The most uncomfortable thing in business: Marketing your business to strangers.
Every business, in order to really make it, has to be made visible to strangers. And this is something that needs to be done consistently!
The resistance and discomfort is understandable. There is no way you are going to become one of those slimey marketers, or annoying people that is always talking about their business.
Or… you might have a commitment to actually market your business… but how in the heck do you do it? All the ways you see other people marketing feels so not like you at all. And the times you do talk about what you do… are people even paying attention?
In the twenty-three years I’ve been helping small businesses to develop, of all the topics that can be emotionally and spiritually challenging, of all the areas of business that people avoid, this tops the list.
Thankfully, it can be so much easier. It is possible, with both love and strength, to consistently and effectively make your business visible to strangers.
in a way that fits who you are.
A five week course on ethically making your business visible, with love and care, in a way that fits who you are.
It’s painful that something so necessary is also seen as so difficult. Yet, it’s mainly seen as difficult because people think they need to be someone they’re not.
They think they need to be extremely extroverted, or super confident, or they need to be constantly hawking themselves. Or pretty, white, young and thin. Or (fill in the blank with your own.)
Or all of the above.
It’s not true. You don’t have to be any of those things.
The big thing is… you do have to show up. Yet you can be yourself!
Imagine you knew, really trusted, that it was okay for you to show up, just as you are. The truth is not only are you enough, but that your authentic self is actually what your best clients are looking for.
This course will be a combination of healing, reframing, and actual strategies that can help you have a MUCH healthier and very effective relationship with this all-important part of your business.
My highest intentions for you with this course:
- That you really get the principles behind this aspect of marketing, so you can make clear decisions that come from a deep, inner “Yes!” that are also going to be effective.
- To bring significant healing to your relationship with visibility and getting your business “out there.”
- To find a combination of approaches that really work for your heart, your personality and your business.
There are a wide variety of people who have worked with me,
and with Heart of Business, on this aspect of marketing:
- On a traditional religious path: Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, among others.
- On very non-traditional spiritual paths, or who study with a spiritual teacher.
- Who have no particular path at all, and yet have some sense or connection to that which exists beyond the physical realm.
- Those who know inner healing is an important part of outer success.
The spiritual teachings arise out of Sufism, and are powered by Mark Silver's initiation into his lineage. At the same time, they are extremely accessible. If you have no relationship to spirituality at all, or adhere to a very rigid spirituality, you probably won't like this course.
- You are self-employed, whether new or at it for some time.
- You *want* to be self-employed or start a business, but haven't yet.
- You have a slightly larger business, maybe a small team, or you work on marketing within a business like that.
If you have a large company, or work within a marketing department focused on ad spend and not on organic, relationship-based marketing, this might not be for you.
- You need your business to be more visible to more of the right people.
- You refuse to do unethical, heart-less marketing, or take on hype or high-pressure tactics.
- You need your business to work a lot better, whether you're in very early stages, or much further along, and you know that successful marketing is an important ingredient.
Love it and recommend it. I know quite a few people including those who are highly sensitive. Most struggle to “land” their business and I know they will benefit from this community and support. I’ve started recommending folks. The course simplifies complex business topics for highly creative, sensitive, multi-potential people. FYI- I have a business degree in Marketing and International Business (LOL). Everything I learned is and was useful, so no regrets there. But they did not help me to create and have my own business. Entrepreneurialism for creative and heart-centered people looks different. We (I) require a whole, inclusive instead of a hole or separatist approach. This means listening for inner guidance while following a proven basic/simplified system. Too much detail or self-micromanaging is unnecessary. HOB provided all that. It’s perfect for artists, spiritualists, and those of us who see the world in abstract forms and sometimes struggle to make headway with the concrete. Again, it’s the perfect course for where I was and where I’m heading. I also loved the honesty. [Heart of Business work] has moved me into the next evolution of my business both as a creative artist and business-woman. I’m very grateful that I didn’t have to give up my love of art, activist, my life, and my business."
How the course is successful for a wide variety of folks.
These five principles means you can have fun, you can do it the way you are
most comfortable, and still be really successful.
If you have other things in place in your business, and this has been the missing piece, then yes. Or, if you’re willing to kick up a lot of dust, and really dig in, I’ve seen people generate results quite quickly!
The big thing to remember is that you are going to be connecting with other human beings, with hearts and needs. This is not like going to the sink and turning on the tap, and water gushes out.
Here are the kind of results I’ve seen.
