Bridging Heart and Marketing: Dr. Judith Sherven and Dr. Jim Sniechowski
Aging Gratefully
Dr. Peter Brill
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Episode 34 - Bridging Heart and Marketing: Dr. Judith Sherven and Dr. Jim Sniechowski

Many Third Agers are in jobs that no longer satisfy them, and others are facing retirement without enough money to maintain their lifestyle. One solution is to start your own business. The internet is a natural place to market. But how can you combine your spirit and your passion with marketing?   Our guests today, Drs. Judith Sherven, and Jim Sniechowski say they are teaching people to do just that – market on the internet from their passion. Judith Sherven is a clinical psychologist who worked in private practice for twenty-two years.   Her husband, Jim Sniechowski, holds a doctorate in Human Behavior and co-founded the Men's Health Network in Washington, D.C. They are the bestselling authors of Be Loved for Who You Really Are. Their latest endeavor is “Soft Sell Internet Marketing.”  

What they tell us is this:  if you're looking for a way to market your products and services online that's in alignment with your heart-based professional values and personal integrity - it's called Soft Sell marketing.  What is soft sell marketing?

If someone buys something from you and they expect that the amount of money they pay for it will return to them plus a profit, that's called an ROI – Return on Investment – transaction.  This is the way most standard business transactions are designed and understood.

But what if you're a parenting counselor and someone comes to you for advice with their 5 year old. You make a suggestion and it works. Their child is better. And they give you a check.  Do they expect the amount of the check to return to them plus a profit? No. That's not the nature of the transaction.

What you've done is changed their life experience. And for that type of transaction we use the term ROE – Return of Experience.  Soft Sell marketers specialize in ROE – Return of Experience. And it's for you, the Soft Sell marketer, that Bridging Heart and Marketing is designed and dedicated.

Transcript

Transcript

Dr. Peter Brill: Hello and welcome to The Third Age with the doctor and the man from Hollywood. I’m the doctor, Dr. Peter Brill. The man from Hollywood is David Debin. On this show we turn the myths of aging upside down. We sort out the scientific and the trendy, the medical and the cultural and we tell you everything you need to know about living in the third age. Remember, we guarantee if you listen to us you will never grow old.

David Debin: I am the man from Hollywood, David Debin. The third age usually starts somewhere around age 45 or 50. It’s a time when you start to feel a strong desire for deeper meaning and fulfillment in your life. Do you feel it? Think about that.

Dr. Peter Brill: I feel it.

David Debin: You feel a strong desire…

Dr. Peter Brill: I feel stronger and stronger desire…

David Debin: for deeper meaning…

Dr. Peter Brill: Deeper and deeper…

David Debin: fulfillment, in your life. Feel it. Get up, get out, get a life. Your first age is childhood. Your second age is building your career and family and raising your family. The third age is a major change or transition to a whole new set of problems, values, opportunities and gratifications. So join us as fellow explorers in this journey to discover what brings passion, purpose and joy into this uncharted time of life.

Dr. Peter Brill: We know so many third agers are in jobs that no longer satisfy them, and others are facing retirement without enough money to maintain their lifestyle. One solution is to start your own business. The internet is a natural place to market, but how can you combine your spirit and your passion with marketing? Our guests today, Dr. Judith Sherven and Jim, boy, you’re going to have to say this one for me David.

David Debin: Well we’re going to have to ask our guest exactly how to pronounce that name. I think it…

Dr. Peter Brill: She-cho-chosky…

David Debin: We’ll get it Peter.

Dr. Peter Brill: We’ll get it. So they’re teaching people to do just that, market on the internet from their passion. Stick with some information that can make a difference in your life. Stick with us.

David Debin: Okay. Well, so far so weird.

Dr. Peter Brill: Well, how ‘bout that. How ‘bout mangling somebody’s name.

David Debin: Yeah, that’s really, that’s one of your…

Dr. Peter Brill: One of my great strengths.

David Debin: One of the best you’ve ever done.

Dr. Peter Brill: That’s right.

David Debin: I mean I’ve, you’ve come up with some pretty bizarre twists on names…

Dr. Peter Brill: Swiss is really hard for me, David.

David Debin: I know.

Dr. Peter Brill: This is a real stretch.

David Debin: So…

Dr. Peter Brill: We have a guest on today for just a short time. This is, we kind of made a little special spot. Every once in a while we’ll do it in the opening in the show because of  something that’s so interesting and so exciting and so important that’s going on in Santa Barbara that we allow somebody in for 2 or 3 minutes to tell us about it. Today Dr. Don McManus is the psychologist and clinical director for a nonprofit organization called The Family Therapy Institute of Santa Barbara, and he’s been serving, they’ve been serving clients in education for 27 years, and he’s here about an exciting program called Mating in Captivity.

