Making the 7 Graces of Marketing the 7 Graces of LIFE

Posted on January 8, 2012 by Lynn Serafinn

Some thoughts at the dawn of what some say is a new era

Last month I launched my new book The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell. The book did extremely well, becoming an international #1 bestseller in categories like business ethics, marketing and communication. That’s all great, but my greater purpose for this book is so much greater than a new way to look at marketing, but rather a new way of living, thinking, being and doing. I could just have easily written a book called The 7 Graces of Everyday Life (who knows? maybe in 2013?) or the 7 Graces of just about anything else you can think of.

The point is, the “7 Graces” are fundamental values that underpin the fibre of our very existence. Without them we are lost, lonely and out of touch with the essence of what it means to be human.

With that in mind, I thought it might be nice to start off this New Year with some thoughts about the 7 Graces, and how we can take them well beyond business and marketing, and into our daily lives. So here’s my best shot. If, after reading this, you have inspired thoughts of how to expand upon my ideas, please DO leave your comments at the end of this article. The “7 Graces” movement is not about “me”, but us…

Grace #1: Connection
May this be the year that all mankind realises we are one with each other and with the Earth. May we come to understand that when we live in a disconnected fashion, it becomes impossible for life to flourish either within or outside ourselves. We are a permaculture, an eco-system, a vibrant sea of life sharing this journey together. There is no such thing as “out there”. We are a part of everything. All the suffering we feel is due to our delusion we are disconnected—from each other, from Source, from ourselves. And all the suffering we might inflict is equally due to this delusion. The Grace of Connection is the Great Healer, the restorer, the balancer. It is the thread upon which all the pearls of existence are strung. Connection simply “is”. We are always connected. We only need to remember our Connection. And when we finally do remember, after so many years of having forgotten, we should not be surprised if we find ourselves weeping with awe and relief.

Grace #2: Inspiration
May this be the year that all mankind sees just how powerful we are, and understands the great responsibility that comes with that power. We have the power to “inspire”—to breathe life into our world. We also have the power to suck the life from others. When we know we are connected, the choice becomes simple: we know if we drain others of life, we are only killing ourselves. If we wish to feel joy, happiness and fulfilment, we must breathe those very same things into others. May all mankind be committed to breathing life into all around us—into humanity, into our world, into Source. May our Inspiration make the world ever more vibrant. May we all feel fully alive through giving and receiving the Grace of Inspiration.

Grace #3: Invitation
May this be the year that all mankind relearns the fine art of Invitation. May we become masters of graciousness; may we become masterful at both being a host and a guest to others. May we display courtesy, affection, respect, thoughtfulness, good humour, genuine interest and engagement with others. May we never exploit the good nature of others, and may we always be grateful for what others extend to us. May our graciousness inspire others to become gracious, thus creating a more gracious world. May the Grace of Invitation allow all of us to know we are always welcome and appreciated.

Grace #4: Directness
May this be the year that all mankind ceases to feel the need to hide, pretend, exaggerate or avoid in order to be liked and accepted. May we master our fears and learn how to speak plainly and openly with each other. May we neither judge nor worry about being judged. May we learn to “say it like it is” for the purpose of building simplicity, trust and clarity in our relationships. May we realise we do not need frills or distractions to make our words, thoughts and acts beautiful. May we accept our ourselves. May we accept others. May the Grace of Directness allow us to see into each others’ eyes.

Grace #5: Transparency
May this be the year that all mankind ceases to feel the need to deceive in order to survive. May we cease to hide behind the veil of lies we may have created due to fear and feelings of desperation. May we allow the light of who we really are to shine and be visible to others. May we no longer fear being “found out”, but rather allow ourselves to be found. May we make it easy for others to know us. May we shine. May we see the shining essence of others. May the Grace of Transparency spread our true luminosity in every aspect of our lives, so we may be a force for illumination throughout the world.

Grace #6: Abundance
May this be the year that all mankind comes to believe and trust that there is indeed enough for all of us in this world, when we live in harmony and rhythm with our planet. May we finally see that it is only when we get out of step and out of touch with our Oneness that lack, famine, poverty and environmental devastation exist. May we all feel wealthy—inside and out—and therefore feel the desire to share what we have, making true Abundance a reality. May we learn to look up into the trees and see how much wealth we have been given, without even trying. May we see that true Abundance comes effortlessly and that for which we strive and toil is not Abundance. May we learn how to give. May we learn how to receive. May the Grace of Abundance bring ever-increasing Abundance to all humanity.

Grace #7: Collaboration
May this be the year that all mankind comes to see that what we do by dint of our combined action is always more than the sum of its parts. May all mankind come to see that “survival of the fittest” is a myth, and that anything that conquers or destroys another, equally conquers and destroys a part of ourselves. May all mankind come to realise that all creation is built upon Collaboration—all of nature is interwoven, and it is our nature as human beings to thrive through Collaboration. We breathe in the air the trees have breathed out. We breathe out the air the trees breathe in. Where is there any evidence of Competition? Competition is a fabrication of our own fears. When we raise our children to compete, we are passing our fears on to them. May we all be fearless. May we raise a new generation of fearless children and grandchildren. May all the world be filled with the trust and support that comes from the Grace of Collaboration. May Collaboration become the catalyst for more Connection, which will then become the catalyst for all the other 7 Graces in our lives…

I wish you all a connected, inspiring, inviting, direct, transparent, abundant and collaboratively brilliant 2012.

Got Ping?

With gratitude and appreciation,
Lynn Serafinn
Author, coach, author promotions
http://spiritauthors.com
http://spiritauthorscoach.com
http://the7gracesofmarketing.com

Lynn Serafinn, MAED, CPCC is a certified, award-winning coach and teacher, marketer, social media expert, radio host, speaker and bestselling author. Her eclectic approach to marketing incorporates her vast professional experience in the music industry and the educational sector along with more than two decades of study and practice of the spirituality of India. In her work as a promotional manager she has produced a long list of bestselling mind-body-spirit authors. She is also the creator of Spirit Authors, which offers training, coaching, business-building and inspiration for mind-body-spirit authors, whether established or aspiring. Passionate about re-establishing our connection with the Earth, she supports the work of the Transition Town network in her hometown of Bedford, England.

Lynn’s bestselling books:

The 7 Graces of Marketing BOOK COVERThe 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell
International #1 bestseller in business ethics, marketing and communication (Dec 2011)
Purchase the paperback OR Kindle version and receive 10 hours of audio from the 7 Graces Telesummit as my gift:
http://the7gracesofmarketing.com/book-launch/pages/launch.php

Social Media on Autopilot: Nice, Necessary or Nightmare?
International Kindle Bestseller in Web Marketing & eCommerce (Jan 2012)

 

The Garden of the Soul: lessons from four flowers that unearth the Self
Spirituality Bestseller (March 2009)

To contact Lynn for coaching, campaign management or media appearances, please fill in the form at http://spiritauthors.com/contact.

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The 7 Graces of Marketing – now an international number 1 seller

Posted on December 13, 2011 by Lynn Serafinn

The 7 Graces of Marketing BOOK COVERTuesday December 13th, 2011 was the big Amazon launch for my new book The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell. I am happy to announce that, on that day, the book quickly became an international #1 bestseller in business ethics, marketing and business communications.

