So Monday was the Transcendent Sales shindig.
Completely + totally fabulous.
Some cool stuff shook out of my brain after the call.
Here it is.
(File under: marketing)
(See also: applies to life + pretty much everything else)
p.s. Yep. More sweariness in the video. It’s almost become a tradition by now.
(Psst. If you’re reading this in a reader, click through to view the wunderbar.)
What does marketing-created-from-trust look like?
How would your marketing change if you started from there?
What would you ditch? What would you start doing?
How much different would you feel putting your Thing out there?
What would buying from someone who totally trusted you feel like?
Glitter! Ok, so Glitter isn’t all that bad but once it’s on you, it’s nearly impossible to wash off. And it’s hell if it gets into your eyes…
All that aside..
YES! Trust. Super-important. Since the initial vids & convos on Twitter about this, I’ve been ruthlessly unsubscribing from lists that make me feel less-than, that don’t engender trust. And I’ve been paying way more attention to how I communicate with my people.
Thanks so much for this.
Alexia recently posted…Releasing the Flying Monkeys they’re cute- not dangerous I promise
Yes! You really hit it for me with your comments about self-employment In particular. And I’m thinking of what Chris Zydel said on the about how you may not remember what people said but you always remember how it made you feel.
Those fear-based self-employment marketing types are always *this* close to getting my $52039843, except, of course, I don’t feel like my business supports that kind of expenditure. They always imply that if you don’t shell that out, your business will never *get* to the point where it’s earning $52039843.
And, as you point to, it does kinda work. Kinda. I do get fearful. Then when I crawl out from under my desk I get pissed off that someone knowingly stimulated and tried to exploit that fear (WHICH IS FALSE to begin with!).
Then I unsubscribe.
So, Fabeku, thank you for the sanity shots! Much appreciated.
Max Daniels recently posted…About me
I think one of the things that stood out for me in the Transcendant Sales call was that everyone there was speaking from a place of trusting their instincts and trusting who they are – which is something you imply in this video today, but don’t quite go far enough into, in my opinion.
It’s so easy, especially when someone is just starting out, to think that all the answers are Out There Somewhere. It’s so easy to run around taking this marketing class, buying that how-to ebook, signing up for eight billion marketing/sales/copywriting newsletters and blogs.
But the piece that makes it work is that we’re each utterly unique individuals, with utterly unique businesses. And it’s ultimately that individuality that draws our customers in. It’s that uniqueness that makes the difference for the people who are equally uniquely suited to be our customers.
And when you’re running around looking for the answers Out There, seeking the next big Marketing Guru who’s going to give you the magic answer … then you’re not trusting that uniqueness.
Sure, there are things to learn. But ultimately, to really make it work, we’ve all got to come back to who we really are – and trust that who we are is exactly what our best customers want.
(By the way, another thing that stood out for me on the T.S. call was that you all made it sound a bit too easy and as if everything just fell into place for you. I know that’s not realistic, and I know there wasn’t enough time – nor was it the point of the call – but I did just want to mention that.)
Grace recently posted…Find your own way
Thanks, Fabeku–great stuff, as always
One of the exercises in John Marshall Roberts’ book Igniting Inspiration is to write out what your true motive is for what you’re creating. It’s in the first worksheet (Intentions) and is a powerful exercise.
If we take the time to get clear on our intentions before putting something out in the world maybe trust would come easier.
@Alexia – I’m with you. I kind of dig glitter. When it’s used to enhance vs distract. But in the eyes? Oy.
And right on with the unsubscribing thing. I think it makes sense to clear stuff from our inbox (and biz and life and… and…) that we don’t dig. It’s like a game of Go Fish, you know?
And big thumbs up on looking at how you communicate with your peeps. I think that’s really the point of all this – looking at how we rock our thing + meet our peeps.
@Max – I loved what Chris said about that. So smart. And so totally true.
I want people to read my sales page and feel good. Whether they buy or not. I think that’s an important thing.
And I get what you mean about the cycle of not-making-that-much/feeling-like-you-never-will. It sucks. And when someone pushes on that as part of their marketing? Blergh.
I’ve spent a lot of money on info products + coaching stuff. Some of it’s been super helpful. Some of it, not so much.
But I can’t think of one thing that’s been so critical that my biz would have totally flopped without it.
There’s a big difference between super helpful and do-or-die.
So, yeah, that fear? Totally false.