Someone with a brand new practice, over four or five months, did healing work, had to slow down because of childcare and other family needs, implemented two of the strategies imperfectly… after five months was starting to see a real flow come into their business. It started with a dribble after two months, stopped entirely, started again. After five months, while still a bit inconsistent and not yet a gusher, there was definitely strong flow in, and clients popping!
Another example is someone who had the time and space to really focus consistently. They spent several weeks solidly applying three of the strategies, building relationships, focusing entirely on marketing to strangers, and keeping up their emails to their growing list.
This client had similar results to the first person, in that it wasn’t a gusher, but they saw growth to their audience, and even a few people popping through to be clients. And it happened much more quickly. It was the same amount of work as the first example above, they just had time and space to do it in a shorter time frame.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have some real flow going before the end of this year?
Even folks who have been in business
for awhile need this.
Over the last 25+ years, I’ve seen quite a few people who have been really lucky when they started their business. Maybe they had an active and generous social group or professional network and so had a ton of referrals immediately when they set out their shingle. Or their former employer hired them as a consultant. Or they attracted the notice of someone with a lot of influence who sent them a bunch of business.
This is a fantastically lucky way to start a business, and I love to see it.
Yet, in almost all cases those sources slow down over time. It might take two years, five years, even ten years or more before business starts to dry up.
Then the business owner realizes that they never really learned this aspect of business, and they panic a bit.
If I had a magic wand, I’d want everyone to learn these skills and approaches, to do this healing, at an early stage of business. No matter where you are in your business, if you need this, please learn it.
I did a TON of this kind of marketing early in Heart of Business. We built up an audience, we sold our offers, we did well.
But then… I rested on my laurels. I focused more on other things, including family, and neglected this aspect of the business.
And… it showed. We had fewer people coming to our offers. Our cash flow was more restricted. <Gulp!> I knew the answer… time to get on this aspect of marketing.
Which I did, and it works. <Whew! Relief!>
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.
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.
Here’s an example of how spiritual teachings can help to heal and reframe what we’re doing.
Within marketing it is often taught that you need to talk about the “pain points.” This is true, and it works. However, you can talk about someone’s pain points from a place of manipulation, that retraumatizes them, and manipulates them into buying from you in order to receive relief from the trauma.
That’s gross. No one of heart wants to do that.
The deeper spiritual teaching is based on a Sufi quote that says the Divine had a yearning to be known, and so created the Creation in order to be known. Every human carries this Divine spark of yearning to be known, and when we are truly witnessed and seen, there is a profound healing of the separation we usually perceive, helping us melt back into Unity.
When your marketing can witness the struggle people are having, the pain they are facing, without saying they are broken, without saying you are the only one to offer “an answer,” but simply witnessing their wholeness and Divinity, and also witnessing the pain and struggle they sometimes experience, then your marketing can actually bring healing, whether or not they buy from you.
The safety this creates for folks also makes it much more likely that the ones you can help most will buy from you.
About Mark Silver, M.Div. and Heart of Business.
Since 1999, Mark Silver has worked with heart-centered entrepreneurs to help them realize that every act of business can be an act of love. Mark is one of the pioneers in integrating real spirituality with the nitty-gritty of small business, he founded Heart of Business, Inc in 2001. A designated Master Teacher within his Sufi lineage, he has received his Masters of Divinity.
As a coach, teacher and spiritual healer, he has facilitated thousands of individual sessions with entrepreneurs and has led hundreds of classes, seminars, groups and retreats. His weekly writings and teachings are followed by thousands of people around the globe.
A fourth generation entrepreneur, prior to Heart of Business Mark ran a distribution business, turned around a struggling non-profit magazine, and worked as a paramedic in Oakland, CA.
He is the author of several books, including Heart-Centered Business: Healing from toxic business culture so your small business can thrive. (Wildhouse, 2023).
We’ll be covering five major topics
Prework: Available one week before the course starts
Week 1, May 20: Heart-Centered Networking
Relationships are at the heart of any business, and certainly all marketing. Networking gets a bad rap, because it gets taught badly, and it seems like it’s exclusively the domain of extroverts. However, there are many ways to network, and heart-centered networking teaches you the fundamental principles that allow you to adapt it to who you are.
Healing content: Taking up space. To be visible, one must take up space, and many of us were taught not to take up space. Gentle healing prompts from Sufi healing helps you to take up more space in a healthy way.
Week 2, May 29: Compelling Content
It seems like there’s already too much content, and there is… if it’s irrelevant or bad content. There’s not enough relevant content, and good, heart-centered, honest content is in short supply. I’ll teach you the two elements at the heart of compelling content. What’s more, I’ll teach you how content pairs with networking. Neither works as well on their own, but together, they become very powerful.