To celebrate this, when you buy the book before January 6th, 2012, you can receive the complete set of 7 MP3s (over 10 hours of audio) from last week’s 7 Graces of Marketing Telesummit, with 24 internationally renowned speakers, such as Joe Vitale, Eric Pearl and 22 others, speaking about the ’7 Deadly Sins’ of marketing and the ’7 Graces’ of marketing. You’ll also receive dozens of other gifts offered by my friends and colleagues, to express our appreciation for your support.

To buy the book, and claim your MP3s from the 7 Graces Telesummit, and receive a fabulous selection of gifts from my friends and colleauges, here’s all you need to do:

  1. Sometime before January 6th, 2012, go to http://the7gracesofmarketing.com/book-launch/pages/launch.html. This is the “launch” page.
  2. On that page, you will see links to buy the book on Amazon US, Canada or UK (yes, you may purchase the book from another Amazon site; we just didn’t have room for all the links)
  3. Click a link to buy the book on the Amazon of your choice. You may buy the book in either paperback or Kindle version
  4. After you have purchased the book, Amazon will give you a purchase code. The purchase code is a 17-digit number, and it looks like this: 123-1234567-1234567. Copy this number to your computer clipboard.
  5. Return to the “launch page” and enter your name, email AND your Amazon purchase code in the form.
  6. When you hit the button that says “Yes, Please!” you will be taken immediately to the “bonus” page. This page has all the links to take you to the bonus gifts.
  7. Just click the links of the gifts you would like to download.

That’s all there is to it!

The 7 Graces of Marketing is a bold, holistic and often spiritual examination not merely of the world of advertising, but also of our entire world view. It reveals how our relationships with Self, others, our businesses, our economy and the Earth impact our health, our economy and the delicate ecological balance of our natural world. As much for the conscious consumer as the business owner, this book shows why traditional ways of selling are ultimately doomed to fail, and how both business owners and consumers can begin to heal the world by embracing a new paradigm I call ‘The 7 Graces of Marketing.’

I am extremely passionate about this subject (as you will have heard if you listened to last week’s telesummit), and I am dedicated to getting the dialogue started in the business sector so we can change the way we do marketing, and make a brighter, healthier, happier world for our children and children’s children. I do hope you’ll check out The 7 Graces of Marketing.

Click HERE to get the book, the MP3s and free gifts now

Please PAY NO ATTENTION if Amazon says, “Only 3 left in stock” or “Ships in 1-4 weeks”. We have test ordered the book, and it takes about a 7-10 days to ship, and it is IMPOSSIBLE to “be out of stock” because this is a “print on demand” book, which means the book will be printed and shipped to you whenever you place an order.

If you have any questions or experience any problems, please do not hesitate to contact me via the contact from on this site.

AND, I’d love to hear what you have to say about the book after you have read it, so be sure to subscribe to this blog so you can find your way back here. I’m also starting a 7 Graces of Marketing Community for everyone who has bought the book, and who would like to meet others of like mind who want to bring ethics and values back into our business and marketing. So please do stay in touch.

Got Ping?

With gratitude and appreciation,

Lynn Serafinn
Author, coach, author promotions
http://spiritauthors.com
http://spiritauthorscoach.com
http://the7gracesofmarketing.com

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What are the 7 Graces of Marketing and Life?

Posted on December 3, 2011 by Lynn Serafinn

The 7 Graces of Marketing BOOK COVERMy new book The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell is coming out on Dec 13th. Today, I thought I’d share a short overview of “The 7 Graces”, and how they pertain not only to business and marketing, but also to life in general. This will be a whirlwind tour of these ideas (after all, the book is over 400 pages long), but I think you will get a taste for what they’re about, and hopefully think of ways to apply them in your own business and life.

Grace #1: Connection
This is the “antidote” to the “Deadly Sin of Disconnection”. Connection is at the foundation of everything in life—Connection to Self, Source, others, our businesses, and our audience—determine how effectively and authentically we communicate and conduct our lives. When business owners are disconnected from Self, their businesses cannot be genuine representations of who they are. And the problem is, as businesses get bigger and bigger, that Connection becomes increasingly difficult to maintain. When business owners are not connected to Source and others, it opens to door to exploitation of both natural resources and people. Connection is the first of the 7 Graces, because without it the other Graces cannot manifest.

Grace #2: Inspiration
This is the “antidote” to the “Deadly Sin of Persuasion”. The literal meaning of the word “Inspiration” is “to breathe life into”. As business owners, we have a choice to be “life giving” to our audience or “life robbing”. Persuasion, wherein we will do anything and everything to make a sale/profit, is life robbing. As business owners, it is our responsibility to “feed” society, and thus ensure not only that our products and services are life-giving, but also that our communications (marketing) is life-giving. For marketing to be filled with the “Grace of Inspiration”, it should never incite fear, anxiety or feelings of inadequacy.

Grace #3: Invitation
This is the “antidote” to the “Deadly Sin of Invasion”. Nearly every form of marketing we see today is invasive. Our attention span is continually interrupted, whether it is through television/radio adverts, pop up messages, uninvited email adverts, cold-calling or billboards. As business owners and marketers, we need to bring back the “Grace of Invitation” into our communications. This means that when visitors come into our “space” (our website, our office/shop), we treat them like respected guests, offering them hospitality and generosity. Conversely, when we come into our customers’ space (as when we send out emails), we must do so with courtesy and care, ensuring we never become the dreaded “houseguest from hell”.

Grace #4: Directness
This is the “antidote” to the “Deadly Sin of Distraction”. So much modern advertising depends upon Distraction to seize and maintain our attention. Nearly every advert you see will utilise random brand identity triggers and humour to get us to pay attention. What is wrong with this is that people end up buying products simply because they remember the advert, and not necessarily because they have been given direct, clear information about the product or service. Directness is simple: we marketers need to get back to “telling it like it is” instead of hyping up our businesses. The public need to be informed and empowered. The Grace of Directness allows that to happen.

Grace #5: Transparency
This is the “antidote” to the “Deadly Sin of Deception”. Deception in marketing is rife, but is sometimes extremely subtle. In the book, I give many examples of how language and imagery are often used in a deceptive way in marketing, where technically (and legally) the message is “true”, but the unconscious message we perceive is untrue. Transparency literally means “to shine light through”. When we are Transparent in marketing and in life, we are not merely being honest, but we are also allowing the true intention behind our thoughts, words and deeds to be seen and heard clearly. When we walk in Transparency, both in business and in life, we are walking in the Essence of who we really are.

Grace #6: Abundance
This is the “antidote” to the “Deadly Sin of Scarcity”. The chapter on Scarcity in the book is one of the biggest, because it’s simply such a massive topic. Scarcity marketing is all around us, and it appears in so many forms, from limited-time offers to the various kinds of “obsolescence” used to incite us to buy beyond our needs or means. Abundance, on the other hand, is the fundamental belief that there is enough for all—when we are living in rhythm with the planet. It is our natural state of being. If we operate our business from the fundamental belief in lack or Scarcity, we will always bring Scarcity strategies into our marketing. The irony is that Scarcity begets Scarcity. In other words, if we operate from a Scarcity mentality, we are likely to create the very Scarcity we most fear because the end result will be overconsumption. Overconsumption is destroying both our economy and the ecological balance of our natural world. But if we operate from a fundamental belief in Abundance, we will not bring such fear and anxiety into our marketing, and overconsumption will be a thing of the past.

