I
usually write about sexuality related topics. I am taking a little detour in my
writing in this article to write about marketing, selling, pitching, promoting
and offering our services to the world for money or for free.
If
there is one thing I have learned in my marketing class, it is that everyone
has to market—businesses, nonprofits, change makers and social justice workers.
Marketing is about influencing, persuading and getting people to take action. The
marketing professionals I listen to would add: doing all of that with
integrity.
Even
if we are working for societal change, we need marketing skills to make it
happen. Even if we are working in a nonprofit organization and the business
model is not based on profits, we need marketing to promote our mission and get
funders or donors or clients to take certain actions.
I
am not a marketing expert. But what I have noticed in my numerous online business
groups is that promoting, pitching and making offers have all of a sudden
become undesirable. Rules have gotten made to try to control promotion much the
way that rules get made around sex and sexuality trying to keep us safe.
In
various groups I participate in, there are statements such as “Don’t link to your
blog.” In another group no one is supposed to link to their websites. In one
group, the rule is it is okay to link to your blog if you want to start a
conversation, but otherwise it is not okay.
The
conversation is also, fortunately, about being intentional in our online
promotions. I fully support people getting intentional, thoughtful and respectful
in every area of their lives. I believe building relationships and not
pressuring people are important ethical principles in marketing just as they
are in sexuality. Those are the same concepts I teach in my sexuality and
intimacy workshops.
But
I’m also very sure that everything we do is promotion. As I have been saying
consistently, it does not matter so much what we do or say as how we do or say
it. These arbitrary rules about not promoting our websites or blogs or only
posting offerings in a designated marketing group as opposed to the main group
or only posting offerings on Thursdays or Fridays or in a specific thread for
offerings are not solutions to me.
I
believe everything I do is a promotion.
One
of the conversations I have listened in on is about not promoting yourself but
being helpful to people—and therein you may find your customers. I am coming at
this idea from the perspective of being someone who is incredibly giving. I
have helped more people move than I can count. I am known for being generous to
people by helping take care of their children and in many other ways. Most of
my paid work has been in the human services.
We
should help someone because we really want to, not because it is the only way
to ultimately get noticed for our paid offerings. I place great value on doing
something for people unconditionally and not because we secretly are trying to
sell something or find clients.
It
is hard to guess at someone’s motivation or intent. I like to trust that people
have good intentions unless I know otherwise. I also appreciate and feel more
comfortable when people are upfront, direct and clear about what they want. If
we are proud of our offerings and they truly would help people, there’s no
reason to keep quiet or get clever about how we let people know about what we
have to offer.
Someone
asking my opinion about their website or logo design has started to feel uncomfortable
to me. In this marketing environment I am describing, it is really hard to know
if the person genuinely wants feedback or they just don’t have any other way to
get their website or business in front of me and other potential clients.
We
all have individual preferences and tastes. So one person’s style and way of
promoting may not be appealing to me but could be appropriate for someone else.
Deciding that something is not my cup of tea is very different from deciding that
all promoting, selling and marketing are bad.
It
is similar to deciding that sex is bad because we don’t share someone else’s
preference. It is unrealistic to think that we would like all offers or all
ways of promoting. And it is not helpful when someone draws broad
generalizations or attempts to control it, especially in the area where they are
selling their own expertise, programs or offerings.
I
honor the people I know who are identifying marketing that is done ethically
and with integrity and marketing that is not. To me that is a much better approach
than just deciding that all promoting is unacceptable.
If
we don’t like a certain promotional effort, we need to ask what we would change
rather than making it impossible to promote. It is the same conversation I
would have around sex and sexuality. I have done workshops such as one called “Sex
Is Not the Problem; Touch Is Not the Problem” trying to get at this very issue.
Yes, there are problems with sex and sexuality, but let’s be specific about those
problems rather than draw broad generalizations about sex, touch, intimacy and relationships
that make them all “bad.”
Similarly,
we should ask what makes quality pitching and selling. Marketing is not going
away any more than sexuality is going away. Marketing is the way we get the
word out about everything. And, again, it is not what we do but how we do it
that matters the most.
Consent
and respect are what are most important to me in all areas of our lives. What
is consensual and respectful or done with integrity could be talked about
fairly endlessly in sexuality and also in regards to marketing. But that is a valuable
conversation to have.
I
welcome the complex conversation as to how to do it rather than a straight-out attempt
to control it. And I also recognize this may not be any easier to do with
marketing than with sexuality, given some of the contexts of where it happens. For
example, how do you have these conversations online or in a group of thousands?
Not easy at all.
However,
if we really believe that marketing is good—and we should if we are teaching it
or using it in any way—then it is imperative we engage in a way that makes it
clear what we want to change. Just like sexuality, it is not something we can
turn off at will. Everything we do is promotion in a similar way that sexuality
is a life force energy within us at all times. My hope is that we act in both
of these areas consciously, intentionally and with as much consent as we can verify
in our complex individual and social interactions in person and online.
Copyright 2014 by Susan Miranda. All rights reserved. No part of this writing may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder. For reprint permission, email miranda_susan@yahoo.com.
