Show notes can be found at tashcorbin.com/238
This is not really a marketing topic per se, but running a group of 33,000 women online, I see some things, and this is a conversation that I'd love for us to continue over in the Heart-Centred Soul Driven Entrepreneurs group. It is a pattern and trend that I see happening in lots of different ways and I wanted us to open up this conversation.
A big shout out to Vampire Weekend and their song Oxford Comma for that gorgeous description - dripping with disdain. It's such a powerful and emotive phrase, and I just love it. It's three words put together so perfectly.
Dripping with disdain can be about your industry or your audience, and I thought that this particular podcast episode could be about how by shining a light on some of that disdain that we might have for our industry or our audience, we can start to detox ourselves from the judgement that we might feel towards others.
Let's jump into this episode, it's going to be a bit of a meandering conversation, but I've got eight really powerful examples for you where it might be so helpful to shine a light on where this behaviour - even if it's not outwardly facing, it's just inward thoughts - can show up and how it is actually stopping you from growth in your business.
As you might have picked up from my introduction to this episode, it's not necessarily about fixing something so that your business will grow, or doing a certain thing so that you can get more clients. I do think it's really important for us to pay attention to our thoughts and feelings, especially as they relate to our industry, our audience and potential clients.
For me, that's where the biggest personal development and growth journeys have happened. I know for myself, there are still areas where I can have some pop-up thoughts that aren't necessarily helpful, but I don't ignore them, I pay attention to them.
They show me where I need to be changing my behaviour, showing up more authentically, or sometimes it's highlighting something in my industry or something for my audience that I need to step up, talk about and change.
By ignoring those things, I end up keeping myself small, or just judging quietly and not necessarily having the conversation.
I'm going to start with my points about industry, and then I'm going to talk about audience.
Here are some examples of places, and conversations that I've heard, where people have disdain for their industry.
Have you:
I know that this conversation pops up again and again in the Heart-Centred community and in the Take Off program, and I totally understand where it's coming from, and that some of those concerns that people have are very valid.
I know of coaches who charge $15,000 to teach people how to charge $15,000 to teach people how to charge $15,000...
That is totally a model of business that I've seen.
Has there been any material training or development or mentoring in actually changing people's lives for that $15,000? Or is it just finding more people to charge $15,000 to learn how to charge $15,000? Who knows...
I understand that we can see some of these examples and feel quite judgmental about how that's what the whole industry is in a nutshell and that we're not doing anything different (I've had someone say that to me in a VIP call).
If it is a giant pyramid scheme, we just can't see it and we're contributing to it, then aren't we culpable in this entire scheme and shouldn't we opt out of it?
The first thing I want to say to that is: It's not all of the industry.
I have worked with so many amazing people who have completely changed my life, not just in the way that I grow my business, but also in the way that I serve my clients and in my life outside of my business.
I absolutely love and adore the training, support and development that I have received from most of the people that I've worked with.
a. Realise that it's not all of it.
b. Look at the ways where you have been helped outside of the way that you make money.
Are there things that you have learned? Are there changes that you have made? Do you show up differently as a result of being in this industry, and therefore, could that change be something beyond being part of the cycle of paying a certain amount to charge a certain amount to teach how to charge that amount?
c. See this as an opportunity.
I know for myself that when people want to work with me, they are working with me because they see that I am not just in that pyramid-type model. They see that a lot of my clients don't teach people how to make money. My clients teach people how to look after their health and wellbeing, how to dial up their intuition, how to fengshui their home to improve their relationships, or how to attract their soulmate.
One of the big things for me when I am working with a mentor or coach is to look at whether their clients do exactly what they do, or if their clients work and impact people's lives in other ways.
There is an opportunity for you to differentiate yourself, simply by the fact that you're not part of that pyramid scheme. You can express your value proposition beyond teaching people exactly what you learned about how to sell something that doesn't actually change people's lives.
Whenever I am feeling that it's a giant pyramid scheme and I am judging people for it, in most cases, what it's doing is highlighting for me my fear that maybe I'm in that.
It is just this beautiful reminder to me that I need to be conscious of how I show up online, I need to be conscious of the contribution I'm making to the world, and I want to be 100% confident that my business isn't contributing to a giant pyramid scheme. I ask myself what I need to change, adjust or focus on in order for that to be true.
That's how I deal with it.
This one has particularly come up a lot this year with Black Lives Matter, white privilege, a lot of justification of white privilege, white fragility, and all of those things that have really come to the fore, particularly this year, and seeing industry leaders topple.