Dr. Don McManus: That’s right Peter, thank you so much.

Dr. Peter Brill: So…

Dr. Don McManus: Glad to be here. It’s a topic particularly relevant for third agers that want to maintain some passion in their life in lots of different ways.

Dr. Peter Brill: So this is not about the zoo.

Dr. Don McManus: Well it’s not about the zoo, no. But it’s a quote that you took from a famous book, and it’s, the subtitle is Unlocking Erotic Intelligence, and this isn’t a bunch of woo-woo stuff, this is a woman’s who’s a professor at Columbia University. Her name is Esther Perell, and Mating in Captivity is an international bestseller now. It’s in 20 different languages and she’s been on Oprah and she’s done all the magazines and journals and hit the circuit, and really trying to talk about some pretty important issues about how to maintain passion in a long-term relationship.

Dr. Peter Brill: And boy is that a challenge…

Dr. Don McManus: Yeah.

Dr. Peter Brill: You know, it’s really when you have various different approaches to it, everything from tantra, to…

David Debin: Right, Viagara.

Dr. Peter Brill: Viagara. I’m waiting for (unintelligible) to come out.

David Debin: Right, there you go. PT, yeah.

Dr. Don McManus: Well a lot of couples therapists actually and many people I think assume emotional intimacy is the key…

Dr. Peter Brill: Yes.

Dr. Don McManus: so, lets just talk feelings out…

Dr. Peter Brill: Lets get in close…

Dr. Don McManus: lets be close…

Dr. Peter Brill: Yeah.

Dr. Don McManus: and lets, but you know, for those who are retired and they’re spending 24/7, well how do you have a passionate connection and where’s the mystery and where’s the playfulness…

Dr. Peter Brill: So what’s the answer in one or two lines?

Dr. Don McManus: How do we put the x back in sex a little bit for even those who are older?

Dr. Peter Brill: So what’s the answer in one or two lines? I’m serious, what’s the other approach?

David Debin: Have sex with your ex. Just kidding.

Dr. Peter Brill: What, now what’s different about it? She’s...

Dr. Don McManus: What’s different about it is she has a respect for the need for distance and the need for playfulness and mystery and bringing back a sense of, not just the familiar, but maybe getting things a little bit unfamiliar, and there’s ingenious ways, yeah…

Dr. Peter Brill: Taking a little risk, a little play, a little fun…

Dr. Don McManus: A little risk, a little mystery, and so, she’s got some ideas basically about why it is that we can lose that passion and what it is that we can do about it.

Dr. Peter Brill: So here we have the best family therapy institute in Santa Barbara, recommending that you go to Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence. How do people do it?

Dr. Don McManus: Well there’s a couple ways. One is you can just show up. It’s at the Victoria Theatre this coming Thursday evening between 7:30 and 9 and tickets at the door are $15 dollars, but if people wanted to go on our website or come by the institute at 23 West Mission Street, the tickets are $10 dollars in advance. Or they can go online to ftisb.org. So that’s Family Therapy Institute Santa Barbara, ftisb.org and they can just click in the old credit card and bring your partner along and have some fun.

Dr. Peter Brill: Great, Don. Thanks for coming in, telling us all about it.

Dr. Don McManus: Thanks for the opportunity.

David Debin: Thank you Don.

Dr. Peter Brill: Yeah.

David Debin: I hear that she’s a great speaker…

Dr. Don McManus: Yeah, she’s really good.

David Debin: someone told me that they’ve been to see her at some, somewhere when she spoke last time…

Dr. Don McManus: Yeah, yeah.

David Debin: and she just knocked people out.

Dr. Don McManus: She’s awesome. Speaks six languages too.

David Debin: But hopefully it’ll just be English this time.

Dr. Peter Brill: I hope it’ll be in English.

David Debin: And I’d like to say hello to Deborah Manchester from us grateful people who she’s helped with our lives.

Dr. Don McManus: And I’m sure she’d be very grateful to hear that.

Dr. Peter Brill: You know what time it is?

David Debin: It’s time for the news. Okay. I don’t know what to tell you about these. Have you, do you know somebody that went missing, some friend of yours or something? I can help you find a way to look.

Dr. Peter Brill: I’ve been missing, I’ve been missing numerous times.

David Debin: This one happened in Florida. A man said he discovered a skeleton inside his overgrown tree that has been there since last year, and it seems that, you know, he saw it there after some trimmers appeared, cleaned up the foliage, Bell South, a phone line service, and the death was believed to have been a suicide with no suspicion of foul play. But the thing is the bones belonged to this guys roommate who went out to the store to pick up some groceries and didn’t come back and this guy never looked, never figured, never heard from him and now they find his bones in a tree. So if there’s someone missing in your life make sure you go out and check those trees. You can never tell what bones are up there. Hey, I though we’d be informative this as well as…

Dr. Peter Brill: If you’re missing your roommate go check the trees?