Grace #7: Collaboration
This is the “antidote” to the “Deadly Sin of Competition”. Many people have the false notion that competition is necessary to create healthy economies and stronger societies. But this is largely a myth and has no foundation in Nature whatsoever. While I believe in “free enterprise”, this is not the same thing as Competition. In the book, I cite many studies that have proved how Competition diminishes creativity and innovation. When we conduct our businesses or our lives with a competitive mindset, we not only reduce our own performance, but we also reduce the support we receive from others. On the other hand, Collaboration always results in something greater than the sum of its parts. Every single marketing campaign I have produced is based upon Collaboration. The permaculture of the world is actually one giant, interdependent Collaboration. We’ve been brought up in a competitive world, but the more connected we become via technologies like social media, the more we see that Collaboration is the way we perform best.

I hope you enjoyed this overview of The 7 Graces of Marketing. THIS WEEK, I’ll be diving into these topics with 24 spectacular guests on the (fr*ee to attend) “7 Graces of Marketing Telesummit” December 6th-9th.

At last count, over 1200 people have already signed up for this event. If you’d like to join us (it’s fr*ee, of course), just go to http://the7gracesofmarketing.com/free-telesummit

And then… PLEASE do check out the book The 7 Graces of Marketing on December 13th. When you do, there are dozens of wonderful gifts for you, including the audio download of all 7 sessions from the telesummit, and many other goodies. Check out the gifts, and request a launch reminder so you don’t forget to pick up your copy (in paperback or Kindle) at: http://the7gracesofmarketing.com/book-launch/pages/pre-launch.html

I welcome your comments below about my overview of the 7 Graces, as well as any questions you might have.

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24 World-Renowned Speakers at 7 Graces of Marketing Telesummit

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Lynn Serafinn

Can We Heal Humanity and the Planet by Changing the Way We Sell?
That’s what 24 World-Renowned Speakers will discuss when they come together for the 7 Graces Telesummit, Dec 6th-9th.

In February 2008, at the start of the global economic recession, my television blew up. Six months after I made the decision not to replace it, as I watched everyone around me become more and more stressed about their finances, I suddenly realised I shared none of their anxieties. In fact, I realised my spending had gone down, and that my financial situation had actually improved. I began to wonder whether there was a connection between this and the fact I was no longer consuming a daily dose of the nightly news and television advertising.

It was then I started asking the question, “Is marketing making us ILL?” And by marketing, I include anything that was in the business of “selling ideas,” including politics and the nightly news.

This began a two-year journey for me, as I researched and wrote my new book, The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell. I wanted to discover the unspoken marketing mechanisms that were making our society, our economy and our environment ill. But most of all, I wanted to discover how we human beings could create a new paradigm for marketing, business and living that could heal both humanity and the planet.

And now, the book is coming to Amazon and all major retailers on December 13th, 2011.

To celebrate the launch of The 7 Graces of Marketing, an illustrious panel of 24 of the world’s leading minds are coming together to discuss how we can bring back ethics and values into business and marketing, so we can start the change the world together at:

The 7 Graces of Marketing Telesummit

A FR*EE 7-Part Online Happening!
December 6th-9th, 2011
Register FR*EE at
http://the7gracesofmarketing.com/free-telesummit

Watch this Video to find out more about this event. If you cannot see the video on your screen CLICK HERE to view it online:

Over the course of four days, you will hear seven dynamic 90-minute discussions on the “7 Deadly Sins” of marketing and their corresponding “7 Graces”:

• Part 1: Disconnection vs. Connection
• Part 2: Persuasion vs. Inspiration
• Part 3: Invasion vs. Invitation
• Part 4: Distraction vs. Directness
• Part 5: Deception vs. Transparency
• Part 6: Deception vs. Transparency
• Part 7: Competition vs. Collaboration

And take a look at this fabulous panel of guest speakers:

1. Joe Vitale – world-renowned media guest; appeared in the film The Secret; bestselling author of The Attractor Factor and dozens more
2. Greg S. Reid – Film maker, speaker, bestselling author of Think and Grow Rich: Three Feet from Gold and many others
3. Eric Pearl - World renowned energy healer, Founder of The Reconnection; author of The Reconnection: Heal Others, Heal Yourself
4. Dan Hollings – mobile marketing expert; the brains behind the marketing campaign for the film The Secret
5. Pamela Slim – Award-winning author of Escape From Cubicle Nation; speaker; media expert
6. Liz Goodgold – Branding expert, author of Red Fire Branding and DUH! Marketing
7. Allison Maslan – Life and Business Mentor; founder of 9 successful businesses; bestselling author of Blast Off!
8. Suzanne Falter-Barnes – Business and Marketing coach; Co-founder of The Spiritual Marketing Quest
9. Tad Hargrave – Founder of Marketing for Hippies
10. Richard S. Gallagher – Communications skills expert; bestselling author of What to Say to a Porcupine and How to Tell Anyone Anything
11. Ward Vandorpe – International marketer; Founder of Expert Marketeer
12. Misa Hopkins – Consultant, author of The Root of All Healing; Spiritual Director of the New Dream Foundation
13. Barbara Altemus – Producer of The Calling; author of The Gift of Pain
14. Andrea Conway – Attraction Marketing Coach, marketing executive
15. Renee Baribeau - “The Practical Shaman;” Director of Desert Holistic Network
16. Renee Duran – Graphic designer; web developer; former advertising art/creative director; designed the book cover of The 7 Graces of Marketing
17. Michael Drew – Book marketer; speaker; Founder of Promote a Book
18. Jeffrey Van Dyk – Business and Marketing Coach; Co-founder of The Spiritual Marketing Quest
19. Chris Arnold – Award-winning creative innovator; expert in ethical marketing; author of Ethical Marketing and the New Consumer
20. Kate Osborne – PR at Solarus Foundation; resident author for More To Life Magazine; former editor of Kindred Spirit Magazine
21. Tanya Paluso – Empowerment mentor; community leader; Leader of Tribal Truths
22. Shelagh Jones – marketer and Founder of Spiritus Spiritual Marketing Directory
23. Paula Tarrant – Transformation and Transition Coach; Founder of Inspired Women Work
24. And, of course, me, Lynn Serafinn, author of The 7 Graces of Marketing

This special 7-part telesummit is my FREE gift to you,
to celebrate the launch of the book, which is coming
Tuesday December 13th, 2011.

Register at http://the7gracesofmarketing.com/free-telesummit

During the broadcast, I’ll also tell you how you can receive a complete library of beautiful free gifts, kindly offered by dozens of my friends and colleagues, when you buy The 7 Graces of Marketing in paperback or Kindle from Amazon on December 13th.

AND when you buy the book on the day of the launch, I will also give you the complete set of MP3 downloads—that’s 10 hours of content-rich audio from 24 international thought leaders—absolutely free.