I've seen many people who I would have seen as leaders in my industry have a very hard and fast fall because they were unwilling to stop, listen, do the self-reflection, pay attention and acknowledge their own internalised racism, systemic racism, white privilege, and white supremacy. It could be very easy to look at those leaders and think about how they are horrible, or they didn't deal with it so you should opt-out altogether.
What I have also seen, especially this year, is the lifting of amazing voices and the demand at the client level for this to be addressed. People are voting with their wallets.
I have been able to hear from and see so many more amazing black women who run brilliant multimillion-dollar businesses.
I have moved from working with someone who had some problematic responses to Black Lives Matter, and I immediately cancelled my membership in their program and went and joined a different one.
A great example of this and a different way to look at it would if you wanted to sell swimwear and be in the swimwear industry.
The leading brands in your industry do not:
The leaders in the swimwear industry have mostly white, mostly skinny, mostly very tanned and problematic-from-a-sun-safe-perspective models. So you wanted to sell swimwear, but looking at the leaders in your industry, it would be easy to think that to succeed in that industry you have to do that, and you're not willing to so instead you're going to opt-out.
You wouldn't opt-out of that industry, you would stand up for what you want to see in that industry and you would have that inclusivity and that diversity as part of your business model.
That would be a point of difference for you, and that would ultimately end up being an advantage for you. Especially as more and more people are no longer willing to tolerate silence on:
I myself saw that all of the leaders that I could see in my industry were talking about the 4am club. They were talking about hustling, wanting it harder and dialling up people's pain and fear in the sales process, because 'you can totally fix them later when they buy from you'.
I didn't want to do any of that.
But if I had completely opted out of the entire industry because the people that I saw who were leading in that industry had problematic behaviours and beliefs that I didn't agree with, then all of the thousands of women that I've now supported to grow their businesses and market in a way that is completely aligned with their values and doesn't cause the triggering of trauma or dialling up people's pain points in the sales process, all of those thousands of women would have missed out and they'd probably be following the industry leaders and feeling the same as I did seven years ago.
When it comes to looking at your industry, notice where you're feeling that disdain for the leadership, and judgement of the way that other people are behaving. Instead of just expressing that disdain and judgement and doing nothing about it, turn it into something that's actually helpful and useful for your audience.
You will notice that when I talk about the problematic behaviours in terms of sales processes in my business, I don't just throw out disdain and judgement. I instead break it down to 'This specific strategy is not aligned with my values because of this, and this is what it does to people. I'm not willing to do that. So if you aren't willing to do that either, here's what I do. You might like to try to do this way as well'.
You have the opportunity to do that as well.
I've had many conversations, in particular in the last couple of months, where people are saying that they're not going to put anything out online anymore because every time they do, a couple of days later they see someone else putting the same thing up. They don't think it's fair that someone else is having free content written for them so they just won't create any anymore.
I had someone who I was talking to who had created a program that they'd given a specific name to, and then someone else who they saw as a peer came out with an unbuilt program that she started selling with the exact same name - she'd clearly just copied the name and wanted to get in with it first.
There's a lot of that.
On a Facebook Live earlier this year, I talked about a particular product that I was thinking about doing and a URL that I was thinking about buying, and three days after that, someone else bought that URL and put it instantly up for sale for $5,000.
The URL was something very specific to something that I talked about very clearly. It seems like it could be very likely that someone watched that video and went and bought that domain name, but does that mean I'm not going to do anything? Does that mean I just give up and that the entire industry is full of copycats?
Where are you putting your attention if you're constantly looking to find who is copying you?
What I ended up doing was just completely moving in a different direction with a different name for the same concept.
I felt like it ended up being better anyway, so it's no drama.
I could spend my time and attention getting really upset and angry about that, or I could spend my time and attention on building this program.
You can spend your time and attention looking for people who have copied you, or you can block those people and get on with your life. You can accept that there's a lot of coincidence and we all kind of end up sounding the same when we're talking to the same audiences, or you can just focus on your audience instead of focusing on your peers.
It feels as though it's an affront to you, it's an insult, and you make it mean so many different things.
At the end of the day, I have so much compassion for someone who feels that they need to copy my things and my work, because to me it says that that person is really low in self-esteem, and is really struggling to feel confident in their own content, in coming up with their own concepts and in coming up with their own way of talking about things.
If they're constantly resharing or modelling my work in their work, then sure it's not necessarily an insult and it's very flattering, but also it says more about that person than it does about me.
I don't judge someone who copies me, and I don't judge someone who copies someone else.
I understand what it feels like to feel like you desperately need to create something and you have no idea what to say, and how stuck that can feel. If the thing that gets that person unstuck is regurgitating something that you've done, then power to them, let's all help each other. A rising tide lifts all ships.
