Podcast appearances and mentions of George Kao

Our guest is George Kao who is the head of sales at Boken Sake https://www.drinkboken.com/　based in New York.  Boken Sake is a unique concept.  The company collaborates with authentic Japanese sake breweries and produces sake under the Boken brand. Many sake breweries consider expanding to overseas markets, but a lot of them are family-owned small businesses without enough resources to make it happen.  Boken can effectively create a path for them to get into the American market and American consumers can have opportunities to taste their precious craft sake. George is an ideal talent to execute Boken's mission with his rich and unique background in Japanese food, in particular Japanese sake. In this episode, we will discuss the unique concept of Boken Sake, the sake Boken has produced with a 540-year-old brewery, great ways to enjoy sake with non-Japanese food and much, much more!!!

Trying to attract with visuals tends towards a shallower engagement with one's audience… Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

When you create something and people don't get it, you shouldn't quit. You simply need to test more ideas. This is why I believe in the importance of the 3 stages of content creation: 1. casual, prolific, exploratory. 2. improve on what's liked.3. integrate and productize. Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

I don't believe your email list is your most important business asset... It's really about having a genuine connection with your audience and treating them with respect. That's why I don't use deceptive tactics like "lead magnets"... Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

There's too much mercenary marketing advice out there. Even if it might get us a few more clients in the short-term, we don't want to put more negativity into the world. Instead of selling to a client's "pain points", there is a better way. Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

You don't need to prove yourself as #1 in your field, or best selling author or any kind of puffery. All those tactics will feed your "fixed mindset". Instead, demonstrate your real expertise by showing up consistently to talk about about what's working for you now, and what you're learning. When people see that you are consistently in the practice of improving in your field, you naturally gain trust. Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

Years ago, I championed the idea that all knowledge should be freely available online, aiming to accelerate humanity's progress. When I actually tried it, I learned two valuable lessons -- (1) free courses resulted in lower engagement and commitment from participants, and (2) my motivation waned without the reciprocal energy of paid exchanges. This experience, coupled with the disappointing experiment in using Patreon, gradually shifted my perspective. I now seek a middle way. I hope to integrate generosity and sustainability. I now advocate for (fair) pricing of courses. It's important for boundaries, self-worth, and the support of small creators. Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

My gentle launches are simple: Early bird for 1 week, then regular price for 1 week before the course begins :) Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

Watch/listen to this episode first… Follow-up question I received: "So let's say we have an offer like with your example, 3 're-works' over 6 weeks... once you've got the most response from whichever one... when would you actually then launch what you'd been talking about? Would that be your next offering? Or would it be a few months out? What do you typically do? " My response: I would go ahead and launch (as the very next thing) the offer test that did the best. Basically, sell it while it's hot

This principle has been essential to my success. How do I make great content? By making more content, and observing what spreads. How do I improve my skills? By working with more clients, and noticing who grows the most. True learning comes from action — we build muscles by doing things, not just reading about them. It takes *quantity* of action to develop quality of results. Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

how to feel ready to put your work out there? begin, explore, publish, repeat. Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

Even if you haven't been actively posting on social media or creating content, don't let it stop you from gently launching new offers and services to your audience. I appreciate hearing from people I've hired, even if it's just a few times a year to let me know about their new programs or specials. In this video I also discuss how often to post content vs. how often to sell something on your social media. I assure you that even a small announcement -- after a long time of not posting -- is usually appreciated. Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

In this video, I discuss a different perspective on pricing -- charging based on "enoughness" and compassion -- rather than the common advice to charge what you're worth or what the market will bear. It's important to consider our own lifestyle needs and determining what is "enough" for us. By minimizing our lifestyle costs, we can charge less, serve more people, and do so with less financial pressure. I also discuss the idea of charging with compassion for our clients and customers, while still ensuring that we have a bit more than enough to invest in our future. Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

