Sharing wisdom is actually what advertising and promotion is all about. Educating those who need our help is the soul of marketing. And helping our clients is the purpose of our business. That’s why I think of marketing as if it’s a kind of ’spiritual’ practice. No, not religious, but soulful or the outward direction of the spirit of our business goals.

Almost every spiritual practice has a priest, wise woman (or man), holy person, shaman or spiritual leader who professes the truth to those who wish to learn.

As a business owner, it is our own spiritual quest to profess this truth—our knowledge or education about how our products can help others—in an inspired message to those in need.

A common mistake of business owners, usually in their early stages of development, is to not reinforce this sharing of information often enough.

For example, common marketing wisdom states that if a company plans to run an advertisement, it should run at least 6-12 times before evaluating its effectiveness, as it takes that many “impressions” of seeing it before it sinks in and takes hold of the very busy people from whom we are trying to evoke a response.

It is important to educate your customers or potential market so they can understand how to use what you offer. The world’s great leaders, like the Ghandi, spent most of their lives educating their “market” -their constituents-  or those they were trying to influence through their teachings, prayer, and practices. As business owners, we could learn a lesson from them: If we spend more time teaching and less time telling people they need our products, we may move further along in our divine purpose.

As one observes the great world leaders from the Dalai Lama to Martin Luther King, we notice that even our great leaders spread their message through the use of many media—from word of mouth, to television interviews, direct mail, teaching and lecturing, and e-news or websites.

It is important to mix our messages into many type of media in order to reach as wide a target market as we can since not everyone watches tv, opens direct mail pieces, or follows Twitter.

And lest you think I’m being sacriligious comparing the gospel of our great leaders to marketing, well, it’s time you rethink your perception of marketing: It’s a practice that’s all about helping people. And in the thousands of clients I’ve helped, I’ve only ever met one person who was just in business to make money and not truly devoted to helping people in some way.

After all, Knowledge is Bliss.

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from my old blog: Saturday, October 13, 2007


“I get all my business from word of mouth”. That’s what I hear so often from business owners who just aren’t telling the truth. Well, not the whole truth, anyway.

In fact, while word of mouth is the top method for ‘marketing’ services, if you do a bit of research you usually discover this:

Successful businesses don’t sit back waiting for word of mouth to bring clients in droves in the door.

Accellerating word of mouth — now that’s the strategy that works. I’ve heard some owners on radio shows, read about them in local newspapers, or received their ezines or blog links — which really are promotional tools that support word of mouth. There are entire books about word of mouth marketing suggesting everything from solving problems to offering fruitcakes. Really.

The important part is that in today’s world people are just very busy, so to outreach to enough people to find the percentage who need what you offer, it’s critical to take an active role rather than passively awaiting new clients from word of mouth ‘marketing’.

Even those of us who have been around for eons find that we still need to keep in touch with colleagues, potential business owners who need our help, and with our vendors, otherwise they might forget about us. . . not that we’re not astoundingly fascinating and memorable, just that there are lots of things vying for their attention. Think: billboards, newspaper ads, online gimmicks, tv commercials, itunes promos, radio shows and it’s reported that we are subjected to 10-20,000 promotional messages every day. So, if you’re a start up entrepreneur, you need to double your marketing efforts to compete with those already in the minds of your target clients.

That’s how a marketing coach will help you. A coach understands how you’ve a million ideas floating around and need focussed direction on how to get your goals accomplished so you can stay on track to thrive. It’s like a race–you train, you run, you stretch, you stay on track, you win. Well, at least you’ll win a successful business if you know what to do, and in which order, over time.

So how do you cut through the clutter? By taking action, staying focussed, providing an unusually helpful service that people just can’t live without. Work with a pro to pick the right strategies & marketing tools, and then jump in. Take action. Get out there. Meet new people. Learn as much as you can. Be a great communicator.

Of course, word of mouth is the best way to entice new clients. A trusted referral from a colleague will have your new potential client sign up for your services faster than any marketing and sales strategy. You just need to help it along by having tools in place that strengthen your word of mouth–like getting seen and heard frequently. TV, Radio, magazine or online articles, podcasts, networking–there are many more, so find something you like. And jump in.

In my unquenching thirst for knowledge, I’m always eager to hear how people are accellerating their word of mouth marketing–or if anyone just sits back waiting for the phone to ring? After all, Knowledge is Bliss.

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from my old blog: Tuesday, August 5, 2008

We all know that our tendency to open email from those we don’t know has lessened over the years. Here’s a study from Jupiter Research showing an alarming fact: “22% of e-mail users said they use social networking sites instead of e-mail, with scores more indicating they have used instant messaging (IM), text messaging,and cell phones instead of e-mail.”

So,while this is consumer research, those of us handling business to business marketing- B2B – (selling services to other businesses) need to take heed of these trends. Why? Because I find that the consumer trends filter down to us B2B folk in a few years -time to prepare for this.

If you’re not using other strategies for outreach and marketing communications, you’re in for a rude awakening. I’d love to hear what’s working for you. And if you need ideas or help you can certainly contact our agency.

If you need to know how to build a mailing list for e-news campaigns, take a look at our special report that shows you this step by step process.

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