How about you? Do you believe your success is based on what you know and what you can do?

If you’re pretty sure that you’ll take your business to the next level as soon as you:

• learn some guru’s sales secret
• master social marketing and attract oodles of subscribers and followers and friends
• learn C++ or consultative sales skills, or can speak fluent Spanish
• read that best-selling business book that everybody is talking about

You probably believe to a greater or lesser extent that success depends on how much you know and the number of skills you possess.

It’s a seductive promise: learn more and you’ll get more. It’s particularly seductive if your success is based primarily on your reputation as an expert or your mastery of a particular skill.

I’ve found, however, that after a point, what you know is far less important than who you are.

My Very Unhappy Client

I have a client who was unhappy with my work, who I have to thank for bringing me insight about the relative importance of the quality of my character.

Recently I began working with a new client. Things seemed to get off to a good start during our initial discussion, and I felt I could help with her marketing goals.

Our first session didn’t go well, however. A few days later, my client sent me an email expressing her disappointment with my work. She felt I was not well-prepared and that I didn’t seem to understand what she and her business needed.

This was really hard, painful, for me to hear. I for sure could have been more thorough about preparing.

The piece about “not understanding her needs” was harder for me, because one of my strengths is understanding some of the more subtle qualities that make clients special, so they can bring those qualities out more visibly in their marketing.

My initial instinct was to “fix” the situation. To prove to this client that I could be whatever she needed me to be.

So I wrote a sincere apology to her taking responsibility for my lack of preparation and admitting that I could have done a better job listening and asking questions.

I asked what her goals were and what would it would look like if she met them. My client told me she was wanting help with specific marketing activities, how to get better results from what she was already doing, that sort of thing.

So between that time and our second session, I was a fount of helpful marketing “how-to” information. I focused on being helpful and generous.

My client was very appreciative and assured me that my suggestions and ideas were very valuable.

After our second session, which seemed to go a lot better than the first, my client told me that “it just wasn’t clicking.” She couldn’t say exactly why it wasn’t clicking, only that she’d had better experiences working with other marketers.

What I did was listen, I didn’t argue, and when the client finished, I thanked her for her candor, apologized that our current situation hadn’t worked out and offered recommendations to two other marketing consultants who might serve her needs better.

What My Unhappy Client Taught Me

Given a choice I wish there were an easier way to learn then making mistakes and dealing with painful consequences. But I’ve yet to find that easier way.

I learned two lessons from this experience:

Lesson #1: Character Pays

Part of being a person of character has to do with being fully responsible as a business owner. It doesn’t mean being responsible for the other person’s happiness or success.

It does, though, mean being fully responsible for everything that was within my ability to control: how I showed up, my preparation, what I did to make things right, and how I responded to their dissatisfaction.

Lesson #2: Character Often Trumps Know-How and Skills

I learned my second lesson during a conversation with a smart friend and colleague. We were talking about my situation with this client, and my friend pointed out that there were several times when it seemed I hadn’t listened as well as I could have to my client.

Had I known, I might have picked up on some subtle cues that my client was feeling frustrated and misunderstood. “Wow,” I said to my friend, “there’s so much involved in being fully present with another person. It’s so easy to get disconnected. I bet I could have been half as knowledgeable about marketing and been more effective with this client if I’d have just paid more attention.

This bit about being more present was the big insight for me. I’ve heard more experienced consultants and coaches say that their knowledge of the client’s particular business is far less important than how they were showing up for their client. Frankly, I thought it was a bunch of “woo woo” coaching crap.

However, I’m now, more than ever, appreciating the importance of character and maturity, and accountability.

Bottom Line

If your success as a business owner is due in part to your expertise and skill and you’ve spent years building your expertise and skills, I commend you. It takes real commitment to get to the level you’re at.

However, after a point, what matters more is your capacity to deal with interpersonal, relational situations responsibly and with integrity of character. I believe people will forgive a lot if you show up as a committed, responsible, and caring person.

Sierra shared with me that she’s ready to open a lemonade stand. She plans on selling lemonade for 50 cents per ice-cold cup and has started brainstorming the best locations around town. She asked me if I would help her with this exciting new venture.

Naturally Asking for Help

Asking for help is something that kids learn to do naturally. It starts from the early age of needing help with basic necessities like drinking and eating. As they grow older they ask you to hand them that ripe pear they can’t quite reach off the counter. The learning continues to strengthen this idea that we all are in community and that others are around to help us fill our needs.

However, somewhere around adolescence, you may remember this, you began having unsavory experiences when making requests, which turns the pleasure sour.

Requests Become Difficulty

From then on, you began learning that if you couldn’t do something on your own, help wouldn’t necessarily come your way so quickly. You were expected to become independent and not to rely on others. You were better off not asking for help, you thought. Asking for help meant that it could cost you later. You learned that people could say, and often did say, “no,” and you reasoned, however misguided, that somehow this was a personal rejection.

I think that most of us over learned this lesson. After several of these experiences, it was just easier to stop making requests.

That is until we began to notice how hard it is to run a successful business, as it is to be in any kind of relationship, without asking others for help.

People Want to Help You

As business owners, it’s easy to forget that being able to contribute gives people a sense of belonging and a sense of connection. Most likely, there are people surrounding you right now that want to help you; they just don’t know how.

Making requests is a skill that you learned as a child; however, you’ve forgotten how helpful this skill is in continuing to grow your business.

Like Sierra’s lemonade stand, your business will benefit greatly by making a few more requests of others a week. If you don’t know where to being, take a look at the keys below.

Keys to Having People Happily Help You:

• Notice when you make requests of others, the feelings or emotions that arise. If there is a tightness or feeling of discomfort, then take some time in Remembrance. Try taking a moment to write down three requests you could make of other people that would help move your business toward profitability. When thinking about each request, notice how you respond physically and emotionally.
  
