Mia Fileman 0:05
This is Got Marketing? â a podcast with ideas, strategies, and tactics to help small businesses create smarter marketing. Iâm Mia Fileman, a professional marketer, and the founder of Campaign del Mar. In this show, I chat with creatives and strategists about the different aspects of marketing, but without the fluff. Letâs dive in!
Hello, everyone! Welcome to the show!
Today, I am joined by an absolute legend â one of my good friends â Melissa Packham who is a marketing and brand strategist. Her business is A Brand is Not a Logo. Welcome, Melissa!
Melissa Packham 0:44
Thank you so much! What a beautiful intro! Itâs such a cool thing to be here with you.
Mia Fileman 0:50
We are going to be discussing probably our favourite topic which is ethical marketing and the gurus.
Melissa Packham 1:01
Yes, canât wait to dive into this. This is like recording our DM banter for the last multiple years. Iâm excited to dive in properly in a conversation.
Mia Fileman 1:12
Yes, me too â to turn all of those DMs and emails and rants into something thatâs actually useful and educational for small business owners. Letâs go right to the beginning. Who is a guru? What is a guru?
Melissa Packham 1:31
Well, itâs the eternal question that weâre trying to unpack right now, but I think itâs that celebrity entrepreneur vibe. They bring the secrets, the formulas, the plug-and-play solutions. âIâve worked it out, and you can too!â Theyâve turned that into their whole business model.
Mia Fileman 1:59
Theyâre the ârags to richesâ narratives. They make outrageous claims like, âWork four hours a week. Make money in your sleep. Sell high-end courses on autopilot. Scale your business to seven figures in 12 months.â
They are prolific. You probably will have first encountered a guru on social media. They spend hundreds â if not hundred of thousands â of dollars on paid Facebook ads. Theyâre usually peddling this ârags to richesâ narrative. Exactly as you said, Mel. âIt worked for me, so itâs definitely going to work for you, right?â
Melissa Packham 2:45
Of course! What could possibly be different about your life to my life?
Mia Fileman 2:50
Right! What is unethical about the gurus?
I have my view on this, but I definitely want to hear yours.
Melissa Packham 3:00
Itâs the whole formula for how they market and sell. Itâs the shame-based language that theyâre using. Itâs weaponizing psychology against us. Itâs making us feel like weâre lacking in something. Itâs like weâre missing something thatâs super easy. How can we not have seen it before?
They suck us into their funnels which are all using the same formula for funnels, and we get upsold from a $27.00 offer to a multiple-thousand-dollar mastermind. Itâs just unnecessary. It simplifies something that is very complex. Running a business is complex; it cannot be templated, and it doesnât all get distilled into six easy steps that simply or in the way that theyâre trying to sell it to us.
Thatâs what I think is unethical about it â the language that theyâre using, the oversimplification of something that cannot be simplified, the assumption that weâre all the same and weâre all going through the same thing and have access to the same resources as each other which is a whole other white patriarchal issue in itself. Itâs all of that wrapped up, and weâre buying into it because we want to believe that these things are easy, and we want these quick solutions because we all want our businesses to succeed.
Mia Fileman 4:29
Absolutely.
For me, the thing that irks me the most is that itâs lying. Really, theyâre lying. I understand that ethics are different for different people. I have a line, you have a line, and my line might be different to yours, but at some point, we need to draw a line. I draw the line at deceit and lying, and some of the claims that they make are outright lies.
For instance, and this is one of the more basic ones where they say, âYou do not need an email list to sell a high-ticket offer and have it sold out.â Well, thatâs simply not true because they themselves have huge email lists. Itâs how they sell out their programs. They are giving advice to people that they themselves do not even follow. Not only does the formula not work for you. It doesnât actually work for them either.
Melissa Packham 5:37
To what end? What is the benefit of that then? What is the benefit of that lie?
It just serves their bottom line. Thatâs all it is.
Mia Fileman 5:45
All of it is motivated by greed. That is all it is.
It really comes from a place of profit where they are like, âProfit first! Profit first!â They want to stop trading time for money. They donât want to work with customers one-on-one anymore. They have needed to come up with a business model that is one-to-many. This is how theyâve packaged it up which is the generalisation and commoditisation of marketing which â as you and I know as professional marketer â is one size fits nobody!
Melissa Packham 6:24
Yeah, I think thatâs the amusing thing, sitting on the sideline for so long. Now, weâre both becoming more vocal about this which is great because more people need that point of view. But sitting on the sideline and watching these tactics play out, youâre just sitting there, shaking your head, and going, âThis is not right. This is not how this works. There are better ways. There are ways that donât make you lose all sense of morality in order to sell something for profit only.â Thatâs a big part of it, isnât it?
Itâs that âprofit first.â Itâs losing the whole sight of the fact that the point of business isnât actually money. Itâs actually something else. If youâve got something that is worth a high-value ticket item, then thereâs more to it than just making money. Itâs actually making transformation and something meaningful happen in somebodyâs life. I donât like that weâve lost sight of that.
Mia Fileman 7:22
Absolutely.
I saw this on your social media â I think it was today â that we should be putting purpose above profit because we all know that, in the long term, money does not make you happy. It just doesnât! Sure, for the first couple of years, it will be like, âYeah, this is great! I made all this money!â but, ultimately, thatâs not whatâs going to fill your cup.
Itâs going to be helping people transform and serving that higher purpose, for sure.
Melissa Packham 7:52
Yeah.
Mia Fileman 7:56
What is the litmus test then in terms of unethical to ethical marketing?
Iâve said itâs lying and deceit. While people listening might say, âOh, but this is all very harmless. Theyâre making these outrageous claims, but whoâs believing them? What does it matter? We can have a good laugh at them,â but you and I have both had clients come to us who have spent thousands of dollars with the gurus and have been left wanting.
Now, weâre the ones that are cleaning up the mess. It is eroding trust in the entire online marketing world where people say to me every day, âIâm sorry, Mia. Your program sounds great, but I donât want to run another online program. I have a pile of unfinished courses. They promised that I was going to be able to run the business of my dreams, and Iâm not running the business of my dreams. Iâm sorry.â
What is a good litmus test, in your opinion, in terms of walking that line between ethical and unethical marketing?
Melissa Packham 9:13
I think, honestly, it starts with understanding your own values and your own ethics. Being really clear about what you value and what you believe is a good way to operate in the world because â remember â we are making a choice about how we market, and we are making a choice to contribute to society in a certain way.
If we choose to follow these tactics and make people feel less than or shame them into buying from us or not providing enough value that theyâre not even getting that value and that transformation that theyâre so desperately seeking, itâs not good for anybody. It doesnât help us as business owners. It doesnât help society at large. It teaches us, as marketers, that we can shame people into buying. I just think thatâs wrong.
I think starting with your own personal values and to develop from there what those values inform in terms of the way that you do business, but the real thing is to ask, âIs this promoting agency in my audience? Do they have the right information in order to make a clear, informed decision about whether they spend their money with me? What am I withholding and why? What would I need to know if I were making this purchasing decision?â
That breaks down a lot of those barriers because, suddenly, thereâs plenty to go around. There is no limit. We donât need to activate FOMO because thatâs not true. Like you said, itâs just lying. Is it lying to say that thereâs limited spaces? It may not be the case. Maybe there are limited spaces. Is it lying that thereâs a countdown timer flashing in my face that I need to make a decision and rush me into making a decision? Or have I been provided with everything I need in order to make that decision?
Of course, everyone has their own ethics. We make our own decisions about what specific tactics we will and wonât do, but I think planning that out, and thinking about it, and questioning every tactic or everything that youâre told in the plug-and-play formula â âWhy is this happening? Why am I doing this?â â thatâs a great way to test yourself and refer back to your own set of values. âDoes it feel good? Does it feel right? Does it feel honest?â
âHow will this make my people feel?â I just canât imagine being able to answer that question with âI donât know, and I donât care,â because thatâs just wrong! Business doesnât work that way. Establishing honest and transparent relationships with people doesnât work that way.
Mia Fileman 11:54
Yeah, one of the things that really disappoints me about all of this is that the gurus are telling their customers that this is how they need to market their business. The gurus are breeding gurus.
These small business owners who donât have a marketing background think that this is how you need to do marketing. Even though it doesnât sit well with them, they have been told by the gurus, âThis is just how you need to do it. You need to be sending an email a day, and it needs to have some shame provocation and false scarcity and countdown timers because we need to nudge people into making decisions.â
Melissa Packham 12:33
Agitate.
Mia Fileman 12:34
Yeah.
