authenticity | marketingforhippies.com

creative writing + marketing = <3

By: Tad | Published: January 14, 2012 · Leave a Comment

A long overdue blog from my Toronto colleague Chris Kay Fraser of www.fireflycreativewriting.com. She’ll be writing a few more posts coming up about how creative writing can help you with your marketing.

Words Are Funny Little Animals

Using creative writing to create balance, boundary and beauty in your business life.

(For Tad’s Awesome Blog)

Does this sound familiar? It’s late, and I’m at the computer, my forehead resting in my hand. I can’t remember the last time I got up. Somewhere beyond my consciousness, my body is registering signs of major fatigue. My eyes are blurry, no matter how much I rub them. But I want to put in another hour.

Now, I don’t want to be presumptuous, but if you’re reading Tad’s fabulous blog, you’re probably at some stage of self-employment. And, with the fall coming, I’m guessing that you have a lot of work ahead of you, and you’re wondering how you’re going to take care of it while you get it all done.

Before I was self-employed I imagined that it would be like a gorgeous meadow of freedom and time. I learned quickly, though, that I’m not always my best boss. Any other boss would take one look at me on that late-night computer binge and say, “Holy crap, girl. Go to bed.” It would be unethical to work someone else this hard.

But it’s only me in here, and my motivation is often stronger than my self-compassion.

So, I’m here, hijacking Tad’s blog for a couple posts to talk about how I’ve managed, and not managed, to use writing to navigate the sometimes-stormy waters of my self-employed adventure, which will heretofore be referred to as my S.E.A. My business is writing* – I run workshops and retreats, cajoling out people’s stories. Slowly, I’ve realized just how much magic these tools have in store for my and my business itself.

Writing has formed a little life-raft for me, for when the self-employed seas are choppy. In the next few blog posts, I’ll give you some ideas and questions and toots to make a life raft your own. Of course, you could also make a cruise-boat with patio chairs and indoor pools. Or a dark green submarine. The metaphor is yours.

In the next three posts, I’m going to share three tools with you.

1. The work journal.

2. Keeping the creative lights on.

3. Self-loving-love letters.

I’d also like to hear your stories. Please don’t be shy to use the box below to chime in. We’re only as alone as we allow.

Here’s the first tool I’ll offer you: The work journal.

This is a pretty simple concept. Every morning, before I sit down at my computer, before I take any calls or start reading through anyone’s stories, I take out my work journal and I write, draw or doodle one page about how I feel.

There’s no formula, the idea is just to slow down enough to connect to what’s really going on before I begin my day. Sometimes I draw a little face to show my mood, sometimes I record dreams, sometimes I rant about something that’s upsetting me.

At the end of the day, I do the same thing. This may happen at four in the afternoon or it may not happen until 2am. It’s important to me that I’m not putting limits when my workday should end, just ensuring that it does end, and that I’m not carrying my work into my sleep and dreams.

Keeping a work journal lets me:

1. Gently witness what’s happening in my work day. No matter how hard I work myself, how tired I get, I need to be willing to see it. This makes a little bit of room for the self-compassion which is often lacking when I’m not paying attention.

2. See trends arising in my emotional life. If I’ve started every morning anxious for five days, I can begin to ask important questions and address what’s really going on.

3. Consciously start and end my day. Since I work from home and there’s no actual space between myself and my business, the work journal is an important symbol for opening and closing my day. It’s a little like flicking on and off a light in the office in my brain.

4. It reminds me that I am more than my business. When I first started the work journal, I became aware of how long a day really was! After ending my day, instead of mindlessly heading back to the computer to send more emails, I began to play the guitar more, I took the time to weed my garden, or call my parents. I bought a ukelele and taught myself to play. I took a hula hoping class. I have a lot to thank that little book for.

So? What does this say to you?

Does the idea sound terrible and limiting or is it exciting and inviting? Have you tried anything similar yourself? Would you consider it?

Talk to me!

And stay tuned…. My next post on this blog will be on keeping your creative lights shining.

| Categories: Inner Work - Tags: authenticity, communicating value

guest post: ‘just listening’ by howie jacobson

By: Tad | Published: January 10, 2012 · 2 Comments

by Howie Jacobson

In my last article, I talked about projection: what it is, why it keeps us from seeing the world as it really is, and how marketing offers us an opportunity to recognize and free ourselves from the grip of projection.

Now I want to talk about why it’s so important to liberate ourselves from projection. Not from a spiritual perspective, but from a marketing perspective.

The Ultimate Marketing Superpower: Empathy

Can we agree that empathy is one of the key skills necessary for successful marketing? If you can really understand what another person is thinking and feeling, then you can craft products and services and offers that appeal to that person’s sensibilities. And you can talk about those products and services in a relevant, respectful and attractive way.

Think of Nick Marshall, Mel Gibson’s character in the movie What Women Want. When his accidental electrocution gives him the gift to hear women’s thoughts, he immediately becomes the star advertising executive at his agency, celebrated for his ability to market effectively to women.

If you were suddenly given that ability, to hear the innermost thoughts of your prospects – their selfish desires, their secret fears, their poignant stories – can you see how that knowledge would instantly solve 99% of your marketing problems?

Getting the Data is Easy

On the web, all the data we require is at our fingertips. We can reverse engineer Google’s organic listings to find out what the world’s smartest computer thinks people want.

We can eavesdrop on forums, on Facebook, on amazon reviews, on blog comments, and dozens of other places to hear the uncensored, passionate voices of our prospects. We can conduct inexpensive yet highly valuable surveys of our own to discover the deepest desires and hesitations of those who might buy from us.

So what’s the problem? I’m telling you to read the mind of your market, and I’m telling you exactly where to go to get the information. Why isn’t that the end of the story?

The Filter that Keeps Us Clueless

Have you ever listened to a radio or watched a television that got lousy reception? Lots of noise, static, snow, wavy lines, and fuzziness. Do you think the program sounded or looked that way coming out of the studio?

Of course not. The program signal was not the problem. The problem was the poor quality of the device; its inability to translate the incoming signal into clear and meaningful output.

Each of us operates from a filter that keeps us from true empathy. It’s called projection, and here’s how it works:

When I hear you talk about something, I search for meaning in my own past experience. If you say “toothache,” for example, I go back into the file called “Howie’s toothaches” to try to understand what you’re talking about.

When you say the assistant manager at the store was rude, I likewise superimpose my own vision of “rude” on your story. Until you elaborate, I might picture a young guy with dreadlocks and tattoos and piercings giving you the finger. Or I might imagine a snooty middle aged woman raising her eyebrows in disapproval of your request for a refund.

The word “rude” has meaning only in terms of my experience, either direct or second-hand (movies, books, friends’ stories, etc.).

Until I listen to you tell the straight-up facts of what happened from your perspective, I fill in the blanks based on my preconceptions. That’s projection.

