The Heart of Marketing
Love Your Customers and They Will Love You Back
By: Judith Sherven, Jim Sniechowski
Published: May 1, 2009
Format: Paperback, 182 pages
ISBN-10: 1600375596
ISBN-13: 978-1600375590
Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
"In short, it's about putting your heart into marketing", write former therapists and the founders of the Soft Sell Marketing Association Judith Sherven and Jim Sniechowski about their groundbreaking and inspirational book The Heart of Marketing: Love Your Customers and They Will Love You Back. The authors describe how marketing can serve the needs of the customer, both materially and spiritually, by creating a long term and mutually beneficial relationship for everyone.
Judith Sherven and Jim Sniechowski understand that many marketers feel uncomfortable with hard sell techniques. Those traditional selling methods fail to satisfy the deeper emotional needs of both the buyer and the seller. The authors describe how they felt empty when offered the typical sales and marketing programs, but chalked it up to their relative inexperience. Over time, they discovered that many other sales representatives and marketers felt the same level of discomfort that they experienced in their own business. Judith Sherven and Jim Sniechowski discovered the insight that marketing is more about the heart than most marketers even realize.
Judith Sherven and Jim Sniechowski (both shown in photo left) recognize the importance of heart to heart connections between the soft sell marketer and the buyer. Through genuine openness and authenticity, the soft seller creates a deeper relationship with the customer that is far beyond simply a commercial one. The authors know instinctively that there is no real competition between hard sell and soft sell marketers. Both styles have their customer bases, and both connect with customers in different ways. In an internet world, where the marketer is entirely unknown to the prospective customer, it's essential that a relationship be developed and nurtured with the prospect long before a marketing message is even part of the conversation.
For me, the power of the book is its no nonsense question and answer format that demonstrates clearly the power of building deep lasting relationships between the marketer and the customer. Indeed, the authors point out that both parties have spiritual and emotional needs that must be met for a truly satisfying connection. The heart is the focus of the book, and that emphasis on human relationships on a personal level, is the key to soft sell marketing. The internet is a real test of soft sell relationship based marketing in action. The authors describe how building relationships on a personal level, before presenting any sales or marketing message, is crucial to internet marketing success. Soft sell heart based marketing is made for marketing on the internet.
I highly recommend the enlightening and gratifying book The Heart of Marketing: Love Your Customers and They Will Love You Back by Judith Sherven and Jim Sniechowski, to any marketers who feel uncomfortable with hard sell marketing concepts that fail to put relationships and connection building at the forefront of their marketing program. In the place of these hard sell techniques, the authors offer the proven, and emotionally satisfying soft cell marketing idea.
Read the marketing paradigm changing book The Heart of Marketing: Love Your Customers and They Will Love You Back by Judith Sherven and Jim Sniechowski, and develop open and transparent relationships with potential customers. People prefer to buy from those who they know, like and trust to have their best interests at heart. When a sale is a collaborative creation, the result is spiritually gratifying for all concerned.