In today's episode we have the pleasure to talk to George Kao, a seasoned entrepreneur and advocate of authentic business growth. George unveils his 111 Formula, a holistic approach designed to cultivate authenticity in entrepreneurship. We explore why George views business as a practice akin to athletics, emphasizing discipline and continual growth. Discover what truly constitutes an authentic business and gain invaluable insights into effective market research. George shares his philosophy on "gentle launches" and explores the intersection of AI with authentic business practices. Tune in for an inspiring conversation that empowers entrepreneurs to navigate their business journey authentically and ethically. In this real conversation, we talked about: Why business is a practice - and why George refers to entrepreneurs as athletes What an authentic business really is How to do market research and why George's approach to launches (he calls them gentle launches) George's shared fascination with AI and how he thinks it fits into an authentic business Our Collab Workshop on April 2nd (go to humane.marketing/workshop to sign up) and much more... --- full Ep 185 Sarah: [00:00:00] Hello, Humane Marketers. Welcome back to the Humane Marketing Podcast, the place to be for the generation of marketers that cares. This is a show where we talk about running your business in a way that feels good to you, is aligned with your values, and also resonates with today's conscious customers because it's humane, ethical, and non pushy. I'm Sarah Zanacroce, your hippie turned business coach for quietly rebellious entrepreneurs and marketing impact pioneers. Mama bear of the humane marketing circle and renegade author of marketing like we're human and selling like we're human. If after listening to the show for a while, you're ready to move on to the next level and start implementing and would welcome a community of like minded people. Quietly rebellious entrepreneurs who discuss with transparency, what works and what doesn't work in business. [00:01:00] Then we'd love to welcome you in our humane marketing circle. If you're picturing your typical Facebook group, let me paint a new picture for you. This is a closed community of like minded entrepreneurs from all over the world who come together once per month in a zoom circle workshop to hold each other accountable and build their business in a sustainable way. We share with transparency and build trust. Vulnerability, what works for us and what doesn't work so that you can figure out what works for you instead of keep throwing spaghetti on the wall and seeing what sticks. Find out more at Humane Marketing slash circle, and if you prefer one-on-one, support from me. My Humane business Coaching could be just what you need, whether it's for your marketing, sales, general business building, or help with your big idea like writing a book. I'd love to share my brain and my. Heart with you together with my almost 15 years business experience and help you grow a [00:02:00] sustainable business that is joyful and sustainable. If you love this podcast, wait until I show you my mama bear qualities as my one-on-one client. You can find out more at Humane Marketing slash. And finally, if you are a marketing impact pioneer and would like to bring Humane Marketing to your organization, have a look at my offers and workshops on my website at humane. marketing. Hello friends. Welcome back to another episode. Today's conversation fits under the P of promotion, and I'm speaking to George Kao about how to grow an authentic business. If you're a regular here, you know that I'm organizing the conversations around the seven P's of the Humane Marketing Mandala. And if this is your first time here, you probably don't know what I'm talking [00:03:00] about, but you can download your one page plan with the Humane Marketing version of the seven P's of marketing at humane. George: marketing Sarah: forward slash one page, the number one and the word marketing. page and this comes with seven email prompts to really help you reflect on these for your business. You know, authentic business and George Cow is a business mentor who infuses his teaching with a unique spiritual perspective since 2009, he has been helping people. Thousands of coaches, consultants, healers, and course creators on their path to creating sustainable and joyful businesses. George has published five books spanning the topics of authentic business, content marketing, joyful productivity, George: and spiritual growth. In this Sarah: real world. Conversation, real and authentic George: conversation may speak about Sarah: why business is a practice and why George refers to entrepreneurs as athletes, [00:04:00] what an authentic business really is, how to do market research, and why George's approach to launches. He calls them gentle launches. It also feels like a struggle. George, it's shared fascination with AI and how he thinks it fits into an authentic business. George: When do I Sarah: my thoughts George: as well on that topic. Authentic business Sarah: tries to, I guess, solve both of those issues by, by bringing, I'm just going to say it like personal George: development or spiritual growth into all the actions we take in our Sarah: business. So for example George: in the beginning, you know, when we're struggling to get clients and clarify our message and all that stuff that process itself doesn't have to. It doesn't have to feel like, Oh, I'm postponing the fulfillment of my life and my, my purpose, but like the actual work of [00:05:00] clarifying and putting systems together can be done from a deeper purpose of service. Service to our higher self, actually, and then, of course, service to humanity or the people that we most have compassion for and want to want to support and uplift through the products and services of our business. So, it's like, it's like. No matter what stage we're at, whether we're, we're, we're like the, the, the struggling beginner all of that can be actions taken in, you know, like I said, in, in service or in, in, in in alignment with our deeper, more, Purpose of life so that it's not like, I mean, I use this, but then, you know, sort of mundane example of if you're doing bookkeeping and you're not a bookkeeper, let's say you're not, it's not something that you'd naturally love to do. You can be like, ah, let me just get this out of the way. And, oh my God, so it's such a, such a, so tedious to have to like, look at these numbers or whatever, [00:06:00] or you can take a moment and say, this is my life also like, like, this is not. Yeah. Do this so that I can have, I can live life. No, no. This very moment is life. And therefore, how shall I live? It's like, Oh, okay. Bookkeeping. How can I come to it with a perspective of curiosity about the numbers and what the numbers suggest to the greater narrative of what my business developing into, how can I bring focus? You know, can, how can I practice focus in this moment? How can I practice gratitude that I can even Even have a business or even, like, think about this, you know, or even work on numbers. You know, some people can't even don't even have a computer, right? Like, like, how can I have the gratitude? And what does this moment mean for my personal development? Like, right now, like, and we don't have to spend an hour journaling before we do it. I mean, literally, most of us, even if we took. Two minutes [00:07:00] to just pause and say, what is the meaning of this moment? And the, the potential deeper potential at this moment, it changes. And it's like, what if our entire day could be like this? And that to me is really the core spirit of authentic business is at the beginner. For the beginners like that, and then later on you know, businesses like yours and mine, where things are humming along, it's like, rather than just go, I'm making money now and whatever, but it's like, how can I yet again bring my money. Courage to be, to be vulnerably exploring what my, my true purpose is in my business and, and pivot when I need to, but it's all like, I think of it as marketing, the act of marketing is a business finding is calling, you know, it's a business exploring with the market and with ourselves, what the calling of the businesses. And at the same time, the actions of a [00:08:00] business is also a stage. Okay. For our continued personal evolution. And then, so it's like, no matter what stage of the business, the authentic part of it is how much soul is being placed into this moment. And if there is, if there's soul in this moment, then I say, Hey, that's off, that's an authentic business. So Sarah: that's yeah, you and I need to have a conversation about my third book. I'm working on business. Like we're human because what you just is, yeah, it's very much aligned with I, I feel like you've talked a lot about spaciousness as well, right. And just, Yeah, just being a human as well as having a business and, and oftentimes we feel like as entrepreneurs, we, yeah, we need to struggle so much. And that means filling our calendars to the brim because we're just [00:09:00] not doing enough. But what you're saying is the opposite is just like, well, the business, and I think in your YouTube video, you share that the business is a practice and authentic business is a practice. And so it becomes. Part of your life, like it fits into your life. Yeah. And it's not like we need to fit our lives kind of around our business. The, you know, few minutes that are left each day. So it's the, it's the other way around. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. Another thing that I think oftentimes, and I'm curious what you, if you have the same feeling, authentic kind of became this buzzword a little bit. Yes. And it became this thing that we. Again, need to use our left brain in order to do authentic, like, you know, do authentic marketing. Well, here's the seven steps on how to do that. That's not what this is, George: right? Yeah. It's interesting. In 2023 Miriam [00:10:00] Webster, the dictionary company said the word of the year was authentic. Yeah. Yeah. So it really is literally a buzzword. And I feel like that the word of the year is often at least a year behind what the culture actually has been so authentic has been around for several years. I feel like as a, as a, as a very important or a very common kind of like bringing, bringing people back to, to what's meaningful for them. And anyway, but yeah, it's, I, I, I, so, you know, Appreciate this idea of practice, because to me, it's it almost doesn't matter what we're doing in our business. I mean, if, if, if we are, if we are living an authentic life, I mean, kind of kind of starting there. I mean, I mean, let's set aside authentic business. Like, the question is, are we living an authentic life? It's like, it's like, like, are we dedicated to living the most meaningful? And [00:11:00] highest life or deepest life, however you want to put it, like, if, if, yes, we are dedicated to that, why I don't see why, why the, I mean, those of us, those of you who are listening to this podcast, you're part of Sarah's audience, of course, you're dedicated to living the highest and the deepest life. It's like, what else is there, you know, what other possibility is there that actually draws us forward. And so if we are, in fact, have that passion and that dedication, then of course we have to bring that spirit into hopefully everything we do in our business. And the opposite of this is I often see come across spiritual teachers Well, they're spiritual teachers, so they must be dedicated to the highest and deepest and the best life possible. And yet I sign up for their email list or I follow them on social media or whatever. And their marketing is [00:12:00] just, it does. If there's like a, like, it's like a big. Disconnect between how they market themselves and how they sell their stuff to what they espouse as their principles and values. And I'm like, why, why is it that, why does business and marketing have to be. Different somehow, it's like separate thing. Yeah. It's like, it's like, oh, I, I, I'm, I'm very deep and, and, and real when I'm with my clients. And now let's do our marketing and using, you know, really manipulative funnels and really like scarcity type tactics. I'm like, what is going on here? It's like, why is there such a disconnect? It's kind of like the, yeah. You know, like the preacher who is so holy on, you know, on TV. And then, and then they have like some dark, you know, scandals and they're like, they're, they're, they're, they beat up their families and they cheat on their wives and it's like, it's like, it's