We’ll get back to you as quickly as possible. As a small business, we’re not in the office on weekends, and we tend to be around 9am-4pm eastern Monday through Friday.
  • Ask any question you have!