• Giving others clarity with requests is extremely helpful. Frame your request of others in doable and specific terms. This allows people to know exactly what you need. I was once asked if I could help with a friend’s marketing, although I was happy to be of service, I had no idea how much time was being requested of me and what specific aspects of marketing would be most beneficial. With a few questions, I was able to find out that they wanted an hour of my time to review a sales letter.
• Remember that belonging and connection are basic human needs. By making requests of others, you are gifting people around you with these opportunities. Take a look right now at your to do list and see if there is anything on it that you can delegate to someone else. This will help you receive support and help them be a contribution. It really is a win-win.

What requests could you make of others this week that would help your business move toward more profitability?

In the realm of communication the pace of change is incredibly rapid and increasing in speed. Each new thing has a learning curve to it, and when they flash in and out so quickly, it becomes an exercise in futility and overwhelm.

Do I have to keep learning business over and over again every time something new pops up?

The Short Answer: No

Have you heard the story about the companies who proclaimed, “Business has changed!” then all went broke the next year? I was living in the San Francisco Bay Area in the year 2000 when that happened, and oy… such good-intentioned ignorance!

Your resistance to keeping up with change? Well, it might just be reactivity. And it might also be your heart telling you something that is very true.

Your Deep Heart’s Twitter Application just popped up this message from @Divine-Presence: I am here. I am always here. The winds blow, the seasons pass, humans are born, grow up, and die. And love remains.

Sound A Bit Sentimental?

Try the longer Facebook version: “Listen, folks. Super cool link: the Divine says the essence of the human being and how we relate has been the same for a very looooong time, so no need to freak out about new inventions.”

Is that really true? Aren’t big changes happening?

No Cusp In Sight

There are many people who are talking about how we’re on the cusp of a major evolution in consciousness. I’m not qualified to say whether we are or aren’t. Personally, I’m not seeing it.

I’m not entirely buying that because the stories and descriptions of spiritual enlightenment have remained the same for millennia. There is no new spiritual experience being described now.

While there may be many more people accessing spiritual states, there are also many more people on the planet than there were. Are things truly changing, or has the spiritual enlightenment per capita remained roughly the same as the population has grown?

I dunno. And who’s going to take that census?

What I do know is that there are basic elements within human relationships that, by my account, throughout history have not changed.

People want to contribute. People want to love and be loved. People want safety and caring. People want security and joy.

People struggle with their families. People struggle with their health. People struggle with their work. People struggle with their wealth.

Here’s How to Have An Easier Time With Techno-Craziness

Learn communication. Learn Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg, or any of a dozen other ways of learning healthy communication.

Learn your heart. Take time to connect with the wellspring of nourishment that is within you.

Be cautious when someone proclaims “Business has changed!” Or “Everything is different!” Or “Cutting edge new stuff in business!”

And when you approach the next bit of learning for your business, keep the eye of your heart open and look for the basics of how humans like to connect. How are those basics present in the new technology? Can you use the technology to give and receive love? Can you contribute to others? Can you provide safety and caring?

If so, then using it is just learning details. You don’t have to worry about it being “all new.” Just breathe, relax, and know that if your business is built on the foundations of caring, contributing, love and helping with struggles, then you’re going to be okay.

It’s all okay.

Your Opinion?

Bring your thoughts to the blog — what do you consider to be an immutable basic of business, regardless of technology or business model?

p.s. There are still a few spots left in the Heart of Money Transformational Journey.

It starts June 3. Check it out and see if it clicks for you.

p.p.s. Want help with the basics so you can evolve?

Whatever is going on globally, your individual business can evolve and grow. Would you love to have someone to roll up their sleeves and help you on all levels—spiritually, emotionally, and strategically?

We have three star practitioners, Jason, Judy and Yollana. I’m guessing if you like Heart of Business stuff, that you’ll click with one of them. And together, you can get your business humming along!

Check out our Organic Business Development Program.

That leveled the playing field for him. Instead of facing the difference in rank between employee and boss, he was going in as an equal, making the decision to act much easier.

It was clearly an important step for him to let go of the employee role. If you’re running your own business you aren’t an employee. Yet you may still have that “stay in line, because they have the power” employee attitude internalized.

Then you realize it’s time to learn about business so you decide to learn from someone. And that’s when thinking like you’re an “employee” of your business gets dangerous.

The Dangers of Business Gurus

I was recently reading Jonathan Fields’ post, “Guru Fatigue: Getting Paid Without Being the Wizard“. He makes some great points about how the word “guru” has been “slung around as a tool to drive money.”

What makes the situation dangerous is that many of the business teachers aren’t just teaching business. Many are doing something similar to what Heart of Business is doing—mixing business with personal development and/or spiritual teachings. Heady stuff.

At the extreme end of the spectrum you have people dying, like in the James Ray sweat lodge tragedy. At the more moderate end, you just have people surrendering their decision-making power, only doing things that are approved of by certain people.

Not a comfortable situation. And it’s exacerbated by the mythology of the crazy-wisdom teacher.

The Crazy Wisdom Teacher

Spiritual traditions have uncounted stories of student-teacher relationships where the teacher takes the student to an extreme place where the student has a breakthrough. It’s awe-inspiring to have that much trust in someone and to be taken to such heights with that kind of guidance.

In Sufism the teaching is called “Fanah fi-Sheikh,” which translates roughly as “annihilating through the teacher.” This is a rare and special relationship.

I don’t have that kind of relationship with my teacher. He tells me something, I pass it through my own heart. If it resonates, I’m there. If it doesn’t, I sit with it more deeply.