this disconnect and, and and that's what I'm trying to say. Authentic means that you are authentic in, in everything that you do. [00:13:00] Yeah. Sarah: I think the issue is I, I kind of. Looked into that because of in the whole thing. Well, marketing like we're human selling like we're human business, like we're human. So what does it mean to be human? So I, I looked at Yuval Harari and one of the things that he shares is. One of the distinctions between us and other species is that we are myth makers. So we're really good at creating these new truths that we then all believe as humanity. And I think this online business world is one of those myths, right? And so everybody just started to believe. This is how business works online, or this is how online marketing works. And so even the, the really spiritual coaches, they're like, this is the mess that everybody is believing that myth. So I need to believe that [00:14:00] truth as well. And so that's why we need people like you are like, well, no, you don't have to believe this myth. There is another way, but I thought that was a fascinating concept. It's true. It's like, We decide this new thing, and then everybody follows, and that's what happened you know, 15 years ago. George: Really, really good observation. Yes it's there's, there's also this setting aside our inner authority. When it comes to, Oh, well, business, I'm not a business person. Well, I'm not a marketing expert. I'm a spiritual teacher or I'm a holistic healer, or I'm a life coach or that, that, that's, that's where I shine and I'll, I'll just, you know, business, they, they seem like they know what they're talking about with business and marketing, so I'll follow their systems that they're, they tell me the systems work, so let me just follow those systems. It feels off to me. It doesn't feel authentic to me, but it's going to get to an authentic end at the end when I finally can work with [00:15:00] clients. Right. And, and this is the old, you know, means to an end fallacy, which is, Oh, I just have to do this thing. That's soulless or that's not really me so that I can get to the part that is me. That is like, well, okay, particularly when it comes to your own business. Oh, you do it is going to be how you do end up doing just about everything else. So it's like the, the mindset you take on when you follow the mainstream business experts and the marketers ends up corrupting the mindset of your entire business and your audience feels that. I mean, this is why. People have been kind of looking at my stuff and following me for, for all these years. It's like they feel the difference. It's like there is a difference and they feel it. And I'm, and I feel it too, because I used to be, I used to be quite unhappy, deeply unhappy when I was following those systems without realizing that that's what I was doing was setting aside my own [00:16:00] authority to follow someone else's authority. Yeah, they said that, you know, even though it didn't feel right and finally, when I, when I get shut out all that stuff down and say, no, I don't have to do that. Let me try to try. It's what is could be an authentic way of doing business and marketing. It's like, oh, my gosh, I can really now settle deeply rest deeply and, and, and work deeply because now I see it as a practice. That's a soulful practice as well. Yeah, Sarah: that's wonderful. Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, we're hosting a workshop together on April 2nd, right? And it's called the 111 Authentic Business Formula. So tell us a little bit what this formula is about and it has all these different numbers and practices. So tell us George: a little bit. Totally. Well I'm yeah, I'm glad to be able to tell you about it. And I do hope those who are listening to this will sign up for our, our joint workshop [00:17:00] because this is where I'm going to dive, dive deep into the one 11 formulas. Okay. So, so why one 11, first of all, the backstory is I've always found that to be some kind of magical number for me 11, one 11, 11, 11. Those have been at times, I feel like at times, particularly when I needed, you know, encouragement or I guess, quote, unquote, self help. Signs from the universe that that, you know, I, I deeply believe this to be true for myself and for all of us that we are in some mysterious, magical way, being deeply taken care of and being guided. With a still small voice within us, and sometimes the universe is kind to give us little signals of like, yeah, just remember you're not alone and it's going to be okay and not just okay. You are on a brilliant path. It seems windy, long and winding road sometimes, but [00:18:00] it is a necessary path toward your Highest good and your ability to serve the world in the, in the most powerful way, authentically powerful ways possible. So the 1 11 has been that kind of number for me. So when I was you know, I get asked by my clients and students all the time. It's like, all right, just give us. Give us, you know, tell us exactly what to do, you know, and I always, I always kind of fight against that because I'm like that is the opposite of authentic. If I tell you exactly, exactly what to do on a Tuesday at 10 a. m. you should do this and Thursday at 2 p. m. you should do that. I'm like, then you are following my authority again, rather than. Discovering your own inner authority, but still they're like, yes, yes, we get it. We get it. We get it, but we still need more clarity. Some structure, please on what to do. I'm like, okay, okay, let me, let me try to put together a structure. That has embedded in it the wisdom of all my successes and failures and having worked with [00:19:00] hundreds of clients and seeing their ups and downs and it seems what seen what's worked and what, what are the pitfalls? Let me try to put this structure together. So that's what I did. I said, okay, if I could guarantee you success in business, an authentic business success, this would be my best bet. And I always say, no one can guarantee you success, of course. And if anyone is saying, I'm going to guarantee you, just sign up for my program. You should run the other direction because they are either lying to you or they are. Going to become your, your authority instead of either going to supplant your in our authority. And that's not good for your sovereignty. And and so I said, okay, this formula has a lot of wiggle room in it. I'm going to give you numbers, but the numbers are more of a suggested shall I say prioritization of sorts, but you can, of course, take this formula and make it your own. So I'll [00:20:00] give you I'll give you the sort of the quick overview of the of the. But what the numbers are, and then, you know, we could talk as much as we have time here about it. And we'll go, we'll dive deep in the workshop itself. So the 111 is made up of 111 components to this so called guaranteed formula, or the best that I can do. And it has, I'll just give you some of the numbers here so you can get a sense of it. It has 40 for zero content experiments, because I. Believe deeply, not just believe, but I've seen in my own life and in my clients and students lives, the way we really discover our voice as well as our message. As well as that blessed intersection between imagine your passion and natural talents. Okay. So what you're, what you're deeply built for and led toward is one circle. And the other circle is what the world needs [00:21:00] and wants at this time. And that blessed intersection between what you're built for and what you're led towards and what the world is wanting at this time, which is the market. Okay. What they're happy to spend money on, what they're, what they love to engage with that blessed intersection of the two of them that I consider is our authentic business calling. And we discovered that through content experiments. Okay. Meaning we, whenever we. Try sharing a message or we have an idea, and we're going to just put it out there and see if people get it. Oftentimes, they might not get it. We might be ahead of our time. So we're not might not be saying it in a way that is understandable yet to this to this. Anyway, so 40 content experiments are, you know, and with the one 11 is, you know, Loosely meant to be a 1 year plan, so in the 1 year, you kind of do this and so it's like 40 content experiments over the course of a year. Not too many. It's like, maybe 1 a week, you know, something like that. If you work 40 to 40 weeks in a year, and then we've [00:22:00] got 10 stage 2 content pieces and we're going to dive deep into in the workshop what this means. But essentially, when out of the 40 content experiments. Which of those 10, I mean, as you go along, every time you do four of them for content experiments, you look back and go, which of those four had the most engagement? This is a clue, an important hint. Into what my intersection is between what I love and what the world wants. Ah, okay. So the stage two is basically taking one of those four and improving it and distributing even further. Okay. So that's what stage two content. So 10, 10 of those. During the year, definitely not too many, and that's at stage 2 is what actually builds your audience for the 40 content experiments is for you. I mean, you publish it for you, you don't you don't worry about the metrics and whatever you analyze it afterwards after 4 of them, but the stage [00:23:00] 2 is really what's going to grow your audience over time because it's the best of. Okay and then and then so now we're up to 50, right? 40 plus 10. So now we have 20. Market research conversations. Again, we're going to dive deep into the, in, in, during the workshop, 20 market research conversations over the course of a year, it seems like a lot, but in my early years of authentic business, I was doing more like 40 a year. Actually. I was, I was sometimes even doing more than 40 a year and a market research conversation. What is that? It's you being in actual conversation. With another human being that you're able to reach. Okay. So one of your fans, one of your friends, one of your colleagues, one of your clients, past clients, et cetera, where you are asking, where you are talking with them about what it is that they want, because, and particularly what they want as related to the [00:24:00] kind of stuff you offer. So that those conversations bring huge clarity to, Oh my God, I should be offering this. I should be creating content on that. I should be selling this. I didn't even know. And I like being able to talk with people like this, especially like on zoom or video, you know, or in person, but like where you can see their expressions is hugely helpful. So, so those 20 market research conversations sometimes turn into clients also, but we're really approaching them as out of genuine curiosity and care. Yeah. Okay. So, so that's that. And then the next 20, there's 20 collabs, collaborations. And again, my favorite. Yeah, exactly. Here's what we're doing, right? This counts as one of them. Right. And in the, in the early days when I was trying to build my audience and grow my business, I was doing, I was doing 40 collabs a year. So I'm only asking for 20 from, from all of you. And again, these are all, there's no hard and fast rules, right? These numbers are suggested and you can always change them. Take them as [00:25:00] whatever fits your rhythm, but a collaboration is well, Sarah, you excel at these reaching out and connecting with colleagues whom you're fascinated by their work. And they probably are interested in you there. If they respond to you, they're at least interested in connecting. There's kind of a bit of a heart connection. And I really go with heart connections. I mean, I, I interviewed lots of people. I've interviewed lots of people over the years. Only certain one of them, certain few of them like you have a hard connection where I'm like, I want to keep up with this person. And it's like, you grow. So, so these 20 collapse over a year are not like, oh, I'm dedicated to these 20 people for life. No experiments. You're just reaching out and, and doing maybe doing an interview, interviewing them for your channel. That's the easiest for me is I interviewed people for my channel. Just kind of sense into that connection. Is there something more for us to keep doing together? If not, that's okay. At least I, I did them a little favor by sharing them with my audience and my audience. I did them a [00:26:00] favor by saying, Hey, check out this person who could be really cool. You might want to follow them too. Having that abundance mindset, as you do, Sarah, is, well, it's just makes us happier, number one, and I think