David Debin: Go check, if they’re gone for more than six months go check the trees.

Dr. Peter Brill: So, about this show today, what do you think?

David Debin: I think it’s going to be interesting. We’re going to find out if you can get those names straight, we’ll be fine.

Dr. Peter Brill: Judith Sherven, who’s a clinical psychologist who worked in private practice for 22 years and Jim Sniechowski…

David Debin: Sniechowski. You almost got it right.

Dr. Peter Brill: I almost got it right. About another hundred times. Holds a doctorate in human behavior and co-founded the Men’s Health Network in Washington, D.C. They’re best selling authors of Be Loved For Who You Really Are. Their latest together is Soft Sell Internet Marketing. Welcome to the show guys.

Judith Sherven: Thank you so much.

Jim Sniechowski: Thank you very much.

David Debin: I can’t think of two more disparate titles for books, and we’re going to find out how the two come together. But, can you tell us to begin with, you wrote a book called Be Loved For Who You Really Are. What does that mean, be loved, I, what does that mean, be loved for who you really are? I thought I was loved for who I really am.

Judith Sherven: Well, sadly most people don’t think they’re lovable for who they really are, and just to back up a little bit, Jim and I have been married to each other for 20 years, been together 21, and so before we got involved in internet marketing and soft sell marketing our expertise was and still is in dating and marriage and the topic that you were mentioning earlier, how to keep passion alive in a long lasting relationship. So our book, Be Loved For Who You Really Are, which is our third book, is really about being genuine and authentic and going through the travels that love wants to take you through, the passages that a loving relationship asks of you. Sadly most people tell off the love in a relationship by hiding, by not showing up fully, by pretending, lying and emotionally cheating on their relationship and we have very little information in our culture to the contrary, sad to say. So our mission has been to bring more genuine love and genuine romance into people’s lives. But that was all pre-internet marketing.

David Debin: Oh, you think you can get off the hook that easy, don’t you Judith? You don’t know the doctor.

Dr. Peter Brill: No, I’m very much in favor of what she is talking about. The risk to be your authentic self is down the road to trying to find the true self, which is really the single most important event of the third age. Anyway, you’re…

Jim Sniechowski: You know Peter…

Dr. Peter Brill: Yeah?

Jim Sniechowski: Peter you said to find the true self. From our perspective that happens everyday, that’s, we’ve heard it said and we’ve said and we’ve changed our way of speaking. It’s not like there’s some true self hiding behind your appendix somewhere that you have to go discover. It’s actually something that you can do daily by being as honest and truthful as you can about who you are, vise a vie, what you feel, what you think, and then be willing if you’re in a relationship to hold a relationship as one of your highest priorities so that the relationship thrives and survives, and it survives and thrives because both of you are committed to making it that way. And the way it works is to be present and fully available to the relationship, so one can be a true self from our perspective everyday.

Dr. Peter Brill: Well I totally agree with you, but let me just tell you a story and see what you think of it.

Jim Sniechowski: Sure.

Dr. Peter Brill: We’re kind of getting off topic here, but I had a lady that I interviewed for the show, and this is one of many, many people I’ve talked to about this, she had been in a couple of major relationships, she was 65, broke up with the last guy, went to therapy for a year or so, and as a result of one question the therapist asked her she found what I would call the true self…

Jim Sniechowski: Uh huh.

Dr. Peter Brill: And so I asked her to explain what it was like, and she said, “Well, you know, I all of a sudden”, she said, “the world changed. I, you know, I could, I felt differently about myself, I felt differently about the world”, and I said, “Well, I still don’t get it.” She said, “Well, you know, it’s very much like having a cataract removed. All of a sudden you can see much clearer and the colors are brighter”, and there are of course exercises she does to stay there, you know, all the dreams that people have when they find the real self about pots of gold, diamonds, rooms full of, you know, wonderful gifts and so forth. So I think there is a true self. I think that we’re on the journey, many of us, to find us, and it certainly helps to have a couple, you know, working together to do that and accepting each other on the way.

Judith Sherven: Right, right.

Jim Sniechowski: Accepting each…

David Debin: What was that question Peter, that the therapist asked you?

Dr. Peter Brill: It was a, remember when we lectured, remember when we lectured about 300 therapists and we told this story. Of course the first question everybody asked was, “What was the question?” The question was, you know, what your biggest weakness is. I mean, it’s nothing about the question, it just happened to hit her.

David Debin: And she said…

Dr. Peter Brill: So this turned…

David Debin: What she said was, “I’m a people pleaser”…

Dr. Peter Brill: Yeah.

