A while ago I ran into a local acquaintance, who hosts retreats and events.
“Hey Martin, do you still coach people?”
Told them that yes, I sure do.
“Well, if ever you want to work together, our premises are available”.
Ooh nice, I thought: collaboration!
“As in, organising a retreat together, you mean?”
And then they hit me with probably the biggest turnoff ever:
“No, as in: you bring us the people, and we host a retreat for them”.
My jaw dropped at the staggering and blatant greedy selfishness of it.
They expect me to do their marketing for them, because what – I’m such a nice guy?
To make this even more painful, this person is rather well-connected to an up-market audience, has a huge following, and is actually world-famous in a niche that isn’t very small.
In other words: they have everything in place to draw in a crowd.
And yet, they have this idea that other people should do the heavy lifting for them.
I’m still baffled by how clueless it all was.
In the past, I used to like this person, and have often considered programmes we could run together.
After this though? I no longer consider them. No longer part of my world. Bye.
Not that I expect them to care – after all, I’m just a dude who does a thing, and there’s 100s of dudes and lasses like me, here on the coast.
But in terms of marketing, what they did was display greed – the greatest sin you can imagine in business, sales, and marketing.
When you want to enroll people (whether in an idea, a collaboration, or indeed into paying you money for something), give first.
When you do that, you make it about them, which is a powerful way to enable people to trust you.
And without trust, people don’t buy.
Instead of being greedy and selfish, be generous.
Serve people with your marketing.