âWe need to push them before they jump! Theyâre walking around with a headache, and you need to give them a cure.â Theyâre not walking around with a headache. Youâve given them a headache, and then youâve sold them something thatâs not even close to getting to solve that headache.
I think the real thing that I want to get across to small business owners marketing their business is that there is another way to market your business. You do not need to do any of this â nor should you.
In fact, this is going to erode your brand value long term. This is going to chip away at your authority and your credibility. People just will not trust you. Trust? Well, thatâs the ballgame. That is the basis of a relationship, and relationships are the basis of marketing. Really take out of this conversation that there is another approach to marketing that you can use other than the one set up by the gurus.
I just want to dig deep into one of the promises that the gurus use specifically which is around scaling your business. This one really, really shits me because they are telling small business owners to scale their business to seven figures.
Melissa Packham 14:06
Or eight figures.
Mia Fileman 14:08
Or eight, yes.
Melissa Packham 14:10
Itâs just being casually thrown around here, yeah.
Mia Fileman 14:13
You know what? Three years ago, it was six figures, and then it was like, âNo, thatâs not outrageous enough. We need to go to seven figures.â Thereâs just this one up. We need eight.
Melissa Packham 14:25
But thatâs all fuelled by âI need eight. Therefore, I need to tell my audience of people who Iâve just got to six figures â or maybe not â or maybe desperately seeking the six figures that we need to go to eight now.â Itâs purely egotistically driven consumerism at its worst.
Mia Fileman 14:45
Sorry, but if youâre making eight figures and Iâve never fucking heard of you, thatâs not odd. Iâm pretty sure I can name quite a few of the billionaires. You pop up in my feed and Iâve never heard of you, but you claim to make eight figures and have never been on Forbes? Okay. Sure, great!
But the data tells us that the number one reason for start-up failure is premature scaling. The gurus telling us to scale our businesses is really dangerous advice. This isnât just bad advice and unethical advice. You could lose your business and your livelihood over this.
Letâs talk about scaling.
Melissa Packham 15:39
Yes, letâs.
That promise works though because we want to believe that thereâs a solution to overnight success. What that doesnât do, what their promises donât tell us, or what they donât show us is the fact that they are not themselves a product of that formula. Like you said, theyâre using completely different formulas to create their own business.
Weâre not seeing the time and effort that goes into it â the trial and error. They talk about it, but they simplify it. They make out that all that theyâve learnt can be distilled into five easy steps to scale or whatever it might be, but what that promise also doesnât do is account for nuance of context, and changes in the marketplace, and a deep, intimate understanding of your audience and what their changing needs are.
Itâs a gross oversimplification of a strategic move that businesses make when they are ready to do so and when theyâve built essential foundations for doing so. I think thatâs whatâs missing.
Building those foundations takes time. It takes that learning. Youâve got to make the mistakes to learn the lessons. Youâve got to put stuff out there for people to respond to and give feedback. The pressure to scale comes to desperate business owners who want to see the potential for their business come to fruition.
Mia Fileman 17:13
Yeah.
The gurus all started as service-based businesses or product-based businesses. In the first three years of their business, they slogged it out like the rest of us â doing one-on-one consults and working with clients one-on-one â and then they reached enlightenment and decided to drink all from the same Kool-Aid and become gurus.
Now, what theyâre saying is that you donât have to go through those first three to five years of business like they did because theyâve unlocked some sort of formula. You can just take what theyâve learned and apply it to you which is some really high-grade bullshit. You absolutely need to go through those first really difficult, really challenging and tumultuous three years to figure out all of what you just said about your people, your offer, your value proposition, your service delivery, so that you can come up with a scalable model.
No, there is no erasing those first three to five years because those years for them is what built their profiles. Itâs what got them those email subscribers. Itâs what gave them their podcast listeners. Itâs what gave them these huge personal brands akin to celebrity status. Itâs what gave them tens of thousands of social media followers. Itâs that huge audience that they are now marketing to and preying on, but theyâre saying to you, âYou donât need a big audience.â Of course, you do!
To try to get thousands of people into your course or your digital products, of course, you need a big audience. It is a funnel, and it is shaped like a funnel for a reason.
Melissa Packham 19:14
Itâs marketing mass.
Mia Fileman 19:17
The more people at the top, the more people at the bottom!