I'm not saying that you should let everyone copy everyone and that we should all just all regurgitate the same information. There are legal protections, there are ways that you can address it, but at the end of the day, is it even worth doing some of those things?
I had a conversation with someone who said that she has a girl who follows her, who likes every one of her posts, and then a few days later she does a very similar post on her own page.
And I just said to block her. If something upsets you that much, all you need to do is block that person.
But this person didn't want to block her, and every practical solution that I gave her, she made excuses for why she didn't want to that.
Eventually I just got to the point where I told her that the other option is to stop focusing on this copycat and stop checking whether they're copying her.
I think sometimes we prefer to stay in the space of feeling superior or feeling like we're better than someone than actually addressing the challenge that we think we're facing.
That's all I'll say on that one for now, but I do have a whole episode about copycats that you can find here: tashcorbin.com/185-how-to-deal-with-copycats
I think this one can be particularly difficult for people who are new to social media or who struggle with social media.
They say that they don't want to be a part of the noise.
To that I would say, yes, everyone is trying to share their content. We all want to speak to our audiences, but at the end of the day, your audience is going to resonate with your message.
Just because you might feel like it's a busy space to be speaking into, doesn't mean that people aren't sitting there waiting to hear from you.
I know for myself, there have been several times where I felt like no one was talking about the thing I needed people to be talking about on social media. Even when I googled it, I couldn't find anything. Then when I finally found someone who was having that conversation, I was so excited because I really wanted to learn that stuff.
The noise of the internet didn't get in the way, it was just that no one was having that conversation as far as I could find.
I understand the fear that you're just contributing to the noise of the internet, but think about your content and your posts as an oasis for your ideal client.
I've got a great example, of when I went to this amazing market over the weekend and there were all of these stalls (it's been a bit quiet on the market's front because of COVID).
I love just browsing when I go to markets, and I don't need to have conversations with every single person. But in this row of market stalls, many of the stallholders were standing in front of their market stall, and as I walked through this section, I was assaulted by noise and people talking at me trying to get me to come to their stall.
There was this beautiful lady who would have been at least in her sixties, and she had these beautiful handcrafted beads, buttons, jewellery and decorative things, and she was just sitting there quietly behind her stall, and I just naturally made a beeline to her stall.
I was looking at her things while she just sat there quietly and eventually we started talking about why she started creating these things, and we had this amazing conversation. And she wasn't loud.
You can just be this beautiful oasis of really useful information for your audience - you can be an oasis of calm confidence.
It was the calmly and quietly confident people at that market that I spent the most time engaged with because I didn't want to be yelled at by mostly dudes. I didn't want to know that his beef jerky was the best beef jerky in all of Southland, I didn't need to know how many different flavours of bath bombs that other guy had. Honestly, I didn't need them yelling at me. It was the quiet, calm, confident stallholders that didn't need to get out and pitch to me in desperation that I was really drawn to.
You can show up on the internet in that way as well, but you still need to show up.
Instead of being worried or judgmental about everyone yelling over everyone and the internet being really noisy, work out how you can show up in a way that reflects what you want to show up as, how you want to be seen, and how you want to contribute to what's on the internet.
They are the four big judgments I see of the industries that we might belong to.
1. It's a pyramid scheme
2. Leadership
3. Copycats
4. The internet's already too noisy
The other side of this conversation is where I see disdain for people's audience...
This one I really don't get, but I see it come up often.
I have an example from the Heart-Centred community, and this was many, many moons ago. I don't want to get into who it was or anything like that, but it was such a great example for me of not seeing the opportunity with your audience.
Every three or four months, I used to do a post on in the Heart-Centred group asking people what their astrology sign was and what their favourite thing was about being that sign.
There was someone who was a very experienced astrologer who saw this post as being particularly problematic.
There was one time where 700 people had commented on this post, and all the Leo's were teaming up with each other and bonding over being the same sign and sharing what they love about it. All these people were having these amazing conversations - it was one of the most beautiful posts that I've ever done in the group.
One time it really took off and there were all of these comments, and this very experienced astrologer saw people making assumptions about their sign or talking about their astrology in ways that she, as an experienced astrologer for multiple decades, could see were wrong.
Not only did she comment on the post saying that the post was a complete sham, a waste of time, no one knew what they were talking about and that I had posed the question wrong, she also reached out to me and told me to take the post down because it was so problematic and people shouldn't be talking about their astrological signs if they weren't actually informed about what it meant.
Some astrologers had put comments up saying that if someone didn't know what their sign was about then they would happily explain it to them. We had some astrologers adding extra things and adding statements - the astrologers were having a field day and everyone was having a great conversation. I loved it.