it's more true. T with a capital T of what reality is. Anyway, so that 20 collapse Sarah: and I love how it feeds into the authentic, authentic business. Yes, yes. Because I used to, you know, before the humane marketing and everything, I used to like be in these joint venture clubs and affiliate clubs and it was nothing like that. It was not a collaboration. It was masked as a collaboration. But it wasn't, so it wasn't that authentic heart centered kind of George: connection. So I'm so appreciate you bringing that up because, Oh my gosh, I've been there. Maybe some of the people who listened to this have been there or have been invited to these kinds of things where they, they, [00:27:00] they, they sound like they care and like want to collaborate with you and say, Oh, we would love to have you in our, in our summit. Would you like to be a, one of our guest speakers? And then you reply back and says, Oh, that sounds wonderful. Sure. Sure. Well, yeah. Okay. So to be this, you have to have a minimum of 5, 000 email lists. You have to send two emails to your list of 5, 000 to be qualified. I'm like, okay, so you're really using my list to grow your list. Got it. And then once I, once I show up in the, the, the few times I've said yes to this kind of thing, I show up and sometimes they say, just go and record 20 minutes, you know, just go and record 20 minutes of something and we'll add it to our summit. I'm like, Oh, you don't really care, do you? You just want me to do whatever. And then, like, and then, like, I never hear from them again until several years later. Oh, let's do another summit where you can build my list. It's like, oh, yeah. So, you know, collabs are really an experimentation of, are you us? I mean, could I say this? Are you a soulmate? And [00:28:00] I believe in business. We have many soulmates. Are you one of my soulmates? Let me, let me, let's play together for a bit and see if it anyway. So, so 20 collabs and then moving on to 10 gentle launches, 10 offers and gentle launches. 10 over the course of a year. Now, again, this sounds like a lot, but let me tell you what a gentle launches, a gentle launch is not. All right, get ready for a 90 day, you know, challenge where you're going to have like 90 videos, you're going to make it, you're going to have this funnel where after the challenge, they get like five webinars until they join your year long. No. That's yeah, some people do launches like that and it exhausts me just to even talk about it. Okay. What a gentle launch for me is, is ridiculous, ridiculously light. It's two posts, two messages. That's it. Again, we're going to dive deeper into what these two messages are, but essentially it's It's a humble [00:29:00] and curious offering to your audience, the people you're able to reach. Even if it's right now, it's your, you know, 200 Facebook friends or whatever. It's like you're a humble and gentle offering of, Hey, everyone. I'm really this is work that I love doing. And I love doing it for these kinds of people in this kind of way. And I'm just wondering if, if, if this resonates, With you, I have some spots right now. And so it's, it's a gentle offering. It's very authentic. It's very real. And then the second message is simply it's, it's, it's that same offering, but you could, you could talk about a a case study, or you could talk about the story of how you became so passionate about this area. Or you can, you can talk about the reminder of, Oh, this thing is starting or whatever. So it's like two messages only. And it is and that that's the same two messages are sent. Everywhere you're on social media and sent to your email list. If you have one, and I find this Sarah, it's so, it's so interesting. I've been doing this gentle offering stuff for at least four years, [00:30:00] five years, probably actually, maybe longer than that too. Every time I launch something, it's two messages only. And I find that over time, my audience has leaned in more and more and more. Because whereas usually when someone else launches something, we have to, like, as an audience member, we have to, like, almost hold them off because it's so coming on so strong. So many emails, so many posts. And it's like, okay, all right. All right. I just, oh, yeah. Another thing about their launch. Whereas because of my gentle launch rhythm, my audience, I find I started to lean in more and often people go, Oh my gosh. And it's like, Oh, I missed that. Oh, that's okay. I'm going to have another offer in a month or two. And then they, they lean in and I find that now even one message. Now I can tell if it's going to be a successful launch or a medium launch or time to pivot. And it's so helpful for me because I, I do a single light launch and like, Oh yeah, this is going to do really well. The second message, like usually the first message brings [00:31:00] a lot of the sales and then the second message brings some of the sales too. But it's like once your audience is leaning in, they pay attention whenever you offer something and if it's right for them, they're going to buy much more quickly than. The usual launches where it's like, Oh my God, it's full of anxiety. And like, Oh my God, this is going to work out. And anyway, so 10 gentle launches. Sarah: I like that. Yeah. And I'm, I'm really personally listening and paying attention because I, I think that's something I'm wanting to shift as well. So just. I, I felt like my launches were gentle, but I do still feel like, because I actually just had feedback that, you know, there was too many emails and so it's like, yeah, I, I, I get it. We're all, you know, having too much. And even though, you know, even though the content is gentle, it's still, George: it's still the rhythm itself. And the funny thing about it is that. Not only can the rhythm be gentle for our audience, it's also gentle for [00:32:00] our, for our own systems because we're, because, you know, writing two messages as opposed to writing 10 later, which one is easier for us. And, and really, I really had, and you're lucky that I can tell you from my experience, because I had to like, it was, it was ironically, a lot of courage to only send two emails to only make two posts, like in the, in the early days. I'm like, I'm let's see what happens if I only do two of them, but it worked out so well over time. I'm like, I'm, I'm, I'm preaching this to the whole world. Like, please try this, but it, it, it takes a bit of patience because your audience needs to get used to it. Right. Like two or three launches later, they're like, Oh my God, I got to lean in now. Well, the thing Sarah: is, I only do three launches because I only have three programs. So would you say maybe then three George: emails? So. Yeah. I mean, of course, now let me be clear. Yes. When we have a larger program, it does [00:33:00] warrant more messages. I agree. Because like when I launched my year long program I send, well, we're going to talk deeper about this in the, in the workshop. I call it my circles of enrollment, meaning there's the inner circle that I send to, and there's the middle circle that I sent to, and then there's the outer circle. Each one has two messages. So it ends up being six. Yeah. For my, for my yearlong program, I can't wait to talk more, but yeah, we'll talk, we'll talk deeper, but, but what I want to just wrap up here with gentle launches is I do encourage everyone listening to consider. Experimenting with more offers, lighter offers, which again, we will dive to more deep, but let me, let me finish the one 11 formula. Okay. So there's two more elements. Okay. There's, there's, if, if you've been taking notes and counting the numbers, now we're down to 11 elements left, 11 components left. Okay. So out of these 11 components, there's just two, two pieces. There's two categories. There's six [00:34:00] joyful productivity practices integrated. Okay, so 6 joyful productivity practices integrated over the course of a year is certainly quite spacious, but it's also very rational. So for those who haven't heard of joyful productivity, it's basically my framework for how to manage yourself in business. So this is everything from how to manage your time to your how to manage your energy. For your attitude to energy and physical, mental, emotional, how to manage the flow of information, all this information coming in through your email, social media, and also the information going out. So how to manage all that. Within your computer. So I have a course called joyful productivity that goes into 24 of these practices that from my perspective, and that's actually when I polled my audience on which of my courses I have, I now have 24 courses, actually 24 separate courses, only, but which of my 24 [00:35:00] courses do you love the most? The winner was joyful productivity. So anyway, so, so I have 24 practices in that course, and I'm only asking for six of them to be integrated per year. So essentially when you take that. Of course, it's like a four year program, so six times four, that's right for your program. So so, so six of them in a year means every two months you're focusing on one of the Georgia productivity practices and that's great because according to research, so called the average time it takes for, for someone to develop a new habit is two months, 67 days, basically, and approximately two months. So anyway, so those are six Practices of self management integrated, uplifted optimized, you know, kind of like upgrading your, your own way of managing this. Because I know I want to take one more moment to say this. Like I, a lot of people don't realize. I think being a solopreneur, being a successful one is more like being an athlete than, than [00:36:00] a hobby, hobby artist. And I think unfortunately that's how a lot of people authentic solopreneurs, solopreneurs I call them. That's how they take it. Oh yeah, it's kind of like my hobby. It's kind of like my art. Oh, I play on, and of course I play too. I play a lot, you know, the experimentations. The way I recommend everyone think of it, it's more like you're training for a marathon. It's really more like that. Which means you've got to be really organized if you want this thing to work and if you want to succeed and have a lot of good work life play balance, you've got to like go. I'm serious about my training regimen. If I'm going to run a marathon, I'm going to be serious about my training regimen, which means when am I going to get up? You know, what am I going to be eating? Right? I mean, for marathon, there's certain things. And then, you And how much am I going to train? How am I going to rest? Right? What's my rhythm of, of exercise versus rest. And, and what, what can I eat and what shouldn't I eat and all that stuff. Business is [00:37:00] kind of like that. I mean, for those of us who have been around for years, I've been around since 2009, most of the people who started with me are no longer doing their business. I think it's largely because they didn't treat their business like it, what I call a joyful productivity athlete. So anyway, so that's why it's really important. And then the final category, one 11. Is 5 client case studies and over the course of a year, I don't think that's too much. That's less than 1 every 2 months. And the client case study again will dive more deeply into this is simply this is simply. Before they came to work with me, this is what they were going through. This is what they came to me for during our work together. These are the elements of our work. They loved the most. That they found most helpful and then after our work now, their life has changed in this way. Their business has changed. Their relationship has changed. Their health has changed in this way or that way, whatever this we work with people on. So these case studies don't have to be like, Oh, my God, I, [00:38:00] you know, they were, they were broke and now they're making a million dollars an hour. Or, Oh, my God, they were on stage for cancer and now they're the picture of health. It doesn't have to be that dramatic, but, but what it does do is help us to see the journey of our clients and what really works well for our, our ideal clients. And it didn't really case studies are more or less for us. But of course, the piece of the study can be put out as marketing and very inspirational as well. So I Sarah: find. Thank you. Case study is so much more beneficial than, than testimonials, right? Because they're more authentic. That's the reason because you can actually follow the journey where the testimonials, it's just kind of like, it was amazing. And I made six figures, you know, like oftentimes they don't feel authentic. George: Yeah. And, and it's like, if you take on the case study mindset. It kind of even changes how you work with clients. 