Projection occurs much more subtly and pervasively. If I think you’re angry, or sad, or frustrated – chances are I’m interpreting a set of signals through my own distorting filter. “If I were acting that way, it would be because I was irritated,” I reason. So in my mind, you’re irritated. And with that interpretation now projected onto you, I look for confirmation and ignore all contradictory signals.

Projection vs. Empathy

As long as my mind engages in projection (which is only about 100% of the time), I can’t be truly empathetic to you. I can only be empathetic to me. So to the same extent that you and I are having different experiences or different interpretations of those experiences, I’m missing what’s meaningful for you.

In other words, while I think I’m looking at you, I’m actually just seeing myself in a mirror projected on your face.

The Sioux medicine man Fool’s Crow believed that he could be a conduit for healing only when he made himself into a “hollow bone,” a vessel for divine spirit that didn’t superimpose its own particular stories and struggles onto the person seeking healing.
When I read Tarot for clients or engage in Shamanic healing, I have to be exquisitely sensitive to the presence of my own stuff, so that I don’t end up giving someone else the medicine meant for me. When I throw the 4 of wands, for example, do I tell them to chuck the corporate gig for a walk on the wild side because that’s what the card means in this particular reading, or because my own life story concatenates with that interpretation?

Am I Marketing to Me?

If I don’t get familiar with my projections, my marketing turns into a narcissistic festival of self-love and self-loathing. The self-love part is easy to see: I think about what I would want someone to say to me, and then I say it to myself and pretend I’m saying it to you.

But self-loathing? Absolutely!

You know all those “marketing tricks” that seem to work but you really have no stomach for? Like false urgency and false scarcity? “Tomorrow only.” “19 17 12 6 spots left!”

Or manipulative pseudo-reciprocity? “Here’s a free gift. Isn’t it great. Now you owe me.”

Or appeals to the lowest self? “If you buy this your neighbors will bang their heads against the wall in jealousy. Beautiful women will leave their husbands for you. All those jerks in high school will be sorry they didn’t give you more respect.”

We fall back on these and dozens of other gambits because part of us has no respect for our own integrity. We despise and are deeply ashamed of that part, but when we project it outward, it feels better. “What a bunch of sheep they are! What a bunch of insecure losers!”

So we end up attracting the customers and clients who share our most awful traits, and then wonder why we complain about them.

And those judgments diminish our prospects in our eyes. To the extent that we cannot love them. And if you cannot love the people whose lives you are supposedly improving with your products and services, why on earth would they choose you? Because you need the money?

Getting Past Projection

If you’re a lot more spiritually advanced than me, you might have figured out a way to stop projecting. I haven’t. I project like an IMAX theater; consistently, relentlessly, and with alarming realism.

What I am getting better at is recognizing my own projections. The ones that come up every time. The ones that I now recognize as my own face, rather than the face of my prospect, my beloved.

I find that getting quiet on a regular basis helps tremendously. The art of empathy is essentially the art of listening with the head and the heart. When I sit quietly and stop trying to impose my interpretation on reality, I start to listen better. The static mutes and the authentic signal comes through.

And listening as a marketer only happens when I let go of effort, of will, of the need to sell something or convince somebody.

Marketing Minus Projection

When I come to listen with the agenda of manipulating your will, that’s not true listening. And you can sense that. And distrust it. And run from it, if you can.

But when I come with no agenda other than a thirst for truth, for your truth, then your words and thoughts and feelings come through undistorted. I can respond to you naturally in a way that you trust. The word respond comes from the French, meaning “to promise back.”

Whether we speak face to face, over the phone, via email, or whether you’re just one person in my “target market,” I can hear you only when I rest in my own integrity, when I promise back to you to dive into your fears, your pains, your desires, your stories only to serve your highest good. Not to plunder your secrets for my advantage.

In What Women Want, Nick initially uses his gift of mind-reading to climb the corporate ladder and seduce women. But almost despite himself, he begins to form friendships with his co-workers and develop respect for women. His gift of empathy is so powerful, his ego can’t maintain its manipulative stance.

Ultimately, he tells a hard truth and gets fired, and ends up losing his power in a storm as he rescues his secretary who was thinking suicidal thoughts. But he finds redemptive love, both from his estranged daughter and the women who ends up with his job.

His transformation complete, his manipulative power is no longer necessary. He has escaped from the prison of the mirror, and he can simply be, live, and respond to others from his own integrity. He has become trustworthy.
So may we all.

Howie Jacobson, PhD, is the author of Google AdWords For Dummies. He has been an online marketing strategist since 1999, helping clients use the internet to discover, understand, attract and serve their ideal customers. He writes for Fast Company and Harvard Business, and his hippie credentials include teaching at a Quaker School, delivering singing telegrams as a summer job, and playing Ultimate Frisbee every chance he gets. He currently lives with his family in South Africa, where he’s learning to drive a stick shift and be more patient. Follow him at @askhowie, like him at http://facebook.com/askhowie, or sign up for his newsletter at http://askhowie.com.

| Categories: Ethics in Advertising, marketing philosophy - Tags: authenticity, conversations, empathy

guest post: ‘spiritual marketing’ by howie jacobson

By: Tad | Published: January 8, 2012 · 3 Comments

by Howie Jacobson

“Most of my clients are liars and cheats,” Allen (not his real name) said.

I sighed. It was going to be a difficult consultation.

I was helping Allen improve his marketing. He wanted to know the best wording for AdWords ads that would attract prospects to his website and away from his competition, who were also “liars and cheats.”

Through questioning, I guided Allen to understand his prospects; their fears, their stories, their rationalizations, their fondest desires, their guiding metaphors. But Allen blocked me every step of the way with his dismissive answers. His impenetrable fortress of judgment and opinion blocked all openings to empathy.

Allen returned again and again to wordsmithing based on his current level of awareness, rather than allowing his awareness to be curious about the authentic internal experience of those he would attract and convince.

He ended up with slightly better ads, perhaps. But his judgmental and divisive worldview, which might be titled “Allen vs. the Scumbags,” prevented any insights based on understanding, respect, and (if I may use the word) love.

And therein lies the great opportunity and invitation of marketing: dropping our identification with our own judgments and opening to an unconditional curiosity about the experience of the other.

Isn’t Marketing the Opposite of Spiritual Consciousness?

Most spiritual traditions teach us not to believe our own thoughts, but instead allow a greater reality free from the conditioning of our ever-chattering, judging, commenting mind. To let go of personal desires, ego concerns, and petty identifications. To simply allow reality to exist and move through it in the here and now, without grasping, without forcing, without needing something else to make us OK and whole.

As entrepreneurs, as people of business, we’re in the business of wanting things. We want to make products, sell products, make money, innovate, beat the competition, buy a nice house, put security money in the bank, be free of financial worry and pain. How could we get things done without that engine of personal desire?

