Relationship and Marketing
Success in Marketing = Good Content and Better Relationships
Barbara Hawkins, who is connected to me on LinkedIn, shared an interesting article with me this morning. The article, titled “HOW TO: Leverage LinkedIn for Your SEO Campaign” made me think. The advice given in the article, on the surface, seems like sound business advice but something inside me did not agree.
The article starts with the words, “There are two ways to conquer web marketing: good content and even better relationships." but as I read further I realised that the author's idea of developing relationships and mine were poles apart. The nurturing of relationships in the way she describes seems contrived and false. Basically what the article says to me is: The person you contact through LinkedIn has something you want so you make friends in order to get it.
That seems to be the way most people see business today. The people they sell to become customers to acquire in the same way Roman Emperors of old saw distant lands to conquer. People are more than customers to conquer and plunder because in the end this is the style of marketing promoted by the so called business gurus today.
I have provided a link to the article Barbara shared with me at the end of this hub under "Related Links".
Unconsciously Telegraphing our Motives in Marketing
Receiving payment in my view is a consequence of providing a product or service. To continue receiving payment it is the sellers responsibility to provide good quality and after sales care. The problem is that there are probably many people out there selling the same product and services that you are so what makes one person's products or service sell better than another’s?
To answer this question we must rethink how we view our relationships. It is our relationship with ourselves and with others that determines the success of any business we run. There is nothing wrong with using LinkedIn to search for potential customers and to then set about developing a relationship with them with a view to promoting the products or services you are selling. It is the way in which this is done that will ultimately package what you sell.
Your thoughts and feelings go out into the world along with the products and services you promote. If you are not genuine in your dealings with people then that negative energy encases you and everything that comes from you. We are all spiritual beings and most of what we are about is going on below the level of our conscious awareness and these include our subconscious motivations and tendencies. The people we see as customers are not separate from us and deserve to be treated the way we ourselves would like to be treated.
How would you feel about buying something from someone you know has targeted you from a search list for no other reason than the fact that you seem more likely to buy from them than anyone else on the list? Once again on the surface it doesn't seem so bad but something doesn't feel quite right. On the other hand how would you feel about buying something from someone because a friend bought from them and tells you that the products were great and the service was second to none? In the latter example you are the one exercising choice based on your own inter personal network. You haven't been unknowingly hunted down and snared.
My Own Personal Experience in Private Practice
As a Hypno-Psychotherapists in Private Practice my wife and I are providing a service. The service we provide keeps a roof over our heads, feeds us and our four children and pays our bills. If people stopped coming to us we would not be able to make a living yet from one month to the next we always receive the payment we need to provide us with the means to do all of these things. We also sell our Hypnotherapy products which people can buy from our FaceBook Store or from the downloads page on our website, all of which we have developed ourselves and which we have successfully used with our clients. We do not search for people to treat; they come to us when they and we are ready for each other. The same thing goes for the products they purchase from us on-line.
The most important ingredients of all in the successful establishment of our business to date are our integrity and reputation. These are qualities that are developed over time, giving every single enquiry the time and energy we gave the very first enquiry we ever had. By treating each person as we would expect to be treated we have genuinely given from our hearts and we never let time or money ever stand in the way of our relationship with each client who seeks our help.
Rather than seeing ourselves as wiser or better than anyone else we see each client as an opportunity for us to heal too so it is a two way process. That is why I said earlier that people come to us when we and they are ready to enter the therapeutic relationship in order to go to the next stage of our spiritual development. Money is a consequence of the work we do and the good relationship we have with ourselves and our clients rather than an end and that is what is missing in the article Barbara shared with me today and that is what I wanted to tell her. I felt that my relationship with Barbara deserved me taking the time to explain rather than a few words in a comment box.
Thank you Barbara
I thank Barbara for sharing the article with me and providing me with the opportunity to gather my thoughts on the subject and express them as I have done in this article. If Barbara hadn't shared the article with me then the article you have just read would not exist.
Following are links to Barbara's Websites:
