Today I have the great pleasure of being the host on Day 1 of the Virtual Blog Tour of author Lynn Serafinn whose book The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell launches on Amazon on Tuesday December 13, 2011.

Lynn Serafinn, MAED, CPCC is a certified, award-winning coach and teacher, marketer, social media expert, radio host, speaker and bestselling author. Her eclectic approach to marketing incorporates her vast professional experience in the music industry and the educational sector along with more than two decades of study and practice of the spirituality of India. In her work as a promotional manager she has produced a long list of bestselling mind-body-spirit authors. Passionate about re-establishing our connection with the Earth, she supports the work of the Transition Town network in her hometown of Bedford, England.

Today, I’d like to share with you a recent interview I had with Lynn when I got to ask her some questions on 7 graces/sins and collaboration.  I hope you enjoy it.

Linda Joy Myers: What are the 7 deadly sins of marketing and why should we avoid them?

Lynn Serafinn: This is a huge topic, Linda, so I’ll just give a very short introduction to the idea here. And as your readers are writers, I would like them to consider that “marketing” in my definition doesn’t just refer to advertising, but to anything in the business of “selling” ideas. From that angle, both politics and journalism could be considered “marketing”. And as writers, we are also in the business of “selling ideas” by engaging our audience. So consider these principles carefully when approaching your own writing, and see how it changes how you write, and its impact upon your readers.

Ok, now to answer your question. In my book, these are what I call “The 7 Deadly Sins” of marketing:

1.                  Disconnection

2.                  Persuasion

3.                  Invasion

4.                  Distraction

5.                  Deception

6.                  Scarcity

7.                  Competition

As you get to know these “deadly sins” in the book, you’ll see that they are all built upon each other. That is to say, Disconnection is the foundation of all the others, and each one in turn opens the door to the next.

If we are in a disconnected relationship with our Self, with Source, our businesses or with other people, our marketing is always going to be created through the lens of our Disconnection. We will fail to see that our role as marketers is to connect, inform, inspire and empower our audience. We will create marketing that is persuasive, invasive, and dishonest in some way, because our aim will be to “land the deal” rather than to communicate.

Linda Joy Myers: What are the 7 graces of marketing and how can writers benefit from understanding them?

Lynn Serafinn: These are “The 7 Graces” of marketing from my book:

1.                  Connection

2.                  Inspiration

3.                  Invitation

4.                  Directness

5.                  Transparency

6.                  Abundance

7.                  Collaboration

You can see that each one is a counterpart (or “antidote”) to each of the 7 Deadly Sins above. Just as Disconnection is at the foundation of all the other “Deadly Sins”, Connection is at the foundation of all the other Graces. When marketers (and writers!) work from a place of Connection, everything changes. We no longer exploit people or the planet, because we feel a deep, inner Connection to them. Similarly, when we write from this place, it opens the door to our being able to create marketing and writing that inspires and engages our audience with dignity and grace (Inspiration and Invitation).

As our Connection deepens, we move on to be able to be more direct and simple in the way we communicate (Directness). When we become more direct, people start to understand what we say, and trust us more. As we feel more trusted and supported, we in turn become more “transparent” (Transparency), and we also become more generous and giving (Abundance), both of our time and our wisdom. We begin to see that there is enough for all in this world, so long as we live in harmony with the flow of Nature. And when we reach that state of being, we no longer feel the need to compete, as we have nothing to “fight for” anymore.

Linda Joy Myers: Tell us how collaboration in marketing works better than competition.

Lynn Serafinn: Again, I’ll try to make this relevant to writers as well as to the actual practice of marketing. First of all, you can see that Competition comes from a place of separation and Disconnection. As marketers, Competition results in our giving ourselves permission to pull out all the stops to dominate our “competitors”. This attitude has caused many tragic results in the world of marketing. One example is how food manufacturers use dangerous chemical pesticides on crops, or equally dangerous (to animals and humans) growth hormones in cows, just to increase their yield so they can corner the market. If they were operating from a place of Connection, this kind of cut-throat and reckless behaviour simply wouldn’t occur.

In my marketing, everything I do is founded upon Collaboration. Even many of my so-called “competitors”, who also do book marketing campaigns, will support me (and vice versa) in my promotional ventures. The result of marketing from true and genuine Collaboration is nearly always a win-win-win situation. I say “win-win-win” because in addition to me and my collaborators, I am including the audience. Audiences benefit from collaborative marketing because they generally get more value from the Collaboration.

As artists, we are up against the competitive world all the time. In my experience as a musician (which I was for decades), I found Competition only ever to be a destructive element. It shuts down creativity, and actually causes us to be less innovative. Studies with school children have proved this.

As solo writers, we can sometimes feel isolated and alone when we write, so you might wonder how Collaboration comes into play. The first way is to write from the spirit of Collaboration. Draw upon all you know, and from everything you read and see around you. There is no such thing as writing in isolation; when I wrote my book The 7 Graces of Marketing, I did an enormous amount of research of other authors’ works. I even spoke to some of them to bounce off my ideas. I did a lot of blogging and gave a lot of talks to get feedback from the audience, to see what they thought about the ideas and what needed changing or clarifying. If we work in a competitive state of mind, we would tend to hide our ideas and never benefit from the wonderful benefits of co-creation and Collaboration with others.

———-

I hope you enjoyed this interview with Lynn Serafinn and that you’ll check out her book The 7 Graces of Marketing: how to heal humanity and the planet by changing the way we sell at http://the7gracesofmarketing.com/book-launch/pages/pre-launch.html

Here’s why:

The 7 Graces of Marketing Telesummit

A FREE 7-Part Online Happening!

December 6th-9th, 2011

Register at http://the7gracesofmarketing.com/free-telesummit

When you visit the page at the link above and request a “launch reminder”, you will automatically receive a FREE pass to Lynn’s 7-Part online happening “The 7 Graces of Marketing Telesummit” with an illustrious panel of 24 bestselling authors and world-renowned speakers and media experts on society, business and marketing coming together to discuss how we can bring ethics and values back our business and marketing practices, and restore balance to our health, our economy and our natural environment.

Here’s the spectacular list of guests speakers for the event:

Dr. Joe Vitale * Greg S. Reid * Dr. Eric Pearl * Dan Hollings * Pamela Slim * Liz Goodgold * Allison Maslan * Suzanne Falter*Barnes * Tad Hargrave * Misa Hopkins * Richard S. Gallagher * Ward Vandorpe * Barbara Altemus * Andrea Conway * Renee Baribeau * Renee Duran * Michael Drew * Chris Arnold * Jeffrey Van Dyk * Tanya Paluso * Kate Osborne * Shelagh Jones * Paula Tarrant * Lynn Serafinn

You can listen to the telesummit online in the comfort of your own home, and even ask questions during the broadcast.                          

If you are reading this after Dec 9th, 2011 you can still access the playback for a limited time when you register at http://the7gracesofmarketing.com/free-telesummit

This telesummit is a completely free
“no purchase necessary” gift from Lynn 

FREE GIFTS

When you buy Lynn’s book on Tuesday December 13, 2011, you can ALSO receive the MP3 download of all 10 hours of this historic telesummit, plus a complete library of beautiful personal development gifts from authors, speakers, coaches and other enlightened professionals from around the globe including one from me:

The Spiritual and Transformational Journey of  Memoir Writing

Teleseminar with Mark Matousek and Linda Joy Myers

 

 

 

To claim your FREE pass to the 7 Graces of Marketing Telesummit

and read about the free gifts, go to:

http://the7gracesofmarketing.com/book-launch/pages/pre-launch.html

Thanks for reading! As usual, please feel free to share your comments and thoughts below. I love reading your feedback.

AND… be sure to follow Lynn tomorrow when the next stop on the Virtual Blog Tour is Roy Martina, who will be interviewing Lynn on marketing disease, traps and the positive side. To visit that “stop” on the tour, go to http://emotionalbalance.com/2011/11/29/what-is-the-7-graces-of-marketing-with-author-lynn-serafinn