From Roy Normington at 800CEOREAD…

I just finished reading the book The Heart of Marketing: Love Your Customers and They Will Love You Back by Judith Sherven, PhD & Jim Sniechowski, PhD. and I just thought it was what marketing books have needed for a long time…. a breath of fresh air.

Many companies in today’s business world have lost sight of what is most important to their customers and for their company internally and that is feeling the pulse of a heart beat. Actually caring about people, yes, people and not ideas, not money, not computers, etc.

People.

It’s a simple task but one that has been eroding from today’s speedy, cold world. The authors remind the reader that behind the web site there is a company that cares and that company needs to let people know that they do. Judith and Jim target what they term soft sell marketing as their audience. These are companies in the service industry that typically view service before making money (therapists, counselors, etc.). They explain their need to address these companies is that most business people dealing in sales know of one way: the hard way.

The hard sell is business to business, an impersonal machine set up to make money regardless of product, service or feeling. It’s what everyone knows and what everyone feels they need to do to make the sale.

It’s not. In fact it’s far from it. Judith and Jim answer 45 great questions asked in a recent survey about putting the heart back in sales. And here’s a little secret: it’s really not just about soft sell marketers being able to do this. There’s cross over. I realized that even our company uses (and can use more of) their techniques to put soul into a company.

While crossing the boundaries and connecting feelings to work is just part of the book, it’s also presented in an informal way. Almost like you’re listening in on a conversation between friends. They talk about their life, their passions, their work, and even down to why they picked Morgan James as their publisher. They also have free offers and web sites in the book for more information to refer to in order to further explain their processes.

The Heart of Marketing is not an unattainable feature in sales, it’s actually a must for most businesses.

(P.S. – My favorite part of the book is what they say about ego in business – check it out!)

For your copy go to http://TheHeartOfMarketing.com

For quantities 25 and over for your staff or friends, contact Judith@judithandjim.com

By Laurie Morin from her blog “From Rags to Riches Roadmap”

Soft Sell Marketing

Do you ever have a squeamish feeling when you read marketing materials that seem to be screaming at you to “BUY NOW“…”LIMITED QUANTITIES“…”KILLER LEADS“…messages designed to compel you to act quickly or be left behind.

Do you ever feel guilty when you try to promote your product or service…even if you know it would be good for the person you are talking to?

Do you think that “selling” is a dirty word, synonymous with sleazy used car salesmen or door-to-door magazine peddlers?

If so, soft sell marketing is for you. Created by a husband and wife therapist team, Judith Sherven and Jim Sniechowski, soft sell marketing is aimed at service businesses and professionals who are more focused on serving people than on making money.

In their book, The Heart of Marketing: Love Your Customers and They Will Love You Back, Judith and Jim emphasize the value of service, heart-to-heart connections and the spiritual nature of serving others. At the same time, they support the idea that you are in business to be commercially successful. In their words:

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 connection, 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’ ambitions to generate money as it ranks second but equal to their concern for the well-being of their customers and clients.

So what is the difference between soft-sell and hard-sell marketing? One way to think of it is the difference between an invitation and a command.

Both kinds of marketing are trying to lead the potential customer to buy. After all, that is the purpose of marketing.

But in soft-sell marketing, you are making a genuine connection with the reader. As you establish a relationship, you guide the reader through the benefits you have to offer. Then you trust them to decide for themselves whether or not your product is the answer they have been looking for.

Another variation of soft-sell marketing is conscious marketing. This is selling done with the conscious intention of providing authentic service or products, only to people who will really benefit from them, and only when the time is right for them.

If this approach resonates with you, I highly recommend that you read The Heart of Marketing to give you some concrete suggestions about how to write “soft-sell” copy.

>>> To get your copy go to http://TheHeartOfMarketing.com

Reprinted From Bonnie Thompson’s Blog . . .

Update on my own progress with First Step Internet Marketing

Are you new to internet marketing? I was just getting started learning about internet marketing in September 2008. So, in some ways, I still feel rather “new” at this.

Like many of the people I have met online in various marketing courses, I spent a lot of time (and money) chasing after every little tidbit on internet marketing that I could find.

I found that most of the courses I took went right over my head. I ended up getting confused and suffering from severe information overload. In fact, I still feel somewhat overwhelmed.