Many things I’m told have challenged my beliefs and identity, and it’s been an amazing journey to walk with those. Only once have I actually rejected something my teacher told me, all the rest resonated. But the key is that nothing is accepted blindly, and I push against and test everything that challenges me to see how it holds.

The Fanah-fi-Sheikh relationship would have me abandon that test. My teacher isn’t asking that of me. Are any of your teachers asking that of you?

Please, No Crazy Wisdom in Paid Seminars

A problem can develop for participants when using personal development and spiritual teachings because they often create really heady experiences for people. Altered states of being. In turn these states can alter someone’s ability to make clear decisions, or to know their own heart.

On top of that, when you are teaching this stuff, it can be intoxicating to you. To have a roomful, or even a single person, that you guide through some ecstatic experience, carries some heavy juju that can send nearly any practitioner astray.

It’s easy to point fingers, and fingers should be pointed, at spiritual teachers who do immoral things with their students or their students’ money. As well, compassion is needed. How well would you stand up to those kinds of temptations?

Two Questions to Ask Yourself

To keep your heart intact, ask yourself a few questions whenever you are the student.

1. What role or identity am I claiming in this situation?

For instance, my colleague had been claiming the “employee” role when he really needed to be claiming the “business owner” role. You want to find a role that enables you to see your teacher as a regular human being, equal to you, no matter what special gifts or knowledge they’ve been given.

In Sufism, the teaching says that when we face God, we are all children, and when we face the world, we are all equals. No human being is above another one in essence.

2. Are you honoring your own emotions and reactions?

Although it is good to work past knee-jerk negative reactions that keep you from learning new things, you still want to honor those reactions. To feel them, see them, and not just push them aside.

In Sufism, the teaching says that the devil cannot create anything, but can only distort the truth. A knee-jerk reaction may be an illusion, but there will be some kernel of truth within it that needs to be honored.

For instance, if a teacher recommends a particular method of marketing yourself, and you have a strong reaction, take some time to look at the reaction.

A student of ours had a reaction to making promises on sales pages. The kernel of truth within that she noticed was she couldn’t make a promise about healing, but she could make other promises about her commitment level, and she could speak her experience of people making movement towards healing.

She moved from rejecting ever making promises to rejecting certain promises and realizing what promises she could make from her heart.

Three Questions to Ask Your Teacher

1. Who are your teacher’s teachers?

If someone is claiming direct information from a disembodied source and has no colleagues or teachers to help discern what is true from what is illusion, then I would go in with my eyes extra-wide open.

Ideally you want to be able to see how your teacher relates to his or her own teachers. A teacher who is a strong student has a greater capacity for honoring and fostering the strength in their own students.

2. Are there any rules or principles your teacher doesn’t follow?

There is a story in Sufism of a great saint who had achieved a high spiritual station. One day before he made one of his daily prayers as prescribed by his tradition an angel appeared to him. “Oh great saint! Because of your high attainment, God has asked me to deliver the message that you no longer need your prayers.”

The saint immediately took off his shoe and began hitting the angel, who promptly revealed itself as a devil disguised as an angel, and then disappeared.

Whether about business or spirituality, a teacher is expected to be teaching sound truths or principles. At no point is a teacher exempt from these truths.

While it’s not always possible to participate in the same practices or exercises he or she is leading, it doesn’t mean the teacher never does them.

3. Does your teacher admit to mistakes? Is he or she willing to learn from students?

One day the prophet Muhammad passed by people who were tending to the palm trees. He asked one of his companions to ask the people what they were doing. The reply came, “They are tending the palm trees, helping to pollinate them, so they give an abundant crop.” The prophet said out loud, “I don’t know about that.”

The palm tree tenders, worried that they had somehow upset the prophet, didn’t pollinate any more of their trees that year, and they had a miserable crop. They came to the prophet and asked about it.

The prophet told them that he merely meant that he didn’t know about what they were doing. He told them that in his realm they listen to him as a prophet, and in their realm, as palm tree tenders, he knew nothing and they should not listen to him.

If your teacher is attached to being perfect, not admitting mistakes, or otherwise not showing humility, it’s eyes-wide-open time for you.

Anything I’ve Missed?

How do you balance learning from teachers and stretching more into your sense of identity and sovereignty? Or do you have any cool crazy-wisdom teaching stories to share?

p.s. Need practical help building your business from the heart?

I want to highlight our newest practitioner, Jason Stein. He’s an outstanding coach, who has this mysterious habit of helping people make money. He has a very deep commitment to spiritual practice and parenting. He’s an expert communicator, and his super-power is helping people ask for and receive help in their business.

If you’re ready to get your business moving and you’d like someone to roll up their sleeves and work with you, may I recommend checking out Jason? Read about our Organic Business Development Program, and schedule a time to speak with him.

Some in the audience are swooning, credit cards out. Others are crestfallen, knowing they can’t buy in. Still others have a disgusted look on their face.

I’ve been at many of these kinds of pitches over the years and even delivered them myself a time or two. I just recently gained an insight into why they often feel so gross and how to make them more ethical.

What’s Happening At An Event

At nearly any event you have a tribe gathered. Meaning people who feel like they belong to a group. If the event is done well, there can be a powerful sense of community created, where people experience a high of intimacy and belonging that may not be present in their day-to-day life.

This sense of community and belonging is even more powerful at events that focus on transformational, spiritual, or cause-related work.

These are potentially dangerous waters for any business. Belonging is such a core human need, and it is so lacking in much of modern culture that it can overwhelm folks. When you make a pitch from the front of the room, it affects people strongly.

So strongly that it’s not possible for many people to make an individual choice based on their own heart. Instead, groupthink is a tide that can sweep away their sense of groundedness, no matter how good the seller’s intention.