Thatâs the issue I have with the premature scaling. Itâs very much âdo as I say, not as I have done, and not as I have demonstrated and what I had to go through.â As you said, a huge oversimplification of what it takes to get to that stage.
But another point that you made which is a really, really good one is that a lot of the gurus at the moment rely on getting people in their online courses and evergreen digital products. Look, two to three years ago, that was an emerging market. The people that were able to launch evergreen digital products and online courses did quite well, but now this market is so saturated. Everyone is wanting to launch digital products and online courses. The results have been really questionable. Course completion rates are astonishingly low, so people are really wary of this.
Theyâre giving advice that doesnât take into consideration market factors like the appetite. The demand for online courses and digital products has dried up and there is now an oversupply. Theyâre telling people to follow a business model that is not sustainable.
Melissa Packham 21:04
What will happen when thatâs all dried up?
Thereâs a reason theyâre trying to get people into their multiple-thousand-dollar masterminds right now. Itâs because they know that. They know that thatâs the next step. Itâs the next thing that they can get money from.
The other big problem about all of this is it doesnât teach business owners anything. Thereâs nothing there to be left with so that they can do that again and again. You canât teach that level of complexity when it comes to business.
Only you know your audience. Only you know those market factors that impact your business the way that they do. Having that understanding and a framework â not a five-step formula â for evaluating those opportunities and threats and building strategy as a result of that is something that you canât template. You canât template that stuff. I know. Iâve been looking at it. How do I template strategy? How do you make that accessible for people? The truth is the results arenât there. Itâs just not the same.
By having a plug-and-plug âtype in the responseâ formula for scaling business is negligent. Like you said, itâs dangerous that people put their businesses on the line.
The other thing is Iâve deconstructed a fair few of these gurusâ offers. Having had to sit through some of the video content and the course content, itâs strategy very simplified. If you actually invested time and money in understanding how strategy works, then you can apply those same frameworks and those same tactics in a way thatâs actually meaningful and repeatable for your business. Iâm sure youâve found the same thing.
Mia Fileman 23:02
Yeah, Iâve watched some. They really, really concerned me because, for the ones that I watched, what they were selling was self-help. It was really self-improvement. âYou are the problem. Itâs your limiting beliefs that are holding you back. This is the work that we need to do on you so that you can rise to the challenge. The reason why youâre not making six, seven, eight figures is because of you.â
It really, really disturbed me because, exactly like you said, you canât template strategy. Theyâre not trying. Instead, theyâre just selling self-improvement, Anthony Robbins-style guru shit.
Melissa Packham 23:49
Yeah, the questions there are: âWhere are the gaps? What are the gaps that are missing to really understand fully how strategy works and can be repeated for your business?â Because thatâs a thing. Itâs not to conflict. Thatâs something that isnât taken into account with these solutions.
The other piece youâve just touched on is stepping into spaces that you should not be stepping into. What qualifications do they have in dealing with these deep personal issues? I donât think any of them are qualified in that. Thatâs very concerning.
Mia Fileman 24:28
Very concerning because they are essentially messing with your brain with zero qualifications in mental health, clinical psychology, psychiatry, and things that I donât really understand.
I have seen gurus claim, âYou can turn what you know into an online course and start teaching people within a couple of years.â Thatâs really concerning because, yes, I have an online program, and I teach what Iâve been doing at a professional level for 20 years.
I just donât think that it is ethical to have been doing something for two years and think that you can then go and teach it to other people just because youâve dabbled in it for the last two years â or even less â and now you can turn that into a course and people are going to invest in education even though you have no qualifications â either industry qualifications or education qualifications.
Melissa Packham 25:37
Thatâs an interesting point. Going back to everyone having their own values, everyone has their own set of criteria for what constitutes an authority or who they put their trust and place their dollars with. That is so subjective now because of the availability of the tools for us to do that â to make our skills teachable in just a couple of yearsâ time and playing on the fact that thereâs that rags to riches âI was living in my car and now Iâm a multimillion-dollar jet-setting, Lamborghini, draping on superstar.â It plays into all of that. Again, itâs tapping into that formula and monetising it.
Mia Fileman 26:24
Yeah.
To actually scale your business â letâs drop some truth bombs and some real talk â it is going to require an investment in either your people, your technology, or for you to substantially change your offer.
