Forget Sleazy Sales (Part 2 of 3): The 5 personality traits of an empathetic personal brand
You’re currently reading Part 2 of a 3-part series. Click here to read Pt 1: Why we need to take a closer look at “bro marketing”.
In my last post I talked about the problem with the way the term “bro marketing” is currently being used as a catchall phrase to sum up everything that’s wrong with the online marketing space.
In short, it creates a black/white view of marketing, perpetuating the idea that there’s a right way and a wrong way to do business, without calling for the self-inquiry that’s necessary to actually lead your business from your values, which is – spoiler alert ⚠️– one pillar of how I recommend you practice ethical marketing.
In this post, I’m going to get clear on the behaviours we’re calling out when we say we’re sick of “bro marketing” and look at the personality traits I think we need to bake into our personal brands if we want to actually practice ethical marketing.
Let’s dive in!
Getting clear on what we’re getting rid of:
Within her Bro’ Dictionary, Carolyn Herfurth provides the following definition of Bro Marketing:
Image source: https://carolynherfurth.com/thought-leadership/wikibro/
Meanwhile, in her Brad the Braggy Bro video, Rachael Kay Albers lays out the following core Bro Identifiers:
Impossible rags to riches story
Unrealistic results
Ridiculous promises
Questionable name dropping
False urgency
Program = Garbage: Full of fluff and unrelated modules that won’t actually help
But it’s not just “bro marketing” that buyers are sick of and business owners are increasingly hoping to banish from their marketing:
It’s various forms of sleazy sales tactics that prioritize making a sale at the expense of your relationship with the person on the other side of the screen.
Tactics like:
Copy/pasted DMs inviting you to like someone else’s FB page, Instagram account, etc.
Hard sell sales calls where you’re pressured into giving your credit card number over the phone
Coaches who encourage their people to go into debt “if they’re serious about their growth”
The use of inflated revenue numbers to signal expertise, authority and success
Pushing one-size fits all frameworks as a guaranteed route to success (while neglecting to mention the systems, processes & long-term effort that went into getting there:
One of the most thoughtful and deliberate individuals engaging in this conversation – and someone who’s been engaged in it far longer than most – Maggie Patterson of Small Business Boss talks about how one of the telltale strategies of “bro marketers” is to conceal the real work that goes into getting results:
Client attraction is just one example of how bro marketers have taken standard, real world marketing practices and twisted them into a snappy strategy that they can sell.
In her 2021 Online Business Investment Survey, Patterson also discusses “The Invest at All Costs Message” that’s prevalent in the online business space:
Image source: Maggie Patterson’s 2021 Online Business Investment Survey
Much of the conversation around this topic has addressed whether or not it’s ethical to use pain points & persuasion triggers in your copy. In my opinion, both are simply tools we use to communicate with our readers: their impact hinges on the intention of the person putting them to use and the context in which they appear.
I’ll get into this more in my next post, but for now I’ll say that our first priority in mucking out the sales strategies used in online marketing should be to stop using fear-based sales tactics that encourage people to go against their own judgment since this kind of reasoning is the most likely to cause harm to the people who can least afford to invest.
Finally, when it comes to being conscious of how our marketing impacts our audience, Kelly Diels’ raises the bar and asks us to remember that “We are the Culture Makers”.
As a result, we need to consider the impact of our actions in terms of the culture we’re creating and perpetuating with/within our businesses and our marketing.
In addition to condemning the tactics mentioned above, Diels has pointed out the following issues with aspects of online marketing we typically take for granted:
That sales funnels following opt-ins reinforce rape culture
That sales emails sent without consent uphold rape culture
That certain types of brand photography allow white women to benefit from white supremacy
That more expensive payment plans prey on the people who need them
And, perhaps the one I take issue with the most:
That leading with pain points on a sales page “subconsciously [triggers people] into ‘solving’ the problem by purchasing”.
To round up all of the above in one short list (that’s still, by no means, exhaustive)...
Here are the behaviours most commonly being called out in online marketing’s current ethical reckoning:
The creation of FOMO through false scarcity & arbitrary deadlines
Overinflated promises & unrealistic results
Complicated funnels that conceal the steps in the sales process
Foolproof plans to overnight success
“Rags to riches” stories, particularly those that don’t take privilege into account (especially, but not exclusively white privilege)
Authority manufactured though name-dropping, proximity to powerful men, images that suggest wealth and other forms of privilege
Programs positioned as worth 20x their cost through the addition of extraneous content
“Silver bullet” solutions that claim to solve big problems, no work required
Lack of transparency with regard to revenue claims, ad spend, marketing mechanisms, pre-existing privilege, realistically achievable results
High-pressure sales calls where fear is weaponized against you
On top of which, Kelly Diels’ encourages us to consider how certain online marketing practices may serve to reinforce rape culture and/or white supremacy.
