How Do You Keep Your Marketing Heart-Centered? | Facebook Live With Reid And Cathy
Reid: Hello Facebook! It’s Reid Mihalko from https://reidaboutsex.com/ and I’m wearing my sex geek summer camp T-shirt so this is business advice but business advice from somebody who will be joining us at this year’s sex geek summer camp. Cathy Vartuli of http://theintimacydojo.com/. Welcome
Cathy: Thank you
Reid: to our Facebook live today.
Cathy: Hi everyone!
Reid: We’re broadcasting from Cathy’s secret lair somewhere in Silicon Valley and…and not only are you teaching at camp this year yet again you have chosen to organize camp from behind the scenes
Cathy: Yes.
Reid: and the….at some point if you see Cathy with a huge Greek gray streak of…of hair, it will be because of camp because you can see it’s already happening. It’s already happening to me running a five-day business camp for sex educators, workshop leaders, facilitators’ things like that. I think it was going to go gray anyway but the politically correct term is silver ladies and gentlemen. This is silver right here. So Cathy, what are you excited about teaching this year at camp and you were looking for titles and as you sign on say hi and
Cathy: Yeah, Hi everyone!
Reid: where you’re….you’re saying hi
Cathy: Hey Kath!
Reid: from? What….why did you choose the title, How to Keep Marketing Heart-centered?
Cathy: Because for me, I originally got into marketing over ten years ago because I was working with a business partner and I love like he had such great ideas and I noticed that he would reach a number of people but it wasn’t reaching the number of people that could really be benefited. So I started delving into the world of marketing and I walked through a lot of slimes. I went through classes where I was like “this has got to be wrong. Please, God let….it’s not been what I have to live.”
Reid: What…what year was this like years ish
Cathy: Well, so seven or eight.
Reid: You’ve got in seven, okay.
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: Yeah
Cathy: and there was a lot of very keen-based marketing and fear-based marketing and I went through these classes and I was just like this can’t be right and I struggled for a long time and I went….I’m very determined. I’m a research scientist. I kept going and luckily I stumbled on to people that were really heart-centered and we’re talking about inspiring people and helping people to move forward but one of the sad things I found is that a lot of people dropped out along the way. The people that I have started with. That we’re in a lot of the same classes then we get burnt out and so frustrated because they were trying to teach people to heal, to be brave, to get through trauma, to be empowered around their sexuality or whatever it was and at the same time these marketers are telling them to incite fear and push them and scare them into buying and tell them if they don’t do this, their life is ruined and to me that…that was like you cannot empower people by taking away their power.
Reid: Well and….and the idea that you…you get them in their fear response
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: when you’re trying to, when you heal them get them into their parasympathetic nervous system
Cathy: Yeah, it just seems so counterintuitive and oh thanks [Inaudible 00: 02:53]. She said my hair looks good today.
Reid: Oh, okay. Alright.
Cathy: So, it to me it was just fundamental like I had to figure this out and like I luckily Reid and I started taking some classes together too with some of these higher-end marketers that were really heart-centered and wanting to inspire people and they had no room for this bullshit about like let’s scare people into it but even this is the fourth year I’ve run camp for you and the fourth year I’ve taught some of this stuff and I remember one of the I think it was the second year, someone was sitting in the front row as I went through how to how to write copy and she had kind of an interesting….I looked at her like she was very engaged the whole time through and at the end, she said: “oh my god, I’ve been terrified or I copied my entire life.” I just it was just it shut her down and then after this where she could see she could just share what was real for her, share what she wanted for people and inspire them. It wasn’t about harming anyone, it wasn’t about forcing anyone or manipulating anyone it was about being very genuine and inviting them forward with ways that allow them to get over their fear because people are afraid. People out there are always they’re…they’re like the people that we need to help the most, are terrified to take that step forward into the unknown into the new.
So if we can just get them to take a little step, a gentle baby step and we can encourage them and speak to them in a way so that they can get past that fear or inspire them over that fear, they’re…a whole new world opens for them. So even if they just read the copy and they don’t do the thing we’re offering, I want to leave them better. I want to leave them inspired and touch moved and feeling like their life could really work for them and so that’s what I love teaching this because to me it’s a way to reach people through the fog of fear and pain and nothing has ever worked for me and there’s….there’s a formula you can follow that helps get past some of the fears and invite people forward and it doesn’t have to be creepy or manipulative. In fact, it’s a beautiful way to reach and touch people.
