Organic Marketing vs. Conventional Marketing

Just like there's organic food versus conventional food. Organic food is better for you and better for the environment. Conventional food is produced in a way that's cheaper but is damaging to your health and to the environment. Well, there is also organic marketing versus conventional marketing and that's what I'm going to talk about here in this video. So the reason for this topic is that someone emailed me the following question and I wanted to share that with you. So she wrote. I attended a local marketing meeting. The topic of funnels, sales funnels, marketing funnels came up. The leader shared all of the manipulative FOMO fear of missing out, fear based tactics out there. When I shared that, I thought many were just that, fear based tactics. The conversation turned into me having limited beliefs about what people want and when they want it because all the information is being offered as a service. It wasn't. I have a few examples, but it's too much to share, she wrote. It wasn't the leader who was saying this. He was very chill about it all. But it was a couple of the other participants who were who have heart centered businesses. So in other words, even the heart centered businesses are being indoctrinated by the marketers. And maybe you are too. Chances are if you're watching this video, you probably watch other videos from marketers or you read other blog posts or you take other course marketing courses, you are probably getting indoctrinated into the conventional marketing model which is to manipulate people from one end of the sales funnel to the other end. Now you might think that that's what you're supposed to do, right? Well, how do you get someone to take action if you don't manipulate them? Well, do you also manipulate your friends to get them to do this or that? If they found out that you were manipulating them, how would they feel? Do you like to be manipulated knowingly by somebody, especially a salesperson, especially a marketer who's trying to get you to buy something or to sign up for their email list or to, you know, take some action or by politicians. Do you like being the minimum, being manipulated by anybody? No, none of us like being manipulated. And yet why is it that we are okay in our marketing manipulating others because we don't know that there's a better way. And that's what my entire business is trying to help you with is a better, a higher way, a way that's taken the higher road and still works. And still works just like organic food works. Do you like if you had a choice between organic food and pesticide food, which one would you choose for you and your family? I hope you choose organic food. Now, the reason why some people don't choose organic food is it's more expensive to produce because you can't use the shortcuts, the unhealthy shortcuts that conventional farming uses to create food. Right? Organic food doesn't have genetically modified ingredients, it doesn't have pesticides, fungicides, et cetera, et cetera. That gets into our system and causes cancer and other degenerative illnesses and it doesn't cause runoff and create environmental pollution and, you know, it's bad for the animals and the plants and the ecosystem, etc. Well, same thing with conventional marketing. Conventional marketing uses unhealthy shortcuts to produce results and it's not good for the values environment of the world. When most marketing, the most marketing that's taught to us that you are indoctrinated into is to use fear to get people to do things. Oh, time is running out. You know, you, you know, scarcity limitation and also trickery. It's sort of like you entered into a video series, you were told that you were going to get blessed with free information. You entered into that agreement or that email list and you got some free information. And then now you're being sold things in that sequence that you maybe didn't expect to, or they're selling you harder than you had expected to, to be sold. You can smell it. You can just smell somebody's intentions. Or maybe you can't because you're so used to it now. You're so used to marketers just being creepy or being selfish or do you know what I mean? Like, you can smell it from a mile away, but we are so desensitized to it that we just accept that it's normal. Oh yeah, you join someone's email list, they're really just trying to sell you stuff. They're not really trying to. The mission of the email list was to give you free information. No, it wasn't. It was to sell you stuff. Right? Whereas I actually, my email list is actually trying to give free information. And yes, of course, I sell things too, but I make the free information really the primary purpose of it. I'm on several email lists where it's like they have one free information thing. Like 10%, 20% is free information and then 80% is selling something. Or you, you watch a video and it's like mostly selling something, right? Or you, you know what I mean? It's just, it's gross. Just like conventional farming is, pesticides are gross and. Okay, so, so why is it that conventional marketers keep doing that? Because it creates short term results. Just like why are conventional farmers still using pesticides? Because it creates short term results. They can make money faster. Okay? Organic farming takes a lot of certification and it takes a lot of work to do things in a natural way. It