'cause you're now, you're now being more aware of the, the, their journey and you're really [00:39:00] curious how their journey is gonna turn out. So then you, you work with them in that kind of way. It's like, oh, let's, oh my gosh, you, you, you, you know, there's a pitfall here. Okay, let's, let's work with a pitfall. And seeing them as seeing the hero's journey throughout the whole thing. really amazing. I love that. So, so if you add those all together, you might have to listen to this again. Yeah. So you add them all together. Should add up to 111 and and, and yes, in our workshop, I can't wait to dive into the nuances of these different things. In fact, I, I'm, I'm hoping that those who attend the workshop will listen to this 1st, so that I will send Sarah: it out to, I don't have to, I George: don't have to get the overview again, but we can directly into, okay, what do I mean by content experiment? What exactly are the market research questions? What are the, what are, you know, Six of the most important joyful productivity practices, whatever we can, we can dive into the nuances and the details, but I didn't want to overwhelm everyone who's just actually listening to a podcast episode here about these things. So, yeah, Sarah: that's wonderful. [00:40:00] I'll use it as prep work. George: Yes. Yes. Sarah: Yes. Yes. To listen to it. Yeah, no, it is really fascinating. And I can't wait to dive in. Definitely the, the launches where I was like, Mm, 10 launches, you know, just the, I just a word. I'm very fond of words, certain words and others not right. And it's just a word launch kind George: of does like, I need to, I need to probably wording has always been one of my weaknesses. It's, it's, it's ironic because I'm a marketing person, but despite my weakness for wording, I've made a very successful business. So I'm open to anyone. So I Sarah: like the fact that you call it gentle, right? That definitely George: explains it. Or a light launch, sometimes I call it. Yeah. Sarah: Yeah. So, so yeah, I'm, I'm very excited to, to learn more about that. And, and yeah, definitely gonna have your voice in the back of my head with the two messages. So, so thank you for that. [00:41:00] Yeah. I have one more question as we wrap this up, because it also feeds into the authentic and it's kind of timely. I know that just like me, you really like tech, you like AI as well. And so for a lot of people, that's kind of like an oxymoron. How could you like say authentic business, authentic marketing, and also like AI and chat sheet BT. So yeah. And then that's what's your answer? I love George: I love this question so much. Oh, my gosh. I have I've definitely made several videos about this on my YouTube channel, but I'll give it. I'll give an overview summary of things. So, 1st of all. The resistance against AI is reasonable. Okay. It's reasonable because, you know, they said it was going to take a lot of jobs and it has begun, it really is taking over a lot of human work and it's only going [00:42:00] to get worse. I, and the reason why I put a question mark on worse is because we can also see it as getting way better. So let me explain what AI does. Is it's able to speed up 10 times 100 times the work that and become tedious and automatable. Okay. For example when you are brainstorming ideas. Brainstorming examples and metaphors, analogies for something you're trying to teach or trying to explain, you can, of course, sit there and go, All right. All right. And for an hour, right? And you can brainstorm. I don't know how fast you are brainstorming. Maybe you could brainstorm 5 things in an hour or 2 things or 50 things, depending if someone is really, really good at idea generation. With chat, GPT or Google Gemini or any of the AI chat bot tools. Now you can, instead of brainstorming, maybe you were really slow before. I I'm pretty slow at [00:43:00] brainstorming. I mean, maybe I'll brainstorm like five things in an hour. Now I can brainstorm those five things in 15 minutes. With the help of chat, you PT. Now I think of, I think of AI as a smart intern intern, not, not you know, not on par with us. I don't think it. Okay. I don't think it will ever be on par with humans in terms of the integration of intuition, body hormones light lived by definition that cannot be, it doesn't have the lived experience of a human. So, but what it does is it gives us the average. I mean, as you use Google Gemini, chat, GBT, whatever, and you go into your field, you talk to it about your field, you'll see, oh, it's very average. I mean, The responses, well, by, by definition, it took all the blog posts from your field and averaged it out to say, well, this is basically what your field says, but it doesn't have the nuances that's unique to [00:44:00] you. And to me about our own fields, because when I talk to you about authentic business or about business, like your answers, like, give me a marketing plan about this. I'm like, oh my God, the marketing plan is so generic. I can't even stand it. This is not what I would give a client. But when I say help me brainstorm three different analogies to talk about this. And an instant within a minute, three analogies come up. I'm like, okay, I kind of like the first analogy, maybe go more in that direction. I definitely don't like the second one. The third one's kind of interesting. I like this part about it. And I work with it like an intern and it can helps me to refine. And I'm like, well, what about this? Have you thought of this? And it's like, well, I oftentimes talk to these. Yeah. I'm like, what about this? Have you thought of it? Like, no, that's a great idea to like, well, it's because it doesn't. Yeah. It doesn't have the nuance that humans do. And so I don't, I never, so this is maybe the short answer to your question. I never use AI to do the actual writing. Or to do the actual, certainly not video, but certainly definitely not writing. I don't use it for writing George. What do you [00:45:00] mean? I use AI more than most people. I use it for brainstorming and for checking things and for as a thinking partner. But then I always look at it like, Oh, you're an intern. I know you, you're not that good yet. I mean, you're fast. You're very, you're very fast at giving average answers, but I'm going to take what you give me. I'm going to just up level it to the George cow or deepen it to the George cow way. So I really recommend it for that. As, as long as we see it as a smart intern thinking partner, I think we can get things done a lot faster. I've, I've, I, it has really sped up a lot of my work so that therefore we can do higher work. We can do higher Sarah: work or be more human. That's what I say as well. It helps us create more spaciousness to have a connection call or go out in nature or, you know, that's, that's the thing that a lot of these chat GPT prompts and things like that. It's, it's all about, well, create [00:46:00] more content, right? You do more. It's not about doing more, it's about being more productive, George: but gaining time, actually. It's gaining time and, and, and Google has, has just come out with a press release just as a few days ago. Okay. Basically saying this, we are now going hard on the Google search engine of getting rid of AI content. Not getting rid of it, but like we know, obviously Google is AI, very deep into AI. We know what's AI content and we're going to downgrade your website if you have a lot of it. That's what they've just came out with. So, so in other words, the more we get into AI, the AI is fortunately or unfortunately, it's not going away. It's only get more intensified built into every product now, right? Gmail now has AI and everything has AI. Now it's going to get even more embedded. The more that happens, the more there's room for authentic humanity in content and [00:47:00] offers and connections. Meaning like. AI is never going to get right the way that we are quirks the way that we pause on video because it's very natural. Yes, they'll get, please have 17 percent pauses for this video bot, but it's always going to feel off. It'll be Sarah: weird. It'll feel weird. Yeah, very strange. Yeah. Yeah, no, I love that. I knew that there would be alignment and it sounds like, yeah, you're using it for similar things. I, I also love, like, for example on LinkedIn posts where I want to do a list of emojis, you know, instead of the bullet points have emojis. It used to take me hours to look up a couple of emojis, give it the content and say, give me the emojis. And George: yeah, I asked AI, I have, of course, I know all the emojis. You can keep, keep, keep having a conversation. Give me more unique emojis. Well, what about this? What about that? And like, [00:48:00] I just look, look at it as a extended, Search engine. That's all it is. Like I help it solve problems. I figure trying to research things like those are, it's really fast at that. So let it do it, you know, Sarah: wonderful. Great. Well, wow. I can't wait for more of you, more of your. Content and more of the one 11 formula. So please everyone have a look at the workshop. It's under humane dot marketing forward slash workshop, and it takes place on April 2nd. And we'd love to see you there. So can't wait for that, George, so much gratitude for you. Where can people find you if they can't make it to the podcast? Yeah. Oh the workshop. George: Tell anything is you can. Actually, this, this will be a fun exercise. Go to AI chat bot, chat GPT, Google Gemini being being chat and ask, tell me about George cow, authentic business coach. And then let it no, really. It's like, [00:49:00] okay, given what you know about George authentic business coach, what might he say? About this question that I have, I really welcome it and I'm actively, I'm like, well, it's going to take my job anyway. So I might as well actively partner with it to help me take my job so I can do, I can do more better work than this. Sarah: Have you experimented with the, with a chatbot? Bought George: I, I have, I have a custom experiment. I have a custom GPT Okay. Called the Authentic Business Coach. So those of you who have a chat, GPT subscription pro subscription or plus subscription, can actually find the authentic business coach Chat custom GPT, which are trained on all books. Oh, wonderful. My, I'll look that up. They're trained on all my books and it tries to sound like me, but of course, , it's, I, I talk with him myself. I'm like, yeah, you, you, you got it. Like. 60 percent right, what I might say, but it's, it's okay. It's better than nothing. Sarah: It's fun. Yeah. It's just fun to experiment with. Wonderful. Yeah. So go to chat GPT and look for George cow there. And otherwise you'll also find [00:50:00] them on on YouTube wherever, George: wherever, wherever, wherever books are sold and that Sarah: too. Yeah. You have so many wonderful. Well, thank you so much, George. And we'll see each other on George: April 2nd. Thank you. Thanks, Sarah. Thank you so much. Thank you. Sarah: Take care. I hope you got some great value from listening to this episode and took notes about all the different numbers that make up the 1 1 1 formula. You can find out more about George and his work at georgecow. com and also look up at his YouTube channel, for example, or do what he suggested. And go to chat PT and type in George Kao. You'll also find his curated selection of articles about authentic marketing at George Kao as KAO. By the way, ka and dot com slash authentic dash marketing. And please do join us for the 90 minute workshop [00:51:00] on April 2nd, where we go in depth into these topics. All the details can be found at humane. marketing forward slash workshop. If you're part of our community, the humane marketing circle, you can join us for free and you get the recording as well. And if you're not part of the community yet, well, this is a good reason to join us. But otherwise it's donation based. The suggested price is 27, but there's also a pay when you can option 15. To become a member of the humane marketingforward. com. a marketing circle. You can go to humane. marketing forward slash circle. You find the show notes of this episode at humane. marketing forward slash H M 1 8 5. And on this beautiful page, you'll also find a series of free offers such as the humane business manifesto, as well as make two books, marketing like a human and selling George: like a human. so much for listening and being a [00:52:00] part of a generation of marketer's friends. For yourself. Sarah: We are changing history for America.