Selling into a crowd is a fundamentally different dynamic than having the same conversation one-on-one. It has to do with the three levels of human existence.

The Three Consciences of Human Existence

In the first, which is called the personal conscience in Systemic Constellation work, we experience individual choice. A lot of personal development and healing happens at this level, where you’re working with personality dynamics and beliefs.

The third is the Divine conscience, where Source trumps everything. Miracles, grace, sudden healings. It’s hard to make personal or individual progress without connection here.

In between the first and third is the family system conscience, which often gets ignored in group sales situations. I became aware of this conscience through the work of Bert Hellinger and the book Love’s Hidden Symmetry.

A group has an energy to it that is analogous to a tide. No matter how strong your sense of sovereignty, when a group moves in a certain direction, you get pulled along with it.

I’ve seen people do tremendous personal healing work and deep spiritual surrender, and STILL be ambushed by ancestral patterns. They’re caught in the energy of the family. It’s happened to me. I had to do some very, ahem, “interesting” work with my Jewish family line before I could feel love and blessing on my endeavors, despite repeated messages from my heart’s connection to the Divine, and my own sense of clarity in my self.

Let’s look at how this operates in a group sales situation.

Who is Catching the Pitch?

A respected, cherished teacher is at the front of the room. It’s cost each person hundreds, or even thousands, of dollars to be there between tuition, travel, lodging and food. There’s a glow, and nearly everyone’s been pretty darn happy with the event so far.

The exercises, the teachings, the hanging out in each other’s presence has woven folks together. This happens on the personality level, where people just like each other and want to be near; folks eat meals together. It’s a hard decision just to take space for yourself to rest, because it can feel so good hanging out.

It also happens on an energetic level where hearts become woven together. There is a group heart that emerges in an event. Everyone becomes emotional or spiritual family to some degree or another.

When the pitch comes from a presenter, it’s not just a simple choice of whether to buy or not. The pitch represents a pathway, and the leader is traveling in that direction.

For everyone in the room, the choice of buying the program or not is really to some degree a decision of whether you are going to continue to belong to the group or not. People who are less vulnerable to this are the ones who already have a strong sense of belonging with the leader or elsewhere. For instance:

• long term clients who have enough of a personal relationship with the presenter that they know their sense of belonging isn’t at risk;

• peers of the presenter, those who have their own communities, know that their sense of belonging and connection to the presenter exists at a different level;

• “visitors” to the community, those who have a strong sense of belonging to another community or family, whose need to belong wasn’t high when they came to the event.

There are also people who have a personality with a strong rebellious or independent streak who may be cranky about the pitch, so will probably not buy.

If the presenter has done a good job connecting with their right people, the room is going to be full mainly of folks who belong to their community, and many fewer of the exceptions I list above.

You can see the problem, can’t you? For someone in the room, it’s going to be hard to tell how much of their decision to buy into the pitch is coming from a real sense of Divine guidance, a personality sense of “Yeah, I could really use that.” or being moved by the tide of group energy, “I really want to continue belonging!”

This is often exacerbated in these situations when individuals stand up to announce their decision to buy and frame it as a choice of commitment and courage. This can be absolutely true, yet if the group ends up applauding, it reads in the group as “Buy, and you receive approval and belonging.”

This dynamic is well-known in the seminar field and is often used manipulatively to drive greater sales at events. Painful! Many people avoid or are uncomfortable making pitches into a group for this exact reason.

It’s a Problem Even When You’re Sincere

If you aren’t aware of this dynamic, even if you go to great lengths to make it okay for participants to choose from their own hearts, people can still end up manipulated by the group energy.

No matter how strongly you stress individual choice, if you don’t address the dynamic of the group energy, it will be an invisible tide sweeping people along. Because it’s invisible, someone can think they are making a decision for themselves, and yet like swimming in a tide, they can end up somewhere far from where they would have ended up without the tide’s influence.

Of Course You Can Go Overboard

If you get so nervous about this dynamic and take all the responsibility, you end up disempowering people to make their own choices and sabotaging your business. After all you aren’t committing a war crime, you’re just making an offer.

What to do? What to do?

I don’t have a perfect answer, but I do have some ways to work with the energy. Let me give you fair warning: you probably will be sacrificing a certain number of sales on the altar of morality. But if you’re providing good stuff, you can still have a healthy number of buyers.

Keys to Making an Ethical Offer to a Group

• Name the dynamic. Presenters have the right idea when they assure folks the decision’s theirs, it’s just not addressing the middle level of group existence, the power of collective consciousness.If you take time to let people know that you’re aware of the dynamic and that people’s belonging isn’t at risk if they don’t buy, it can help simply because it’s acknowledged.

• Make the purchasing decision private. Instead of a stampede to the back table, how can you make it so the purchasing decision for each person is a private matter? Can you have folks turn in applications or order forms to an assistant later in the day?Also, you can intervene when someone wants to announce that they are signing up, and the crowd applauds. As a presenter, you can ask for people who aren’t signing up to stand up and have the crowd applaud their decision as one of courage of the heart and recognition of their own path *within* the group.

• Provide other ways to belong. Whether you provide an online membership site or distribute a participant contact list with supporting structures to have people remain in contact, providing ways for folks to get their need for belonging met after the event ends will help.

• Sell away! Go ahead and make your offer. Someone may still have a reaction despite your best efforts and intentions. That’s okay.

Your offer is still coming from your heart as a way to serve. Don’t let your knowledge of the group dynamic stop you from offering.

Just take some time to acknowledge the dynamic and work with it. The people who do buy will be the right ones for you, and those who don’t will stick around longer.

