More Than Anything, We Need to Be Seen

Have you ever wrestled with marketing a program or workshop or finding coaching clients? Do you have no problem developing good services and helpful workshops but selling them is agony? Have you sat up late googling, How to market my spiritual business? Then you’ve probably come across “empathy marketing.”

In the past month, I’ve been working hard on getting the word out for my new seminar, teaching a form of peer-counseling, and if the interwebs are right, empathy marketing is the holy grail.

It suggests I should not think of myself as the customer as this would fatally bias me. It boldly stated, Not everyone is like you! To which I cried at the computer monitor, practically wringing my hands, I know! It’s no use! I can’t do it! 

Any time I have to get the word out about a course I’ve created, an article or blog post I’ve written or a service I offer I feel like crying. I might know what people need or what might be helpful to them. But I just don’t think I know what they want!

Even as I rack my brains, I don’t see how that helps me get into your head!

One-on-one, when we get into the territory of mysticism, of spirituality, that’s where I excel! I know you are whole and wise and divine, deep down, or high above, take your pick. I know you long for connection. You want to be seen, to be understood. I know you long to be able to let go and really, really, really love. With all your heart from the top of your head to the tips of your toes! When we’re seated across from each other or your face shines from the desktop monitor in a Zoom session I know that our human connection brings you joy. I can see it! I feel my heart answering.

But when you ask me, what do people want, I draw a blank! I revert back to talking about what I can offer you, hoping you’ll be able to put two and two together and see how my seminar or workshop or service will fit your needs.

When you ask me to think about what people want, and yes, I’m being judgmental, but I have to be honest here, I think about the violence on TV and movie screens people seem so ready to consume and the nonsense flooding magazine stands, and I just can’t even. If that’s what people want, I cry, I’ve got nothing!

Because I’m a diamond miner in the tunnels of the soul, I’m a spelunker dropping into the secret caves of the heart. I’m a spirit surfer, meeting you where your spirit dips and soars. I know — more than anything else I might know — what the soul wants, what the spirit wants. I also know that what for me feels like a desirable step — to get in touch with the innermost self — can be a dubious leap for others. Why are we going there, the “people” ask. We’re not going there, I answer, unable to help myself, we’re coming home. Home to the divine reality of our being.

So, yes, as the reader can see I’m very good at pointing out how we’re so different and how I can’t understand you or help you understand me.

But I want to be better at understanding you, not just as the ideal divine self that flies free in meta reality but as the screen-scrolling, movie-watching, working, grousing and loving, every-day self that you see in the mirror.

And the one thing I know about that self is that this you also wants to be seen. Not always right away as your divine self but as the self you came to be as a result of the opportunities and knocks of life. With flaws in your earthly personality and mistakes on your resume. With your selfishness and magnanimity living side-by-side in you. You want to be seen and loved for who you are in the every-day.

I can do that. I know you’re not perfect and you shouldn’t have to be. I’m clear you’re not “the people,” you’re a unique person. Sure, you can watch dumb movies, I do too. That’s neither good nor bad. And it’s also not the sum of me nor of you. Yes, you judge others just like I do. We’re all judgmental, caring, selfish, helpful living, breathing contradictions. At once the holy divine self and the earth-bound wildly mixed-up self. And that’s exactly what I love us for.

So I still don’t know how to do empathy marketing. On the other hand, maybe empathy marketing is just another term for “quick fix” or “panacea” and what there is to do is old-fashioned putting it out there everywhere in any way we can and persisting.

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I’m a nonbinary certified life coach & peer-counselor, course developer & leader, Reiki master, published author and award-winning speaker with over a decade of experience guiding people to become empowered to create the amazing life that is truly possible. I especially focus on helping people on their Hero’s Journey to fulfill their life purpose. Come visit my website at henryhello.com.