Servicing 20 customers is very different to servicing 200, 2,000, and 20,000. You are setting yourself up for some really, really unhappy customers if you try to just shoehorn your current offer for 20 people and make it work at scale.
There have been some notable examples of brand who have tried to do this and have come crashing down. The one that comes to mind is an interior makeover service called Home Polish. It gained huge popularity. It set about scaling their business but without changing their offer. What they did was they started to cut corners on their jobs. In the process, they annoyed some really high-profile influencers. Only within a few months, the company had folded.
Poor customer service seems to be one of the major reasons why premature scaling brings down start-ups. Itâs really important, as you said, to do that groundwork. Make sure you go through all the steps of scaling â the validation, the research, the testing, and the gradual scaling â because it can have some really disastrous results if you pushed before you jumped.
Melissa Packham 28:15
Yeah, absolutely.
Again, you donât have the opportunity to learn from that really fast scaling. I donât even know how this came about because, in start-up land, thereâs still time between an idea and an MVP and an actual thriving multi-million-dollar business.
Canva didnât start a year ago. They started many, many years ago. Theyâve been iterating and improving their product and improving the customer experience and proliferating their offer â all those things over time, using learnings and capitalising on trends and that kind of thing.
Even though we see the headlines â Afterpay sold for 39 billion dollars, Canva just got an amazing injection of cash for their business â this stuff doesnât happen because they did this overnight. Itâs over time and has all those things in place to support that level of scaling and to help them get to that next step without burning the bridges and losing the equity in what theyâve built so far. Iâm coming at it from a brand equity perspective as well as financial metrics, but all of that is on the line if youâre flipping your business overnight.
Itâs becoming this thing. Itâs prevalent in online business, but that doesnât happen anywhere else. Itâs just in online business that Iâve seen this kind of language around scaling overnight and getting those seven to eight figures.
Mia Fileman 29:59
Yeah, same.
Looking at Canva, their growth has not been without risk. There have been huge, huge risks that they have taken and had to weather and had to go through. They raised the capital and then they needed to invest it wisely. Theyâve built a huge team. Those are all these people that theyâve needed to recruit. Theyâve got all of these investors who are saying, âThis better return!â and putting pressure on them to hit certain growth milestones. At every stage, it has been risky.
I really take issue with the notion that any of this is easy or straightforward or happens in your sleep.
Melissa Packham 30:53
You canât manage people in your sleep, can you?
Mia Fileman 30:56
No.
Melissa Packham 30:56
You have to be very awake to manage people.
I think thereâs the two things there. The two causes are the customer experience thing that you mentioned but also the management of people. Youâve got a team. Youâve got to coordinate them. Youâve got to create systems and operational foundations that they can work within, policies and rules, managing the actual personal side of HR. Itâs a whole thing.
I think thatâs another one of the big reasons why start-ups scale. They hire the wrong people, or they donât know how to manage people. They donât realise that they have to manage people. Not everyone is in their brain and executing things in the way that they want things to be done. Thatâs another big challenge and I think itâs a misconception that isnât talked about â certainly in the online space.
Mia Fileman 31:43
Everyone knows that the hardest thing about running a business is managing staff. You canât really progress without having to bring on that staff member. There comes a point where youâre like, âLook, I canât. I have to bring on somebody else,â but from that day on, that becomes your biggest challenge. I have definitely experienced this first-hand.
I ran an agency for seven years. I had a team across three states. It was the biggest challenge in my business â the most expensive. It really determines your success or failure. Itâs exactly as you said â recruiting the right people, training them, onboarding them, offboarding them. It is a whole other thing, so we shouldnât oversimplify it.
I want to just talk about motivation for the gurus. Obviously, itâs motivated by greed, but there seems to really be a tendency for the gurus â but also online business owners and entrepreneurs â to lie. Why do you think that lying is just so commonplace amongst the entrepreneur cohort?
Melissa Packham 33:06
I donât think they would call it that. I donât think they either recognise that it is, or they donât see how harmful it is. I just donât think thereâs enough questioning of those tactics to even prompt that thought. I think, if you asked them, they would say, âWeâre not lying.â Until you probe them. Maybe they might wake up to it.
There is more of a culture now to be talking about how ethical people are. They will claim that theyâre being ethical but still follow the same tactics but, again, ethics â my ethics are different to your ethics. It might not be on their radar. I think thatâs why. Itâs because there is so much. Itâs so subjective.