Reid: And I mean the…the…the irony being for those of us who are in the sex and relationship field, if you think about marketing are….is the kind of energy or the….the approach that you have with your marketing is that are you role modeling what you want your clients to be doing in bed with their partners?
Cathy: Yeah.
Reid: Is it pain marketing that I should be using in bed?
Cathy: Only if it’s consensual.
Reid: Well, that’s true. I guess that’s kind of kinky huh ooh that’s whole other thought.
Cathy: but
Reid: That’s….that’s tangent.
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: But the idea of you know how can you teach people along the entire journey like you can reference the pain but rather than it being more pain and blame and guilt and shame, can it be more inspirational?
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: Can it be in…inspiring and then you know the other side and this is stuff that we’ll talk about at camp as well is like you know when you do inspire people and….and you teach them if it’s a good idea to buy this product, how they can figure out if they’re ready
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: rather than making them feel so in pain that they buy anyway.
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: If you figure out the backend stuff and you have you know your return policies and…and…and your good customer service, what you’re role modeling is that it’s it’s….it’s okay to be inspiring.
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: It’s okay to…to feel uplifted and then take action
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: versus feel so shut down and desperate that…that you have to take action then.
Cathy: Yeah and to me good copy inspires people. It invites them to possibility and then lets them make a clear decision. Is this program a good fit for who I am, what I want right now? Do I to…to me is the money spent worthwhile because everybody has different values on different things and there’s nothing wrong.
Reid: So with…with that whatever else you’re going to be teaching at camp?
Cathy: Well, one other thought I wanted to share is if you’re if you have passion in your heart because I’ve seen people saying they notice the passion, most of us have something we want to teach. If you’re on this watching this, if you follow Reid, you have something you want to teach. If you can’t reach people, if you can’t write copy that inspires and invites people in, you can’t have Nobel Prize-winning material and it won’t help people. So, whether you come to camp or you study this another way I really encourage you…. learn how to write copy that will help people come in and be invited in because that can help what you have. You can have the same exact program if it’s reaching ten people or a thousand people you make a much bigger difference when you start stepping forward and writing in a way that can more people can hear you.
Reid: Now at the same time and I’m not going to shame people if they’re into pain copy. Right? ‘Coz this would be the….this would be the…in role modeling, this would be like me yucking you’re yum. What I am going to say though is that studies that some of the marketers that we geek out with are had been doing over the years as showing that pain marketing works for certain kinds of customers but they tend not to become these loyal fans
Cathy: And there’s more higher…higher returns
Reid: There’s more…higher returns but they don’t become these loyal fans that then spread word of mouth to all their friends your products, your services, your events. So there’s some indication that getting good at inspirational marketing at being able to kind of surf the edge of “hey, I see your pain.”
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: And I…. “Here’s the pain I’ve experienced in my life but here’s how I overcame it.” That inspirational kind of approach is showing to be better for your career over time then I want to sell a thousand you know online courses and you know
Cathy: One time
Reid: Yeah, one time and then 40% of those online courses get returned.
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: So you can do the math but around camp like we’re…I’m interested in helping people build careers. So this is one of the things that
Cathy: And reputations
Reid: and reputations, yeah. And so this is one of the things that I am passionate about and then it just kind of congruent for you as well
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: and you’ll be teaching other things at camp.
Cathy: Yeah. So, one of the things you were talking about inspiration, one of the things I talk is about how to use your story in marketing and it can be your story or your client’s story but people learn through story. They have a lot…if we say once upon a time, people’s brains shift in a different way. So when we can give people examples and we can walk them through our experiences and they know why it matters to us, all of a sudden they feel safer. If I’m offering you something that sounds really good but you don’t know where I’m coming from, there’s a fear of resistance like “are you manipulating me? Are you trying to take me for a ride? And why are you doing this?” But if you tell us…you tell a story, choose a story that helps people see why this is important to you. I tell…I often tell the story about how I struggled with my with my sexuality and how I want no one to be left sitting alone on the couch on a Saturday night because they’re too afraid and don’t know how to reach out to people.