takes more time and takes more money. And you know what? The kind of organic marketing that I'm doing also takes more time and it takes more work. Are you willing to work? If you're not willing to work in service of your audience, then of course you should do conventional marketing because it's faster. It is, it's faster, but it's also damaging to your conscience and it's damaging to your long term brand. Because I did conventional marketing for the first couple years in my business, it made a lot of money fast. Okay, you might say, well, George, you did that. You made money fast and maybe I should make money fast and then I'll be a good person later, right? And yes, you can still make that choice if you want to. And really, I really should say that I really should give you the permission. If you want to make money fast, go and make money fast and then try to be a good person later. You know, just like I did right now. If I had, if I were able to coach myself from 2000 at starting 2009 when I started my business, I would have pleaded with myself to please go the organic route because you will not have to have those regrets that you have now. I gave away most of the money that I made in the first couple years of my business. I give it away to charities because I was feeling so guilty about it. And I wish I didn't. Those were the lost, those were the dark years in the George Cowell history of business. Those were the lost years. You know, those were the teenage years of my business where I was, you know, being a fool. Not all teenagers are fools, but many teenagers do things that they regret. Right? So bad for me to mention that right now being what's going on in the news. But it's basically organic farming is healthier for the farmer and is healthier for the consumer. Same thing with organic marketing. It's better for you, your conscience and your pride and your sense of fulfillment and your sense of joy. And it's better for your audience because they get a sense that, wow, you really care. And yes, you're not shoving offers down their throat like conventional marketers are doing. You're not using scarcity you're not using the funnels to trick them into buying. Okay. Or to pressure them into buying. You're not using those things so they buy slower. It's true. My way will be slower for you. And we have to admit that. And I'm willing to admit that it will take you more time, it will take you more work. Are you willing to do it? But it works like, my business now is on an upward trend. It just has gotten better ever since I started doing organic marketing back in 2000. And 2014 was when I kind of started playing around with the idea. I really didn't know much about it. I had to. I feel like I had to create a lot of it myself. 2015, I started doing it in earnest. And then in the middle of 2016, I noticed that I had no longer needed to go out to get clients because they were all coming to me. So it took me two and a half years. Are you willing to take that long? If you can't take that long, you may need to do some conventional marketing. You may need to do some sales funnels, things like that. Or if you have an advertising budget, like, if you really need money, you know, it's not that I can't help you. There is an organic way of making money faster, and I wrote about that in my newest book, Authentic Selling. You have to be willing to reach out to people. If you need to make money asap, you need to be willing, just like organic farmers. How can organic farmers make money faster? They need to be willing to go to the farmer's markets to really do a. You know, to really reach out to people. Hey, strawberry sample. Hey. You know, we're getting. We're doing a sale on the scale here. You know, they need to be willing to really reach out to people and to be really look people in the eye and do their best to be there, to be person to person, to really make a relationship, to really make a connection. That's what makes sales faster in the organic way. Without using sales funnels, without using fear of missing out, without using fear and greed and pressure in one's marketing. But the pressure does work. The fear does work. We're human beings. Of course, that's why conventional farming works, and that's why conventional marketing works. It works faster. It's just that you burn out. The people that you do that to, they'll buy and then they'll regret, Right? Just like conventional, you know, conventional people who consume conventional food eventually get cancer faster. So they regret it. It's like, I wish I had eaten organic all those years, right? And then I wouldn't have to deal with this cancer. So your audience is going to regret it at some point when you use conventional marketing and you'll regret it at some point, but you do make money faster. That's the reality of things. So with organic marketing, what we're doing is taking care of. It's like organic farming is taking care of the earth, taking care of the farmers and taking care of the consumers. With organic marketing, we are taking care of our audience, taking care of our clients better. We're working harder. I mean, honestly, the organic farmers are working harder, right? And we have to be willing to work harder than the conventional marketers as well. The conventional businesses as well. We work harder. And by working harder, hopefully it's more joy, because I feel more joy now in my business than