The Self Concern of Marketing
I’ve recently started reading Nine Poisons, Nine Medicines, Nine Fruits by Shambhavi Sarasvati. In that book the author shares the the first poison is self-concern which is “Being overly concerned with our own inner machinations or narrow desires, whatever they may be, takes up much of our day.”
Reading that and some subsequent definitions of self-concern made me think a lot about marketing and how marketing is increasingly moreso about the self-concern of the business than about actually connecting with the customer. In my experiences with online marketing systems, and copy writing and everything else that goes into marketing what I’ve seen is how much marketing is really about building a cult of personality around the company, services, and products. And that cult of personality is self-serving. As the author shares in the book, in regards to self-concern,
“You’re going to manipulate the hell out of everybody else trying to satisfy a nervous little bundle of karmas. You’re going to be very strategic in your relationships with other people. You’re going to try and force people and situations to give you what you want. You’re going to compete with other people and try to prove that you’re better. You’re going to take things away from other people deliberately because you think you need what others have. You’re going to treat other people as less valuable than the demands of your karma.”
Sounds a lot like how marketing is done, doesn’t it? Well certainly its been my experience of marketing.
And some might say, “Well Taylor isn’t the point of marketing to sell people on the idea of doing business?” Sure, but marketing shouldn’t be about the manipulation of people, at their expense, and yet cult of personality marketing strategies are inevitably set up around the manipulation of people. This is done out of self-interest, as a way of making the business viable, but its done at the overall expense of the customer and not in a way that truly benefits the customer.
Now a business needs to be viable, but when the focus of the marketing is more about the business or the cult of personality than anything else, we have to be wary about what’s really being sold. Are we really getting an online course that will truly help us or are we just getting taken for a ride and feeding the ego of the marketer?
In my experience taking online marketing courses, the latter situation was what happened. The online marketer talked a good game up, but for the most part it was self-aggrandizing, focused moreso on creating a cult of personality (and making money) than actually helping anyone in that cult of personality. If anyone did succeed, I’m fairly it happened more by accident than anything else.
It doesn’t help either that so much of the “Free” marketing, the lead magnets aren’t really designed to help you so much as draw you into a funnel where you’ll end up spending money. You’ll get a vague description of what the latest gimmick is, but what you won’t get is any real practical advice or help. You’ll get lots of self-serving talk, and case studies that show how people made 5 or 6 figures with their launches, but you won’t get much in the way of actual explanations for how those launches were executed or what issues people might run up against.
Now I want to be clear that this doesn’t apply to all marketing or all people who sell online classes, but in general what I see with so much online marketing is this focus on getting people into and through the funnel for the sake of getting something out of them. And that marketer will create a superficial relationship based on a false sense of empathy, but the focus of the marketer is on the self-concern of making money regardless of what the situation is for the people they are targeting.
So how we do recognize when the marketing is self-focused?
The way you recognize if marketing is self-focused is through the marketing tactics that are employed. If the marketer is using lots of manipulative language or telling lots of stories or offering vague solutions that require you to invest more time to discover what they are really sharing, then beware! If they offer one size fits all solutions that will solve your business problem and gets you lots of subscribers and make your business into a 6 or 7 figure business, then watch out. They are selling you on the idea you can cut corners to become successful.
However what will really tell you if the marketing is self-focused is how much time they spend talking about themselves and their stories. When they talk about themselves all the time, when they share stories of their journey then examine what they share carefully. How much of the marketing is focused on the marketer? How much of the marketing is really just about them showboating and talking themselves up?
Also look at how they talk about their clients and about people who don’t do business with them. Are they talking about people in a negative way? Are they telling you how you should be getting rid of friends who agree with you or telling you that your family has to support you or else?
If you see elements of what I’ve shared here in a marketer, then I don’t recommend buying their services or products. They aren’t out to take care of you. They are only focused on themselves and you will become a casualty of their marketing and their self-focus.
Taylor Ellwood is currently on a journey to discover what’s next.