I’m just starting to dig into this topic, and I’m very interested in your thoughts and insights. Would you bring them to the blog?

p.s. Need practical help building your business from the heart?

I want to highlight our newest practitioner, Jason Stein. He’s an outstanding coach, who has this mysterious habit of helping people make money. He has a very deep commitment to spiritual practice and parenting. He’s an expert communicator, and his super-power is helping people ask for and receive help in their business.

If you’re ready to get your business moving and you’d like someone to roll up their sleeves and work with you, may I recommend checking out Jason? Read about our  Organic Business Development Program, and schedule a time to speak with him.

So, you work hard and stay as present as possible, yet you take a misstep and get clobbered with the unexpected.

Your website goes down, mistakes with bookkeeping happen, or time lines that were underestimated leave you way, way behind.

And these unexpected turns have you questioning if you should even be in business.

Before you know it, you’re left frustrated and depleted, looking over your shoulder and wondering when your going to be blindsided into the next ditch.

Running with Bulls

In 1992, I attended the nine-day Festival of San Fermin in Pamplona, Spain and embarked on the crazy adventure of running with the bulls.

Along with my Dad, I showed up in the cobbled streets, where six huge bulls were about to begin running toward us through a blocked off maze of town streets that wound 826 meters to the main bullfight arena.

Packed like sardines, we were in a swarm of fear and excitement. I was taking deep breaths and trying to not freak out.

My dad, wiser than me, started asking the people around us one simple question, “Have you done this before?”

After asking about ten clueless people from various countries around the world, he found a Spaniard named Pedro.

Pedro explained to us that a very loud cannon would fire and startle the bulls, but also shock the people around us.

“It is not the bulls you need to worry about,” he said, “but the pushing, shoving, and terrified people who are trying to run on cobblestone ground. Put your hands in front of you and to brace yourself until the crowd thins out. You will avoid being trampled.”

And just as Pedro predicted, the cannon fired, the people panicked and with my hands braced outward and people stumbling down the road, my dad and I made it safely out of the pack and into the arena without injury.

Being in business can be like running with the bulls.  Your heart is pumping, your adrenaline is coursing, and you’re fully alive.

Asking for Help Is a Real Need in Business

It’s also true that without asking for help you may end up getting trampled in the business world.

When thinking about asking for help, many business owners come up against the taught belief that if you can’t do it on your own, then you shouldn’t do it at all.

Another one is that if you ask for help, you’ll owe the other guy if they say yes.

However, at the same time, the number one need that all human beings have is to be able to contribute their advice or wisdom to others when asked.

This means that by asking for help you are allowing others to make a difference in their lives as well as yours.

Keys to Being in Business without Getting Trampled

• You don’t have to do business alone. It may be helpful to participate in a MasterMind Team or consider joining a business community like The Business Oasis.

• Take some time sitting with the Divine and remember that many people would like to know how they can help you.

• Take a bold step and list out the people you admire in business. Give one of them a call and ask them to share big, unforeseen mistakes they see people making in business.

Of course, there is one step beyond this, where you get up the courage to test it out on others. You call up a friend or two, or email them, and shyly share your marketing message.

Then you know why you didn’t want to share it. One person tells you, “I like it when you said ’special.’” Another says they’re offended by the use of the word “special.” A third gives you a complete rewrite.

And a whole horde of people just tell you they “like it.” “Yeah, I really like that. Nice job.”

Nice, sincere people giving you their honest opinions. About as useful as a wet paper sack on apple pickin’ day.

The Purpose of an Initial Marketing Message

Your business is about helping someone with something. Hopefully lots of someones, but basically it’s about helping. And help is a funny thing with us humans.

People in general aren’t that keen on admitting they need help. So to avoid jam-ups, you want as direct a line between the help and people as possible. The most successful help responses happen when a particular problem is associated with a particular solution.

Here in the United States, “911″ is the universal number for emergency services. If you have some kind of an emergency, you call 911. You can get police, the fire department, or paramedics at your door in less than five minutes in an urban area. Nice service.

It’s linked inextricably in people’s minds here. “Emergency… dial 911.”

Notice that the same kind of link functions, with less urgency, in other situations. Let’s say I’m a friend of yours, and I tell you my back hurts. Immediately, without thinking about it, you’ll probably say, “Hey, my chiropractor is great. Want her number?”

Or someone else mentions that their furnace just broke. “You’ve got to talk to Jason, he’s fantastic with furnace repair.” You need to replace the sink? A-Boy Plumbing here in Portland pops into my mind.

Think about challenges in your life, and how often a particular person or business pops into your mind in response to them. It may be a therapist, or a restaurant, or a yoga teacher. Some situation presents itself, and immediately that person or business pops up as the answer to that problem.

You want your marketing message to do that, but backwards.

Names and Faces

When you speak your marketing message, which is your answer to that painful question, What do you do?, my hope for you is that the other person has names and faces pop up immediately for them. “Oh yeah, my friend Barbara should talk to you.” Either that, or they self-identify, “That’s totally me. Tell me more.”

If you get that kind of response, then you know you’ve made that all-important association between what you do and a problem that other people are facing.

Any other response is useless, because it means they don’t really see you as helping people. Instead, they find themselves in editor mode, wanting to help you.

You can have the slickest, punchiest, clever-est marketing tagline in the world, and if people say, “That’s cool!” or “That’s nice” or “Wow,” then you’ve missed. Because you don’t need wow, nice or cool. You need clients.

A marketing message, tagline, elevator speech, whatever-you-call-it, doesn’t need to be cool. It doesn’t need to pack a punch. I see zero punch or clever-factor in, “Oh, your back is hurting? Call my chiropractor, Jane. She’ll help you out in a jiffy.”

But I don’t think you’d be complaining if your clients were doing the equivalent of that for you, would you?