And as an extra special gift, I am also offering a full 1-year membership to my new 7 Graces Global Community, starting in 2012, where you will be invited to hear exclusive interviews with thought leaders throughout the year, so we can all work together to shift the paradigm of business and marketing.

If you can’t make the live event, please register anyway,
because I’ll send you the links to listen to the audio playback.

I’m so excited about this event. It’s a topic that is so needed at this transitional point in our history, and I do believe this event promises to be THE online event of 2011.

I do hope you will join us online for The 7 Graces of Marketing Telesummit on December 6th-9th.

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Three Pathways of Connection in Business and in Life

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Lynn Serafinn

The 7 Graces of Marketing BOOK COVERAdapted from the Chapter “Connection” in The 7 Graces of Marketing

Earlier this week, my friend Vanessa commented on how much she likes my catch phrase, “Turning up the volume of the music of your heart,” which I say at the end of my radio broadcasts. The phrase was inspired by an ancient concept called Music Humana, which I discuss in the chapter entitled “Grace #1: Connection” in my book The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell (coming December 13th). I thought you might enjoy reading about this ancient concept, and see how it can apply to the creation of a more congruent businesses and a more joyful life.

In Classical Greek cosmology, there were three types of ‘music,’ generally translated into Latin as Musica Instrumentalis, Musica Mundana and Musica Humana.

Musica Instrumentalis is what we typically think of as ‘music’; it is that which is produced by some sort of physical sound vibration, whether from the voice or an instrument, and is audible to ordinary human hearing.

At a higher level is Musica Mundana, generally translated in English as ‘Music of the Spheres.’ Musica Mundana is that music, inaudible via ordinary physical hearing, produced by the movement of the planets, stars and entire cosmic creation. The astronomer Kepler was particularly interested in Musica Mundana, and he devised an entire system of astrology around the vibrational ratios between the planets.

Lastly, there is Musica Humana. This is the most subtle form of music, and is that which is sung by the human soul. It is the music of spirit that resonates via the hearts of all sentient beings, and from the Heart of the Creator and Creation Itself. I like to call this kind of music ‘Music of the Heart.’

Being able to ‘hear’ these three types of music is what brings joy, meaning and Connection to all living creatures.

While I don’t know how the Greeks really thought about these three types of music, in my own experience, each of them is ‘heard’ via three distinct pathways:

  • Musica Instrumentalis is heard via the body or matter
  • Musica Mundana is heard via the mind or consciousness
  • Musica Humana is heard via the heart or spirit

In our modern society, very few people can articulate the existence of these three types of music, although I believe they are undoubtedly known to all of us at an intuitive, unconscious level, as part of the experience of being alive. And even after being aware of their existence, we do not necessarily have the sensitivity and awareness to ‘hear’ them fully. I remember when I first listened to a Brahms symphony as a young child, it sounded like a ‘wall of noise’ to me and I could make no sense of it whatsoever. Later, when I was a music student, I was taught how to hear music at a deep level in order to understand its subtlety and appreciate its aesthetic beauty. As a music teacher I passed on this ability to hear Musica Instrumentalis to my students. It was always fascinating to see how they reacted when their ears first ‘opened up’ so they could actually hear the music, as they realised how much delight they had been missing in the past.

The more subtle forms of music, Musica Mundana and Musica Humana, are no different. While we are born with the innate ability to hear these musics, it does not mean we will hear them. Just as I was listening to the Brahms symphony but could not ‘hear’ it, we are walking through life continually immersed in both the Music of the Spheres and the Music of the Heart, without necessarily hearing them. On a daily basis, we walk, breathe and function to the pulse of the Music of the Spheres, and we feel, express and know both ourselves and others through the melody of the Music of the Heart. Yet we may be so out of touch with our ability to ‘hear’ these musics that we are unaware of their presence.

The first time I unknowingly ‘heard’ Musica Mundana, I was at the Grand Canyon, where I came face-to-face with the Milky Way at 2 A.M.; later that morning I heard it again when I saw the sunrise racing across the Canyon as if a blanket were being lifted from the surface of the Earth. These experiences plunged me into a deep awareness of where I was in the Universe, and how the Earth on which I stood was spinning at a rate of 1,000 miles an hour as it whirled through space. I knew these experiences were significant, but I didn’t know precisely why. Then, about 15 years later, I sat atop a hill in a rural part of northern Spain on a silent retreat. I observed the world around me, simply witnessing whatever appeared without thought or attachment. After about two hours, I began to feel shivers up my spine as I ‘heard’ what I later described as ‘The Song of the Earth.’ It wasn’t sound on a physical level as we think of it. Rather, it was an acute awareness of the continual flow of time, space, light, shadow, warm, cold, and all energies passing through Her. In that moment, I felt connected to the Earth—and to the greater Source—in a way I had never felt before.

The third kind of music, Musica Humana, ‘The Music of the Heart,’ is not contingent upon time, place or circumstance. It is the deep, immutable vibration of the Essence of who we are that cannot be destroyed or silenced. When we feel fully aware of, connected to and expressive of our true Self, we are hearing that Music of the Heart. When we see past the distorted reflections of who we project ourselves to be and see both ourselves and others as we truly are, we are hearing that subtlest of all music—Musica Humana.

It is the ultimate music of Connection.

While these three musical terms might have been coined by the Greeks, their meaning is by no means unique to them. So many ancient cultures viewed reality as one in which we are intrinsically connected both to the world in which we live and to all other living beings. Only in the past half-millennium or so have we gradually adopted a worldview in which we are separate, and in some cases superior to, our environment. As technology has given mankind increasing power and control over the material world, the delusion of separation and domination has become stronger and stronger. And as that belief in our separation has become increasingly accepted as reality, we have created a serious imbalance in our experience of life that has impacted our physical and emotional health, our communities, our economy and, most of all, our natural world.

Just as Creation is a reflection of the consciousness of a Creator or collective creative energy, all of our human creations are reflections of our collective consciousness as a people. And amongst our creations is our economic system, which includes all aspects of money, business, trade and, finally, marketing. Because our creations are reflections of our consciousness, if our worldview is one of Connection, by nature our businesses and marketing practices will express and increase Connection. But if our cosmology is one of separation, every aspect of our businesses and marketing practices will express and increase that separation.

Understandably, to many of us, the idea that marketing could possibly be a connective, or even spiritual, activity seems pretty outlandish. In fact, marketing often seems to be the very antithesis of spirituality. But this is only because most marketing we see has been created from a place of Disconnection—from Self, others, our businesses and the world around us. But when Connection is established in all our Key Relationships, marketing can become a Divine activity through which we are able to actualise our dharma and communicate our core values through our business and our lives in general.

In my book The 7 Graces of Marketing (all 400+ pages of it!) I discuss the root causes of the “Deadly Sin” of Disconnection in marketing and its impact upon our lives, and means to return to our natural state of “Grace” through Connection. I also discuss 6 other “Deadly Sins” and “Graces,” as well as “The 7 Key Relationships” that shape our lives, including how we create and respond to marketing.

