Selling is the one aspect of my business that I find the most challenging, so I am always on the lookout for resources that can help me improve in this area.  One such resource is a book by former psychotherapists Judith Sherven and Jim Sniechowski entitled The Heart of Marketing: Love Your Customers and They Will Love You Back.

This blog post is the first of two this week and presents part of an interview conducted with the authors, Judith and Jim.  The rest of the interview will appear in my blog post on Wednesday, May 14th.  That post will also contain a very special offer from Judith and Jim’s joint venture partners.  So, be sure to come back on Wednesday.

Q: I understand that the two of you you came to write this book – The Heart of Marketing – after traveling a very circuitous path.  What happened?

A: We are former psychotherapists who ventured into online marketing just four years ago.  We had to overcome our technical deficiencies and learn to make friends with the computer. Even more so, we had to open our minds to an entirely new way of being in the world, a whole new and very different mindset – a marketing/business mindset.

But all along we labored under the feeling that something was wrong. Or to put it more accurately, something just wasn’t right. But what?

The answer began to emerge at the various internet marketing conferences we attended.

We always felt a sense of displacement, a feeling of not belonging, of somehow being outsiders. We hadn’t had years of business experience, no formal business education, and no family business connections. So we accepted our discomfort as just part of the newness we’d jumped into.

But at those same conferences we began to hear others who had the same complaint. “I don’t feel right, somehow.” We heard their complaints often enough that a pattern became clear. All those who voices this kind of discomfort were service providers, care-givers, change agents of some kind, men and women who had dedicated their lives to helping others heart-to-heart.

It became clear that there was a segment of the internet marketplace that was not being served. That segment is peopled by soft sell marketers – all of us who are care-givers and life-change artists as distinct from accumulation artists whose focus is money first and foremost. And so, soft sell marketing was born.

Q: So you found yourselves uniquely qualified to write this book – a book that advances the power and profit of heart-based, soft sell marketing.  What’s that been like?

A: Actually quite surprising. Not just what we’ve attracted, many people who are looking for a different way to market and profit, but that we see that the hard sell community is taking notice.

Q: Now, you say that soft sell marketers are primarily care-givers and service providers – but aren’t they the people we routinely deal with in our everyday lives?

A: Most marketers both online and off – about 90% – are soft sell marketers. They’ve just never been identified that way before.

To be continued…