Who and What Gets Names and Faces

Here at Heart of Business we call this core marketing message the Who-Who-What, because that’s what it is. You say who you help, and what you help them with. There are two parts to the “who” so that’s why the owl-like repetition.

I wrote an article about the who-who-what that you should check out if you’re interested: Don’t Spend Ten Years Avoiding Who-Who-What. Whether you follow our template or someone else’s isn’t as important as whether you get the response that you need.

And that response is… yup, you’re right. Names and faces.

So Don’t Tell Them What You Do

It’s a funny thing, but telling people what you do just rarely gets you names and faces. Tell people you’re a chiropractor, and people will usually say, “Oh, that’s cool.” But say, “I help people with chronic back injuries who really want to get back to their normal lives,” and you’ll get names and faces. I just made that example up out of thin air, and I thought of someone I knew as I was typing it, without even trying to.

It’s simple, but it just works.

Except When It Doesn’t

The other response you may get is a blank stare or dead silence. It happens, and it’s okay.

Every day for years you drive past a certain corner and never really take notice. Then, you buy a motorcycle. Yes, you’re really that crazy. You just did it. And then you notice… oh, on that corner there’s a motorcycle repair shop.

You’d never seen it before, because you never needed to. And now you do.

Because your message isn’t going for “punchy” or “cool,” you just want to elicit simple, conversational names and faces, folks who don’t need you and don’t know anyone who needs you will just drive on by.

And that’s okay.

You just want to make sure that people you are trying to reach aren’t driving by because they can’t see you. If they are, time to tinker with the message.

An Example or Two

As students in our year-long Moneyflow course are beginning to take on this approach, they are noticing that people are responding to them far differently. No glazed eyes. No stumbled words. No feeling awkward. Just plain and simple, conversational. And then baboom.

Here are responses a doctor in our course is getting:

His message: I support people with cancer who are scared of what may happen and overwhelmed with trying to find a treatment plan that is both safe and effective.

The responses: People seem to respond well to this, especially when I remember to keep it succinct and invitational. The two reactions seem to be interest in knowing more or, more commonly, a desire to tell me about a person they’ve known who had, or has, cancer along with her or his experience with treatment.

Here are responses to a social worker in our course:

Her message: I help service providers who have lost themselves in their work and who want to find their way back to themselves.

The responses: I have had great response. People really connect with it, including folks who have lost themselves in their work who are not identified in my demographic. One friend started crying and said, “I could work with you.” I will keep testing, but I am feeling pretty solid in what I have captured here.

Do people cry when you tell them your marketing message?

Your Challenge

Run whatever you’re saying now to answer the question, What do you do? by some folks, and see what kind of a response you get.

Do you hear, “That’s nice,” or “I like it,” or “Why don’t you say it this way?”

Or do people say, “Oh, that’s me!” or “Gosh, I know lots of people you should talk to.” Do they break down and start crying, “Oh, I could work with you!”

If it’s the latter, you’re rockin’! If it’s the former, are you willing to trade in cool and punchy for simple and conversational?

Try it. You just might like all the names and faces that come your way.

p.s. Once people say, “Oh, that’s me!” then what?

Once people say they’re interested, then the fun starts. You get to have a conversation with them that ends either with, “Oh, I’ll think about it,” or “Yes, how can I pay?” If you find yourself feeling awkward and ineffective in these conversations, losing your sense of heart and connection, then maybe you want to join me.

The Sacred Moment Seminar, How to talk to prospective clients with integrity and heart and still get paid, happens later this month. There are very few seats left, and March 5 is the early bird deadline to save one hundred dollars. Read about the seminar [http://www.heartofbusiness.com/services/sacred-moment2/], and I hope you can join us.

Today I’m holding a preview call, no cost, that you can jump on and hear more about how to have these conversations effectively. It’s partially a promotion, but if you know me at all, you know that I’ll be teaching solid content, and using only a few minutes to tell you about the seminar itself. Click to register for the call and the recording.

I was assisting in a class at the Sufi healing school I attended, watching a pair of students as one practiced connecting to the other in prelude to a healing session. The instructions had been to first find your own alignment with Source, then connect to the client’s heart, and then go into the healing.

When you’re talking to a potential client in a sales conversation, it is kind of like a healing. You don’t need to do the healing woo-woo, but the alignment and connection pieces are so important. How often does it happen when someone is talking and talking and the other person is tuning out, overcome by that “glazed eye” syndrome? If you lose connection with someone, you’ve lost the heart of what’s going on.

As I was watching this pair, a small smile crept onto my face. The one in “healer” mode was doing the classic “attempt-to-connect.”—leaning forward, hands outstretched, a curious strained expression on their face.

He was sincerely trying to connect, and it just wasn’t going to work like that.

Let’s talk about connection, shall we?

Connection Already Is

Everything is from the Divine, and everything returns to the Divine. As such, everything is already connected as part of the whole. In fact, “connection” implies that disconnection is possible, and it really isn’t. However, the illusion of disconnection is always available when we get too caught up in the materialist world around us and forget the existence of Source.

The experience of disconnection is a near-constant for us humans. For instance, I can’t clearly hear what my wife is saying to me from the next room. I’m talking to someone and I get triggered because I misinterpret their intention. My cat bites my hand while I’m typing, warning me to not rock his world.

Disconnection is painful, whether it draws blood or not. (Ouch! Rafi! Don’t bite, I’ve got to finish this article…)

Because the experience of disconnection is one of distance, a sense that something or someone is outside our reach, the seemingly intuitive reaction to connect is to reach out, physically, emotionally, or psychically. Often the reaching is completely in vain.