The official Amazon launch of The 7 Graces of Marketing (which will be available both in print, as well as in many electronic formats) is coming December 13th. In celebration of the launch of the book The 7 Graces of Marketing, we’ll be hosted a FANTASTIC 7-part Telesummit December 6th-9th, 2011 with a line-up of 18 world-renowned guests:

  • Dr Joe Vitale - author of The Attractor Factor, Buying Trances
  • Eric Pearl – author of The Reconnection: Heal Others, Heal Yourself
  • Greg S. Reid – author of Three Feet from Gold
  • Liz Goodgold – Branding Expert and Author of Red Fire Branding
  • Michael Drew – Promote a Book
  • Dan Hollings – Mobile marketing, and marketer for The Secret
  • Richard S. Gallagher – author of What to Say to a Porcupine
  • Ward Vandorpe – Expert Marketeers
  • Tad Hargrave – Marketing for Hippies
  • Pam Slim – author of Escape from Cubicle Nation
  • Barbara Altemus – Director of The Calling
  • Kate Osborne – Solarus Foundation PR
  • Chris Arnold – author of Ethical Marketing and the New Consumer
  • Renee Duran – Marketing designer
  • Tanya Pulasio – Tribal Truths
  • Shelagh Jones – Founder Spiritus Spiritual Marketing Directory
  • Paula Tarrant – Life and Career Design Coach
  • and me, Lynn Serafinn

This will be an unprecented event where marketing experts from around the world will be discussin the “7 Deadly Sins” and the “7 Graces” of marketing in a round-table panel discussion.

Registration for this event will start November 7th. Be sure to subscribe to this blog in the box at the top/right of this page, so you can be sure to receive information on how to attend and download the audios.

About Lynn Serafinn

Lynn Serafinn is bestselling author, marketer, coach, speaker, radio host and promotional manager for a long list of #1 selling mind-body-spirit authors. In her work, she has witnessed both the conscious and unconscious mechanics of marketing that threaten our society and our very planet. In her book The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell (Humanity 1 Press, Dec 2011), she reveals how modern marketing has played a hand in the the rise of consumer culture, negatively impacting our health, happiness, economy and natural world in an unparalleled way, and offers us hope via a new paradigm she calls “The 7 Graces of Marketing.” Author, marketing and radio show enquiries, please send via http://spiritauthors.com/contact.

Want to Reprint this Article on Your Blog or Newsletter?

You are most welcome to use this article on your blog as long as you:

  1. Ask permission first (use the contact form on this site to connect with me)
  2. Do not change, abridge or alter the article in any way
  3. Include the complete author bio and link back to the original article.
Posted in 7 Graces, Blog, Book, Connection | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

How to Market without Becoming the Houseguest from Hell

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Lynn Serafinn

Adapted from the chapter “Grace #3: Invitation” from the book The 7 Graces of Marketing

In Chapter 3 of The 7 Graces of Marketing, I talk all about the lost art of ‘Invitation’ and how we marketers and business owners could learn a lot by looking at what we all know as part of ‘common sense’ when it comes to daily life, but we seem to forget when it comes to marketing.

In that chapter, I tell two stories: one about what makes a great ‘host’, and one about what makes a ‘houseguest from hell’. The story of the great host was about a man named Abdulla I knew back in the 1980s, who treated me like gold when I dropped by their house unannounced, unaware he and his extended family were right in the middle of a family party. The hospitality, respect and engagement they showed me was so special, I remember it to this day as an example of people who really know what it means to be a gracious host. The story of the ‘houseguest from hell’ (which I think is a pretty funny story when I read it back) is about a roaming ‘monk’ I call ‘Sam’ who we invited to stay at our home as his car had broke down, but instead of getting his car fixed, he ended up staying for months, eating us out of house and home and offering nothing in return. I was trying to be a gracious host, but my ‘guest’ lacked the knowledge of what it means to be a gracious guest.

We can learn a lot from these stories of Abdulla and Sam. When we are marketing our books or businesses (especially over the Internet!), it is important to think about whether we are playing the role of the ‘host’ or the ‘guest’. When we build this awareness, it can transform the way we communicate with our audience significantly.

Hospitality, Respect and Engagement

When someone lands our website, walks into our shop or comes into our ‘space’ in any way, it is the equivalent of them being our guests within our home. While we cannot physically offer our Internet visitors the water, food, a comfy chair and cosy conversation during their stay, we can, however, offer them the virtual equivalent. All these components of hospitality make guests within our homes feel comfortable, relaxed and satiated. When a guest feels like this, they are happy to stay in our company, and when they do leave to go home, they carry with them the memory of how you made them feel.

In much the same way, when someone comes to our website, our aim should be to show them our hospitality. We should make them feel comfortable, relaxed and fully satisfied. If someone has come to your website, they are hungry—for information, for a solution to a need, for advice, for assurance, for fun—for something. Just as the best hosts will feed their guests with delicious food, the best sale pages are those that feed your visitors’ hunger for information. If the site is for a piece of software, give your visitors lots of videos showing them exactly how it works. If it’s for an event or a course, give them a taster and a concrete breakdown of what they’ll gain. What we shouldn’t do is use lofty, overblown or ambiguous language telling our customers if they buy our product we’ll tell them secrets no one else knows, or they will gain something they cannot gain any other way. Imagine coming into someone’s home and being told such things by your host. You’d think you’d stepped right into the parlour of Mr Spider. Nonetheless, this is the kind of marketing messages we are subjected to every day, both on the Internet and on television. When we taunt customers with hype, distractions, ambiguity or delayed promises, we make them feel anxious, confused and eventually mistrustful. What is ironic, of course, is that all this lack of hospitality makes people less likely to buy from you at all, even if your product is the very thing that would answer their needs.

If people become mistrustful of us, it is more than likely because we are not showing them the respect they deserve. There are an awful lot of Internet marketers who make a formulaic show of their trustworthiness by integrating customer testimonials and money-back guarantees into their sales pages. But neither of these strategies is effective if a sales page shows little respect for the customer. Besides, most consumers nowadays are pretty savvy. They know testimonials could be faked and promises of money back guarantees could be just words. And if someone comes to a website and gets that impression, it’s more than likely because the marketing is not demonstrating respect for the customer’s intelligence, values, health, happiness and freedom of choice. If marketers focus solely on conversion in creating marketing pieces, this will be the result. Respect can only be present when marketers remember it is a privilege for people to give you their time and attention and to consider using your products or services. The actual exchange of currency is the not the result of a sales page. It is the result of a relationship between customer and merchant—between guest and host. Customers are the guests who knock on our door and we business owners, as their hosts, must create the quality of that relationship.

And finally, no relationship can be built without engagement. Old school marketing was always a one-way street with no engagement between marketer and consumer whatsoever. The consumer simply absorbed the programming and was expected to buy. But as the world has changed, and it continuing to change, lack of engagement or interaction will probably turn out to be the fastest track to business failure in the coming generation. Just as when we visited Abdulla’s home and his entire family engaged with us, to survive in the modern business world, marketers must be engaging. They must listen and respond to their customers demonstrating genuine (not feigned) interest in them. We must make them feel valued, and invite their input and their ideas. We must convey to them that they are a valuable part of our ‘circle’, our tribe, and that their voice is being heard in how we do business.

When all three of these components—hospitality, respect and engagement—are genuinely and authentically present in our marketing, we have a foundation for the Grace of Invitation to flourish.