Get all the info here:https://www.georgekao.com/instagram If you have any questions about the course, ask it here.Wishing you a good day and weekend!

Of all the things that I do in my business, the most important thing—and I hope to inspire you to consider this for yourself as well—is to stay in a consistent rhythm of creating, both free content like this video, and paid offers as well. Just as our bodies rely on consistent rhythms to stay alive and thrive, our businesses need a steady flow of creativity to flourish. I've made nearly 2,000 videos on YouTube, published over 300 blog posts, and launched more than 30 courses. I wish I had developed a sense of urgency for generating free content earlier in my career... In this episode, I discuss common limiting beliefs that hinder content creation, the importance of gaining experience and clarity through the creative process, and the need to embrace imperfection and let algorithms and audience engagement guide your content improvement... Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

Ethical marketing coach George is back to talk AI, “red teams”, message bots, AI yoga, consciousness, Gary V, coaching, therapy, acceleration ve deceleration, and the end of the world generally. You need to hear this if you work in embodiment! More information about George Kao's work - https://www.georgekao.com/   Want to become a certified embodiment coach? More details about CEC - https://embodimentunlimited.com/cec/?utm_source=social&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=cec   Join Mark for in-person workshops - https://embodimentunlimited.com/events-calendar/?utm_source=TEP&utm_medium=Description&utm_campaign=Events   Free coaching demos sessions with Mark - https://embodimentunlimited.com/free-coaching-with-mark/?utm_source=TEP&utm_medium=Description&utm_campaign=Demo Find Mark Walsh on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/warkmalsh/