I decided that I needed to go back to the basics and make sure I had a good solid foundation.

I’m just finishing up the First Step Internet Marketing course created by Judith & Jim and Tom Justin. I have followed their suggestions and done the assignments. I feel like I’ve got a much better grip on how the whole internet marketing business works. It’s an excellent course and I feel so much more grounded and directed in my IM work.

After learning from many other internet teachers for over 9 months, I feel that I am in a position to recognize excellent information. I have been so impressed with the course that I have signed up to be an affiliate.

The First Step Internet Marketing course is something that I feel very comfortable recommending to anyone who is just getting started on the internet. Judith, Jim, and Tom are totally committed to supporting heart-centered (soft-sell) marketers. They respond very quickly to questions (are they always at their computers??) and are extremely helpful.

If you are interested in learning more about the First Step Internet Marketing course, go to

–> http://budurl.com/fsimcourse.

Yes, this is my affiliate link. If you’d rather not support my interest in this, that’s fine. You can go to http://www.firststepinternetmarketing.com/main.php. The price you pay will be the same, either way.

Wishing you to very best in your own heart-centered marketing success!

When wrestling with your desire for greater success, the best and most spiritual choice you can make is to take action. Regardless of the outcome at first, action stirs, shakes up, and disturbs your status quo.

Begin your action as an explorer. Let discovery be your guide. Imagine that you are exploring the deep jungle of your Soul. To help you decide what you most need to do, you’ll not likely find it without beginning to move into it. So take the first steps whatever you are called to do, and then look for and see what calls to you.

Always keep a good record of your discoveries so you can build a picture of your internal terrain. Moments are important, but unless you see a larger picture you can become lost among the moments.

Finally, be compassionate with yourself. You’ve done what you’ve done in your life for very good reasons. They just don’t apply anymore. Unraveling them will open the way to create new beliefs, new attitudes and the feelings that correspond to them.

For deep and lasting help, our program “Breaking Through Resistance” is one of the best.

http://judithandjim.com/resistance

Excerpted from an email we received from Betty Smith, soon to be 77-year old beginning Internet marketer and member of our Soft Sell Marketers Association. As you’ll see Betty was a whiz at selling earlier in her life . . .

* * * * * *

What you are now calling persuasion - in traditional marketing in the 80’s it was called closing the sale.

I remember my thought before meeting a person and doing a presentation. If the data processing service I was selling would benefit the potential buyer I would present it to them in such a manner they would purchase.

I learned later that so much of how I presented, I was doing with body language and tone and speed of my voice. With my body language I would mirror theirs (non noticeably) and if they spoke slowly or fast I spoke slowly or fast. Basically I was saying I am people just like you are people.

I was a master of the silent close. I would present my presentation then become silent. I felt this was giving them space to think about what I had presented and how it would meet their needs and I didn’t say anymore until they did.

I was the top salesperson, so what I was doing worked. I was selling 3 to 4 out of 5 presentations and I would walk out the door with a list of names to call with their permission to use their name as recommending the product.

Most every day I called people to set up new appointments. I was always acknowledging and feeling good with my self with each of my activities. That I feel is a major key in doing sales well.

However, now with the Internet, marketing in writing is a whole new process. So it takes practice, practice and doing doing doing.

Thank you for the SSMA lessons for the encouragement to just keep in there doing.

I am on lesson six of creating my first tele-seminar, it is coming along!

Love and Light

Betty Smith

To join Betty in Soft Sell Marketers Association just go to:

http://softsellmarketersassociation.org

Whale Hunting Women, Volume I, by Dr. Barbara Weaver Smith, celebrates how women do big deals in business and community.  It’s about the unique talents that women bring to whale hunting–doing big deals–, such as a preference for collaboration and cooperation, a willingness to mentor their team, and an ability to empower others.  It’s also about the special challenges that women sometimes face, such as a reluctance to claim their expertise, a lack of confidence, or the feeling that their organization is too small to hunt.Big deals are big sales.  They are big projects.  They are big events.  They are lofty goals and big ideas.  How you go about accomplishing a big deal is the same whether you are a salesperson, a business owner, an executive, a board member, an educator, a community leader, or part of a team that does big deals.

If you do big deals, or if you want to do big deals, this is the book for you! 