When Marketers Become Takers

Now, on the flip side, the story of Sam has useful lessons for us when we are a GUEST in our marketers. Let’s first look at online marketing. When someone comes to our website and signs up to our mailing list, they are no longer our guests as in Abdulla’s story—we have now become their guests and are in their space. When a consumer supplies us with their email address, that person is, in effect, opening their door to us and saying, ‘Yes, you can come in and stay here,’ just as our family had opened our door to Sam. Unlike when they are coming into our space, we are now in their space.

And just as there is a moral code for hosts, there is also one for guests. However, I see few online marketers acting as if they truly understand this. While most of us would never dream of treating a host the way Sam did, when it comes to marketing, we feel justified in coming into people’s homes, either through their Inbox or the media, and bleeding them dry with relentless advertising. When marketers operate on the assumption that it takes repeated exposure for subscribers or viewers to become customers, they find it necessary to saturate the consumers’ consciousness with their message, without giving them much of anything in return. This is not really very different from Sam taking advantage of our hospitality without offering any compensation for all he consumed at our expense.

Marketers simply must start realising that coming into people’s homes is a privilege, and we cannot ever allow ourselves to become the proverbial houseguests from hell.

The Importance of the Grace of Invitation

The art of ‘Invitation’ is a true ‘Grace’ because it expresses our ‘graciousness’. Graciousness is a quality we admire in individuals, but how often do we think of it as a criterion for our professional practice? Admittedly, this shift from Invasion to Invitation is going to be one of the most challenging for marketers to make. We need to communicate with our customers, but because there is simply so much ‘noise’ out there, we have adopted the belief that if we are the loudest and most aggressive, people will hear us above the din. But this is simply not true. Invasion simply creates more Invasion. The more we inundate our customers with noise, the louder others will become. And the faster and less caring we are in our communications, the faster and less caring our customers will be when they click ‘delete’ on our email or flick the channel with their remote control.

We are all people, first and foremost. We want to connect. We need each other. We want to be able to knock on each other’s door and feel welcome. We want to be invited in for a nice cup of tea. We want to have the kind of relationships where we can knock on someone’s door unannounced and be welcome. We also want the kind of relationships where friends do not exploit each other’s good nature, and we treat each other with respect and gratitude.

If these are common values amongst us in our social life, surely we cannot forsake them in marketing. How incredibly could the world change if we simply reintroduced the divine responsibility between host and guest, and applied this in all our business dealings?

If Invasion creates more Invasion, surely Invitation creates more Invitation. Begin today by being aware of whether you are the host or the guest, and very soon you will start to see your marketing has become a completely different form of communication.

Please do share your comments below!

Copyright 2011, Lynn Serafinn

About Lynn Serafinn

Lynn Serafinn is bestselling author, marketer, coach, speaker, radio host and promotional manager for a long list of #1 selling mind-body-spirit authors. In her work, she has witnessed both the conscious and unconscious mechanics of marketing that threaten our society and our very planet. In her book The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell (Humanity 1 Press, Dec 2011), she reveals how modern marketing has played a hand in the the rise of consumer culture, negatively impacting our health, happiness, economy and natural world in an unparalleled way, and offers us hope via a new paradigm she calls “The 7 Graces of Marketing.” Author, marketing and radio show enquiries, please send via http://spiritauthors.com/contact.

The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell is coming to Amazon December 13, 2011. Please subscribe to this blog to keep on top of how you can help change the world through 7 Graces thinking, and make sure you receive information about how to attend our FR*EE 7-part “7 Graces Telesummit” with a panel of world-renowned speakers on the subject of marketing ethics and the impact of marketing on our health, economy and the planet.

Want to Reprint this Article on Your Blog or Newsletter?

You are most welcome to use this article on your blog as long as you:

  1. Ask permission first (use the contact form on this site to connect with me)
  2. Do not change, abridge or alter the article in any way
  3. Include the complete author bio and link back to the original article.
Posted in Blog, Book, Invasion, Invitation | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

Directness vs Distraction – Towards Better Relationships in Marketing and in Life

Posted on August 26, 2011 by Lynn Serafinn

Adapted from the book The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell by Lynn Serafinn.

As a coach, I have learned how to listen carefully to what people are really saying. Frequently this is not so much a matter of the content of what they are saying, but the context in which they are saying it. It is within that context that you can hear the whole truth of the story, including how clients are really feeling about both the situation and themselves. As a lot of my coaching is done over the phone or Skype (and not always with the webcam turned on), there are no ‘body language’ cues to inform me, and I’ve learned to use my ears and my intuition to hear the subtlest inflections in both the tone of voice and in the way a client uses language. One of the most consistently accurate measurements of what clients are actually feeling can be found in their grammar, especially in their choices of when to use first, second or third person in their verbal rendering of a story or situation. For instance, when someone gone through a very painful or even shameful trauma (which could be anything from childhood abuse to getting fired from a job), it is extremely common for that person to deflect their feelings of shame and pain by saying things like, ‘When that happens you feel like you’re not worth anything,’ rather than saying, ‘When that happened, I felt like I wasn’t worth anything.’ Usually, when someone relates a personal experience in the second person ‘you’ rather than the first person ‘I’, they are distancing themselves from the experience and the emotion.

I’ve found there can be many reasons for this. One is that the emotion is still very painful and they’re distancing themselves from the pain by putting it ‘over there’ instead of inside them. Another is that they might be judging themselves for having the emotion (or for having done something for which they are ashamed), and by saying ‘you’ it gives them a feeling of social proof, i.e., that other people also feel the same as they do. And lastly, and especially if the client rarely if ever uses the first person, it can also reflect a chronic dissociation to their feelings, usually stemming from a deep lack of self-worth that goes far beyond a specific incident or memory. For such clients, saying ‘I’ can be one of the most uncomfortable things they’ve ever done, because they have lived for so long not being able to acknowledge their own opinions, feelings and ideas that they have lost the skill of standing in their own presence. For them, the biggest shift they often experience is simply by my pointing out every time they aren’t ‘owning’ their emotions, until they develop their own awareness and begin to step into their experiences without shame or fear. It’s amazing how a simple change from ‘you’ to ‘I’ can do so much to heal a wounded soul.

But what is even more interesting about this shift is that when we begin to ‘own’ our experiences through our language, we also become more ‘direct’ in how we express ourselves. This doesn’t mean that we suddenly become rude or show fits of anger with our family or in public. In fact, it usually means we are much less prone to do so. What it does mean, rather, is that we cease putting up protective barriers around our feelings, making us more able to walk fearlessly in life, even around conflict, without feeling the need either to fight or flee. Directness makes our relationships with people ‘clean’ and straight-forward, enabling us to have a deeper and more intimate connection with others.

Directness plays a big part in marketing as well, and it can make or break the relationship between a business and the consumer. In my upcoming book The 7 Graces of Marketing, I dedicate an entire chapter to ‘Distraction’, which I have named as one of the ’7 Deadly Sins of Marketing’. In that chapter I describe all the subtle ways in which many marketers use Distraction to take our attention away from the truth, in order to make a sale. Later in the book, there is another chapter on ‘Directness’, one of the ’7 Graces of Marketing’, which is the ‘antidote’ for Deception. What is interesting about Directness in marketing (or lack thereof) is that it can stem from the very same reasons we might lack Directness in our personal relations—an underlying disconnection. We might be lack connection to self or to the values being expressed by the business or product being marketed.

