Fear-Based Economy and Sneaky Marketing Dragons
Fear-Based Economy and Sneaky Marketing Dragons
At first I could not figure out which dragon it was, exactly, so it’s was hard to fight. In fact, the torment had been so subtle that I did not even realize how my fears had been getting the best of me. The truth is, for a while there, I harbored a secret fear that my business was going to collapse. I began to wonder if my successes were beginner's luck and that I was going to be one of the majority of businesses which never make it past five years.
When I started Wellspring Coaching several years ago, I didn’t know anything about being self-employed or running a business. This is not an exaggeration.
I knew nothing.
I had no website for my first two years but somehow got 80% of my business from coach referral sites. I had never talked to corporate leaders, but was getting hired by senior administrators in large corporations. I did not have the first clue about how to write a business plan. I did not know about revenue streams, branding or marketing.
Somehow, when I didn’t know anything, my business thrived.
It thrived like crazy. I had a waiting list that itself would have qualified as an overfull practice for most coaches. In three years time my income doubled what my salary cap would have been at my former employer.
To my surprise and delight, I discovered I had a natural aptitude for business. It fascinated me. I even considered pursuing an MBA because it sounded like fun. I uncovered an entrepreneurial streak within myself that I was completely unaware existed. I could not have been happier.
I was happy and confident until I hit my second seasonal slump, that is. Many coaching have a summer dip. Clients go on vacation or get busy with summer activities and coaching is a service you can put on hold and come back to when it’s more convenient. (Unlike, say, car payments.) I had been salaried for eleven years and was not mentally prepared for seasonal income. When I started my business the economy was stronger and many people were more comfortable with discretionary spending. Fewer people were having to make choices between coaching and the purchase of new tires. The fact is, I provide what many people would consider a luxury service.
Influenced by these circumstances, I became a victim of those very same marketing forces I had been studying and occasionally going on rants and mini-tirades about. There are very clever marketing people out there who find the smoothest, most subtle ways to feed on your fears, making you believe you have problems that may not actually exist in your business.
I kept reading newsletters and getting e-mails from marketing specialists claiming to know the secret that would allow me to achieve huge victories over all the problems that self-employed people face. They knew right where it hurt so when someone promised they could help me out of my predicament for $14.95 or $19.95 or even $49.95 which included a truckload of free gifts I eagerly coughed up the money.
That's when I got sucked into the product funnel. The “for only $29.95 more you can get my REALLY important information that only the serious folks want” funnel. In fact, I think I saw you whiz by me a couple times eager to get to those 10 TOP SECRET TIPS before I did. I didn't always dish out the extra bucks but it weighed on me. What critical piece of information did I just walk away from that would pay me back that $29.95 one hundred times over? Is it true that my business would fail if I didn't become an information product maven?
All this angst and self-doubt was coming from someone who, in truth, was making it and who firmly believes that competition is a myth. The marketing hold on me was that powerful.
What happened to my life and work habits while I was in that frame of mind? I overworked. I chained myself to my computer. I stopped walking. I stopped cooking. My bike wouldn't even look at me. I stopped playing music. I absorbed more marketing “secrets”. I studied. I cooked up new business models. I started thinking about new products. And that just made clients run to me. (hahahahahaha) I mean who wouldn’t love to get some of that action?!
In short, I forgot everything that I knew when I didn’t know anything.
But shouldn’t I want to have that vacation home in Vail? Doesn’t everyone want to sit on a beach and make money just because they repackaged Tom Peters a year ago and found a niche that was eager to lap it up?
Well, NO.
I want to watch the robins play in my sprinkler and talk to ordinary people about their lives and what they think really matters. I want to participate right in the thick of things alongside everyone else. I want to play Monkey in the Middle with my niece and nephew. Maybe watch Tarzan for the 20th time. Play 20 questions with my 9 year old nephew (who always thinks of something to do with hysterical bodily functions.) Maybe have a potluck lunch with thirty friends without a single Hummer pulling into my driveway. I want to know the meaning of enough. To be here. Now.