Healing content: Deepening taking up space. As you can imagine, we could spend a lifetime on the healing topic of taking up space, but simply taking a second week will help to deepen and integrate what’s opening in your heart.
Week 3, June 3: Events (both extrovert- and introvert-friendly.)
Events like webinars, free classes, podcasts, and others, can be powerful additions to marketing, or they can waste a lot of time and effort. How you design the event is important, because you want it to work as marketing, but you also want it to match your own personality and being, and not just copy someone else. There’s so much flexibility and creativity available here.
Healing Content: Being Visible. Being visible, in a healing sense, doesn’t mean inflating the ego so you can be the center of attention. From a Sufi perspective, the teaching is that wholeness and Oneness includes *everything*— including you. Without you, the Oneness is not complete.
Week 4, June 10: Strategic Alliances
Strategic Alliances are a fancy term for networking. But not just networking for individuals, but finding and nurturing healthy relationships with people of influence, who are in a position to make you visible to their communities. It’s a powerful amplifier, and through the transfer of trust, can rapidly accelerate your business’ visibility. And it can absolutely be done in ways that are really healthy, and feel great.
Healing content: Asking for unseen help. There is so much help available from others around us. And, the teachings of Sufism, as well as other spiritual paths, tell us that so much help is available through the unseen hands of the Divine, Goddess, Oneness, angels, devas, ancestors… whatever language you use, and however is resonant for how you access it, allowing yourself to be carried, can make so much of this easier.
Week 5, June 17: The Strategy and the Blessing
We’ll end with an exercise to help you map out a doable ongoing strategy that doesn’t overwhelm you. You’ll already have a sense of it from previous classes, but this will help you make it concrete and doable for you.
Healing Content: I will also make a Sufi blessing on your business. A blessing in my tradition is an actual thing. it is a form of intercessory prayer that asks for the Divine in all its forms– this may include angels or other extensions of Source–to come to the aid of the person receiving the blessing so that they can be supported and carried. It can be a deeply nourishing experience to receive a blessing.
How the program actually works.
The Core Teachings
The main teachings will be delivered by a combination of PDFs, short videos, and recorded guided exercises. You’ll be encouraged to take in the core teaching early in the week, so you have as much time before the next call to work through exercises and contemplate what you’re learning.
Healing Processes
The things we’re teaching are not rocket science. You can do them, thousands of others have. However, there is real emotional and spiritual content, and people get stuck there. And that adds to the shame, because one can see that the doing isn’t hard… but following through can feel impossible.
Healing has been an integrated 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
Everyone will be encouraged to check-in through an assignment form prior to each class. 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 that make make them miss a live call. Plus, not everyone processes information at the same rate. Many folks want to sit with an idea or teaching, and then formulate a question or 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.
The Live Calls
It’s funny to list the live calls last, after everything else. Normally, the live calls are considered the star. And, they still are.
What I want you to see is how powerful a live call can be when it’s supported properly, when we don’t try to do everything inside the live call.
Instead, the live calls are for deepening. We start with heart connection, a healing Remembrance I lead that relates to the course work.
I spent time with a custom teaching based on what I read in the assignments from you all. I’ll address trends I saw, and I’ll answer as many coaching questions as possible. The intention is to help you apply to your business what you’re learning in the course.
I end the class by introducing and framing the upcoming week’s topic, and we’re off and running.
Runs five consecutive Tuesdays, 2:30-3:30pm eastern, May 20, 27, June 3, 10, 17, 2025
The teachings, the exercises, and the structure all combine to change your relationship with marketing.
In the last 26 years, I’ve helped thousands of people have a much healthier relationship with marketing. That healthier relationship means they can take actions that feel good and are effective. It works!
Here’s the bottom line: I want your business to fly! It’s so important that small businesses like yours are visible and take up space in the world. People do need what you have to offer. They do, absolutely. They also need to be able to find you.
You can do it. I say that so confidently because, over the years, I’ve seen such a wide variety of people become successful on their own terms.
Pay from the Heart is not exactly “pay what you want.”
Most simply, Pay From The Heart is a collaborative process where we are clear about what sustains us, and you check in with your heart and arrive at a payment that you can support, that won’t harm you.
I’ve seen people struggle with sliding scales and pay-what-you-want pricing. For us, it’s a way to truly welcome in folks who really couldn’t afford it otherwise.
Our economic system is far from fair. Yet all of our hearts and creativity are needed now. If you need this help, we want you to have it.