In terms of the outright lying, I think itâs almost misleading by omission. I donât think a lot of people realise that. An example of that is, if youâre standing to gain financially by promoting someoneâs business in an affiliate relationship and you donât disclose that thatâs an affiliate relationship, Iâm not lying to you.
Iâm still promoting the business and getting my money, but Iâm not telling you that I stand to gain because that is information that could change someoneâs decision about making that purchase. I think thereâs a lot of that going on. Itâs not lying. Itâs just that Iâm not telling you all of the information to say whether thatâs right or wrong.
Mia Fileman 34:44
Itâs not lying; itâs exaggeration. Itâs not lying; itâsâ
Melissa Packham 34:49
Puffery. Marketing puffery is always the thing.
Mia Fileman 34:52
Itâs spin. Itâs helping people save themselves from themselves. All of that, absolutely.
I read a really interesting article in the Harvard Business Review about entrepreneurs and the truth. Probably the biggest example of entrepreneur deceit was Elizabeth Holmes who was the founder of Theranos. She lied about her companyâs blood testing technology. Sheâs now facing criminal fraud charges.
Not every entrepreneur is to that degree, but the article really explored around why entrepreneurs take liberties with the truth. One of the things the article explored was the fact that thereâs just no accountability. No one is checking them.
When you take a big brand like the ones that we worked for â L'OrĂ©al and Parmalat â these are publicly listed companies. They are accountable to shareholders. They have to release annual company statements and annual company reports. But, in the start-up world, you donât have to do any of that. There is literally nobody sense checking these promises and these claims. Thatâs one of the reasons the article said that entrepreneurs just have this casual relationship with the truth.
The other one is high risk. They have borrowed money from family members â their mothers, their sisters â to build their businesses. Now, thereâs a lot riding on that success. For them, it is a little bit âlive or die,â so they are prone to stretching the truth because the stakes are just so high for them.
Melissa Packham 36:58
Yeah, and we see that play out as well.
An example was one of the Kardashians. I donât know which one because I canât tell the difference between them, but they were pushing to create her billionaire status so that she was on the cover of Forbes. That was a big push to be seen on the cover of Forbes, but all the deception that went on behind the scenes to inflate the value of the business and create the perception that she was a billionaire just to be named in the Top 500 and be on the cover of Forbes. Weâre seeing it everywhere. I think thatâs why it makes us feel like itâs acceptable behaviour or that it is necessary behaviour to do these things and just to follow blindly without questioning.
It all comes back to âWhat are my values? What is the point of this? What does this lead to? What potential damage or greatness comes from this? What is the impact ultimately?â
The exaggeration and the puffery, the inflation and all of those things all come from that behaviour, so Iâm not surprised to hear that those are the reasons that entrepreneurs are lying because youâre right. There is a lot riding on it. A lot of it is ego-driven though. As well as financial risk, there is the risk to reputation and that sense of belonging.
If weâre talking hierarchy of needs, if theyâre sitting at the tippy top of that, you donât want to fall down and have everything ripped out from underneath you. I think itâs just the lies build upon the lies to help maintain that perception.
Mia Fileman 38:50
Itâs all a bit sad.
Despite our best efforts, we are going to be competing with the gurus for a long time to come. Theyâre not going anywhere. What are the best ways of dealing with and sharing that space with the gurus for ethical businesses and ethical marketers? Because it can seem like weâre playing by the rules, but they are not, and it can feel very challenging to try to compete with someone who is not playing by the rules. However, we have some great strategies that we can share. Iâm sure Iâve got some!
Melissa Packham 39:38
Weâre calling it ethical marketing like itâs a special niche thing, isnât it?
It should just be the way it is. Just be a decent human.
But I think the way to help challenge this is to do it a different way. Market in a way that makes people feel good. Market in a way that makes people feel like they have all of the information they need because those are the people that will come back again, and more people will come when they hear about these positive experiences.
Imagine if all of those gurusâ courses had 100-percent completion rate and five-star reviews. What a great story to be telling then instead of not caring about completion rates and not caring about customer reviews. Funnily enough, youâll never see a negative customer review. Youâll never find them. How curious is that?
Mia Fileman 40:37
That is so bizarre, right?
Even you and I are going to have an occasional negative review. You canât please everyone all the time. Itâs quantified. Itâs stated that there are going to be a certain percentage of customers who are just not going to be pleased. You just need to accept that as the cost of doing business and that they have zero.