Then this person went through and commented and told everyone why they were wrong.
You could choose to see that this conversation about astrology was an affront - which is how she chose to see it - or you could see that this conversation about astrology was an opportunity.
The only difference as to whether you see it as an affront or whether you see it as an opportunity is your perspective.
Not only did I not take that post down (because I loved the conversation that was happening), but whenever that post came up again as a suggestion in my content planning for the group, I haven't done it. I haven't put that post up there the last three times it was suggested.
If this person had seen it as an opportunity and engaged in a really beautiful way without the disdain and without the judgement for their audience (because 90% of people on that post were their ideal client - they were semi-informed about astrology but loved talking about it), then that would have been an amazing opportunity.
Instead of seeing it as an opportunity, they saw it as an affront, shut the conversation down, upset a lot of people in the comments, and now hasn't had the opportunity for that conversation to be reinvigorated in the group since.
That person could have simply seen it as an opportunity, given some clarification about how there's more to it than that and that if anyone wanted to know what it meant for them and their busines, she would love for them to get in touch.
It is such a shame that that was a missed opportunity.
I know that this is a really extreme example, but I see it pop up all the time, where someone asks a question and they're basically screaming at you that they are your ideal client because they don't quite understand how to ask the question properly, and instead of being met with love and compassion and understanding, they are met with judgement and disdain, and completely put off the whole idea.
This happened to me many years ago when I joined a vegan group. I asked a few questions about veganism, and I was basically told that by asking that question, I was telling them that I'm not a proper vegan and so they wanted me to go away. They didn't say it in a nice tone at all, and it was so bizarre to me because it was full of vegan entrepreneurs who could have helped me with understanding some things about veganism.
I see this come up over and over again, people judging and having disdain for their audience asking questions that indicate they're probably ripe to have a conversation with you about this. They might actually either be really ready to work with you, or just before the tipping point of being ready to work with you.
I just wanted to bring that one up because I think that it can be easiest for us to jump to conclusions about why someone's asked a question or what they're saying or why they're saying it.
But at the end of the day, are you looking at that audience conversation as an affront or as an opportunity?
There are so many people complaining that their ideal clients won't invest in sessions with them but they will happily throw money down the toilet for the outcome from someone else.
It is so interesting to me that that is met with frustration, because that says to you all that you need to know for your messaging and marketing.
There is something about the other thing that makes it look like it's the right answer for those people. They're willing to invest in that, and when you share your product or service which you think solves the problem even better, they don't buy it.
That's a messaging issue. The key to resolving that messaging issue is in paying attention to and getting curious about where people are investing their money instead.
If you are getting frustrated or judgmental of your audience because they're spending money in the wrong spaces, again, instead of seeing that as insulting, see it as an opportunity for you to really nail your value proposition and address the messaging issue that means they're putting their money into something else other than the work that you are offering.
This one's a really interesting one because I see it pop up in a range of different ways.
I had a friend in a mastermind who ran a free challenge. There were all these people in her pop up group for her free challenge, and when the challenge finished, people were saying that since the group was closing, they should all make their own group and continue to support and help each other.
This person was like "How very dare they".
"How dare they think that they can go off and work on this without me when I have put all of my time and energy into doing this with them in this free challenge. If they wanted extra support and community, they could just buy my program and they would get everything that they need. But instead, they're going to go off and create their own splinter cell of people working on this together for free. How dare they."
It pops up with people who are working with someone, talking to each other, and forming networks with each other.
I actually did a program once where we weren't allowed to talk to the other participants, and when a couple of people got busted who knew each other outside of the work that they've done together, it was like a "how dare you" and they got booted out.
Again, that judgement or that disdain for them was an opportunity. Clearly people want to keep working with each other, and they want to keep talking to each other. They want to keep working on this thing, they feel like there's more for them to do but the group program or whatever is on offer is not the thing for them - they want something else.
It's totally okay if you want to set the boundaries and say that there can't be any splinter groups - that's your group, your rules, your program, your rules, your business, your rules - but don't judge people simply because they want to keep having that conversation.
If you can facilitate that conversation and keep them in your community to have that conversation then great. But if you're not interested in facilitating that conversation, then they're going to go and have that conversation elsewhere. That's totally legit of them to want to do that.
That's a really interesting one, and for me, it always creates this sense of asking myself how I can meet those needs without changing my boundaries.
If you find yourself feeling like "how dare they" about your audience or your clients as well, just pay attention to that one.
"If they can't see how valuable my work is, then I'm not there for them." Or "If they can't prioritise investing in working with me, then I'm not interested in working with them, I don't want to help these people."