What other people charge.
Others with similarly structured courses have charged anywhere from $250 to $1500. In the context of these kinds of offers, if you went somewhere else, that’s what you could expect to pay.
The gift here is that if you truly couldn’t take this course at our sustainable (see below) price, this is a path of true welcome for you to join us.
And, if you are in a situation where you have more, and contributing more feels good to you, that supports us in making space for those who truly cannot.
What is sustainable for us.
It’s important to us that we are honest with you, and not pretending Heart of Business doesn’t have needs, because we do.
What we’re asking and the “food or shelter” exception.
There are two numbers we’re going to put out there for your consideration.
The sustainable price of US$500. If you can pay that, in a single payment or two payments of $250, that allows us to both sustain our service, and open the door to folks who truly can’t path that.
The minimum requested is US$280. It is Pay From the Heart, and it has to agree with our heart as well as your own. Our hearts just didn’t feel good lower than $280, nor can we continue to show up for you if many pay less than this.
The “food or shelter” exception. We know that some people are in really hard spots. If paying $280 (or two payments of $140) is going to put your food or shelter at risk, we invite you to pay less. This is also true if you live in an economy where the exchange rate with U.S. currency means $280 is an absurdly large amount of money for you.
We want you to be able to join us.
If you can pay US$500, even if it’s a stretch, please do. If the stretch feels like it would break you, or cause you to walk away, then please let your heart find a price between $500 and $280.
If you don’t have access to even $280 (or two payments of $140), if it would put your stability at risk, then, and only then, do we invite you, truly with an open heart, to pick a number lower than $280.
How it works.
First, decide if you are going to join us. Feel the possibilities of what this kind of support would mean to you, your heart, and your business.
Second, if you decide “Yes,” then make a second decision of how much your heart wants to give, in one or two payments. Take time to both think about the reality of your financial situation and to sense into your heart what number feels right.
If you’re ready to join us in the Marketing to Strangers course, we’re honored to have you join us.
Read the program re-cap below, along with our Refunds & Cancellations policy right below the grid, and then either register or ask a question.
When you register, here’s what you get:
1
The Program Itself.
2
Five Live Deepening and Coaching calls with Mark.
Tuesdays, 2:30pm-3:30pm eastern, May 20, 27, June 3, 10, 17
3
Check-ins before every class.
Giving you the support to reflect on and integrate what you’ve learned.
4
Questions collected from check-ins.
With detailed written answers to as many as possible, distributed to every participant (with any personal or identifying details removed from the question).
If it feels right in your heart, join us for the Journey.
The price… you’ll like this. When we say “Pay from the Heart” we mean it.
You check in with your heart and your current situation, and you set the price.
When you click the order button, you will see clear instructions on how to set your price.
Price: Pay from the heart
You first decide if you want to join us, then you choose from your heart what to pay.
Two payment options:
We provide a two payment option if your heart feels moved to offer more, but it would be easier on your cash flow to make two equal monthly payments instead of one lump payment.
Cancellations & 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: You may cancel the program prior to the first day of the program, and we will refund your money in full. If you want to cancel on or after the first day of the program, we will stop any future payments (if you choose two payments). We cannot refund any payments already charged by the first day of the program. We need at least 2 business days’ notice in advance of the charge being processed to give us time to stop the charge.
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.
Refunds: We are happy to offer refunds for the program on or prior to the first day of the program. However, we won’t offer any refunds after this date. We can stop your second payment (if you chose two payments) if you want to leave the program before that second payment is charged. We need at least 2 business days’ notice (Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm Eastern) in advance of the charge being processed to give us time to stop the charge.
I know these are strong positions to take, and we’ve only come to this conclusion after spending literally hundreds, 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.
P.S. – I understand that it can be a “big deal” to step past the limits that we’re comfortable with and challenge ourselves to grow more. Sometimes simply sitting with that anxiety and calming it down is enough to remind yourself that you’re not alone—that other people just like you are facing the vulnerability of marketing their business to strangers, and doing it!
Marketing to Strangers Course – Priority Contact
Ask us any question at all about the Marketing to Strangers Course.
Note: You do not need to ask us if it’s okay to pay a certain amount. Really! Follow the instructions above about paying from your heart. We trust your heart and encourage you to do so, too.
We are not able to make adjustments to this program – releasing information early, or changing dates, deadlines or the structure of the program to meet any unique circumstances. However, please let us know about any disability-related access issues, and we will do our utmost to accommodate you. Closed caption in Zoom is turned on, and there will be transcripts provided with the recording of every live call.