Reaching out can be exhausting. And it can be felt by the other person as a push, an invasion. It can also totally draw a blank, where the connection is as powerful as a spent match that’s been soaked in rainwater for three days.

Take a Cue From Your Senses

None of your five physical senses—taste, hearing, touch, smell, and sight—function by reaching out. They seem to at first blush, but they don’t. Although you may reach your fingertip out to touch a glass pane to check the outside temperature, the sensation of touch is a receptive one. Your finger receives the information from the contact.

Same with sight. Light waves bounce from the objects around you deep into your eyeballs where they land on your retina. Same with your nose, tongue, and ears. All the physical world’s information is coming in to you. You need to do nothing more thansit back and receive to be connected to your environment.

Your heart is a sensory organ as well, a spiritual sensory organ. It puts you in touch with the majestic, unseen mysteries around us. And neither does it reach out. It receives.

It’s challenging, confronting, to receive someone else’s heart into yours as connection. It requires vulnerability and humility. To do it this way means abandoning attempts to wear a mask and control or manipulate the situation. True heart-centered selling is a meeting of hearts.

This heart meeting is one reason that some people shy away from the sales conversation., It can be so vulnerable. That said, you don’t want to expose your deepest self inappropriately or in an unsafe manner.

But don’t worry. Thankfully there are Divine safety measures in place.

The Divine Veil

Source (the Divine, God, however you name the Isness) is the mediator between everything in existence. And the Sufi teachings tell us that the foundation of everything in the physical world is compassion and mercy. There is an innate Divine caring at work that cares for the hearts of everything in love.

What this means in practical terms is that the spiritual world is a safe place, and you don’t need to armor yourself against connections. By trusting Source and opening to receive the people around you, two things are true:

1. Your inner sanctum, your holy of holies in the most tender part of your heart, remains untouched. You know all of that talk in Old Time religions about God being a Jealous God? Well, it’s really just saying that this deep and beautiful place at the core of our soul is only for our connection with the Divine, and the Divine will not let anything in there that doesn’t belong there. You’re safe.

2. Because you aren’t reaching in to someone else, but just receiving what the Divine brings you, you won’t be accessing anything inappropriately. You won’t be violating other people’s boundaries or scavenging through the intimate attic of their heart. You can trust that the Divine will just bring your heart what is appropriate for you to receive, and nothing more.

It Really Works

At the Sacred Moment Seminar, we work with this kind of connection extensively, and the results are astounding. At one end we’ve had participants suddenly feel a deeper sense of intimacy and connection, and consequently trust, the moment one of them wordlessly started receiving the other’s heart.

And at the other end, in role plays during the Seminar, we’ve seen the person playing the prospective client feel so much trust and intimacy that they want to take several steps closer to the one playing the business owner. All without words.

It’s very sweet. So how do you do it?

Keys To Receiving a Heart Connection

• First, connect with your own heart.

That means taking a moment, right now would be a good time, to notice how your heart is feeling. And, no matter what is going on, notice that there is space. Upset? Worried? Stressed? It’s happening in your heart, and it’s already there. So there must be space for it. It must be okay.

Ahhh…

Now, in that space, ask the question, “Is love available even here?” Wait for the answer. Notice how your heart feels when it remembers that love is available.

• Who Do You Want to Connect With?

Notice who you want to connect with, whether they are in the room or not. Focus on them, and then… sit back. Relax. Open. Soften.

There’s an interesting thing you can do where you keep your awareness on the person while at the same time bringing your focus into your heart. I find it very helpful to stay in Remembrance, which is the Sufi practice of calling a name of the Divine into your heart, (as I describe in our free workbook, or other devotional practice that helps you bring awareness to the Divine as mediator of it all.

What do you notice in your heart? In the softness and openness of sitting back and receiving, what are you aware of about the other person? Let yourself be willing to be surprised, and trust it.

This does take some practice, mainly in trusting and letting yourself soften, reversing the years or decades of training we’ve all had to tighten up and outwardly grasp.

• Helpful Add-on: Bowing

In addition to just receiving the heart of the person, let your heart bow in service to this person. Become aware of how you don’t need to take anything from them, you just want to be in service to them as a manifestation of the Divine.

And then bow. You don’t have to literally bow, just let your heart bow. I know that may sound wacky (like the rest of this hasn’t), but I think you know what I mean. Yeah, that. Exactly. You’re doing it.

Attention: This Really Works

I love practical stuff. I love hands-on information and structure. And I also love that the physical reality around us is not the sum total of our existence. The Divine exists. The spiritual realms exist.

With some humility and trust, with some sincerity and practice, bringing this sense of connection to your conversations with potential clients will have a tremendous impact on your effectiveness. And it just feels darn good.

Let me know how it goes.

p.s. Seem like a lot to grasp from an article?

I teach this live, and people practice it together, and everyone, everyone in the room gets results.. We’re doing it again March 25-26 as part of the Sacred Moment Seminar: How to talk to potential clients with integrity and heart and still get paid.

The sales conversation is often treated like the unwanted stepchild in business, and yet there is so much possibility for healing and love in these conversations. Plus, it’s that moment where you get paid or you don’t.

It’s over two-thirds full already. Read about it, and if it speaks to you, join us. The Sacred Moment Seminar.

How to Avoid Chasing Down the “I’ll Think About Its”.

So, have at it, and let me know if it is helpful.

p.s. Ever have a potential client tell you, “I’ll think about it” and then disappear?

The sales conversation is actually a sacred moment of connection between you and your potential client. It’s also where the rubber meets the road: either they say “Yes” and you get paid, or they don’t, and you don’t.

March 25-26 we’re offering our two-day Sacred Moment Seminar, How to talk to potential clients with integrity and heart and still get paid. It’s already more than 2/3 full, so take a look and see if it’s for you: The Sacred Moment Seminar.