David Debin: which plays right into what they’re talking about because if you’re a people pleaser, that’s what you do, then you’re not being honest and available.

Judith Sherven: Right.

Dr. Peter Brill: Yeah, you’re not being yourself.

Judith Sherven: Right.

Judith Sherven: Lets turn a little bit, you’re both in the third age?

Jim Sniechowski: Correct.

Judith Sherven: That’s right.

Dr. Peter Brill: I saw your pictures on the internet, and so this is a journey for you, pretty much like we said when we started the show, new business, right?

Judith Sherven: That’s right.

Jim Sniechowski: Not only a new business, something out of having been a therapist and getting into marketing was liking going into another planet.

David Debin: Yeah, I bet.

Dr. Peter Brill: And so, one of the things you say in there is that you’re trying to teach people to come from their passion and their spiritual part.

Jim Sniechowski: Correct.

Dr. Peter Brill: Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Judith Sherven: Well, by all means, and one of the things we wanted to underscore is that, particularly in internet marketing, but in sales and marketing across the board, by and large that whole arena has been one of pretty hard selling techniques, meaning if I have something to sell, if I have a store, then really I’m wanting to provide what you want so that you’ll buy from me, but my objective is to get your money. And what we’ve seen in getting involved in internet marketing is that that point of view certainly did not work for us. When we came into internet marketing we were still selling our relationship with seminars and programs, and we couldn’t, we just couldn’t get it that all we wanted was their money. That wasn’t it. We wanted to help them, we wanted to make a connection, we wanted to have a caring relationship between us and our buyers and we didn’t see a model for that…

Dr. Peter Brill: Mm hmm.

Judith Sherven: And since we have moved further in to what we do, including our fist conference, Bridging Heart and marketing, which we just gave in February in Los Angeles, we seen there’s a huge group of people, and I know from just a little bit we’ve talked so far that the two of you are in our group of caregivers who have heart and want to sell and market your programs, your goods, your services, but not by closing off your heart and just going after the sales.

Dr. Peter Brill: Absolutely. So how do you do that?

Jim Sniechowski: Well first of all, we had to come to terms with the idea of selling as, the idea of selling itself. It’s a long story, but we were coaching some folks, and we, I came across the idea that, not the idea, came across the point that we had to talk to them about selling, and I thought, “My god, how can I do that?”, and I looked at myself and I said, “You know, where I cam from selling was of the devil, you didn’t trust anybody who was selling anything…

Dr. Peter Brill: Yeah.

Jim Sniechowski: And so, what are we doing? So I did a rather extensive meditation and I came to a simple conclusion, and that is if I have a problem and you have a solution and it’s a genuine solution and we are interdependent upon one another, we’re not isolated beings but we all live here in a community supportive of one another, you have that solution, it is your moral obligation to market that solution because people out there need you, and if you don’t do it you cheat yourself, you cheat us and you cheat whatever you think…

Dr. Peter Brill: Absolutely.

Jim Sniechowski: God happens to be.

Dr. Peter Brill: You know, when I first started I built three national companies, and at the very start I was a psychiatrist and I went to business school after doing that, not to learn business but for other reasons, and I started a company and I would go out and I would start selling, you know. And I was so terrified and felt horrible about it, and every time I would go in to sell something we’d always come out with the sale. And I’d say, “How is this working?” I don’t know anything about selling, I’ve never been taught how to sell, and the guy who I did have working with me as a professional had said, “Well two things, you love relationships and you love solving problems” and that’s selling.

Jim Sniechowski: But the word love Peter is really critical…

Dr. Peter Brill: Yeah.

Jim Sniechowski: in those descriptions…

Dr. Peter Brill: Yeah.

Jim Sniechowski: because those connections with your buyer, and even on the internet, when you’re, your buyer could be Europe, you never meet the person face to face, if your intention is a loving respectful relationship with that person, that’s going to come through your sales copy, that’s going to come through your product and the relationship will be established that way. Historically, the bottom line has been dollars and the, but the buyer is going to pay as little as possible and the seller is going to charge as much as possible, and there’s a contest going on, but more profoundly than that, they objectify one another, they become objects in this…

Dr. Peter Brill: Absolutely.

Jim Sniechowski: dollar for dollar.

David Debin: Okay, and to all of our listeners, you want to come right back to this, this is very important. Hold on, we’ll be back. We’re with The Third Age.

David Debin: We’re back with The Third Age. I’m the man from Hollywood, David Debin and the doctor, Peter Brill. We’re having a fabulous and fascinating conversation with Judith Sherven and Jim Sniechowski who have written a book about, what is…

Dr. Peter Brill: (unintelligible) a program or a software…

David Debin: Yeah, but what…

Dr. Peter Brill: on internet marketing.

