I was fully expecting yesterday’s email about God’s 12 principles on marketing to get me some ‘hate mail’.
And, it did.
But what I wasn’t expecting was where it would come from:
My wife.
Yesterday, I asked Hayley if she’d like to read the email before I sent it out.
As she read, I watched her face fall.
“I don’t think you should talk about Jesus that way,” she said uncomfortably.
What a pious reaction, right?
Or so I thought …
I started to explain how I could still be very respectful to Jesus while talking about how good he was at marketing.
She’s a doctor — so I pointed out that if my emails were about medicine, I could make another case that Jesus was the greatest DOCTOR of all time, since he went around healing a lot of sick people.
But it turns out, that wasn’t her problem.
She folded her arms and answered:
“Yes, but the thing you’re missing is that medicine is good, and marketing is … scammy.”
Oh!
So my wife thinks I’m just a scammy marketer, and saying Jesus was good at marketing is somehow … blasphemous?
“Are you serious?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said, arms still folded.
(Well … this was kinda awkward.)
But it’s not like this is an uncommon view. So let’s you and I set things straight, right here, right now:
Marketing is NOT ‘evil’.
It’s how honest, hard-working small business owners like my dad put food on the table, keep the lights on, and put their kids through school. Without marketing, he has no clients. And with no clients, he has no livelihood.
Besides, if you have a good product that can help people, I think it’s a far greater sin to NOT tell them about it.
That’s why I often tell people who are afraid of being ‘too salesy’ when they sell that there’s a simple cure:
First, go and fix your product. Make it AMAZING. So good that it would change someone’s life, and have them begging all their friends who have the same problem to try it too because it will help them.
Then, offer it for a price that makes it a no-brainer for the value it delivers.
And THEN, go back, and pour your heart and soul into the best darn hard-sell copy you can, knowing that you have something that can change someone’s life, and you NEED to get them to try it.
Is that evil?
I think the only evil part of that would be not doing it.
Alas, my logic fell upon Hayley’s deaf ears:
“Look, if you did a poll, EVERYONE would agree that medicine is way more noble than marketing. You’d better ask someone else about it.”
And she stormed out of the room.
I love her for her honesty …
Anyway, if you think marketing is evil, you’re welcome to leave this wicked email list at any time, and go forth and work thy righteousness.
Otherwise, seize the day, friend. And in the name of profits, make this email a profitable experience too, and pop your email address in this link for a discount when I launch my upcoming product:
https://mailchi.mp/f14ef90a1fe7/research
Till tomorrow,
Daniel