1. Don't beat yourself up :) because at least you have a vision! Many people don't. And we're all in the journey of learning how to properly motivate ourselves. 2. Got human accountability? Simplest is to use Focusmate. Join my focusmate group here: https://www.focusmate.com/signup/georgekaocommunity 3. Got a clear workflow process? Write it down. “Hat manual”. 4. Unsure what the workflow process should be? Come to a Q&A call and let's talk :) or talk with a friend, colleague, or coach to help you sort it out. Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

Here, I talk about the faith that I have in the potential of my content to make an impact -- and hope to inspire *you* to take on that kind of belief for your content creation efforts as well... Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

Here's what I would tell my younger entrepreneurial self -- ditch the quest for a huge audience and social media fame. I made that mistake. Within two years of starting my business I hustled and grew my email list to thousands of subscribers... but then realized that most of them didn't really care about my content or journey. I ended up deleting over 90% of them. I now realize you can only authentically serve and commit to a small group of people you truly know. So start there. Get to know your first 30 or 50 followers deeply. Apply your skills to help them specifically. Marketers don't teach this counterintuitive relationship-first approach, but I've learned caring for a few is far more fulfilling than chasing clout. And as you grow your audience you'll be able to create content & offerings that are much more aligned to what they care about. Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

1) more focused hours, 2) way more breaks than most people take, 3) constant reparenting of myself... In the video I also mentioned that I'd share the format of my work retreats. Here it is -- http://smpl.ro/CoWorkRetreat Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

I have a strong stance on how “attractive” one needs to be in their brand, website, and social media presence, in order to attract ideal clients… I've worked for a decade to slowly and steadily build what I would call a "loyal" and "true fan" audience for my business… an audience that feels connected to me not through flashy marketing or clever persuasion, but through shared values and an appreciation for my authentic presence. So what I share with you in this video comes from years in the trenches developing my approach. May you find something here to be valuable for you as well. Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

Authentic marketing means that we practice en-joying the experience of showing up for our marketing. How? By bringing our energy/focus to expressing our values & heart in our marketing actions, and holding loosely to our attachment to the results. By doing so, we learn to deeply en-joy the experience, which then encourages us to show up consistently, which then brings better results naturally... Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

For years I tried narrowing my business to a niche, but having interests for multiple areas, I struggled. Now after 14 years of successfully providing myriad services, I want people to know - do not limit yourself. Have diverse offers. Customers will hone in on whichever resonates. Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

See my newsletter examples: https://www.GeorgeKao.com/monthly Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

0:00 Authentic marketing avoids showy tactics and aligns with a deeper purpose and higher mission. 00:41 Authentic Marketing is the process of a business finding its calling. 01:09 Avoiding empty steps and focusing directly on soul's work eliminates the waste of time and life in the marketing process. 02:14 Every business action should be deserving of the soul's attention and contribute to a greater connection to the divine. 02:44 Marketing essentially boils down to content and offers, both of which should align with one's soul's work. 03:09 Content creation should be an exploration of the soul in service to humanity, targeting the intersection of what resonates with both you and your audience. 03:47 Offers should also be an extension of your soul's work, framed in a way that meets your audience where they are at. 04:17 Market research becomes meaningful when it's about understanding soul-to-soul connections, focusing on what your audience cares about. 04:53 Aligning what you care about with what your audience cares about creates a meaningful, soul-fulfilling offer. Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

In this video I explain that your "energy signature" includes everything about you that resonates with your ideal audience - your visual branding, communication style, content, and more. I believe that before birth, you planned with your "soul group" to find each other in this life by recognizing each other's energy signatures. I recommend using authentic marketing to consistently "ping" your soul group so they can recognize you, and advise being patient as it may take them multiple tries to connect deeply. I note that your soul group will be more patient than the average website visitor. Therefore, you should persistently ping your authentic energy so your soul group members have opportunities to find and connect with you... Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

If you think social media marketing / content / promotion isn't meant for you because of your personality or type of content you create, listen to this episode to get a reality check...**0:00 Introverted or intense individuals can feel alienated by social media, believing it's not their natural strength. 01:19 Social media is varied; it's not one-size-fits-all. Different types of content resonate with different social circles. 02:14 Being "everyone's cup of tea" is not the goal; in fact, it's a failure in marketing. You want to resonate deeply with a specific audience. 03:26 Even introverted or niche interests have their own significant following online, demonstrated by movements like ASMR or the introverted movement. 05:15 With billions of internet users, even a niche interest could have thousands or millions of passionate followers. 07:34 You could have at least 5,000 to 50,000 passionate fans out there based on conservative estimates. 08:02 Many haven't found their audience yet due to lack of effective and consistent marketing efforts. 09:23 It's crucial to show up consistently, using strategies like social media ads or SEO, to reach your true fans. 10:05 Not showing up means depriving potential fans of the unique value you can offer, making their life experiences less rich. Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

00:00 Introductions should serve as an "energy signature transmission," not just information transfer. 00:43 Aim for an energetic performance that resonates with your soul mate audience or Kindred Spirits. 01:09 Instead of just listing credentials, consider creating an experience for the audience by sharing your journey or emotional insights. 01:51 Concepts like "joyful productivity" and "authentic marketing" can be presented as a way of "transmitting our energy into the world." 02:33 Use opportunities like Q&A sessions to practice introductions that encapsulate your energy and essence. 02:48 It's fine if the introduction varies each time; the key is to make it an authentic expression of who you are. Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

While spiritual guidance can provide some direction, it often doesn't understand the practical demands of building a stable business. You need to listen to wise guidance that recognizes the importance of commitment, boundaries, and persistent practice in creating a life you love.**0:00 A successful solopreneur requires a stable schedule for consistency and growth. 00:38 While spiritual guidance is beneficial, it often lacks understanding of practical life demands like paying rent or taxes. 01:18 Higher guidance is good for virtues like forgiveness and compassion but may not fully comprehend the pressures of human life. 02:25 Subtle and higher levels of guidance are usually the quietest because they respect our free will. 03:18 Higher guidance may encourage actions like spending time in nature, but may not understand the need for a stable work schedule. 04:23 Assess the life you've created to gauge the effectiveness of the guidance you've been following. 05:17 Wisdom can also come through interactions with other humans, not just inner or higher guidance. 06:12 Excellence in your craft and business requires a stable schedule for continuous practice and improvement. 06:56 Generating flow is a skill that helps you overcome resistance and creates a life you love. 07:37 Maintaining boundaries in your personal life is essential for crafting a stable schedule and fulfilling work life. Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