Welcome to a new Heart of Business Practitioner.

Jason Stein has joined Judy Murdoch as an official Heart of Business practitioner, available to help you one-on-one with your business. Like Judy, Jason brings a lot of experience and unique insights.

Jason has a speciality in working with entrepreneurial parents and is trained in Nonviolent Communication. He has been a coach for years and has a deep familiarity with Heart of Business approaches, having been a past client, as well as teaching our material to acupuncture students in his position as Director of Professional Development at the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine.

I’m jazzed he’s with us. If you’re interested in one-on-one help, check out our Organic Business Development Program and see whether Judy or Jason resonates with you more. I believe strongly in both of them.

Article: How to Keep Potential Clients from Dismissing You As Old News

If you spend time reading about marketing at all, sooner or later you come across what is called the Unique Selling Proposition, or U.S.P. Kinda fancy language for what makes you different from others.

And difference is good, because why should that perfect client hire you instead of someone else?

However, thinking about this may really tie you up in knots, because, hey, what really does make you unique? Can you be unique?

Uniqueness is Unique

What I mean by that genius statement is that uniqueness is not what you’re looking for. There is only one Unique, and that is Source—only one of those things.

What makes you unique as a human being is the unique way Source is presenced through you. Since Uniqueness is a quality of the Divine, your uniqueness is not yours, and it’s a little hard to describe. What makes you you? Can you put that in language that makes sense to people? I didn’t think so.

So, you’re not really looking for “unique.”

You’re Looking For the Missing Ingredient

Your clients, the people who you serve, have already tried to solve the problem you help them solve. Many of them have really worked hard at it. Really hard. Really, really hard. They’ve tried all kinds of stuff to fix it.

Here’s a shortish exercise: take a moment now and list a bunch of things that your clients have typically already tried, but didn’t really get the full results they wanted until they found you.

Good. Now, take a look at that list. What is it that you provide that all of those other things are missing? You might provide a bunch of stuff, many different modalities, but what’s the one thing, perspective, understanding, world view, etc., that makes the difference to your clients.

There may be lots of people out there who provide something similar to what you offer, but for your clients, there’s one thing you bring that really makes the difference for them.

Finding The One Thing Takes Humility

Humility is important because what you do may be on someone else’s list of things that didn’t quite work for them. Not because your thing doesn’t work, but because it’s missing an ingredient someone else’s clients need.

You don’t have to worry about it, though. Those people will go to that other person who is making that other list,which is to say that no one person has the ultimate answer.

And you have an answer that’s particularly effective with a particular group of people. Your people.

An Example, You Say?

Well, here’s an example. How about an acupuncturist who delivers top-notch acupuncture pretty much like other great acupuncturists?

Only this acupuncturist, though, happens to see a particular something in his patients. He knows his patients have already tried a bunch of different therapies and are looking for something that works, but the significant missing piece for them is their struggle with bringing a whole new health regimen into their lives and making it stick.

And let’s say this acupuncturist also is a big disciple of David Allen’s Getting Things Done . If you don’t know about David Allen, he’s a big guru of productivity with a very smart and complete system on … getting things done.

There’s lots and lots of people who are disciples of David Allen and can help you implement it. But what would you have if an acupuncturist could help you not just in Chinese medicine, but in creating new health habits in your life that really make a difference?

Well then, you’d have Eric Grey, co-founder of Watershed Community Wellness in Portland.

Eric has found a missing ingredient and supplied it. He’s not “unique.” There may be other holistic health practitioners who support their clients in creating new health habits. But he’s unique to his clients.

This Is Not The Same As A Niche

A niche, or target market, refers to who you help and the problems you help them with, in their own words. Clients who come to Eric may be struggling to create new habits with their health, but it’s not what’s really getting their goat.

Eric is here to help people in their 40’s and older who are noticing that age is catching up to them, and who want to age gracefully, without just watching their bodies break down.

His uniqueness has to do with how he delivers that help—combining Chinese medicine with a particular way of supporting creating healthier habits.

Get the difference?

Uniqueness Keeps You From Being Old News

The main benefit of finding your unique ingredient is that it helps to stop comparison in the minds of your clients. When someone comes across something known or unknown, the mind automatically wants to slot it into a category.

Say someone already knows about massage and they come across some other kind of body work that may be radically different than Swedish massage, say cranial-sacral work, they still think, “Oh, that’s just another kinda massage,” which means they might entirely dismiss cranial-sacral as “old news.”

For Eric’s clients, in a city like Portland, it’s easily possible they already have had an experience with acupuncture.

If Eric did the short exercise above, on his website he could list out a bunch of things that someone may have already tried. He may even list “acupuncture.”

So he jumps in with: “And you may have gotten some results, but they didn’t really stick. What’s missing?”

Badabing, his missing ingredient comes out. “While these different things definitely help, the ingredient that is often missing are the habits in your daily life that make the changes stick. But will-power doesn’t seem to work. Is there a way to combine the effectiveness of great holistic medicine with new health habits that you really stick to without torturing yourself?”

Suddenly, Eric’s new client is sitting up and paying attention in a very different way.

Did You Notice the Humility?

Eric doesn’t have to trumpet his qualifications at this point. He doesn’t have to make someone feel stupid for not following through. He just brings in the missing ingredient, and suddenly his offer feels unique and powerful, without him needing to inflate his ego.

There Is More To The Marketing Message

It’s true that the missing ingredient, what some people call “uniqueness,” isn’t the entire marketing message. But if you can bring this insight into your marketing, it can make a world of difference to the people who want to become your clients, who want to pay attention and jump in with you but are unconsciously dumping you in a pile of other things they’ve already tried.