Thumbs up on saying no to that stuff. (p.s. I love sanity shots.)
@Grace – The out-there-somewhere thing is so hard.
The truth is it can be really helpful to read books + blogs and hire coaches to help out. The stuff you pick up can be insanely helpful.
But it needs to translated through your own thing. Your mojo. Your business. Your people.
Otherwise it gets a little tricksy, doesn’t it? (And I think as people who coach + teach people, we (collectively) need to be really careful not to foster out-there-somewhere-ness.)
So knowing that we can learn a ton of stuff from some really smart people and that we’ll need to tweak that stuff to fit our own fabulousness is crazy important.
That’s why I’m a big fan of talking about the principles behind things. So it’s less about do-it-this-way and more about here’s-why-this-works. Then people can shape it to their stuff.
That’s what we tried to do on the Transcendent Sales call.
And one of the challenging things is trying to balance thoroughness with bandwidth + brevity. I really wanted to talk more about each of the three trust points I rapped about in the video.
But, argh, the video was already 8 minutes long. So maybe that means more videos? We’ll see.
Same thing with the call. Like you said, the focus wasn’t to detail every thing we did to get where we are. That would have been one crazy long call. (grin)
It was more about here’s-some-simple-stuff-you-can-play-with-right-now-wherever-you-are-in-your-business.
@Judy – Yes!
Being clear about why we’re doing something? Crazy important. Otherwise things get muddy with the quickness.
Great point!
It reminds me of the beautifulness that Danielle LaPorte dropped last night: i eff’d up
A gorgeous example of clarity.
This is so good Fabeku. So so so so so good.
I have been thinking about this for a while and I am also in the process of changing my whole website and also my email list… I just want to give my stuff away for free and let people have it and not worry about the emails.
I have this annoying little voice saying that I change things too much in my business… but actually it’s not change – it’s evolution. As I grow and stretch my trust muscles my whole business evolves along with me.
andrea recently posted…Creative Journaling Drooling over photos…
What you said about trust-based marketing is fantastic! Trusting yourself & trusting that your thing is good & your people will love it is so important.
I really like it when people are clear about who they are & what their business is about. Honesty gets my respect.
I think you’re right that people really can feel the difference between fear-based & trust-based marketing, even if they may not all realizse it.
Fear-based tactics suck so much & yes, fear is infectious. It’s so awesome that this is out in the open & people are talking & thinking about this. Trust-based marketing is totally the way to go!
It is really helpful to learn about business if you’re going to have a business & I totally agree that it works best when you can take what you learn & rock it your way.
It seems like the most sucessful people are the ones that rock the whole this-is-me-&-this-is-how-I-do-things thing. I’m trying to follow that model. =)
this is so what I need to hear Fab you are! Trusting myself, trusting what I offer – yes!
I love this. I love you and all I can say is “Right on brother… Right Fucking ON!!!”
OK. So, maybe that’s not all I have to say (-:
Yes, I really resonated with what you said about not only trusting yourself and trusting your peeps but trusting your thing itself and the work it is here to do in the world. It has it’s own life and it’s own energy and my job is to allow it to simply live.
Ha!! What a radical idea.
And it leads to a place of such freedom … and grace.
You also gave me another great idea with your genius suggestion to simply give away your CD download without even asking for an email address in return.
I’ve been working on an ebook thingie that I haven’t really wanted to sell but I didn’t think it was cool to just give it away. And then you reminded me here that it’s MY business, I can trust myself and I can do whatever the fuck I want!!!
And what I want IS to simply give it away.
So I think that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
Thanks, my dear friend, as always …. for leading the heart-based, generosity driven, revolutionary charge.
chris zydel recently posted…Life At The Speed Of Healing
Marketing from trust is GLORIOUS. The more I ease into “This is amazing if you are this kind of person, and if you are… here it is!” the better my sales pages become, the more power I deliver in my work, and the more it becomes FUN instead of a grind.
I have a LOT to say about this, which will have to wait for another time.
Catherine Caine recently posted…When the truth doesn’t matter
I am trusting that i am here because what i am gestating is so great that i feel like you made this especially for me! HA! Trusting that that will make sense… it would feel so different for me to not have to convince people that i am awesome. it would also be good to go to a site where someone trusted me enough to not have to scare/seduce/berate me into their product because it would reinforce the magic that i deserve right back to me and the transformation would begin right there!
