Excerpt from The Heart of Marketing

Following is an excerpt from the introduction to The Heart of Marketing. If you are an intuitive practitioner, I would encourage you to explore more sites on the tour because many of them will feature additional excerpts. You may be particularly interested in the excerpt explaining the difference on ROI (return on investment) and ROE (return on experience). The book can be found at http://www.theheartofmarketing.com/

INTRODUCTION

This book is about marketing. But more important, this is a book about you, the soft sell marketer, and your desire to market and sell your products and services online or off without compromising your values or what you believe about how people should be treated.

In short, it's about putting your heart into marketing.

As former therapists who ventured into online marketing just four years ago we had to overcome our technical deficiencies and learn to make friends with the computer. Even more so, we had to open our minds to an entirely new way of being in the world, a whole new and very different mindset-a marketing/business mindset.

We kept hearing from Internet marketing teachers about this strategy and that technique, and all we had to do was apply what we were learning and we would surely become successful Internet marketers. After all, they did, and, as they kept insisting-"You Can Too!!"

So we applied exactly what we were told, step-by-step, word-for-word-with some financial success. But all along we labored under the feeling that something was wrong. Or to put it more accurately, something just wasn't right. But what?

The answer began to emerge at the various Internet marketing conferences we attended.

We could hear that what the speakers were teaching was logical and credible. But we always felt a sense of displacement, a feeling of not belonging, of somehow being outsiders. We hadn't had years of business experience, no formal business education, and no family business connections. So we accepted our discomfort as just part of the newness we'd jumped into.

But at those same conferences we began to hear others who had the same complaint. "I don't feel right, somehow." We heard their complaints often enough that a pattern became clear. All those who voiced this kind of discomfort were service providers, care-givers, change agents of some kind, men and women who had dedicated their lives to helping others-heart-to-heart.

These people didn't have big money as their foremost objective. To be sure they all wanted to make money-a commensurate return for the value they provided. But equal to making money was their need to serve the well-being of their customers and clients, and in so doing, earn the income they desired-not the other way around.

They also expressed their resistance to and sometimes downright objection to competing and keeping score-i.e. making money for money's sake. And some uttered the word "selling" as though it were a profanity. It became clear that there was a segment of the Internet marketplace that was not being served. That segment is peopled by soft sell marketers-all of us who are care-givers and life-change artists as distinct from accumulation artists whose focus is money first and foremost.

If you relate to what we're saying, The Heart of Marketing is written to you and for you.

Several Objectives

We have several objectives that make up the overall intention of this book.

First, no competition: we make a clear distinction between soft sell marketing, which is emerging in the marketplace, and traditional hard sell marketing, a marketing style so common that it's assumed to be "natural" and most people take it for granted.

There is no competition between soft and hard sell. They are different and serve different customers. They each function from a different marketing mindset with different objectives. As we've just said:
Soft sell marketers serve the well-being of their customers and clients as their primary objective, and in so doing earn the income they desire-not the other way around.
Hard sell marketing focuses on money first and foremost and, in so doing serve its customers- not the other way around.

Second, heart-based: we validate and support the value of the heart-to-heart connections brought to the marketplace by soft sell marketers. Their need for a felt connection between seller and buyer creates a level of emotional authenticity and transparency that adds a dimension to a sale beyond a mere commercial transaction.

Even on the Internet, where a customer may be on the other side of the world, the soft sell need for connection is expressed through the intent to create a relationship as the basis for the commercial transaction.

Third, commercially successful: we present the principle that Selling Is Spiritual Service with the intent to heal the split that soft sell marketers feel between their desire to be of service and their need to be paid, and paid well for what they do. Care-givers, whose lives are grounded in heart-to-heart connections, have historically been viewed as those who should work without ambition for money, because it was thought that money would corrupt the value of tending to those in need.

We repudiate that notion and point to the validity and social value inherent in soft sell marketers' ambition to generate money as it ranks second but equal to their concern for the well-being of their customers and clients.

Finally, spiritually rewarding: it's our aim to provide support for and articulate the internal aspects of marketing, because a successful sale is more than just numbers and product delivery. Every successful sale, whether soft sell or hard sell, is a co-creation of both the buyer and the seller, regardless of whether either or both are aware of their fundamental interdependence.

Quoting John Muir, naturalist and founder of the Sierra Club-"When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe."

The interconnectedness in which we all live is the signature statement of Creation. So it does all of us well, financially and spiritually, to keep aware of this undeniable fact. And when we do, we market through a broader lens of consciousness and a deeper sense of conscience.

That's why our objective is to open and inspire your soft sell imagination and set a foundation for your understanding and use of soft sell marketing.

772 Questions

The Heart of Marketing is based on an online survey we took while promoting our second "Bridging Heart & Marketing" Internet marketing conference which was held in September, 2008. We simply asked-

What Do You Most Want To Know About Soft Sell Marketing?

We received 772 questions from respondents all over the world. Their questions were split between external, tactical requests-"Where to begin?"- and internal, mindset requests-"How do I resolve the emotional conflict between my desire to serve and my desire for money?"

We've chosen 45 questions that best represent the key concerns expressed by those who answered our survey, and they form the basis for this book.

In answering these questions we begin with "What IS marketing?" and "Who are soft sell marketers?" and end with "Do you see soft sell marketing as a trend in the future?"

Welcome and enjoy!
Judith & Jim

The Heart of Marketing is a great resource for anyone looking for solid marketing strategies and tactics with a Soft Sell, heart-based approach to create real profit and long-term customer relationships. Order your own copy of The Heart of Marketing within the next 24 hours and receive over $8,400 in bonus gifts from experts around the globe. Go to http://www.theheartofmarketing.com/