The truth is, I had everything I wanted already in the palm of my hand. I have family and friends that love me. I have a yard that feels my visitors always compare to a retreat center. People send me wonderful e-mails every week telling me how much they appreciate me. Wildlife is around me all the time. I have a husband who would do anything for me and who is a joy to everyone he meets. More food in my refrigerator than a family of six could eat in a week. I am so blessed sometimes it overwhelms me.
In fact, the only times I forget that I am so blessed, the only times I drift away from joy are when I get sucked in to marketing materials that I know are written specifically to psychologically manipulate me.
Boy, does that make me angry.
Our economy is based on fear. The truth is, if I didn’t keep spending money on things that promised to make me more money so that I would not have to work and would not lose my business due to a fatal lack of critical information, I would not need any more clients than I have right now.
So, in the end, I conquered the fearsome dragon by deciding that at least my personal economy would no longer be based on fear. And that has made all the difference.
FearBased Economy and Sneaky Marketing Dragons - To learn more about this author, visit Laura Young's Website.
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Adjusting to self-employment and life without a regular paycheck after years of drawing a salary is a challenging process. Seasonal fluctuations and client "churn" can wear on even the most confident business owner. Here is the tale of my struggle with one sneaky dragon that plagued me while I was learning to ride the wave of my new life.
At first I could not figure out which dragon it was, exactly, so it’s was hard to fight. In fact, the torment had been so subtle that I did not even realize how my fears had been getting the best of me. The truth is, for a while there, I harbored a secret fear that my business was going to collapse. I began to wonder if my successes were beginner's luck and that I was going to be one of the majority of businesses which never make it past five years.
When I started Wellspring Coaching several years ago, I didn’t know anything about being self-employed or running a business. This is not an exaggeration.
I knew nothing.
I had no website for my first two years but somehow got 80% of my business from coach referral sites. I had never talked to corporate leaders, but was getting hired by senior administrators in large corporations. I did not have the first clue about how to write a business plan. I did not know about revenue streams, branding or marketing.
Somehow, when I didn’t know anything, my business thrived.
It thrived like crazy. I had a waiting list that itself would have qualified as an overfull practice for most coaches. In three years time my income doubled what my salary cap would have been at my former employer.
To my surprise and delight, I discovered I had a natural aptitude for business. It fascinated me. I even considered pursuing an MBA because it sounded like fun. I uncovered an entrepreneurial streak within myself that I was completely unaware existed. I could not have been happier.
I was happy and confident until I hit my second seasonal slump, that is. Many coaching have a summer dip. Clients go on vacation or get busy with summer activities and coaching is a service you can put on hold and come back to when it’s more convenient. (Unlike, say, car payments.) I had been salaried for eleven years and was not mentally prepared for seasonal income. When I started my business the economy was stronger and many people were more comfortable with discretionary spending. Fewer people were having to make choices between coaching and the purchase of new tires. The fact is, I provide what many people would consider a luxury service.
Influenced by these circumstances, I became a victim of those very same marketing forces I had been studying and occasionally going on rants and mini-tirades about. There are very clever marketing people out there who find the smoothest, most subtle ways to feed on your fears, making you believe you have problems that may not actually exist in your business.
I kept reading newsletters and getting e-mails from marketing specialists claiming to know the secret that would allow me to achieve huge victories over all the problems that self-employed people face. They knew right where it hurt so when someone promised they could help me out of my predicament for $14.95 or $19.95 or even $49.95 which included a truckload of free gifts I eagerly coughed up the money.
That's when I got sucked into the product funnel. The “for only $29.95 more you can get my REALLY important information that only the serious folks want” funnel. In fact, I think I saw you whiz by me a couple times eager to get to those 10 TOP SECRET TIPS before I did. I didn't always dish out the extra bucks but it weighed on me. What critical piece of information did I just walk away from that would pay me back that $29.95 one hundred times over? Is it true that my business would fail if I didn't become an information product maven?