 Purchase your download copy now! 
25% discount throughout the Virtual Blog Tour!

The Buzz about Whale Hunting Women
Whale Hunting Women Summit, Indianapolis, June 4 2009
Read an Excerpt: Hanging from Your Own Rope
Table of Contents
Dates and Places:  The Virtual Blog Tour for Whale Hunting Women

The Buzz About Whale Hunting Women

Visit with Joyce Anthony, Books and Authors Blog
Interview with MaAnna Stephenson for Just the FAQs
Interview with Wayne Hurlbert, Blog Business World

Book Review by Wayne Hurlbert Blog Business World

“I highly recommend Whale Hunting Women: How Women Do Big Deals by Barbara Weaver Smith, to any women business owners or managers who seek to transform their companies from small bit players to major sales and marketing organizations. Through practical and hands on advice, the author shows a clear path for landing those major corporate whales, and growing a small business into a much larger company.

Read Whale Hunting Women: How Women Do Big Deals by Barbara Weaver Smith, and discover the power and importance of devoting a small percentage of the sales and marketing budget on pursuing very large customers. Simply landing one of these whale sized clients will change a business bottom line overnight. Stop thinking like a minnow, and go after and land the whales.”  Wayne Hurlbert

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
How Women Hunt Whales
Only A Minnow (In A Sea Of Whales)
Small Fish Hunting Whales
Radical Culture: Take A Rival To Lunch
Radical Culture: Money Is Cheap
Radical Culture:  Kill Some Commandments
Who Do You Trust?
Hanging From Your Own Rope
Fast Times
Whale Hunting Resolutions
Conclusion
Whale Hunting Glossary

EXCERPT FROM WHALE HUNTING WOMEN, VOLUME 1.

HANGING FROM YOUR OWN ROPE

“Commoditization”  represents a massive shift in today’s economy.  It’s an ugly word that reflects an even uglier situation.  Many whale hunters are struggling to fight it.

A commodity is a product for which there is market demand but that is relatively undifferentiated by brand.  Think of unprocessed produce like rice, corn, soy beans.  Market price fluctuates on the basis of supply and demand, not features and benefits.  There’s nothing wrong with commodities-markets need them and companies make money buying and selling them.

The trouble comes when a product or service that was once considered “premium” loses its cachet, and buyers start treating it like a commodity. 

All kinds of companies in all kinds of markets are fighting this trend.  Products and services that were once highly differentiated based upon their value proposition or were in short supply are regularly undercut–”commoditized”–by innovation, new supply, and cheaper methods of conducting the transaction.  Within any industry vertical, you will find companies struggling to avoid the commodity trap.  Perhaps you are one of them.  The ubiquitous “solution sale,” [sell “the solution” - not the product or service ] a typical method to fight commoditization, is becoming a commodity itself.  Not that there’s anything wrong with providing a solution to a customer’s problem, but if everything is promoted as a “solution,” the term becomes meaningless.

But the most dangerous position of all is when you unintentionally “commoditize” yourself, as I see clients do all too often.   It can happen like this:    

• “Free consulting.” Give away too much of your wisdom up front and your buyer will not value what you have left to sell. This is the biggest danger in writing proposals and responding to RFP/RFQ requirements. You run the great risk of giving away your methods, processes and prices , enabling an unscrupulous buyer to implement without you or hand off to your competitor.
• “Cut rate.” The buyer will not value your product or service more than you do. If you lead with a discounted price, you seriously undermine your value proposition. Buyers may want a discount and may even expect a discount, but if everything is “discounted” you have no real price point. The buyer will continue to want it for less, and you will become very disgruntled with that customer, perhaps providing lackluster service, which further commoditizes you. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t offer products or services at various price levels if that’s part of your sales plan. But they should be differentiated, not simply discounted. If the buyer is going to select a vendor based solely on price, you don’t want to win that business unless you are selling a commodity.
• “Earn It.” Accept a contract for a small piece of business in hopes of “earning” the right to do more. In our experience, this strategy usually leaves you pigeonholed in a small vendor space from which you can’t escape. The kind of work you accept teaches the customer who you are and what you provide. If you are inadvertently teaching “small”, “local,” and “niche,” that’s how the buyer will identify you. National firms don’t buy from the companies that make small sales to their local outlets. It is very hard and therefore very costly to move from one silo to another inside of a large company.
• “Not on target.” When you violate your target filter by going after business that is wrong for you, you devalue yourself and what you are selling. It means you don’t trust your strategy, you don’t trust the image you intended to present to your market, and you don’t trust your ability to sell the right things to the right customers. Every client has stories about the “killer whale” - the one you landed that was all wrong for you. Most of the time, if you’re honest with yourself, you knew it wasn’t a good deal for you.