What can we conclude from this deep dive into What Not to Do?
Ultimately, what many of these tactics have in common is that they PUSH people towards a sale, PRIVILEGE those who are already privileged by systemic inequality, PREY on our fears & insecurities, and PROMISE results they have no intention of delivering.
They obscure the work that goes into obtaining the desired results and the work (and/or privilege) that’s gone into making those results seem effortless, while using Cialdini’s social triggers at the expense of the people they should be assisting.
The good news?
Being more ethical in your marketing probably means being more like, well, you.
From everything that I’ve read and seen (so far) on the current revolution taking place in online marketing, my biggest takeaway has been this:
There’s no “one way” to The New Way.
In the same way that we need to throw out the idea that you’re only “one funnel away” from becoming a millionaire overnight – and I say this as someone whose program is called The Funnel Intensive – we need to stop looking outside of ourselves for “The Rules” on how we should be doing anything—including ethical marketing.
As Dr Michelle Mazur put it in her podcast on ethical marketing:
“Ethics are messy and what one person thinks is ethical another will not.”
Like your personality, your personal code of ethics is unique.
You’ll have to work out for yourself where you draw the line. But as a personal brand, here are some suggestions on how to get started:
5 personality traits for your brand to embrace if you want to practice ethical online marketing
Be honest:
Be honest about your privilege
When it comes to owning your privilege, Maggie Patterson of Small Business Boss is leading by example, as you can see in her blog post titled, “Own it, don’t erase it: The importance of backstory and privilege for online business owners”.
In this post, Patterson explains that:
“When people actively erase their backstory, it’s misleading. I believe a big reason that people get called out (or even cancelled) in the online business world, is that they conceal their past, and then when people discover it, they feel scammed.”
Not only does sharing your backstory help people understand your point of view, by acknowledging the role your privilege has played in your success, it also helps you demonstrate to your audience that you’re aware of that privilege in the first place:
IMPORTANT: When acknowledging your privilege, remember that it’s a “Yes, AND”, not a “Yes, but” conversation.
Be honest about the work transformation’s gonna take
Another thing that makes people feel scammed?
When you promise them an overnight transformation, but real results actually take a year of 40-hour work weeks.
As a copywriter, I understand:
Of course, you don’t want to lead with the amount of work that’s required for meaningful results.
But if real results are months away, you also don’t want to make it seem like people will be able to recoup their investment within 8 weeks.
Not only is this a surefire way to bring about Buyer’s Remorse, it’s also dangerous to members of your audience who may be betting on that ROI when they initially invest in your program.
Be honest about how many spots are left, how long the doors are open and the value of your offer:
These ones are pretty straight forward: Don’t lie in your copy.
If you’ve only filled a couple of spots in your group program, don’t state like there’s one spot left.
If you say this is the last time you’re offering the program at this price, you’d better raise it next time.
And when you claim that the regular price of everything included is “over $15,000”, you should be able to base that claim in real money that’s been exchanged.
2. Be of service:
Be of service by educating your audience before you ask for the sale.
In her 2017 article, copywriter-turned-creative director Hillary Weiss notes that:
“People are more interested in access than aspiration — and you need to be in it for the long haul.”
From the value of the content you share on your webinar to the connections you make before you open your cart to launch, Weiss reinforces the fact that we need to:
“Focus more on value value value. Lay more groundwork. Do more footwork.”
Be of service in putting your offer together.
Another way you can show your audience respect (one of the core elements of Trust-based marketing as defined by Maggie Patterson)?
Value their time.
When you value your people’s time, you don’t stuff your offer full of fluff and B.S. extras that won’t actually help them reach their goals.
While it may seem like you’re helping your audience by including extra material within an unrelated offer, limiting the content of your course or program to the actual essentials that will help them get the results you offer is of more real value to your prospective buyer than “throwing in” an additional mini-course they’re unlikely to open and don’t really need.
Be of service in counselling people whether or not they should join.
Whether you offer a “Buy Now” button or ask prospective buyers to book a consult call, your aim should be NOT to get them to purchase your offer at all costs, but to help them figure out whether you’re actually able to help.
What does this look like?
Engage with your prospective buyer on the sales call / in your copy in helping them think critically about whether or not your offer is what they need.
This seems like it should be intuitive, but it can be harder to practice IRL when you’re itching to make a sale.
Be clear about both who you can and CANNOT get results and focus on helping people make the right choice rather than making them choose you.
Be of service in helping your people actually get the results you promised.