All this angst and self-doubt was coming from someone who, in truth, was making it and who firmly believes that competition is a myth. The marketing hold on me was that powerful.
What happened to my life and work habits while I was in that frame of mind? I overworked. I chained myself to my computer. I stopped walking. I stopped cooking. My bike wouldn't even look at me. I stopped playing music. I absorbed more marketing “secrets”. I studied. I cooked up new business models. I started thinking about new products. And that just made clients run to me. (hahahahahaha) I mean who wouldn’t love to get some of that action?!
In short, I forgot everything that I knew when I didn’t know anything.
But shouldn’t I want to have that vacation home in Vail? Doesn’t everyone want to sit on a beach and make money just because they repackaged Tom Peters a year ago and found a niche that was eager to lap it up?
Well, NO.
I want to watch the robins play in my sprinkler and talk to ordinary people about their lives and what they think really matters. I want to participate right in the thick of things alongside everyone else. I want to play Monkey in the Middle with my niece and nephew. Maybe watch Tarzan for the 20th time. Play 20 questions with my 9 year old nephew (who always thinks of something to do with hysterical bodily functions.) Maybe have a potluck lunch with thirty friends without a single Hummer pulling into my driveway. I want to know the meaning of enough. To be here. Now.
The truth is, I had everything I wanted already in the palm of my hand. I have family and friends that love me. I have a yard that feels my visitors always compare to a retreat center. People send me wonderful e-mails every week telling me how much they appreciate me. Wildlife is around me all the time. I have a husband who would do anything for me and who is a joy to everyone he meets. More food in my refrigerator than a family of six could eat in a week. I am so blessed sometimes it overwhelms me.
In fact, the only times I forget that I am so blessed, the only times I drift away from joy are when I get sucked in to marketing materials that I know are written specifically to psychologically manipulate me.
Boy, does that make me angry.
Our economy is based on fear. The truth is, if I didn’t keep spending money on things that promised to make me more money so that I would not have to work and would not lose my business due to a fatal lack of critical information, I would not need any more clients than I have right now.
So, in the end, I conquered the fearsome dragon by deciding that at least my personal economy would no longer be based on fear. And that has made all the difference.
FearBased Economy and Sneaky Marketing Dragons - To learn more about this author, visit Laura Young's Website.
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John PowerJohn Power, founder of Biltmore Franchise Consulting, has extensive experience developing and marketing franchises and business opportunities. He has been in and around franchising for over twenty years. From 1980 through 1990 he conceptualized, organized, and developed the American Video Association. He grew AVA to 2,000 national members, before selling the company it 1990. It was later merged into another home video marketing company. From 2000 to 2005 he worked as a contract marketing and human resources consultant to several local and national companies. In 2005 Mr. Power began working as a franchise development consultant on a full-time basis. Since that time he has helped more than three dozen companies initiate and develop their franchising program. He notes that there are many companies interested in developing a franchise program, and who need his specialized assistance. Mr. Power is a “hands-on” franchise consultant. He said, “I am the ‘nuts and bolts’ person who tends to the details for my clients.” Mr. Power holds a B.S. degree with a major in Marketing. See: www.biltmorefranchise.com You may contact Mr. Power at: jpower@biltmorefranchise.co - Visit John Power's Website |
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Dave KurlanDave Kurlan is the founder and CEO of Objective Management Group, Inc., the industry leader in sales assessments and sales force evaluations, and the CEO of David Kurlan & Associates, Inc., a consulting firm specializing in sales force development. Dave has been a top rated speaker at Inc. Magazine's Conference on Growing the Company, the Sales & Marketing Management Conference and the Gazelles Sales & Marketing Summit. He has been featured on radio and TV, including World Business Review with General Norman Schwarzkopf, in Inc. Magazine, Selling Power Magazine, Sales & Marketing Management Magazine and Incentive Magazine. He is the author of Mindless Selling and Baseline Selling – How to Become a Sales Superstar by Using What You Already Know about the Game of Baseball. He created and wrote STAR, a proprietary recruiting process for hiring great salespeople, and he writes Understanding the Sales Force, a popular business Blog and is a contributing author to The Death of 20th Century Selling and 101 Great Ways to Improve Your Life, Volume 2. - Visit Dave Kurlan's Website |