I think when people realize where you’re coming from, where your where your passion lies, they feel safer and they might feel inspired “oh, if you went through that and got to the other side maybe I can too.” So weaving story into your marketing is so powerful.
Reid: Yeah. Anything else?
Cathy: Well, I’m also teaching about some…some money things.
Reid: How many things you teaching at this camp? Is this the Cathy camp?
Cathy: I’m teaching six things.
Reid: My God. How do you do that? Oh, wait. You’re organizing camp. I see. I see. That’s how those were got in there huh. People love Cathy. What am I going to say now?
Cathy: Well, three of them were at the optional lunch. At the free time hours
Reid: We have….we have free time optional so we have to cram in the schedule.
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: We only have five days.
Cathy: Yeah, but one of the things I’m teaching also during when the optional times is how to manage money a little bit. I mean, I’m not an accountant but we’re going to go over some tips and tricks for self-employed taxes and money management just tracking that because a lot of people are very intimidated by that and I’ve had like been lucky to have some really amazing mentors. So I’m going to share what works for me, you can adopt that or not and Twitter and Facebook, YouTube so in video so.
Reid: Okay. Well, there you go.
Cathy: Yeah.
Reid: So, if you’re interested in coming to camp, https://reidaboutsex.com/campFAQ and it’s R.E.I.D about sex.com and where can people find you Cathy?
Cathy: http://theintimacydojo.com/
Reid: Oh, I see. I also like to thank our camp sponsors this year ‘coz
Cathy: Yeah.
Reid: we’ve got…most of our camp sponsors coming in we’ve got Njoy. So if you’re a big fan of Njoy toys you might want to come to camp because people get enjoy toys at camp and thank you Greg and Marilyn. Everybody in Njoy toys.
Cathy: And they’re really great.
Reid: We’ve got We-Vibe, we’ve got B-Vibe, we’ve got UVee, we’ve got Kamasutra, we’ve got Uberlube so there’s going to be tons of Uberlube at camp this year.
Cathy: I love that lube.
Reid: And thank you Uberlube for all that you do and then I feel like I’m missing one other one I think there’s 7 right now. Sybian! Oh
Cathy: How can you forget Sybian?
Reid: I can’t forget Sybian. We save…so sometimes you have to save the….you have to save Sybian for last. And yes
Cathy: And Bunny will actually be there.
Reid: And Bunny will be there. So if you want to meet the daughter of the man who made the Sybian, who invented it and
Cathy: And there will be a Sybian there to try out. Oh, wow.
Reid: There will be two.
Cathy: Is anyone here who come to class?
Reid: Maybe we’ll just have to keep it that class. So check it out at https://reidaboutsex.com/campFAQ. If you can’t come to camp because camp is almost two weeks away
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: If it’s too late or you’re in Europe or someplace else in the world
Cathy: You can still come if you’re…we have
Reid: or…or you have a wedding or something
Cathy: some people from Europe
Reid: Yeah, yeah. But they might not be able to buy tickets, that’s why then go to http://www.sexgeeksummercamp.com/ and get the free videos there
Cathy: They’re great.
Reid: because that will also invite you at the end there’s an online version of camp for those who can’t make it to camp. It’s called the sex geek school for gifted sex geek. We call it SG3 and if you’re interested in that and you’re welcome to…to do both, do camp and SG3. We’ve got people doing that as well and how many people we’ve got this year Cathy?
Cathy: Over 80 right now.
Reid: Over 80 people. We’re breaking records ladies
Cathy: And there’s more registering as we speak
Reid: and gents. More registering
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: as we speak. Maybe you maybe you.
Cathy: Yeah
Reid: So thank you for being a part of camp, for doing all the stuff that you do
Cathy: My pleasure.
Reid: behind the scenes, for teaching all the amazing stuff that you geek out at and for being a heart-centered entrepreneur
Cathy: Thank you.
Reid: Sex positive copywriting ninja and all the stuff there.
Cathy: Well, I hope to see many of you there at camp and or around the sex geek world and I really do appreciate all you do in the world. This is really important. We’re making a difference.
Reid: Don’t stop. Bye, everyone!