Once you’re done celebrating a successful launch or sales call, consider the fact that your ability to serve your new clients or customers goes beyond simply delivering in terms of what they get—
When you’re tuned into how your buyers are actually doing, you can react as needed to help them get the results they need.
In the course of a recent Immersive Copy Research project, my client’s clients told me over and over again that what they love about her is her generosity:
That she’ll listen to what they need and provide it if she can – whether that means filming a Facebook Live or referring them to an outside expert, her willingness to help them get results is what makes them repeat buyers.
Regardless of whether the thing your people need was included in the offer, putting the needs of your audience first looks like doing what you can to help them get results.
N.B.: This isn’t about feeling like you have to over-deliver and it doesn’t mean you don’t have boundaries.
It’s about staying in touch with your buyers’ experience of your offers and making sure you’re giving them what they need to get the results you promised. To do that, you’ll have to LISTEN.
3. Be mindful:
Be mindful of how your actions may harm others.
I’m writing this on Easter Monday, 2021. Over the weekend, a well-known white woman in the online marketing space made a seriously problematic post in which she referred to her housekeeper as “the woman who cleans my toilets” and suggested that she is successful because she works harder than “most people”...
She was immediately called out by numerous other leaders, including Luvvie, Rachel Cargle, and Rachael Kay Albers, who pointed out that her comments were both ignorant & offensive… But then 1) waited 5 days to respond and 2) issued a “That wasn’t my intent” statement that completely missed the point.
Rachael Kay Albers is of the people who’s gone into the most detail about how this behaviour was problematic – you can watch her entire analysis over on Instagram – and also reminds liberal leaning white women in particular:
“This is not a THEM problem, this is an US problem”.
The takeaway?
As with “bro marketing”, online marketers – especially white women, myself included – can’t sit back and see the problem as outside of ourselves.
We have to be aware of the ways in which our marketing may harm the people who encounter our messages – even and especially in ways we didn’t intend – and we need to be prepared to issue, real authentic apologies AKA take actual responsibility and DO BETTER when that happens.
Be mindful of how your words may impact others.
The key word to focus on in this point is IMPACT.
Your intention is one thing; your impact may be quite another.
Thing is, you’re responsible for both.
This post by Michelle C Johnson breaks the difference down well:
“Why is it important to understand that INTENT does not equal IMPACT?
Well, I believe spiritual bypassing happens in our transformative communities because some of us have bought into the idea that if I believe "we are one" and treat everyone as if we are one then the world will treat everyone in that manner. (If I could figure out a way to insert the buzzer sound from a game show when a contestant gives the wrong answer I would.)
We know better. The culture has been constructed in a purposeful and intentional way to other, invisiblize and marginalize anyone who doesn't fit the cultural norms perpetuated by dominant culture.
We aren't one, moving around having a singular experience. It is skillful to understand that many of us are having very different experiences as we navigate culture and institutions that weren't constructed for us or our liberation.
[...] We cannot afford to walk around the planet believing that our good intentions, like believing we are one, don't cause harm. It [...] is likely we are in many spaces where harm is being caused and that at times we don't know how it's being caused we just have to know it's a possibility that we may have contributed to it in some way.”
I feel like this should be a given, but I’ll state it explicitly here:
A non-negotiable pillar of your values should be to do no harm.
So when you’re creating content, ask yourself:
What is my intention in saying this?
How are the people reading this likely to feel?
What assumptions am I making about my readers?
How might those assumptions cause them harm?
Do I need to revise, based on the blind spots I’ve noticed?
Be mindful of how your words may dismiss the lived experience of your readers, how your images may make them feel invisible.
Are all of your cultural references to shows that are exclusively white?
Do you assume that everyone you’re speaking to in your copy has lived the same kind of life as you?
Do you regularly pull images from Unsplash, but gravitate towards the ones with conventionally beautiful white women?
If you’ve committed to building an anti-racist business, you’ll never truly be done the work.
But regularly checking in with yourself, your audience and your customers will help you identify blindspots you didn’t know you had. Simply being mindful of whether or not you’re excluding individuals who don’t look the same as you isn’t everything—but it is something when it comes to building a business that does no harm.
As I learned from participating in The Hill Roundtables, being inclusive in your copy does NOT mean suddenly starting to refer to your reader as “sis”.
It means speaking to the universal human experience, showing that you solve a problem and acknowledging that problem is also relevant (assuming it is) to people who don’t look and sound like you.
4. Be clear:
Be clear on your own values.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m writing this post from the POV of my own ethical lens.
You may agree with me on some of this, all of it, or none.
That depends on YOUR values—
But in the interest of helping you figure out from the start if this article was one you were even interested in reading, I let you know where I was coming from up top, so you could make an informed decision.