I see this particularly in sales conversations:
"If they're not a quick decision maker and they're not willing to pay even the deposit straight away, then I don't want to work with them because they're not a quick decision maker."
"If they aren't willing to invest $6,000 in my program without talking to their partner, then they're not the kind of person that I want to work with because they're not independent."
To this I always say that you just don't know what's going on for other people. How can you know? And is that really how you want to show up in the world?
I don't see this as much in the Heart-Centred community, but I do see this in the online business world and particularly in places where those hardcore pressure sales tactics are used.
"I don't even want them to be in my audience". This one I see a lot with email marketing, "If they're not willing to put up with 17 emails for me in a week when I'm launching something, then they can just F right off" - I see that a lot.
If someone doesn't want to receive 17 emails from you in a week and that makes them want to unsubscribe from your list, is it actually a they-have-to-put-up-with-it-or-else kind of scenario?
Someone that I see who does this really well is Denise Duffield-Thomas when she's doing an affiliate launch for a particular program. At the start of that affiliate launch, and in every other email that she sends about that affiliate launch, there's an option of unsubscribing from that launch if they don't want to hear about that program.
That's a really beautiful thing to be able to do without telling someone that they have to receive 17 emails about a launch or else they can just go away and that it's their problem.
For your audience as well, sometimes they can't see the value of what you are offering. It's not their job to find it - it is not their job to go on a treasure hunt and try and work out whether your product is the right fit for them or not.
You have a shared responsibility.
They need to show up and read some emails, or they need to show up and watch some videos, but you also need to make sure you're taking responsibility for providing enough information in that process that they can make that decision without having to jump through a bunch of hoops in order to find the information that they need.
Similarly, with the if-they-can't-decide-in-24-hours type thing, you don't know what other people are going through.
Even I don't invest in things more than $500 without talking about it with David. The reason why I do that is because we are saving for a house right now, and we have some big priorities for our money. We have some really big financial goals that we're going for.
The process of talking it out with him is really helpful for me as an extrovert, to get really clear on:
I also know I'm very susceptible to NLP in the sales process, and all of the trickery and tactics that make me end up having really big buyer's remorse, so I have a rule with myself that if I'm going to invest in anything in my business, I have to sleep on it for 48 hours.
That's just the rule.
To say, "Well I don't care if you have that rule, if you don't buy from me immediately, then you're not my kind of person", that is dripping with disdain. It's full of judgement.
Just because they have a different process of assessing whether something is the right fit for them, doesn't mean that they don't deserve to be helped.
That's a really big one for me. I think that in the online business world, there can be a tendency to be very dismissive of people who aren't excited and quick to jump in and willing to take everything that you say at face value and immediately trusting of you.
To me, that's actually a really great quality that I love in my audience.
I love that people take time to consider whether they're going to work with me. I love that people want to talk about it with their partners first because they're going to go fully into it if they do join. And I love giving people time and space to sleep on it, because I love getting time and space to sleep on it myself.
That's one where I've seen a tendency for this judgement and this disdain to creep in. If that's coming up for you, it's something to consider.
1. Getting frustrated with your audience and missing opportunities
2. "My audience will waste money on A, B and C when all they need is just a few sessions with me"
3. "How dare they"
4. "If they can't see what they're doing then that's their fault"
With all of these things that we've talked about in this very long episode of the podcast (and thank you for sticking with me if you're still here), my goal is not to tell you not to feel them, think them or say them (some of them please don't say), but that's not the goal of this podcast episode.
For me, the biggest shifts that happen are when I pay attention to my thoughts, and I pay attention to the way that I'm contributing to the conversation in my industry.
Think about all of these things we've talked about today:
When you pay attention to how you think about these things and your contribution to your industry in this space and to the conversations about these things, that can shine a light on why we feel this way.
We get to make a conscious decision about whether we want to continue thinking that way, whether we want to continue behaving that way, and whether we want to continue showing up and contributing to the conversation in that way.
I hope that you found it valuable, and as I said at the start of the episode, I want this to be a conversation.
Please come on over to the Heart-Centred, Soul-Driven Entrepreneurs Facebook group, use #podcastaha, and tell me that you've been reading episode number 238.
I'd love to know:
I would love for this to be a group conversation because I think there's so much that we can learn from these experiences, as well as so much that we can change about what we see online that we don't agree with.
I know that the Heart-Centred community is a beautiful incubator of new types of thinking for online business. It is a community with new ways of showing up much more feminine, connected, vulnerable, open, and implementing integrity-driven practises in the online business world.
Come on over to Heart-Centred group and let's continue the conversation.
Until next time, I cannot WAIT to see you SHINE.