I’m intrigued – you had me at “trust”
I totally agree that something, actually a lot of things need to change about the way marketing happens – the current trend is – well craptastic
…and I think you have found the cornerstone Fabeku in “trust”
Please keep this conversation going.
FD
Frank Dickinson recently posted…Personal Development Mistakes
i’m not someone who sells anything, that’s just not my schtick… but I have been interested in this thread from the customer perspective simply because I found a lot of the blogs and twitter people who WERE selling things went from being genuine people interested in honestly trusting their customers to choose the products that would enhance their lives, but were still focused on connection — and then went through a sudden shift where they lost their authenticity, they lost their feeling of genuiness, and they lost the trust they had in either themselves, their business or their customers… and fell into giant swamps of ickmarketing.
From a purely customer perspective this loss of trusting in yourself/product/customer to push and push at something that doesn’t alwasy fit with your stated values really creates a cognitive dissonance. When someone you trust starts pushing fear or exclusivity (buy my thing to become part of my inner circle, without spending $5 TRILLION dollars you cannot join my e-list, read my blog, talk to me on twitter…etc)they really lose their connection to something essential for not only THEIR financial growth, but the basic reason a lot of them started their businesses in the first place…
Having lost a lot of twitter/blog “friends” because of not being willing or able to afford every product, ecourse, or offering from these people, I had started to feel isolated, and that fear was often exploited by the very “friends” who turned on me when I couldn’t affort their THINGS!! I ended up unsubscribing from a lot of affiliate programs for people I had formerly believed deeply in (even when not everything they offered was for ME), taking people off RSS feeds (because I didn’t want to be battered over the head with constant “reminders” that I only had x many days to buy at the introductory price and everyone else was doing it I didn’t want to be left behind!!!) and took down all sorts of tags on my blogs… when someone thinks my value as a person to them is determined just by the $$, then they aren’t really someone I want to promote.
Pam recently posted…Wishcasting Wednesday- What do you Wish to BEGIN
Love! So much to think about. Not ready to respond but the wheels are spinning.
Gwyn recently posted…Pro-Change Connection Summit Breaks 500 Ispired Souls Open -or- World Domination Rocks the World
Back already
Two years ago I downloaded Chris Guillebeau’s free guides right off his website. I got on his list shortly after. I bought his book last fall and just returned from WDS which was phenomenal. It was a sort of big trust fest. I trust Chris. Chris makes me believe in myself i. e. trust myself. That is the kind of vibe I want to create.
Gwyn recently posted…Pro-Change Connection Summit Breaks 500 Ispired Souls Open -or- World Domination Rocks the World
I love that you are operating out of trust! I think it’s so important to keep the freedom in our work and not create arbitrary formulas to stick to…for me that’s too much like working for somebody else. Perhaps it’s just how things were working and it’s time for the next movement. Whichever it is, I’m so down with this
Jen recently posted…Drill baby drill- Going soul deep- striking your essence and reaching your people
Just found your website and your inspiring video on marketing. I love all this energy zipping from your part of the world. Lots of love, Yvette
You are awesome….your stuff has inspired me. I did listen to your free stuff and read your website and I did think “I gotta stay in this guy’s orbit!” I bought your “remembering with resonance” and I listened to it as I worked on my business vision collage. I woke up this morning and ideas poured out including a stronger knowing of “I am awesome and I have awesome stuff to share!” Dude! This is so cool what you do and what you offer! I began to realize I like unique (weird) spiritual stuff. And you are right. Trust is key. You trust that your weird (not really) stuff helps people and I can trust mine can, too!
@Melanie – Hey! I love to hear about the pouring ideas + clarity around your awesomeness. Rawk! Thanks for taking the time to drop by + say hey. Glad you did.
Holy….crap….
coming from a place of trust in the marketing jag…
brilliant.. and I am left somewhat irritated that I did not think of it before.
I think I love you.
and yes.. it truly starts with thrusting your thing and your people..and that the Universe will join the awesome together with no need for uber- shenanigans..and mindfulness to attract ..
yep…i am in love.
One of the challenges I face is that even though I trust in my gift and how it effects others, the expectations of folks (the need for a specific type of language like the super-psuedo-sci-spirit crap or comparisons w/ others) comes from a place of non-trust (“that’s impossible”, “You’re not X-enough to do this, yadda blah).
I struggle with finding a way to be seen that maintains my own integrity without giving folks what they *think* they need to buy.