David Debin: But you guys have a book on it don’t you or not?

Judith Sherven: Well actually, we’re writing the book about it right now…

David Debin: What’s it going to be called?

Judith Sherven: Well we’re not sure, the publisher and I, we’re not quite in agreement yet, so, but it’ll be about soft sell marketing and how that is a heart based spiritually oriented way of looking at sales and marketing. We call our conference Bridging Heart and Marketing.

David Debin: Bridging Heart and Marketing.

Dr. Peter Brill: Okay, so now what we have is we get the people there, we figure out what they feel strongly about, we convince them that they have a moral obligation to it. How do, what’s the next steps? Where, concretely, what do we do from there?

Judith Sherven: Well if people already have a business then they, what we encourage is that they rethink how they relate to their customers, whether the customers are offline and they have a storefront or online on the internet where they can’t see the person face to face. Nevertheless, how do they want to create a stronger heart based relationship with their potential customers and their customers, and open that up with more caring and actually more customer care.

Dr. Peter Brill: Judith, I’m going to just ask you to be more concrete. Give us a specific example.

Jim Sniechowski: I could do that.

Dr. Peter Brill: Okay.

Jim Sniechowski: We, first of all at the conference, the conference has 8, 9 speakers this time. They range from how to create a product for online marketing. So people, first of all, if they have a product they have to translate that into an online way of presenting it. If they don’t have products and they’re looking to start a new third age business they can then learn how to create products from e-books to audios to videos, and that’s one of the speakers. Another speaker will teach people how to draw traffic. One of the biggest problems on the internet is bringing people to your site. When you go for example to a mall, go into a shoe store and you’re walking through the mall to go to the shoe store, you get to see all of these other stores inside. Whether or not they’re of interest to you, you at least get to see them and you know they’re there. But on the internet it’s like a black hole. Once you’ve gone on the internet, if you don’t know where you’re going the likelihood of finding me is very low, so we teach people how to draw traffic to the site. Thirdly, we also teach people, particularly the caregivers, many of the people at our conference the last time were third age people, we teach them how to convert someone that we call a prospector. We don’t like to use the word prospector, and if you want to understand why we’ll get into that in a bit, but we convert the prospector into a customer, so there are conversion techniques that people need to learn, particularly those people who haven’t been in business but are looking to start a business. And then Judith and I are going to lay down principles of soft sell marketing before, we’re going to do the keynote called How To Build a Soft Sell Business, and there are a number of other speakers, for example, one, a therapist who was a therapist in Florida and got into the internet and he is now called The Article Marketing, the Article Marketing Guy, and he teaches people how to write articles for the internet that are no more than 250to 300 words in length and how to distribute those articles around the internet to draw traffic to your site, and he is now, he started at from being a therapist, he got into the internet, let go of the therapy and his income is now about $350,000 dollars a year teaching people how to write articles. We have another man who is coming in from Chicago who is going to show people how it, what they need to do internally, what changes they need to do internally to make an internet business successful in terms of perseverance and focus. One of the phrases we like to use, there’s a difference between the hedgehog and the fox. The hedgehog has one technique when the fox approaches. The hedgehog rolls into a ball and opens up its quills, and the fox is trying all of these different methods to get at the hedgehogs belly and all the hedgehog does is roll into a ball and defend itself. The reason we use that image is because when you get into a business of any kind, but particularly on the internet where you really have to be highly focused to differentiate yourself from the other competitors out there, you have, generally have one thing you do and do it well and do it extremely well before you go on, for example, to open up some other second product, ‘cause a lot of people jump into this game and think, “Oh boy, I can make products. I’ll go on the internet and sell”, but what they do is they become completely lost in the internet game, and that also we have people talking about the technicalities; how do you put up a site? How do you actually make the site? What is the internet all about? And we actually have created a course called First Step Internet Marketing that is for the absolute raw beginner who, if all you need to know is how to turn on your computer we’ll take you from there. So those are some of the specific that we offer, and our second bridging heart and marketing, which we call Bridging Heart and Marketing too.

Dr. Peter Brill: And these are just to tell people who, ‘cause I’ve studied a, you know, marketing and writing, but these are fabulous, these are normal good marketing methods…

Jim Sniechowski: Right.

Dr. Peter Brill: that any business school will teach you…

Jim Sniechowski: Precisely.

Dr. Peter Brill: Target, stay, you know, stay focused on your product…

Jim Sniechowski: Right.

Dr. Peter Brill: and so forth, build traffic and so forth, convert people that are potential customers and customers. Wonderful, wonderful agenda. So lets, can we talk a little bit about third agers?

Jim Sniechowski: Sure.

Judith Sherven: Absolutely.