Here’s a little story that gives an idea of how lack of Directness can impact our relationships, both in life and in marketing. Let’s imagine a marketing message as a suitor, and the consumer as a young girl being wooed. At first, the girl is charmed by the suitor’s sense of humour, his charismatic ways and his suave and sexy words. She feels when she’s around him and finds herself desiring to spend time with him. Other boys look at the suitor and shake their heads. ‘How come all the ladies are attracted to him?‘ they mutter amongst themselves. They don’t understand why he seems to get all the girls. But after a while, the girl tires of how much he dances around the truth, and she realises she doesn’t really know him at all. His humour, charm or sensuality only makes her irritable, because she knows there is no real connection between them. She gets frustrated because he’s all fluff and little substance. Eventually, the proverbial honeymoon is over and she ends the relationship. He cannot understand how it could happen, as he’s been ever so sweet, charming and entertaining. She herself cannot quite put her finger on what went wrong either, but the whole experience has left her feeling disappointed, and perhaps cynical and mistrusting of future suitors.

When a large company uses Distraction in marketing just to get the attention of the consumer, it’s very much the same scenario. It might very well work at first, but in the long term, most people are going to tire of it unless they find some substance within their relationship with the company. What’s worse, once consumers have been seduced by contests, quirky or provocative ad campaigns and other gimmicks that have little or nothing to do with the product or service involved, they are far less apt to trust a company later on when they want to get serious. But when marketers practice Directness from the onset, they are laying the foundation for long-term relationships with the consumer. Directness is one of the most life-giving attributes of any interpersonal relationship, including marketing.

To pull it altogether into a single sentence:

‘Directness is the practice of using elements in your marketing that that provide plain, unambiguous and relevant information about the product or service being marketed AND express the genuine thoughts, opinions and values
of the company or business owner.’

In other words, Directness tells it like it is.

The above article is a short adaptation from the chapter entitled ‘Directness’ from my upcoming book The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell, which is launching on Tuesday December 13th, 2011. Please be sure to subscribe to this blog for more excerpts and articles, as well as news about the big launch celebration, including a 7-part online telesummit (free to attend, of course!) with a line up of outstanding guest speakers.

AND… if you’d like to be a partner on this book launch, and benefit from the great exposure our collaborative efforts can bring, or if you’d like to invite me to appear on your radio broadcast during the month of November or December, please drop me a line at http://spiritauthors.com/contact by Monday October 10th, 2011.

Copyright Lynn Serafinn, 2011

Connection is one of the 7 Graces of Marketing.
Your comments below are ALWAYS appreciated!

About Lynn Serafinn

Lynn Serafinn is bestselling author, marketer, coach, speaker, radio host and promotional manager for a long list of #1 selling mind-body-spirit authors. In her work, she has witnessed both the conscious and unconscious mechanics of marketing that threaten our society and our very planet. In her book The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell (Humanity 1 Press, Dec 2011), she reveals how modern marketing has played a hand in the the rise of consumer culture, negatively impacting our health, happiness, economy and natural world in an unparalleled way, and offers us hope via a new paradigm she calls “The 7 Graces of Marketing.” Subscribe to this blog to keep on top of how you can help change the world through 7 Graces thinking. Author, marketing and radio show enquiries, please send via http://spiritauthors.com/contact.

Posted in 7 Graces, Blog, Book, Directness, Distraction | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What Quantum Science Can Teach Us about Marketing

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Lynn Serafinn

An exclusive hot-off-the-press excerpt from The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell, by Lynn Serafinn, coming December 2011. This piece comes from the chapter entitled “Connection”, which is the first of the 7 Graces discussed in the book.

Quantum physics has taught us that there is no such thing as objectivity in the physical world. All things are part of the same stuff. The scientist cannot observe reality without taking into consideration his own presence within that reality. The impact we create upon the world around us will inevitably impact us as well, because we are part of the whole, and not separate from it.

These same scientific principles can teach us a great deal about old school marketing versus a new paradigm for holistic, connective marketing, which I call the ’7 Graces’ model. When we look at the two, we can see that they each parallel the cosmological view of their respective eras. Old school marketing comes from an age where most people had a mechanistic view of science, where objectivity was at the foundation of their belief system, and the world was a place of measurement, linear sequences, logic and observable cause and effect. Our 7 Graces model is born of an era in which the cause and effect of science has yielded to a holistic view of systems and inter-relations, where linearity is blurred (if it exists at all) and both the observer and the observed must be taken into the equation of one’s results.

To put it more simply:

  • In old school marketing, the marketer believes he is standing ‘outside’ his audience, and views that audience as ‘the target’. As such, the relationship between marketer and audience cannot help but create imbalance and disconnection.
  • In this new paradigm, the marketer now views himself to be part and parcel of the very audience whom he is addressing. The audience are ‘his people’ and he is related to them via common values and mutual respect. As such, their relationship cannot help but create (or restore) balance and connection.

Back when I worked as a college director, I couldn’t count how many times I heard teachers complain ‘the system’ was a mess. They would always say, ‘the college thinks this,’ and ‘the college thinks that.’ What they failed to see was that they were the college. They were part of the system. We are always part of the system. We are connected to the system.

If we influence another entity, for ill or for good, we are not only influencing that entity, but the entire system. And when we inflict harm upon any part of the system, we are also harming ourselves because we are inseparable from that system. It stands to reason then, if we approach marketing from the perspective that we are separate, and our aim is to exploit another being for our own gain, we are damaging the entire system including ourselves. Given the weight of all the scientific and philosophical evidence, marketers have no more excuses to regard the public as separate, exploitable entities, falsely believing they will escape from the impact they themselves are creating. It’s not a threat. It’s not dogma. It’s not ‘woo-woo’. You might call it karma, but it’s also science.

The age-old ‘Golden Rule’ says, ‘Love others as you love yourself.’ But unless we see we ARE the other, this can at best be lip service. It is only through connection to Self, our business, our audience, the planet and everything else in the system we call Creation, that businesses and marketers can begin to render true service to the world, and hopefully begin to restore the balance that has be so deeply disturbed as a result of worldwide industrialisation over the past two centuries.

Copyright Lynn Serafinn, 2011

Please follow/subscribe to this blog for more 7 Graces thought, videos and news of our mega 7-part online telesummit coming in December 2011.

Connection is one of the 7 Graces of Marketing.
Your comments below are ALWAYS appreciated!

About Lynn Serafinn

Lynn Serafinn is bestselling author, marketer, coach, speaker, radio host and promotional manager for a long list of #1 selling mind-body-spirit authors. In her work, she has witnessed both the conscious and unconscious mechanics of marketing that threaten our society and our very planet. In her book The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell (Humanity 1 Press, Dec 2011), she reveals how modern marketing has played a hand in the the rise of consumer culture, negatively impacting our health, happiness, economy and natural world in an unparalleled way, and offers us hope via a new paradigm she calls “The 7 Graces of Marketing.” Subscribe to this blog to keep on top of how you can help change the world through 7 Graces thinking. Author, marketing and radio show enquiries, please send via http://spiritauthors.com/contact.