Melissa Packham 41:02
On that, one of the tactics might be to not hide the negative reviews that youâre getting, but to respond to them in a thoughtful, caring way, knowing that the customer is always right because perception is reality. Use those negative reviews to demonstrate that youâre a well-balanced business and that you donât need a scary legal team to write out the possibility of people sharing their actual thoughts about something. I think owning up to that is completely fine.
Mia Fileman 41:34
Totally.
My approach has obviously been to call out the gurus and say, âThis is bad behaviour.â I pulled together an entire campaign that said, âThis is what it is, and itâs shit.â I donât think thereâs anything wrong with fighting back. They have taken the piss for so long.
Try to do it in an entertaining and humorous way like I did. I also havenât named and shamed on purpose. I donât want to get sued. But raising awareness so that buyers are more aware of what theyâre getting and shining a light on some of the unethical tactics.
But then, I think itâs probably time we treated the gurus like proper competitors as opposed to just laughing them off and saying, âYeah, whatever!â For all their inflated value, demonstrate real value. For all their fake PR â all their Yahoo! Finance top ten lists.
Melissa Packham 42:40
âTop 20! What a surprise! Amazing! Thanks for choosing me!â
Mia Fileman 42:46
âOh, my god! I just canât believe I was chosen!â
Melissa Packham 42:49
âThis means so much! It didnât cost me anything more than a couple of thousand dollars to be on the list.â Yeah, exactly. Beat that with actual thoughtful coverage in media and sharing thoughts about how true authority looks â what that really looks like â true expertise.
Help other people evaluate who theyâre giving their money to and re-evaluate what qualifications matter and why.
Mia Fileman 43:24
Exactly.
For all their false authority, demonstrate your real authority. Talk about your qualifications and your experiences and your awards and accolades that youâve actually earned as opposed to bought. Beat them at their own game because, at the end of the day, this is a house of cards. It does come apart quite easily. It wonât take a lot for you to just play the long game and understand that thereâs nothing wrong with growing slowly and steadily and letting them come unravel themselves, really.
Melissa Packham 44:04
Absolutely.
As marketers, we imprint on society, so we have to remember that, and we have to remember that that comes with responsibility. Every time weâre marketing, every time weâre writing copy that goes out into the world in front of people, weâre imprinting on society in some way. We get to shape how we do that.
I think that consciousness, being aware of that, being responsible with that, realising the influence that we do have on people, if weâd all started that way, we wouldnât see this kind of marketing happening because weâd all understand that there are people that are seeing us and listening to us and behaving because of us all over the place that you canât see all the time.
I think itâs just always being conscious of that and taking it seriously. Itâs not a game â well, it is a game, if you play it like a game, but it could mean so much more if we took it seriously.
I think youâre right. We have to call them out when stuff doesnât seem right so that more people are aware because we get suckered into this. We all do. We all want the successful business. We want what that level of income will give us and allow for our lives and what it does for our families and what it enables us to do, but I think, if weâre starting from âwhat is the impact that we want to have and what is the change that we want to see in the world?â thatâs a much better place to start. You will have organic, beautiful, human-to-human marketing off the back of that â just naturally because it couldnât happen any other way.
Mia Fileman 45:51
Absolutely.
The most rewarding work that Iâve ever done in my career has been working for government campaigns on projects â like the More Aboriginal Teachers in Classrooms campaign and the Teach the Territory campaign and Responsible Gambling campaigns â where I actually get to help communities and engage with communities and see positive change.
Marketing can be a force for good. It has had the power to start movements. Look at Black Lives Matter. That is a campaign. It is a marketing campaign. I really look forward to a time where marketers arenât looked upon as snake oil salesmen.
Melissa Packham 46:37
Yes, exactly. Thatâs certainly not the reason I got into marketing. I know itâs not the reason you got into marketing. I think the more people that are aware that there are alternatives to the way that weâre being sold right now, the better that will be.
Mia Fileman 46:58
Absolutely.
Thank you so much, Melissa! That was such a great chat! I absolutely loved it!
Melissa Packham 47:03
I loved it too!
Mia Fileman 47:04
I really appreciate your time!
Melissa Packham 47:06
Thank you so much for having me!
Mia Fileman 47:12
Thank you!
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