If you suffer from commoditizing yourself, what can you do about it?

1. Understand it as a danger and take active steps to avoid it. Be sure you are clear about the steps in your sales process and what you need to learn from the whale at every step. Be sure the whale understands how you sell and that you learn how the whale buys. Vigorously research who is at the Buyers’ Table and get to know how they make decisions. If it’s not a good fit, send it Back to Baja.
2. Be very choosy about answering RFPs. Be sure you understand how the RFP will be handled and how your rights and intellectual property will be protected during the process. Do your best to know the solicitor and determine whether it is trustworthy. Test the RFP against the “Dirty Dozen” flaws that spell trouble for you.
3. Review and if necessary revise your Target Filter. Be certain that you have the right criteria that will lead you to the best possible whales. Each time you consider a new prospect, compare it to your target filter Don’t put it on your Whale Chart if it doesn’t fit.

Markets are constantly commoditizing products and services-it’s a natural outcome of innovation and globalization.   If you sell something unique or differentiated, make sure you’re not helping the market commoditize you.

Making money online is getting more and more popular. And it’is especially appealing to service providers who’ve been used to working only one-on-one in the confines of their offices.

With making online money easier and easier to understand and implelment (provided you get started correctly), the spiritually inclined service provider has only needed an appropriate mindset to open the window on vast life-changing influence and unlimited profits.

Our book The Heart of Marketing - Love Your Customers and They Will Love You Back (Morgan James Publishing, May 2009) - provides exactly what is needed.

So it’s no surprise that our book’s Amazon page notes that 99% of all people who come to the page leave only after they’ve ordered The Heart of Marketing.

We are proud and honored to have written a book that promises both internal and external success which arises from the use of soft sell marketing, soul-based pricing, and selling as spiritual service.

To celebrate, we have extended the availability of our Launch Sponsors’ 62 Bonus Gifts when you get our book by going to http://TheHeartOfMarketing.com

We are soooo pleased to share with you that our new book

The Heart of Marketing: Love Your Customers and They Will Love You Back

was the #3 Best Seller at Morgan James Publishing
for the month of May!

And we keep hearing from readers that when they first got the book and started to skim 3 hours later they had finished reading because they couldn’t put it down! (We’ll share a few of these reader responses in a future blog post)

Also we decided to extend the availability of the 62 Bonus Gifts provided by our book launch sponsors from all around the world - so you and your friends and colleagues can still get them when you get our book through Amazon (for less than $15 incl shipping) by going to:

http://TheHeartOfMarketing.com

So be sure to get your own copy of you haven’t already.

And please tell everyone you know to be sure to get our book if they need guidance and support in succeeding in their marketing and selling while remaining in integrity!

Watch Out for Internet Dating Dangers

Most people who sign up at dating websites are usually clueless about Internet dating dangers — whether they pay to join an Internet dating service or it’s a totally free Internet dating site — it doesn’t make the experience any safer if you don’t know what to watch out for.

So, be on the look out for these common Internet dating dangers:

Read the rest of this entry »

An Online Interview with Justin Sachs

We want to introduce you to Justin Sachs bt asking him a few important questions.

Justin is the author of a new book, Your Mailbox Is Full and is the founder of the Creating Possibilities Coaching Program in which Justin helps teenagers to increase their grades, eliminate procrastination, and create balance in all the areas of their life.

1. Justin, what do you do?
I work with teenagers to increase their grades, eliminate procrastination, create balance in their lives, and overcome any obstacles standing in their way of success.

2. Tell us about your new book.
Your Mailbox Is Full is a book for teenagers, that teaches them the tools they need to become successful in school and throughout their lives. They learn things like goal setting, time management, living a healthy lifestyle, and modeling and attracting success.

3. Why did you write it?
When I was 14 years old . . .

Read the rest of this entry »