Dr. Peter Brill: What do you see? You get a lot of these people at your conference…

Judith Sherven: Right.

Dr. Peter Brill: What are they, what are they trying to do?

Judith Sherven: What we see is there are two different communities in general, and we did a survey of the people who came in February, and they are, there’s a segment of people who have worked for other people most of their lives who now are of an age where that’s finished. They don’t want that anymore, and they have a passion for something that they specialize in, and it can be anything from a craft, and as you may know that scrapbooking for instance is huge, tons of people are into scrapbooking. We know a man who has made a lot of money, believe it or not, using his wife’s talent for crocheting. They put together an e-book on how to crochet and have, they rolled it out to $30,000 dollars the first time they took it out and this is online, so people are able to use that they know. We know a realtor who is working right now on a book that will be sold online about what to look for when you’re looking for investment property, things the real estate agent never tells you.

Dr. Peter Brill: Mm hmm.

Judith Sherven: So people are using their…

Dr. Peter Brill: So use your knowledge, use your passion, find your way. Now can I just put a cautionary note in here?

Judith Sherven: Sure.

Jim Sniechowski: Sure.

Dr. Peter Brill: Because I’ve known a lot of people who kind of jumped out of some middle management position kind of half prepared and who don’t make a living.

Jim Sniechowski: Right, that’s true. And the fact of the matter is, this is a business like any other business. If you opened a shoe store in Santa Barbara you’re not going to become rich overnight…

Dr. Peter Brill: Yes.

Jim Sniechowski: And so this is a business, you have to invest in it, you have to give it time, you have to give it focus like any other business. However, the opportunities on the internet are so much greater and the amount of money that is flowing through the internet is unimaginable and it’s also global. We have customers from all over the world from, we have sold product in Jerusalem and we’ve sold product in Russia and we’ve sold product in China…

Judith Sherven: Brazil.

Jim Sniechowski: And that’s really kind of interesting because you’re selling, you have an international market, and at the same time you never leave your house, but it is like you’re owning the store and don’t anybody think differently, otherwise you’re in for a big hurt.

Dr. Peter Brill: Yes. Good  for you.

Judith Sherven: And I just want to add that there’s this second segment of third agers that want to get involved in internet marketing, are people that have been self employed, they’ve worked for themselves, like yourself as a psychiatrist, coach, therapist, healer in some fashion, but they feel restricted by just being able to work with people in their office, and they know…

Dr. Peter Brill: Or alternatively, they’re burning out.

Judith Sherven: Or they’re burning out.

Jim Sniechowski: That’s right, that’s right. True.

Judith Sherven: And they want to expand what they’re doing, they want to go and do training, other professionals, or they want to expand their work in some way and the internet allows them to do that, and what we suggest is that people not terminate their income, you know, until they’ve got themselves up and running online.

David Debin: Okay.

Dr. Peter Brill: So we’re going to take a break. I just want to, just kind of summarize this. There is hope, there is a way to change, there is a way to find your path out there. We’ll be right back and we’ll talk more about it.

David Debin: We’re back with The Third Age. This is the man from Hollywood, David Debin. I’m here with Peter Brill, and we’re talking to Judith Sherven and Jim Sniechowski about bridging heart and marketing. Okay guys, I have a question for you.

Judith Sherven: Okay.

David Debin: You have a nonprofit organization…

Dr. Peter Brill: I have a friend who…

David Debin: I have a friend…

Judith Sherven: Okay.

David Debin: who has a nonprofit organization who does a lot of good for a lot of people and doesn’t do much fundraising outside, doesn’t have a lot of events, all that kind of stuff, doesn’t solicit a lot of grants or anything like that, but this friend of mine thought that they would be able to get people interested in making donations online. How would you suggest bridging the heart in marketing there?

Jim Sniechowski: Well first of all, when you say how would I suggest bridging heart in marketing, are you asking for what kind of technique he might use?

David Debin: Yes, that’s one of the questions, yeah.

Jim Sniechowski: Okay. First of all, does he have a list?

David Debin: A list of?

Jim Sniechowski: A list of people he can email to to solicit donations?

David Debin: Yes.

Jim Sniechowski: He does. And then on the line, what happens online is online started as a free space, so people are very, very accustomed to getting things for free online and getting things for free, and what has to happen generally speaking to get someone’s attention, there’s a couple step process here. If you put something together, an audio, a written textual, text report, something that you actually give them for free, because that’s generally expected. So you give something for free as a way of bringing them into the message that you’re doing. Now you can do that in one of two ways; you can send them an email, and depending upon what kind of technology you have, you can send them an email blast, meaning you can send one email to 5, 10, 20,000 people depending upon how many people on your list, the same email, and in the email you offer them something that they can get if they will click through the email and go to a site. At the site when they get there what you ask them to do is you give your first name and your email address, and that way what you do is called list building, and if they, if you give, if they give you their name and email address, then they’re taken to a page where they will get whatever it is you’re offering and on that page you begin the development of asking them for a donation. And then of course it’s a matter of direct selling. You have good copy, you have good stories, you have good validation that who you are is real, and you create an emotional story that will be, that will bring them into what it is you’re doing, and that is initially the kind of process you can take to build it, begin to build a fundraising campaign.