As marketers, we’re in the business of making other people want things. By poking their insecurities: you need this if you want to be loved/popular/successful. By highlighting gaps between desire and reality: you thought things were OK, but they could be so much better. By capitalizing on fear: there’s a limited supply, you might miss out, hurry and don’t take so long to think. How could we move product without appealing to our prospects’ most self-centered natures?

Spiritual Fraud

I’ve spent a lot of time posturing, pretending to others and myself that I was more spiritual that I actually was. From this place, writing ads and sales copy is pure agony. I find myself totally divided; wanting the sales and the money (sometimes desperately when it was a really important client or when I was out of money and the mortgage was due), and not wanting to appeal to the energies of greed and fear within my prospects.

Can you see the problem? I was operating out of greed and fear myself. But I was looking down on people I didn’t know for being greedy and fearful, and seeking to “enlighten” them through my spiritually uplifted marketing.

What a fraud!

At that stage of my consciousness, the only spiritually honest thing to do would have been to honor the energies of desire within my prospects and myself and speak to them directly. You’re scared? I’m scared too. Let’s talk about being scared. You want more money than you have now? So do I. I know what that feels like. Here’s a product that can help you get it.

The Labels Are What Get In the Way

Addressing my prospects at their level of consciousness is a hell of a lot more respectful than trying to impose another level of consciousness, a “more spiritual” level, on them. Especially when it’s a level I only pretend to attain.

The height of spiritual development, as I’ve come to understand it, is to accept everything as it is, without having an agenda of change or improvement. It’s more “spiritual” to sell someone a product that solves their perceived problem than to try to tell them they’re wrong for perceiving the problem.

So maybe you noticed the language trick I pulled in the last section. I changed the phrase “energies of fear and greed” into “energies of desire.” The first phrase is full of judgment; the second is simply a description. If I judge my prospects for being greedy and fearful, I have no place to stand in solidarity with them. My marketing will not connect.

The Spiritual Opportunity of Marketing

I no longer believe that the spiritual opportunity in marketing is to make my prospects and customers into better people. Into spiritually more advanced beings. Into enlightened souls. What a relief to drop that messiah complex!

The opportunity, instead, is to speak with them as they as, without judging or labeling or diminishing. The opportunity, in other words, is my own spiritual development, and nobody else’s. To mind my own business, not yours.

So what is it about marketing that invites my own spiritual growth? The main opportunity is the ongoing discovery of how I project my own stuff onto the world, and then blame the world for having it.

The Ongoing Discovery of Projection

Projection, as I experience it, means that I’m seeing “out there” what’s really going on “in here.” Just as a movie projector takes an image on a strip of celluloid and projects that image onto an external screen, I take my own issues, fears, faults, and assumptions and project them onto the world in general and other people in particular.

How do I know when I’m projecting? When I’m judging. When I dismiss people as wrong or stupid. When I label others in ways that diminish them. Through enquiry into my own experience, I’ve discovered that every single judgment about somebody else is actually a self-judgment.

When I think of my prospects as greedy and fearful, that’s a sure sign that I’ve got currents of greed and fear within myself. When I criticize TV talking heads for being hateful, I know I’ve got some hate inside me. When I complain about the person who only sees the negative in every situation, guess what? That’s all I can see in them.

Even positive judgments are projections. I can only experience you as kind or graceful or loving or brilliant if I can find those qualities in myself. It’s kind of a cosmic law: whatever I see outside is what I’ve got inside. The spiritual teacher Byron Katie has made a career of gently helping us see the delicious ironies that ensue when we project and judge without awareness.

Without projection, without judgment, I simply take each moment, each encounter, each experience as it comes. I can enter into it fully, see what’s there with fresh eyes and vivid awareness, and be fully present to others without needing to change them in any way.

Marketing to Identify and Resolve My Own Projections

So how do I use marketing to identify and let go of projection? By noticing all projections and following them to their logical conclusion, where they point back at me. At that point, believe me, I’m highly motivated to release them.

When I study my prospects, I notice all the words and concepts that arrive with value judgments. Stubborn. Lazy. Entitled. Stupid.Unrealistic. Desperate. Naïve. I then take each one and find it in myself. I always can. Every single time.

Now, if you came up to me and called me any of those things, I’d probably get hurt and insulted and defensive. “I am not. Let me prove it to you.” So no matter how hard the world tries to get my attention to focus on my character flaws, I’m equally persistent in my resistance. My mind is so good at this, I can probably make you feel like my own shortcomings are actually your fault. My interpersonal crimes rarely leave fingerprints.

So I appreciate the opportunity to dive into the deepest fears and longings of my prospects. I head straight for the dark stuff, the shadow desires, the unconscious feelings that are so much more powerful in motivating behavior than the feelings we’re OK enough with to admit to consciousness.

And in so doing, I end up wading through my own muck. As I own it, reclaim it, bring it home, and experience it fully without resistance or numbness, I heal it. How do I know when it’s healed? When I can’t find it outside of myself anymore.

Making Me a Better Marketer

Cleansing my field of projection is not only a tool for spiritual growth, it’s also the single most effective marketing “technique” I know. If you’ve ever been in the presence of someone who has cleaned their perception of projection, you know how wonderful it feels to be truly seen and heard. And how rare an experience it is for most people. When you can speak to your prospects from a place of non-judgment and unconditional regard and respect, they are naturally drawn to you.

Now, I don’t want to end this piece with a lie. So please don’t believe that I’m particularly good at this spiritual practice of noticing and owning my projections. Because I’m not. I know this because there still arise within me a million judgments a day. And some of them are so convincing, I still believe them and act on them and generally make a mess of things.

But at least I’m no longer confused about how to be a “spiritual” marketer. The story goes, when the young nobleman William Penn first saw the light of Quakerism, he asked the religion’s founder, George Fox, whether he had to stop wearing a sword since Quakerism preaches pacifism. Fox’s reply: “Wear it as long as you can.”

That is to say, when Penn truly aligned himself with pacifism, he would no longer be able to wear a sword. The decision would be internally based, rather than dictated by an outside authority.

Similarly, I appeal to greed and fear in my marketing copy to the extent that those appeals work on me. As I develop and grow, my marketing develops and grows. I no longer try to write “Holier Than Myself” copy that falls flat and helps no one.

So when I discovered that I was judging Allen for his pig-headedness and self-righteous separation from his prospects and competitors, I knew what my own next assignment was.

| Categories: Ethics in Advertising, marketing philosophy - Tags: authenticity, empathy, relevance, safety

Guest Post: What are the 7 Graces of Marketing and Life?

By: Tad | Published: December 12, 2011 · 1 Comment

What are the 7 Graces of Marketing and Life?

My friend and colleague, Lynn Serafinn, has just published her new book The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell.

(You can check it out here – but it on December 13th and get yourself some cool free things)

The ideas she presents in this 400+ page book are a call to action, not only to business owners and marketers, but to everyone one of us as a consumer.

Reading Lynn Serafinn’s list of the marketing graces (below) is a liberating experience.

It reminds us that marketing can be either a thing of beauty or a source of our collective discontent. It reminds us that the choice is not `Do I market or do I keep my integrity?’ but rather, `How can I make my marketing more gracious and graceful every day? How can my own marketing be a part of the healing of the world?’

Lynn paints it out so clearly–for each virtue, there is a toxic mimic (twice the calories and none of the nutrition)…Marketing shouldn’t feel like we’re holding our breath just waiting to be discovered as frauds. It should feel like easy breathing. Lynn’s astounding contrast of virtues and vices is such an excellent guide. I can’t wait to dive deeper into it.

* * *

Lynn’s sneak peek into the 7 Graces paradigm

Grace #1: Connection

This is the “antidote” to the “Deadly Sin of Disconnection”. Connection is at the foundation of everything in life—Connection to Self, Source, others, our businesses, and our audience—determine how effectively and authentically we communicate and conduct our lives.

When business owners are disconnected from Self, their businesses cannot be genuine representations of who they are. And the problem is, as businesses get bigger and bigger, that Connection becomes increasingly difficult to maintain. When business owners are not connected to Source and others, it opens to door to exploitation of both natural resources and people.

Connection is the first of the 7 Graces, because without it the other Graces cannot manifest.

Grace #2: Inspiration

This is the “antidote” to the “Deadly Sin of Persuasion”. The literal meaning of the word “Inspiration” means “to breathe life into”. As business owners, we have a choice to be “life giving” to our audience or “life robbing”.

Persuasion, wherein we will do anything and everything to make a sale/profit, is life robbing. As business owners, it is our responsibility to “feed” society, and thus ensure not only that our products and services are life-giving, but also that our communications (marketing) is life-giving.

For marketing to be filled with the “Grace of Inspiration”, it should never incite fear, anxiety or feelings of inadequacy.

Grace #3: Invitation

This is the “antidote” to the “Deadly Sin of Invasion”. Nearly every form of marketing we see today is invasive. Our attention span is continually interrupted, whether it is through television/radio adverts, pop up messages, uninvited email adverts, cold-calling or billboards. As business owners and marketers, we need to bring back the “Grace of Invitation” into our communications.

This means that when visitors come into our “space” (our website, our office/shop), we treat them like respected guests, offering them hospitality and generosity. Conversely, when we come into our customers’ space (as when we send out emails), we must do so with courtesy and care, ensuring we never become the dreaded “houseguest from hell”.

Grace #4: Directness

This is the “antidote” to the “Deadly Sin of Distraction”. So much modern advertising depends upon Distraction to seize and maintain our attention. Nearly every advert you see will utilise random brand identity triggers and humour to get us to pay attention.

What is wrong with this is that people end up buying products simply because they remember the advert, and not necessarily because they have been given direct, clear information about the product or service. Directness is simple: we marketers need to get back to “telling it like it is” instead of hyping up our businesses.

The public need to be informed and empowered. The Grace of Directness allows that to happen.

Grace #5: Transparency

This is the “antidote” to the “Deadly Sin of Deception”. Deception in marketing is rife, but is sometimes extremely subtle. In the book, I give many examples of how language and imagery are often used in a deceptive way in marketing, where technically (and legally) the message is “true”, but the unconscious message we perceive is untrue.

Transparency literally means “to shine light through”. When we are Transparent in marketing and in life, we are not merely being honest, but we are also allowing the true intention behind our thoughts, words and deeds to be seen and heard clearly. When we walk in Transparency, both in business and in life, we are walking in the Essence of who we really are.

Grace #6: Abundance

This is the “antidote” to the “Deadly Sin of Scarcity”.

The chapter on Scarcity in the book is one of the biggest, because it’s simply such a massive topic. Scarcity marketing is all around us, and it appears in so many forms, from limited-time offers to the various kinds of “obsolescence” used to incite us to buy beyond our needs or means.

Abundance, on the other hand, is the fundamental belief that there is enough for all—when we are living in rhythm with the planet. It is our natural state of being. If we operate our business from the fundamental belief in lack or Scarcity, we will always bring Scarcity strategies into our marketing.

The irony is that Scarcity begets Scarcity.

In other words, if we operate from a Scarcity mentality, we are likely to create the very Scarcity we most fear because the end result will be overconsumption. Overconsumption is destroying both our economy and the ecological balance of our natural world. But if we operate from a fundamental belief in Abundance, we will not bring such fear and anxiety into our marketing, and overconsumption will be a thing of the past.

Grace #7: Collaboration

This is the “antidote” to the “Deadly Sin of Competition”. Many people have the false notion that competition is necessary to create healthy economies and stronger societies.

But this is largely a myth and has no foundation in Nature whatsoever. While I believe in “free enterprise”, this is not the same thing as Competition. In the book, I cite many studies that have proved how Competition diminishes creativity and innovation. When we conduct our businesses or our lives with a competitive mindset, we not only reduce our own performance, but we also reduce the support we receive from others.

On the other hand, Collaboration always results in something greater than the sum of its parts. Every single marketing campaign I have produced is based upon Collaboration. The permaculture of the world is actually one giant, interdependent Collaboration.

We’ve been brought up in a competitive world, but the more connected we become via technologies like social media, the more we see that Collaboration is the way we perform best.

* * *

I hope you enjoyed this overview of The 7 Graces of Marketing from author Lynn Serafinn. If you want to dive more deeply into this paradigm … do check out Lynn’s book The 7 Graces of Marketing on December 13th.

When you do, there are dozens of wonderful gifts for you, including the audio download of all 7 sessions from the telesummit, and many other goodies. Check out the gifts, and request a launch reminder so you don’t forget to pick up your copy (in paperback or Kindle) at: http://the7gracesofmarketing.com/book

| Categories: Ethics in Advertising, Goodwashing & Greenwashing, marketing philosophy, Political Context for Marketing - Tags: authenticity, building trust, pressure free, real

resonance in marketing

By: Tad | Published: December 4, 2011 · 3 Comments

I want you to think of your favourite cafe or restaurant in town. You know the one. You take all your friends there. They know you by first name. There is so much affection in you for it. It’s a place that resonates for you. You feel like you fit. I bet the first time you ever walked in – you felt like you were at home. ‘These,’ you thought. ‘Are my people.’

And I want to suggest that resonance comes from a few things – none of which are marketing tactics.

Simon Sinek hits this point home hard in his book Start With Why.

Typical manipulations include: dropping the price; running a promotion; using fear, peer pressure or aspirational messages; and promising innovation to influence behaviour – be it a purchase, a vote or support. When companies or organizations do not have a clear sense of why their customers are their customers, they tend to rely on a disproportionate number of manipulations to get what they need. It’s because manipulations work.

If fear motivates us to move away from something horrible, aspirational messages tempt us toward something desirable. Marketers often talk about the importance of being aspirational, offering someone something they desire to achieve and the ability to get their more easily with a particular product or service.

Six steps to a happier life!

Work those abs to your dream dress size!

In six short weeks you can be rich!

All these messages manipulate.

They tempt us with the things we want to have or to be the person we wish we were.

I cannot dispute that manipulations work.

Every one of them can indeed help influence behaviour and every one of them can help a company become quite succesful. But there are trade offs.

Not a single one of them breeds loyalty.

Over the course of time, they cost more and more. The gains are only short term. And they increase the level of stress for both the buyer and the seller. If you have exceptionally deep pockets or are looking to achieve only a short term gain with no consideration for the long term, then these strategies and tactics are perfect.

Beyond the business world, manipulations are the norm in politics today as well. Just as manipulations can drive a sale but not create loyalty, so too can they help a candidate get elected, but they don’t create a foundation for leadership. Leadership requires people to stick with you through thick and thin. Leadership is the ability to rally people not for a single event, but for years. [Manipulative] tactics win elections, but they do not seed loyalties among the voters.

In business, leadership means that customers will continue to support your company even when you slip up. If manipulation is the only strategy, what happens the next time a purchase decision is required. What happens after the election is won?

There is a big difference between repeat business and loyalty. Repeat business is when people do business with you multiple times. Loyalty is when people are willing to turn down a better product or a better price to continue doing business with you. Loyal customers don’t often bother to research to the competition or entertain other options. Loyalty is not easily won. Repeat business, however, is. All it takes is more manipulations.

Manipulations lead to transactions, not loyalty.

So, if manipulations don’t work, what does?

Resonance.

Marketing tactics are like the searchlight form of marketing – that people run away from.

Resonance is the lighthouse that draws the ships into safe harbour.

Resonance is when we express ourselves so beautifully and honestly that people can’t help but feel it. Resonance is when we focus more on the quality of the light our lighthouse is putting out and the brightness of it than who might be seeing it. Resonance is preparing your home so beautifully for guests. Resonance is when we follow up with someone, not because they’re an ‘excellent contact to add to our network’ but because they give our heart a pretty little hum when we’ve around them. Resonance is when we trust the universe is a friendly place.

Resonance comes when we can relax and be comfortable in our own skin.

“Stress is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.”

- Chinese Proverb

And resonance comes from a number of things – here are the ones that come to mind most quickly . . .

a genuine, human vibe: people are, increasingly, running away from people who are posturing, pretending to be more together than they are, fake, phony, pretentious etc. They are drawn to people who are genuine, real, authentic and just plain honest. This doesn’t mean ‘granola’. It means that whatever you are – you embrace it fully. You open to the world as that. It’s like the line in Breakfast at Tiffany’s about Audrey Hepburn’s character, ‘she’s a phony. but she’s a real phony.’ It means we’re not doing what we’re doing to impress people, win approval or become something else. We’re just enjoying being us. We’re even embracing our own weaknesses. We’re okay with having needs – including the need to eat and live in this world – so we’re okay with needing to have some money. We’re okay with our clients supporting us – and we feel so grateful and amazed whenever it happens.

an unattached mindset: we give equal weight to ‘yes’ and ‘no’ from potential clients because we only want to work with people for whom it’s a fit and who want to work with us. If it’s not a fit, we bless and release. We don’t chase, we replace. We love people as they are – we’re not trying to change them. We’re not trying to get them to be anything they aren’t or to do anything they don’t want to do. We’re not pitching anything – we’re just sharing what we have with the world. We’re not trying to convince anyone of anything – we’re just sharing our truth and letting the world change if it wants to. We know that people will either love what we have or they won’t. We’re okay with either.

a crystal clear, unapologetic point of view: we have know where we stand, we have an opinion, a take, a worldview, a diagnosis, a perspective on the way things oughta be. It’s clear to us and it’s clear to the market place. It’s not an ideology – but it’s a clear set of guiding principles and ideas and beliefs that guide our work and that people can count on. We have a clear map that people can understand of how we’ll be guiding them on their journey.

an inspiring ‘why’: people know why we’re doing what we’re doing. They get the deeper cause behind it for us. They know that we’re not in it for the money. They know the kind of world we dream of and are working towards. They see how everything in our little business is all wrapped around and expressing this core, beating heart of our business. We don’t see the market place as full of competitors – we see it as full of potential collaborators who are all working together (or could work together) towards something bigger. We’ve got no interest in being a leader of a movement – but we’re so deeply passionate about movement happening in the world.

a solid structure and container: we prepare our home to receive the guests. We make sure we’re ready for when they show up. We are craftsmen of our arts. Attention to details. Small things matter. We lay strong foundations for our business. This gives us a sense of pride. We’re excited to send people to our website. We can’t wait to show off our cafe. We know that the details are handled so we don’t fuss about them. We can relax. The container, we find. not only holds the potential client – it holds us too.

a good strategy: we are ready to have clients and now, instead of chasing them down, we make it easy and safe for them to find us. We make it risk free and easy for people to say yes to working with us. We pick marketing tactics and strategies that feel authentic and real to us and then we make sure we implement them in the most genuine ways possible. When we create a strategy that we know will work – we can relax. We know that we’ll get enough clients because we have a plan. And our plan is not only something that gets us clients – our marketing is actually an expression of our deeper cause and our point of view. Our marketing feels really genuine and easy. Our clients feel that and relax too.

Resonance is different than relevance. Relevance says, ‘yes – that can help me on the journey I’m on. That can help solve my problem. That could get me what I’m craving.’ But there are likely many, many options out there that are relevant to them. Why should they pick you? They will, at the end of the day, pick the one who most deeply resonates with them.

Don’t you resonate with that idea?

See?

It works.

If you’d like get cool posts like this in your inbox every few days CLICK HERE to subscribe to my blog and you’ll also get a free copy of my fancy new ebook “Marketing for Hippies” when it’s done.

| Categories: becoming a hub, Branding, Inner Work, marketing philosophy, platform, Start with Why, Tad's Rants, word of mouth - Tags: authenticity, pressure free, real, safety

stop trying to change minds

By: Tad | Published: November 26, 2011 · 2 Comments

I invite you to give up trying to change people’s minds.

People can be a lot like this child – stubborn. They don’t like being pushed around. Or told they’re wrong.

This is the core challenge of marketing I think. Or a core blunder. Or something.

Trying to convince people that we are right and they are wrong.

Trying to convince them that they need to act preventatively.

Trying to convince them that their core world view is wrong.

Trying to convince them that our diagnosis is so important before they even know they have a symptom.

Trying to convince someone to buy NOW when they might rather wait for a more fortuitous timing.

And I want to suggest that . . . that’s really hard.

And it might hurt people.

The idea that we can change people’s minds is the beginning of trouble.

It’s a much better idea to create something that resonates with where people are at. Meet them where they are.

My colleague Jessica O’Reilly shared how she came to this realization with her sex workshops in this blog interview I did with her in July, 2011.

Callan Rush has some important thoughts on this which she shared in this March 2011 blog post. Here’s the relevant excerpt.

LESSON #5: Don’t just market to the 3% who are ready to buy right now.

Think of your ideal clients. The people in your niche. Your target market. Now think of all the people in your town (or wherever you want to tour your workshops) who fit into that group. There are likely a lot of them.

But here’s the bad news.

97% of your ideal clients are NOT looking for my product, program or service right now.

Here’s a piece Callan shared that was worth the whole evening. It’s a percentage break down of your target market right now. I think these percentages are really accurate pretty much across the board:

3% are actively looking for your solution. They’re googling it at 3 am. They are super, actively looking for a solution to their problems. And everyone is fighting over this 3%. Every other workshop leader is trying to reach these same people.

And so they put their marketing out to reach these people.

“Hypnosis workshop!”

“Buy our technology”

“All 2010 Model Cars Must Go! 0% Financing.”

“Non Violent Communication Workshop”

“Learn Reiki”.

And it’s not that this kind of marketing doesn’t work. It totally does. It absolutely reaches and works on that 3% of your ideal clients. But it’s ignored by everyone else. Ouch. This means your marketing might be being totally ignored by 97% of your target market.

7% are open to your product, program or service. They’ve heard about the kind of thing you do. They’re genuinely curious about it.

30% are aware for future. They know they need you or someone like you – but it’s sometime down the road. They tell themselves, “I’ll need a new car when we have kids.” But that time hasn’t come yet. Or they think, “When this crunch time at work is over I’m going to get back into yoga.” Or, “When I stop traveling I’m going to buy a house.”

30% are totally unconscious. When you meet them it’s clear that they have a problem you can help them solve – but they have NO awareness they need it. They might not even know they have a problem. It’s like someone with bad breath. You knooooow they need a tick tack but they have no idea. Or someone with anger issues who’s convinced their problem is everyone else.

They may or may not have any overt symptoms but those symptoms are likely not understood. Like, they know they have stomach pains all the time – but they don’t realize that it’s because they’re celiac. Or they notice that their romantic partner has lost interest in them but they don’t see how this loss of interest was triggered by their domineering nature and inability to communicate.

In short, they lack the proper context for their symptoms. And so often they ignore them entirely.

30% are just a ‘NO!’. They’re just closed to it. Maybe it’s because they live too far away, they’ll never be able to afford it or they’ve already hired someone else. With these people you need to just bless and release.

The Bottom Line: 67% of these people are not really being marketed to. They’re being ignored by everyone else leading workshops.

But the way you market to the 67% who are open, aware or unconscious is very, very different than the way you market to people who are totally ready to buy. It’s a bit of a slower turn around. More trust building. More being a generosity based business to start.

Simon Sinek, in his book Start With Why points out how people gravitate to businesses that resonate with them (rather than being inspired to adopt a new lifestyle that company is selling).

Apple sells a “lifestyle”, marketing professionals will tell you.

Apple didn’t invent the lifestyle, nor does it sell a lifestyle. Apple is simply one of the brands that those who live a certain lifestyle are drawn to. Those people use certain products or brands in the course of living in that lifestyle. That is, in part, how we recognize their way of life in the first place. The products they choose become proof of why they do the things they do. It is only because Apple’s why is so clear that those who believe what they believe are drawn to them. As Harley Davidson fits into the lifestyle of a certain group of people and Prada shoes fit the lifestyle of a certain group, it is the lifestyle that came first. Like the products the company produces that serve as proof of the company’s WHY, so too does a brand or product serve as proof of an individual’s WHY.

That some people are viscerally drawn to a ferrari more than a Honda Odyssey says more about the person than the engineering of the product.

Loyalists for each brand will point to various features and beenfits that matter to them or don’t matter to them in an attempt to convince the other that they are right. And that’s one of the primary reasons why so many companies feel the needs to differentiate in the first place. Based on the flawed assumption that only one group can be right. But what if both parties were right? What if an Apple was right for some people and a PC was right for others? It’s not a debate about better or worse anymore, it’s a discussion about the different needs. And before the discussion can even happen, the WHYs for each must be established first.

A simple claim of better, even with the rational evidence to back it up, can create a desire and even motivate a decision to buy, but it doesn’t create loyalty. It is the cause that is represented by the company, brand, product or person that inspires loyalty.

Seth Godin deepens this conversation is his book Tribes:

A Tribe has a Shared Worldview:

This leads to an interesting thought: you get to choose the tribe you will lead. Through your actions as a leader you attract a tribe that wants to follow you. That tribe has a worldview that matches the message you are sending.

Important clarification: Great marketers lead people, stretching the boundaries and bringing new messages to people who want to hear them. The core of my argument is that someone’s worldview, how they feel about risk or other factors, is beyond your ability to change in the short run. Sell people something they’re interesting in buying. If you can’t leverage the worldview they already have, you are essentially invisible. Which is a whole other sort of magic, one that’s not so profitable.

If you are leading a tribe focused on saving the world by fighting global warming, the tribe will of course have a worldview that includes the idea that global warming is a problem and that it includes the idea that global warming is a problem and that it can be addressed through its actions. They come to the tribe with that in mind and your leadership resonates with them.

If, on the other hand, you choose to work to persuade a different group, one with a very different worldview, they will likely reject you. Al Gore started leading his tribe when he didn’t know who they were.

He stated his message and people found him.

Ultimately, people are most easily led where they wanted to go all along. While that may seem as if it limits your originality or influence, it’s true. Fox News didn’t persuade millions of people to become conservatives, they just assembled a tribe and led them where they were already headed.

Tribes are increasingly voluntary. No one is forced to work for your firm or attend your services. People have a choice of which music to listen to and which movies to watch. So great leaders don’t try to please everyone. Great leaders don’t water down their message in order to make the tribe a bit bigger. Instead they realize that a motivated, connected tribe in the mist of a movement is far more powerful than a larger group could ever be.

As the ability to lead a tribe becomes open to more people, it’s interesting to note that those who take that opportunity (and those who succeed most often) are doing it because of what they can do for the tribe, not for what the tribe can do for them.

This is the heart of the matter: Every leader cares for and supports a movement. A movement like the free speech movement at Berkeley or the democracy movement in Tiananmen Square or the civil rights movement in Mississippi. Or maybe a movement like the obsession with hand roasted coffee in Brooklyn or the worldwide collection of people obsessed with tattoos.

Today, you can have a narrow movement, a tiny movement, a movement in a silo. Your movement can be known by ten or twenty or a thousand people, people in your community or people around the world. And most often, it can be the people you work with or for, or those who work for you.

The web connects people. That’s what it does. And movements take connected people and make change. What marketers and organizers and people who care are discovering is that they can ignite a micromovement and then be propelled by the people who choose to follow it.

The bottom line is this: don’t try to change people’s minds. Get so clear about your deeper why, the journey you help people on best and your point of view and find people who will resonate with that. Don’t try to get people to change their minds about things. Meet them where they are and begin to slowly educate. Find some real challenge they are aware of that they’re experiencing and offer them help with that. Earn the trust. Align and then redirect – don’t oppose.

Instead of trying to push harder and hype it up more – just make it clearer who you are and safer for people to approach you. Be the lighthouse, not the searchlight.

| Categories: becoming a hub, marketing philosophy, platform, Start with Why - Tags: authenticity, becoming a hub, building trust, empathy, generosity based business, pink spoons, pressure free, relevance

twelve ways to figure out your ‘why’

By: Tad | Published: November 24, 2011 · Leave a Comment

So, over the past week or so you’ve read about why it’s important to have a bigger cause that your business is about, you’ve seen some examples of people who have or are exploring this but now it’s time to look at how you can begin to sort this out for yourself.

The first thing I’d suggest is not to attempt to do this alone.

What I’d most commend is to sit down with a dear one in your life over a hot cup of something delicious and to have them ask you these questions and take careful notes for you. They can ask you good follow up questions and reflect what they’re hearing you say.

The second thing I want to suggest is that this is not an overnight process. It will evolve and deepen over time. And that’s okay.

But I do think these questions will help you make some progress.

Here they are . . .

What has been one of the central questions of your life? What are those topics and questions you find yourself constantly circling around and bringing up in conversations? What are the conversations you find hardest to stop?

What are the different elements or worlds you’re trying to balance? What worlds do you feel like you’re a bridge between?

What got you started in what you’re doing?

What are the changes you want to see your industry undergo?

What is this work really about for you? Try completing this sentence twenty times, “At the heart of it, my work is about . . .”

Complete this sentence, “When I look at the world, what I most see missing is . . .”

Complete this sentence – ‘every ______ deserves ________’ (e.g. ‘every woman deserves the opportunity to have a joyful birthing and parenting experience’ or ‘every man deserves authentic brotherhood’)

what’s the impact of what you do on people’s lives if you do it well?

If everyone in your target market got to Island B, then what? What would the impact of that be on the world?

what are you most sick and tired of seeing in the world?

when you read the paper, walk down the streets, surf the net – what issues grab you and why?

Whatever you do – is there a metaphorical level to it? If you help people with heart issues on a physical level – is there a deeper metaphorical level to hearts. If you help people to build houses – what is a house really ‘about’? If you sell bicyles – what are bicycles about? If you massage feet – what are feet about at a deeper level?

| Categories: becoming a hub, Branding, Start with Why - Tags: authenticity, becoming a hub, trusted advisor

deeper into why

By: Tad | Published: November 22, 2011 · Leave a Comment

It’s easy to feel alone in the world.

But it’s not pleasant.

And, the way we market our businesses can actually help heal that.

In his book Start With Why, which you should really go and buy from a locally owned bookstore, Simon Sinek shares a familar old story,

“Consider the story of two stonemasons, you walk up to the first mason and ask “Do you like your job?” He looks up at you and replies, “I’ve been building this wall for as long as I can remember. The work is monotonous. I work in the scorching hot sun all day. The stones are heavy and lifting them all day can be backbreaking. I’m not sure if this project will be completed in my lifetime. But it’s a job. It pays the bills.”

You thank him for his time and walk on.

About thirty feet away, you walk up to a second stone mason and ask him the same question. He looks up and replies “I love my job. I’m building a cathedral. Sure I’ve been working on this wall for as long as I can remember, and yes, the work is sometimes monotonous. I work in the scorching hot sun all day. The stones are heavy and lifting them day after day can be backbreaking. I’m not even sure if this project will be completed in my lifetime. But I’m building a cathedral.”

What these two stonemasons are doing is exactly the same; the difference is, one has a sense of purpose.

He feels like he belongs. He comes to work to be a part of something bigger than the job he’s doing. Simply having a sense of WHY changes his entire view of his job. It makes him more productive and certainly more loyal. Whereas the first stonemason would probably take another job for more pay, the inspired stonemason works longer hours and would probably turn down an easier higher paying job to styay and be a part of the higher cause.

The second stonemason does not see himself as any more or less important than the guy making the stained glass windows or even the architect. They are all working together to build a cathedral. It is this bond that creates camaraderie. And that camaraderie and trust is what brings success. People working together for a common cause.”

Think of a non-profit and, hopefully, you can think of a larger cause that’s being addressed. But non-profits are not the only ones allowed to have a mission. Businesses can too. We all can.

It might be easy, at this point, to think that your ‘why’ must be something outside of you. Some larger cause or issue that you are joining.

And, that might be the case, but it’s worth exploring the often surprising personal connections we might have.

I’ve written a bit about how our deepest wounds are often our truest niche.

That you have likely gone through struggles in your own life and that these struggles have given you a keen empathy and insight into a certain emotional terrain. If you’ve struggled with something and come out the other side, there’s a really good chance you’ll be able to help others with that struggle to. If you’ve been on a certain journey, you can likely help others with that same journey.

But, if we step back, and remove it from the personal we can start to see how deeply and widely these wounds are shared.

Your most personal wound might not only be the wound you’re most able to help other individuals heal, it might be the collective wound in the world you’re addressing to.

I think most movements are started because of some wound. The loss of dignity, freedom, safety . . . and the desire to have it back. As we connect with our own story, we are more able to connect with the larger story.

The personal is political.

Those things which are most personal end up being most general.

It’s an amazing moment when you really, really get that you’re not alone in your struggles – and, in fact, that no one is alone. That there is a whole community and tribe of people struggling with the same issues. And, that when we boil to the essence of the struggle – it’s often something that everyone struggles with (e.g. love, optimism, self acceptance).

So, part of it is seeing our business as a part of a bigger story. And maybe the biggest story there is – the story of the healing of the world. As it’s called in the Jewish tradition – Tikkun Olam.

Most of us feel isolated and alone. And, deep down, we all crave to contribute some portion of beauty back to the world. Most of us crave to play some role in a story that is larger than ourselves. The warning in the Narcissus myth is not to not fall in love with ourselves. It’s to not fall in love with our reflection and miss the larger story. This culture promotes a profound self obsession. A ‘what about me?’ neurosis. And it’s just this neurosis that has us feel so alone. And the belief that we’re the only ones in Hell – is Hell.

There are two ways to live in the end. One is, ‘what’s in it for me?’ and, in the end, this is profoundly unsatisfying (no matter what kinds of privileges come with it). The other is, ‘how can we all get our needs met?’.

In the end, the only wealth there is is community. Each other.

the shady side of the road – by rabindranath tagore

I lived on the shady side of the road
and watched my neighbours’ gardens
across the way
revelling in the sunshine.

I felt I was poor,
and from door
to door
went with my hunger.

The more they gave me
from their careless abundance
the more I became aware
of my beggar’s bowl.

Till one morning
I awoke from my sleep
at the sudden opening of my door,
and you came and asked for alms.

In despair I broke the lid of my chest open
and was startled into finding my own wealth.

Caitlin Matthews, Celtic scholar and author, poses the question like this:

“How can the soul or the world be re-enchanted once it is lost the enchantment? Only by returning to the story of the soul and retelling it up to the point of fracture; only by placing our story within the context of the greater song.

She tells that when Merlin is exposed to the terrible carnage of the battle of Arfderwydd “he becomes mad an runs into the depths of the forest. Within the forest’s embrace, he becomes one with the trees and seasons and puts aside the terrible sights he has seen to focus upon the gifts of the wild world, becoming rusticated and “uncivilized.”

Ever pertinent and prophetic, he sees through the pretexts and pretensions of those who come to lure him back to civilization with the sure instinct of an animal,”

He does not respond to anyone except his friend, the Welsh poet, Taliesin who comes to sit with him. Only then “does Merlin respond, asking the odd question, “why do we have weather?” This seemingly trivial query is all that Taliesin needs to help his friend. He begins to recite the creation of the world. At the end of Taliesin’s recital, Merlin is restored as the sacred context of his story is given back to them.”

What does this all have to do with marketing?

Our business can feed on people’s insecurities or it can invite them into a larger story.

It’s powerful for people when they find a home.

When they find a community of people who think like them, see the world the same way, have gone through the same struggle and are about the same things. It’s incredible to find a community that has a shared point of view and sense of ‘why’ about their lives.

And you can make your business into that. A home. A sanctuary. A place where people connect not only with you but with each other. Our businesses can become hubs that actually foster, tighten and deepen community.

You need to build a hub around a platform – some strong center that can hold it – and there are four things that can be.

You can see some examples of hubs built around a point of view here and ones built around a strong ‘why’ here.

As David Korten puts it, “we can’t just talk these things to death. We need to live them into being.”

You can become a voice of hope and clarity in challenging times inviting people not to become lost in their individual struggles – but to see themselves as a part of a larger story. You can help them move their focus from their lonely troubles to shared solutions we can all work towards. We can startle them with their own wealth.

When your community looks into the mirror that reflects the current world’s woes and feel such despair and overwhelm from it – we wave our hands and the mirror becomes a window through which they can see what’s possible. And, with another wave, that window becomes a door and we invite them through.

Let’s keep reminding people what it’s really about.

| Categories: becoming a hub, Ethics in Advertising, marketing strategy, platform, Start with Why - Tags: authenticity, becoming a hub, building trust, trusted advisor

the bigger cause

By: Tad | Published: November 17, 2011 · Leave a Comment

The other day, I wrote a blog post about the four key elements you need to create your platform.

Today, I want to zone in on the last of the four – the deeper why and bigger cause of your business.

It’s a simple question: ‘why do you do what you do?’

But it’s one that most entrepreneurs never reflect on.

I recently finished reading Simon Sinek’s book ‘Start With Why’. And, over the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing my reflections on it. You can watch a 20 minute video of him giving the heart of the book here.

You started your business for a reason.

What was that reason? What is this business really about for you? At the heart of it? What has it become for you?

One of the things that is most overlooked in marketing is sharing ‘why’ we do things.

And it matters.

When people don’t understand the deeper ‘why’ behind what you do . . .

You will get pigeon holed in whatever it is you do that they first heard of. And you won’t be able to get out. You’ll get known for the boat. Case in point: what does Xerox make? The immediate answer in your mind was clearly photocopiers. What does Dell make? Computers. They make boats. They are known for the quality of their boats. If they tried to make a different kind of boat? Disaster. Xerox launched a brand of personal computers once. They were really good. Remember them? Exactly. Dell tried to create an MP3 player. Remember that? Again, of course you don’t.

You’ll end up needing to resort to manipulative marketing tactics to get people to actually buy something. Communicating your ‘why’ clearly inspires people. You don’t need to push, hype or manipulate.

They’ll likely believe that you’re just in business for the money and so their trust won’t run as deep.

What do I mean by the ‘why’?

The why often starts with our looking at the world and seeing that something is missing. Seeing that something feels ‘off’ to us. It’s like the film the Matrix. People having the vague sense that’s something isn’t right. And yet, the answer isn’t found in the small details but in looking at the overall context – the bigger story. The bigger story is the golden thread that weaves all of those experiences together. And the quest for liberation from the machines is the bigger cause.

When we wake up to an issue that is so much bigger than us – we want to help. And we often find that there’s already a movement that’s going on. It’s not usually something we can create. It’s something bigger than us that we choose to be a part of. And even if we are the initiator of a particular campaign – the movement for justice is as old as the existence of injustice.

Your why is something you’ll likely never achieve in your lifetime because it’s so much bigger than you. You why are all the trees you’ll plant that you will never sit under.

Recently, I’ve been seeing a lot of rhetoric in the marketing world about ‘starting a movement’ instead of marketing. But, if you can create it, it’s probably not a movement. It’s a marketing campaign. By definition a movement must be bigger than you. And it can’t be started by you.

These movements aren’t ours. We’re just throwing our shoulder to the wheel. We’re adding our unique voice and perspective. We’re helping getting the truck out of the mud. We’re trying to help things move a little faster and smoother.

Gandhi didn’t start the struggle for India’s independence, he just became one of it’s most vocal and articulate proponents. Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t start the civil rights movement. He just played his role in it.

We’re not saying that our boat is the only one addressing this issue. Just the opposite – we’re saying, ‘we are one of many businesses and community members that care about this cause’. We’re one boat of many.

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

- African Proverb

But we begin to see our role as not just someone selling something but a spokesperson on this issue, an advocate for a cause, a visionary for something better, more deeper and more true. So much of becoming a hub is this – taking a stand for something. Even more deeply, taking a stand as something. Continually crafting our boat so it becomes the most beautiful possible expression of the deepest why we know. I think this is much of what Gandhi meant when he said, ‘become the change you wish to see in the world.’ Do that with your business so that what you’re about is unmistakable.

What is the bigger movement or cause your business is a part of?