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Jeff FosterWebBizIdeas.com is a Minneapolis website design company founded to help people start an internet business by providing them with website, business, and internet resources that help foster the growth of successful online businesses and develop innovative Internet business ideas. We specialize in internet consulting & internet marketing. - Visit Jeff Foster's Website |
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Stephanie RobeyStephanie Robey is President and CoFounder of Pivot Positive, LLC - an Internet marketing business focused on helping people start work at home ventures. Previously, she was employed at The Search Agency with over 20 years experience in graphic design and 10 years experience in online marketing. She was responsible for launching the Conversion Path Optimization (CPO) unit where she and her team have conducted hundreds of optimization tests for online companies across multiple verticals. She is a successful entrepreneur having started and sold 2 companies and remains on the board of directors of the third, PhotoSpin.com Stephanie began her career in the direct marketing realm creating and producing direct mail for many of the major cable television companies and directly attributes her understanding of Internet marketing to those early offline experiences. Stephanie is a graduate of San Diego State University with a BFA in Graphic Arts and also holds an Executive MBA from the Graziadio School of Business and Management at Pepperdine University. Read Steph's Blog Meet Steph and Dave Sign up for our Free 7-Day BootCamp: Self Employed & Rich - Visit Stephanie Robey's Website |
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Joe DagerJoe Dager is President of Business901, a progressive coaching company providing no-nonsense direction in areas such as Lean Six Sigma Marketing and organized referral marketing. What others say: In the past 20 years, Joe and I have collaborated on many difficult issues. Joe’s ability to combine his expertise with “out of the box” thinking is unsurpassed. He has always delivered quickly, cost effectively and with ingenuity. A brilliant mind that is always a pleasure to work with.” - James R. If you want to learn more about Business901, start a conversation with us. We can be found @ Web/Blog: Business901.com Web/Blog: FundingYourNonprofit.com LinkedIn Profile Follow me on Twitter - Visit Joe Dager's Website |
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David AchesonDavid Acheson is the founder of DCJA Consultancy. DCJA Consultancy is a management consultancy business specialising in B2B sales consultancy. They offer bespoke and packaged sales consultancy including Sales Optimisation Review, Interim Sales Management, Sales & Marketing Review, 1:1 Sales & Management Staff Analysis, Management Training, Solution Sales Training, Creation of New Pay Plan, KPI's, run Customer Feedback Campaigns, assist with Recruitment, Coaching, Appraisals and set up Strategic Marketing Campaigns. David spent his early career in accountancy and then moved into sales in 1982, working in Office Equipment, IT, Advertising, Training, Outsourcing and Consultancy. He has held many Senior Positions in SMBs and Global Organisations including Head of Sales Operations & Head of Business Development. His knowledge, skills and great experience of the Sales Industry has led to David making keynote speeches and running educational sessions to key businesses through organisations including The Chamber of Commerce and Business Link. - Visit David Acheson's Website |
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Jay Kubassek(Jay's Full Bio: EvanCarmichael.com/jaykubassek) In five years, Canadian-born entrepreneur Jay Kubassek went from selling mufflers at a Midas franchise to revolutionizing Internet marketing with the 2004 launch of CarbonCopyPRO, a online marketing education company, now worth over $20 million with customers in over 160 countries.
As an independent film producer, his upstart film fund Aliquot Films is currently producing a films with Spike Lee and Abel Fererra (starring Ethan Hawke and Dennis Hopper.)
Jay's entrepreneurial spirit is irrepressible. He’s the owner of five companies, a professional speaker and trainer, international real estate developer/investor, extreme sport enthusiast and emerging philanthropist. Jay resides in NYC with his wife Jamie, son Milo and dog Cooper. Visit Jay's official website: www.JayKubassek.com - Visit Jay Kubassek's Website |
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