Dr. Peter Brill: Great. Great suggestion. Now lets suppose you’re selling toilet paper…

Jim Sniechowski: Yeah.

Dr. Peter Brill: How do you do that from the heart?

Judith Sherven: Ahh. Well, you certainly would want people to have comfortable experience with their toilet paper…

David Debin: Mm hmm.

Judith Sherven: And…

David Debin: But that’s the other end.

Judith Sherven: you would then want to promote that kind of care for their comfort, not just that toilet papers something you have to have everyday of your life and everybody needs it, but that you actually do have a product that is superior to what other people are providing. But I want to double back to this nonprofit…

Dr. Peter Brill: In about 30 seconds, about 30 seconds ‘cause we’re going to have to…

Judith Sherven: Alright, because you could offer free teleseminars that you don’t have to pay anything to put on, but ask people to make a donation to attend those teleseminars and that would be a fundraising method.

Dr. Peter Brill: That’s a great idea, great idea…

David Debin: I know how to do…

Dr. Peter Brill: Lets talk about your seminar. What’, where, how do people find you, how do they sign up?

Judith Sherven: Alright, it’s September, it’s coming up in September, September 12th, 13th and 14th. It’s going to be in Manhattan Beach just 8 minutes south of the Los Angeles airport, and it’s at the Aires Hotel, and the website where people can check out the speakers and check out the events that will be occurring through those three days bridgingheartandmarketing.com, and you spell out the word ‘and’. So it’s bridgingandmarketing…

Jim Sniechowski: bridgingheart, bridging…

Judith Sherven: bridgingheartandmarketing.com.

Dr. Peter Brill: Great. I want to think you guys for being on the show. It’s a fabulous contribution you’re making to the field and I wish you the very, very best in your endeavor. People, if you want to start a business here’s a great way to do it. Thank you all very much for being on the show today.

Jim Sniechowski: You’re very welcome Peter, thank you.

Judith Sherven: Thank you.

David Debin: I have your answer Peter.

Dr. Peter Brill: What’s that?

David Debin: About the toilet paper.

Dr. Peter Brill: What’s the answer?

David Debin: Bridging the heart, the product with the heart…

Dr. Peter Brill: Yes. Go to the other end?

David Debin: No. Put George Bush’s picture on the toilet paper.

Dr. Peter Brill: Well in that spirit, we’re now going to bring on part of what we, David and I have made a commitment to do, is every week to bring an environmental message to this community. We don’t think we can ever be strong enough and clear enough about the incredible urgency of doing something to change our whole relationship to this earth and to this time. In that spirit, we have Megan Diaz on, who’s from the Community Environmental Center, and Megan, take us away…

Megan Diaz: Hi. I’m actually at the Community Environmental Counsel, thank you…

Dr. Peter Brill: Counsel, sorry.

Megan Diaz: No, no problem at all. So today I’m going to be talking about our Get Energized pledge, as well as our Green Sunday program. And my position is energy outreach, so I have the great job of kind of taking CEC’s message to the street and really gaining social experience with people just getting excited about making these wonderful changes in their lives. So our Get Energized pledge is basically the first step to reducing your personal carbon emissions, and, you know, everyone should be aware that the routine choices we make everyday, such as flipping on the light or hopping in the shower are all associated with carbon dioxide emissions, and the energy that, you know, we are used to having comes from power plants that emit large amounts of greenhouse gases into our atmosphere and by using less energy in our daily lives we can, you know, start emitting less carbon dioxide. So our pledge is an online tool, and the site is www.getenergized.org and on there…

Dr. Peter Brill: Lets do that again.

Megan Diaz: I’m sorry…

Dr. Peter Brill: Do that again.

Megan Diaz: www.getenergized.org…

Dr. Peter Brill: Okay.

Megan Diaz: And if you go on there you’ll find it’s very easy to use. There’s a button that says “Take the pledge”, and it walks you through a number of action steps, everything from lighting to water heating, heating and cooling and transportation, and once you pledge to take an action step you can find out immediately how many pounds of carbon dioxide you’ll be avoiding from emitting into the atmosphere, and those measurements are local, you know, because Santa Barbara has a mild climate and California has a very clean grid. Our calculations to date, we’ve got over thirteen hundred pledgers, so we launched the Get Energized website over a year ago, and like I said, since then we’ve had over thirteen hundred pledgers. Combined, if everyone pledges, if everyone holds to what they said they would do, we will prevent over 11 million pounds of CO2…

Dr. Peter Brill: That’s incredible.