I ever did when I was doing conventional marketing. I feel more joyful and I'm better at. When I say work harder, I really mean works work. Maybe it's more like work smarter, but I'm a better time manager now of my own time. So I work, I probably work less than I did. I still work about 35 to 37 hours per week on my business. That's without breaks. So if you look at my day, it's 7am to 7pm Monday through Thursday and then Friday it's up to 1pm and on Saturdays I work for three and a half hours. But 7am to 7:00pm is I take, you know, an hour and a half morning break. I take an hour for lunch, I take two hours in the afternoon for naps and things. So I take a lot of breaks during the day. So anyway, 35 to 37 hours per week of work. I work harder, I think, than my peers in terms of like really caring really. I really try to care for my clients. I care for my audience. I put more heart into it. I think just like the organic farmers do, they put more heart into it. And therefore I feel like I'm happier than I used to be. And I'm probably happier, I would guess, than my conventional marketing peers. And I really feel like I have a real audience now and it's only going to keep growing. And I've never, I haven't had to reach out for clients in the last since mid 2016 and I'll have a full client load and I am selling course as well. And so things are going well in my business. But anyway, so if you have any questions about organic marketing, please comment below and let me know. But essentially Organic marketing. I mean I've written so many articles about it. So go and read my blog georgecowell.com blog. You'll read all about it. All my tactics and strategies are there. And if you want to go more in depth, take my courses. And that's where I, you know, my blog is what I call white belt content. It'll help you get started. And then my courses are if you want to take it deeper and really go into the details and the nuances, things that are, that take more patience and more effort to apply are in my courses. And so anyway, any questions, let me know. I don't want to keep talking just for the sake of talking, but organic does work. Organic. And by the way, when I say organic marketing, I should say that the more advanced marketers say. George, when you say organic, do you mean not paid ads? No, no. What I mean is I'm using the sort of organic conventional farming analogy to say organic marketing, meaning the kind of marketing that uses more heart, that works harder to care and that is better in the long term for one's health and for the health of one's audience and for the health of one's brand. It's definitely better in the long term, but it makes money slower than conventional marketing. But it makes better money in the long term. What I've seen. But by organic I don't mean I don't use paid ads because usually in the marketing world, by the way, when you Google organic marketing, the phrase is not really there. And when you think of organic with marketing, they usually mean non paid ads like only search engine optimization and just doing nothing that's paid. I use paid ads all the time. So I don't mean organic in that way. I mean organic in the sense of not using fear based tactics that most marketers do use to get results faster. Okay. And also being authentic, not using lies, not using pretending. I don't try to pretend to be bigger than I am and I don't try to come across as polished or anything. That's also part of the conventional versus organic marketing is what I would say. So thanks to those who were able to join me live here. Jen, Marco, Antonio, Tucker, Steph, Cornelia and Captain, thank you. Thanks Tucker for your comment there and Cornelia for your comment. Corneli wrote, I needed years to create my individual work helping people. But that's exactly how you say like organic farming. I know I'm harvesting my efforts with heart. Absolutely. It is much more fulfilling in my experience to do it this way. There's much more Joy. And also we develop ourselves on the path of mastery. I think that's the difference also between, well, you could say with organic versus conventional farming is the organic farmers are on a path of mastery to partner with nature to create truly healthy and delicious food, right? Biomimicry, all that good stuff. To partner with nature on the path of that mastery. Whereas and with organic marketing, it's the same thing. I'm on a path of mastery to become truly great marketer with heart. Not using the tactics of sales funnels, marketing funnels, lead pages, you know, scarcity tactics, fear of missing out and polish, like sort of fake looking polish, that kind of stuff. No, I don't need any of that. I'm on a path of mastery to become a truly great writer, to become a truly great speaker and to really know my field well and to be able to communicate that in a way that's helpful and interesting to you. I'm on that path of mastery and as I get better on that path, my marketing works ever and ever better. And client acquisition gets easier and easier. Core sales gets easier and easier. That's what I found anyway. So anyway, I hope this works and I'm continuing to give you my best information that I, that I discover and create and I can summarize for you what I'm learning elsewhere as well. So thank you for joining me on the path of organic marketing and may you also find yourself joyful and fulfilled on that path. Wish you well.