Posted in 7 Graces, Blog, Book, Connection | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Scarcity in Marketing – Why Marketers Use It. How it Hurts Us.

Posted on June 23, 2011 by Lynn Serafinn

Earlier this week, I sent a note to my Facebook friends asking the question, “Where have YOU seen scarcity used in marketing, and how do you think it affects us?” Within a few hours, I received a LONG list of responses, with people citing everything from children’s toys, to oil, to computers, to supplies for anticipated emergencies or crises (if you’re my FB friend, come join us and share your view at http://tiny.ly/pDyF). Clearly, people had a lot to say about this hot topic.

The use of scarcity in marketing has long been acknowledged. Everywhere I look, I see marketing mentors tell their mentees to use scarcity as a tool to close the deal and make the sale. And the sad thing about this is that it WORKS. But at what cost to our lives, our health, our communities, our economy and our planet does it do so?

From research I have done, I have come to see that every living being has an autonomic and unconscious response to scarcity. One example I give in my upcoming book The 7 Graces of Marketing is research I uncovered about the Great Dutch Famine of the 1940s, where thousands of people were starving to death due to a complexity of political issues. Many studies have been done on the impact of the scarcity of food upon both the people who lived through those times, as well as the babies who were conceived during those lean years. One of the most fascinating findings is that the babies who were conceived during those times of famine were born underweight, but then went on to develop physiques that were markedly OVERWEIGHT throughout the rest of their lives, due to their bodies’ being conditioned to hold onto fat reserves in response to starvation in utero. Anyone who has be a yo-yo dieter has probably also experienced the same phenomenon.

Scarcity gets into our very genes. We humans are hard-wired to respond to scarcity, at a physical, emotional and mental level. Marketers have long known this, and they use it to their advantage.

The most obvious form of scarcity in marketing is the perception of limited supply or availability. We are exposed to this kind of scarcity marketing from a very early age. One person in our Facebook discussion cited an example of when her young daughter saw an advert for a cookie-baking set and said, “Mom, I have to buy now! They only have 12 left!” Another cited the example of cabbage patch dolls. From Playstations to Harry Potter books, we’ve all seen this kind of scarcity marketing. It makes us panic, rush and buy, fearing we’ll “lose out.”

The use of deadlines in marketing is another form of scarcity. This particular breed is rife in Internet marketing and is taught by just about every Internet marketing guru on the planet. How many times have we heard, “Buy within the next hour before the price goes up!” I’m not saying it’s “wrong” to set sort of “end” to (hence a deadline) to a campaign; we cannot operate a marketing campaign without a clear timeframe. But when deadlines are used intentionally as a means to create excessive anxiety in our clients and customers to convince them to act before they have had a chance to make an informed decision, we might make the sale, but what are we contributing to the health, wellbeing, empowerment and happiness of our customers (and ourselves)?

But scarcity operates at even more subtle levels in marketing. In order to feel we’re going to “lose out” we first have to feel the need. In order for a person to want to buy products they don’t actually need, marketers first have to create the need, and then tell you that the only way to fill that need is to buy their product. If you look deeply enough, you will see that the unconscious message is that you are inadequate or incomplete without such-and-such product. When we are young, it’s all about needing a product to give us fun and popularity. When we are adults, it’s all about sexual and social worth “Because you’re worth it” is actually saying “If you don’t spend the extra money on this product, you’re not really worth much.” The real underlying story of “scarcity” is where marketers tell you in one way or another that you are not enough without their product. If you add into the mix the anxiety that the product that will make us feel like we are “enough” is not going to be available to us for much longer, we have a marketing recipe that influences us to “buy now”, no matter what.

Scarcity marketing is one of the cornerstones of “old school” marketing, primarily because it WORKS. There is no question that it motivates people to act fast. But with the rise of social media, a new era of conscious marketers is emerging where our influence is now felt on a global level. In response to this fundamental change in our society, we simple MUST ask ourselves:

“In the bigger picture, and at a holistic level,
is scarcity REALLY working?
We might be making the sale, but what are we REALLY creating?”

It is my belief that by using scarcity as a fundamental motivator in our marketing, we are really creating:

• stress
• fear
• mistrust
• overspending
• overconsumption
• waste
• debt
• massive environmental imbalances

The irony of scarcity is that when we see the world through the eyes of scarcity we extract, create, consume, hoard or pillage more than we actually need, and we begin to create a self-fulfilling prophecy of actual scarcity on our planet.

In my view, the natural antidote is “Abundance”, which I define as “a fundamental belief that there is enough.” Enough to go around, enough of me, enough of you, enough. When we embrace a fundamental belief that the Universe has provided us with enough, abundance also becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because we act according to the balance and natural flow of the rhythm of the Universe instead of against it.

The topic of “Scarcity versus Abundance” is a massive subject that I discuss in great detail in The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell (coming December 2011), and will be elaborating upon in upcoming blog posts, along with the other “deadly sins” and “graces” of marketing presented in the book.

I hope this short introduction has given you some food for thought and that you’ll keep your eye out for future articles. Please share your thoughts and responses in the comments below. I look forward to reading them!

Also, do subscribe this new 7 Graces of Marketing Blog, which will be rolling out articles and videos on these topics this summer. Just enter your name and email in the form on this page to receive them.

Posted in 7 Deadly Sins, Blog, Book, Scarcity | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Is Marketing Making Us Ill?

Posted on February 27, 2011 by Lynn Serafinn


Scarcity marketing, competition, persuasion, deception and many other tactics have long been the cornerstone of marketing. But do they REALLY work in the bigger picture of things? Find out the real impact of marketing and consumer culture upon our health, economy, society and natural environment at a holistic level in Lynn Serafinn’s new book The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell coming December 2011.

Video script:

Marketing is making us ill. Consumerism is the disease.

Technology lets us make more than we actually need, more than the planet can sustain.

Marketing persuades us to buy all that stuff, whether we need it or not.

Marketing is making us ill.

Fear, sex, humour, false needs, false shortages, planned obsolescence, perceived obsolescence, all make us believe we need things we don’t. Things that make us sick, things that harm the planet, make us dependent upon credit, Create a spiral of debt for you, for me, for corporations, even for whole governments

The economy’s collapsed, the ecosystem’s broken

Marketing is making us ill.

Disconnection, Persuasion, Invasion, Distraction, Deception, Scarcity, Competition…

These are the 7 Deadly Sins of Marketing

Marketing! It’s making us ill.

Fortunately, I’ve got an antidote.

Book trailer for The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell by Lynn Serafinn, coming Dec 2011.

Bestselling author and online marketing guru Lynn Serafinn shares her message on how marketing is making our society and our planet ill. Subscribe to this blog for inspiration on how to make the world a better place by changing our relationship with marketing, and for news of upcoming book launch and telesummit.

Author bookings, speaking, media engagements, or to talk to Lynn about book promotions for your book, contact her at http://spiritauthors.com/contact.

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Posted in 7 Graces, Blog, Book | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments