When it comes to being marketed and sold to, how do you feel about being…
- Persuaded
- Influenced
- Seduced
- Manipulated
Probably not too good, huh? No one wants to feel controlled by a marketer, and that’s exactly what those words imply.
No one wants to be led down a “slippery slope” of marketing copy into making a purchase, yet that’s often how we’re taught to write.
So why do we succumb to creating marketing that does those things? After all, if you look at marketing and much of the traditional wisdom teaching us how to do it, those are the words used. We’re taught how to do these things to our prospects and clients, yet we don’t want them done unto us.
Whatever happened to the golden rule?
I think it got sacrificed on the way to the bank!
There’s a popular book entitled “Influence. The Psychology of Persuasion” by Robert Cialdini. Many in the industry view it as the marketer’s bible. As a marketer, I bought into that idea and purchased the book, but never could get through it. It still sits on my shelf with the bookmark on page 47. Even though I’ve been a marketer for over 30 years, I’m uncomfortable with the idea of persuading people to buy.
Marketing was invented to make people want to buy. I have a degree in advertising and marketing, and spent the first part of my career working in advertising agencies, and that was always the root of the conversation, what will get them to buy?
Heck, really good marketing can even get you to buy something you didn’t even know you wanted!
Why? Because it uses psychology and manipulation tactics (yes, I said it) to create desire.
It often makes us feel like we’re not good enough if we don’t have whatever they’re selling. I know I’ve fallen victim to this and I’m sure you have, too.
We all have. After all, it’s at the root of the materialistic society we live in and the “keeping up with the Joneses” mentality I believe is at least partly responsible for the mortgage industry crisis and maybe even the economic crisis.
Is anyone else seeing a problem here?
There is a role for marketing, but I believe that role is changing.
At least I’m on a mission to change it and I hope you’ll join me.
I believe marketing today, especially for service professionals, is about creating CONNECTION and RESONANCE. If you make that your goal, clients will not be tricked into buying your products and services. They will not be led down a slippery slope. They will be getting the information they need to make an informed decision.
How do you create Connection and Resonance?
By being in touch with your purpose and the message you’re here to share. By truly understanding how your product or service fits into someone’s life and makes it better. By understanding your ideal clients and what their struggles are, so you can create products and services that address those struggles. By respecting people. By truly caring and wanting to help. By speaking and marketing from your heart.
Do you see it’s not about selling stuff? It’s about SERVICE.
Look, I’m not against money or making a living. I teach people how to do both. I just do it from a little bit different perspective. Because I’ve found that when you come from these three places: Connection, Resonance, and Service, it not only works better, it feels better.
When you’re coming from purpose and you see the good you’re here to do in this world, and you share that message from your heart, you can’t help but connect and resonate with those who need to hear it. And then you’ll have the opportunity to serve them.
Guest Writer-Debbie LaChusa
After spending 25 years in the marketing industry, Debbie LaChusa became so frustrated with its “be more, do more, have more” mentality that she began speaking out about it. She wrote a book entitled Breaking the Spell: The Truth about Money, Success, and the Pursuit of Happiness, created The Money Success Happiness Blog, and reinvented her business as The Business Stylist®, vowing to help service professionals learn how to Package, Brand, Market, and Sell their services with integrity and without hype. Her mission is to help people wake up and stop chasing money, success, and happiness and instead discover the true path to a happy, healthy, wealthy life and business. To learn more please visit www.DebbieLaChusa.com
Debbie,
How I love your post! Having been trained to sell in an environment and time when lots of manipulation was used to close sales, thank goodness I never had the heart to do it. I agree that now is the time to come from a new place – and especially in this economy I find it’s very clearly what people want.
Thanks so much, and I look forward to your further posts.
Lindsay
Thanks for a great post, Debbie. Though I’ve been in business forever, I have never been able to really wrap myself around sell, sell, sell. I have always been more focused on service and building relationships with my clients. Guess I was just a visionary and didn’t know it.