Be clear on the marketing mechanisms at play.
The softwares available to us as marketers allows us to do a lot of really cool things: countdown timers in evergreen funnels, conditional formatting in emails, and – obviously – turning ourselves into gifs.
Many of these tools were developed to help us maximize the number of conversions we get from our marketing promotions—and that in and of itself is fine.
But in the interest of being transparent with your audience, I highly recommend you let them know what will actually happen when that countdown timer hits zero, for example.
Or when your offer actually will be open again. (More on how to use specific marketing tools in Pt. 3 of this series, coming soon)
Using these tools to flip people into a state of FOMO or creating false scarcity around an unlimited offer that will never go away was never cool… but it’s especially ineffective now, when consumers are savvier than ever about what’s going on behind the scenes.
Be clear about what people can and cannot expect when they buy your offer.
If we go back to our list of “What not to do”, one of the biggest complaints that consumers have is when online marketers make overinflated promises that they’ll deliver unrealistic results”.
Likewise, in Maggie Patterson’s 2021 Online Business Investment Survey, one of the main reasons consumers were disappointed in their investments was “No results or low ROI”.
Very often, this feeling of having been “bamboozled” can be blamed on sales copy that promises more than the offer is actually equipped to deliver.
5. Be patient:
Value the long-term relationship over the quick sale.
Like many online business owners, I regularly invest in my professional development and access to communities that will give me the opportunity to connect with other online business owners.
The one thing my most valuable resources have all had in common?
I spent a significant amount of time in that person’s orbit BEFORE forking over 4 to 5 figures to work with them.
If part of the point of engaging in more ethical marketing is to treat other people as humans, we need to respect the fact that just because you’re launching doesn’t mean the other person is ready to buy.
We need to make sure that your launch honours the time and energy of the not-ready, too.
Trust that your people will buy when they’re ready.
The upside of doing the work to lead with your values?
You’ll magnetize an audience of people who share your vision of the world.
Meaning you don’t have to resort to fear-based hard-sell tactics.
If you’re regularly being of service to your audience by sharing content that’s educational, empowering and entertaining (h/t to Amy Porterfield for the 3E framework)....
If you’re creating offers that will truly help them reach their goals (which you know because you’re listening)...
And you’re clearly communicating the transformation they can expect when they take you up on your offer…
People will buy from you.
And when it’s an enjoyable experience that gets them the results they’re after, they’ll tell their friends, who’ll tell their friends.
As Rachel Rodgers once stated on a live within her club, (and I paraphrase):
It’s the patriarchy (based on capitalism & white supremacy) that needs things to be fast and cheap and easy. And that speed and convenience is often at the cost of people’s humanity, social responsibility and the environment.
Just look at what Amazon does to get us our packages delivered the next day.
In contrast, when we want true, sustainable change, we have to be willing to accept that that takes time.
Remember: The people who don’t sign up for your offer this time around might be your most engaged audience members the next time you launch—unless you alienate them with dishonest sales tactics or pushing too hard for a sale.
As I stated up top, the recommendations I’ve outlined in this post are based on my own values and reflect my ethical stance.
Yours might look different and that’s OK.
The whole point of not accepting one monolithic “way of doing things” is to engage in a conversation about the fact that there are different approaches that work—while taking into consideration the fact that our deepest desire should be to DO NO HARM.
As a result, I get really riled up when I see people talking about “sleaze-free messaging” in a way that makes their reader flinch and fear that that’s what they’re doing themselves:
Not only does this tap into a fear that’s particularly found in women—that selling is somehow inherently “icky”— it makes it seem like the persuasive tools that are available to you can only be used for evil...
When marketers sell to you based on your FEAR of being “icky”, they end up replicating the same cycle they’re trying to break you out of.
Selling is a lot like storytelling.
As readers, we want marketers to make us feel something.
We want to be entertained.
We want solutions to our problems and we DON’T want to work hard to figure out if something is for us or not.
To me, this means we marketers need to find ways to use social triggers without causing harm.
That’s why, in my next post, I’ll share specific, actionable tips you can use to help practice these principles in your sales copy: whether it’s in the emails for your next launch, on your sales page, or inside your evergreen email funnel.
In the meantime, I’d love to know what you think about this topic. Leave a comment below to let me know which personality traits you’re baking into your personal brand that represent your values.
Grab The Sales Page Power Hour to get your hands on:
My RCA Sales Page Flow (incl. a Google doc template that makes it easier than ever to make my flow your own)
My system for repurposing your sales page content— without sacrificing freshness or platform relevance
A pre-publication sales page checklist that covers your copy, your design & your tech (and so much more!)
xo KP