Megan Diaz: Yes, and that…

Dr. Peter Brill: That is absolutely incredible.

Megan Diaz: That’s enough to power over eleven hundred homes here on the central south coast.
Dr. Peter Brill: Okay, so Megan, we want the people out there to go to the site, getenergized.com…

Megan Diaz: Dot org.

Dr. Peter Brill: Dot org, take the pledge, come on people. We know that we need to make these changes. We cannot sustain the world the way it is, the way we’re going forward. I want to thank you very much Megan for being on the show today, and people we’ll be right back.

Dr. Peter Brill: Welcome back to The Third Age.

David Debin: Thank you.

Dr. Peter Brill: I’m your host, Peter Brill. I’m here with David Debin, and I don’t have any hard names to pronounce now.

David Debin: You know, there’s an election that’s going on today…

Dr. Peter Brill: I know.

David Debin: in Indiana and North Carolina, and we’re all sitting here watching and wondering what’s going to happen as a result of it. I’m not going to say that I endorse any particular candidate, which I do, but I think that something we all need to think about is what, how we live with other people and how we decide if other people can live with us, and how many of you out there, when you meet somebody or when you see somebody, take a look at their car and make a snap decision about what they’re driving? Or look at where they live and say, “Oh, these people must be great, they live in a big beautiful house”? Or something like that? You know, we’re on the wrong track because that affects, that kind of thinking affects the environment, it affects every single thing that we all do. It’s a disease that we’re trying to deal with here in this country but we don’t see it to be because we’re listening to the commercials, we’re trying to, still trying to, we’re so insulate, we don’t know what’s going on in the world, we only know what’s going on here, and in our little lives, and we don’t have that feeling of being connected to the rest of the world. We’re just comparing ourselves to everybody else. And you know, when we do that, you’re not connected, you’re not going to make an effort to turn off the lights, you’re not going to make an effort to drive less, you’re not going to make an effort to do anything that’s good for all of us. So think about the way you judge things and open your hearts because that’s the only way we’re going to get through this.

Dr. Peter Brill: That’s a wonderful sentiment David. And to actually award the people for having listened to that, we’re now going to, a non commercial message from Shannon Brooks, director of communication, Visitors Bureau, how to have fun this week. Keep talking, keep talking, how to have a lot of fun this week, how to have a great deal of fun this week. Are we ready there Lisa?

Unknown speaker: Well we have now on the show the very attractive  and very fun loving Shannon. Shannon, what’s fun this week?

Shannon Brooks: It’s all about surfing this week…

Dr. Peter Brill: Surfing?

Shannon Brooks: Surfing. Surf’s Up is a new exhibit at the Meritime Museum and it showcases Santa Barbara’s really unique surf history and culture, all these cool things like Mr. Zog’s Sex Wax was created and…

Dr. Peter Brill: Mr. What?

Shannon Brooks: Mr. Zog’s Sex Wax, it’s a surfboard wax that’s famous around the world…

Dr. Peter Brill: Uh huh.

Shannon Brooks: And Mr. Zog is a Santa Barbara local and that’s pretty and that’s produced in Carpentria actually, and people like Al Merrick, who started Channel Island surfboards, which is one of the major international surf brands.

Dr. Peter Brill: So, what’s fun about this is?

Shannon Brooks: Well you can figure out, even if you’ve never surfed, like me I’ve never surfed, I’m afraid of it, but I found out if I was goofy foot on a surfboard, they have a think where you can stand up and figure out how you should stand, you can get your picture taken, make it look like you’re…

Dr. Peter Brill: Oh, now that’s fun.

Shannon Brooks: you’re surfing a wave, so…

Dr. Peter Brill: So where do we go?

Shannon Brooks: You go to the Santa Barbara Meritime Museum down at the Harbor.

Dr. Peter Brill: Well we have now…

David Debin: We have now…

Dr. Peter Brill: Okay. Well, so, I think we’re getting near the end of the show here David.

David Debin: I hope that I didn’t…

Dr. Peter Brill: Well it was a good show.

David Debin: It was a great show. I love the talk we had about bridging heart and marketing…

Dr. Peter Brill: Yes. And a lot of people need to get out there and find new ways in their life. You want to give out the thank you’s?

David Debin: I want to thank Lisa Headly, our engineer. I want to thank Emily Figurato, our assistant producer. I want to thank Les Carol for just being…

Dr. Peter Brill: Les.

David Debin: Les. Les is always more. And we’ll see you next time.