A seven figure marketer recently went bankrupt from running too many ads without nurturing a real audience. The lesson? Ads should serve your audience with value, not just promote. Build trust. Announce new offers gently, not aggressively. This creates real fans who organically lean in over time. Marketing this way gets easier as your people trust you more.*** 0:00 A seven-figure marketer's bankruptcy serves as a cautionary tale about relying solely on ads for business growth.* 01:06 Ads should be part of your business strategy even if you're just starting out; you don't need to spend much initially.* 01:33 The primary purpose of ads should be to nurture a warm audience, not just to promote services or products.* 02:26 Serving your audience with valuable, non-selling content can be more fulfilling and leads to a more sustainable business.* 03:08 The key to a successful and fulfilling business is building a true fan base that cares about not just what you offer but who you are.* 04:02 Aggressive marketing strategies, such as bombarding your audience with offers, are not as effective as a more gentle, authentic approach.* 05:28 Gentle announcements give your audience the free will to lean in, fostering trust and making marketing easier over time.* 06:54 Balancing visibility and authenticity is important; it's okay if not everyone sees your launches.* 07:09 Overall, think of marketing as a way to serve and bless people, making occasional gentle announcements about your offerings. Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

However much engagement you're getting on your social media, however many clients you have right now, however much money you might be making right now, is somehow mysteriously just what you need at this time. Because if you had already grown the capacities and the skillfulness to get to the next level, you would be at the next level. But right now, is the level you're at, based on your past actions and everything else going on in your life, and that's okay. I wish you celebration of your past actions, peace in the current moment, and the joyful stretching, just a little bit every day, into your potential. Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

Much of the marketing that's taught by online influencers is aligned with the dark side: fixation on outcome and control of one's audience... Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

HELLO and welcome to series 7 of the #JustBloodyPostIt podcast, a show for creatives who are marketing their work online.  This episode delves into the often overwhelming world of doing your own marketing. It's for you if you ever feel overwhelmed by advice. Or pressured by the strategies you "should" be implementing, coaches you should be working with or tasks you still haven't gotten around to. In this series opener, we're treated to insights from friend of the show, authentic business coach George Kao. George has 14 years of experience working with solopreneurs and founders to grow their business in a sustainable heart-led way. And so knows many of the things that simply aren't as important as they seem when it comes to growing a business.    We get into whether you need to niche down become an SEO expert create lead magnets or a sales funnel and so much more I can't wait to hear what you think. Connect on social media and we can continue the conversation. CONNECT Subscribe to George's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/georgekao And follow him on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/geokao/ Follow Helen's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_helen_perry_/ This show's produced by Suz at Story Publishing: https://www.instagram.com/story_publishing/.

I hope this episode answers the question once and for all :) Get full access to Authentic Business for Solopreneurs with George Kao at georgekao.substack.com/subscribe

To get more info about George Kao's new program, "Revolutionize Your Creativity: Using A.I. Tools To Grow Your Authentic Business" click here. (affiliate link) On this episode of Video Mojo, host Jon Leland discusses the creative use of AI technologies like ChatGPT with guest, authentic business coach, George Kao. They discuss why using AI as a brainstorming or creativity partner is not plagiarism. They mention Mid Journey 5.2, a new AI-generated art release, and the legal disputes and challenges surrounding it. They also describe how AI can make it easier for people to express their humanity through creative endeavors like art and how it will become ubiquitous. George and Jon also share their own personal experiences using AI to enhance their creativity and emphasize the importance of embracing AI and learning how to use it effectively as the "career opportunity of our lifetime." Apps mentioned: ChatGPT https://heypi.com https://rosebud.app George's AI Course (affiliate link) Key points with timestamps: 1:44 - Creativity is amplified by AI. Call it "Amplified Intelligence." 4:33 - Dialog with AI-generated voices using https://heypi.com 7:07 - AI enhances creativity as a brainstorming tool. 11:04 - ChatGPT for first drafts and business plans. 14:49 - How can AI can amplify creativity, understanding, and efficiency? 20:07 - AI is version 2.0 version of the Internet. 22:17 - AI art is becoming super realistic. 25:44 - Both humans and AI create art based on a "predictive model." --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/video-mojo/message

Both TikTok and ChatGPT are game changers. Together they also inspired this conversation between two experienced creator-marketing pros - Eliya Finkelstein and Jon Leland, host of the Video Mojo vodcast - about how the world of marketing has been changed forever and what you can do about it. Subjects covered include: - The erosion of trust in marketing and how to address it. - What does it mean to "follow the Juice" and how can that be productive? - How TikTok “opened the floodgates" for what Eliya has to say. - Why conversion rates and landing pages are often over-rated. - Why ChatGPT prompt books are a waste of money. - Similarities between ChatGPT & TikTok. And much more. Resources mentioned: - George Kao, Authentic Business Coach (affil link) - Marketing AI Institute - Adam Grant, author - Eliya Finkelstein, Data-Driven Rebel- Jon Leland's Links Page, including email subscription - Jon Leland's Video & Marketing Services - More Video Mojo episodes --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/video-mojo/message

We should be thinking about our marketing as a way to increase the value we bring to other people and our world. Today's guest, George Kao, talks about marketing as a way to refine your calling and purpose and discusses his book How to Gain New Clients Through Connection, Caring, and Service.   In this episode, we talk about: The concept of authentic business and how it differs from traditional mainstream business Prioritizing service and authenticity over cold calculations and metrics How the concept of authentic business applies to health and wellness coaching The idea of “joyful productivity” — doing business in a meaningful and heart-centered way About his book How to Gain New Clients Through Connection, Caring, and Service. Gaining new clients through connection, caring, and service Nurturing a warm audience and offering genuine and consistent offers Authentic content as an intersection between the exploration of our passions and service to humanity   Memorable Quotes “Authentic means, ‘I'm doing this for my passion, and also I'm doing this as a service to humanity'.” “No matter how we work, the results cannot be fully determined.” “The more successful your content is, the lower your conversion rate is going to be.”   BIO: Since 2009, George Kao has been a trusted conscious marketing advisor to thousands of coaches, counselors, consultants, speakers, and authors. His mission is to raise the marketing effectiveness of those who deeply value and prioritize integrity and compassion in their business. George's specialty is helping people grow their ideal audience with authentic online marketing. ​ This can include developing an effective social media presence (including Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin, Youtube), using authentic webinars to serve potential clients, and creating online visibility through blogs, videos, and podcasts. George Kao helps clients stabilize their income, expand their visibility online, and structure their business so that they can experience more freedom and joy in their work. In his first year in business, he exceeded $10,000/month in revenues, and by the third year, George's email list had grown to more than 10,000 subscribers and annual revenue was $350,000. Most of his money was earned from selling his online courses and group coaching programs. After experiencing a spiritual breakthrough in his life, George transformed his business toward radical generosity, and has been giving away most of his content -- now more than 1,000 free videos and articles. George has conducted thousands of 1-1 business coaching sessions with clients. He has also taught hundreds of webinars and has created over a dozen online courses. For many heart-based solopreneurs around the world, George Kao is the go-to expert and advisor on the topics of authentic marketing, and how to create a business that is truly ethical and fulfilling.​     Mentioned In This Episode: Access free articles and videos about authentic marketing and joyful productivity at: www.GeorgeKao.com Authentic Business Insights Authentic Selling, 2nd Edition: How to Gain New Clients Through Connection, Caring, and Service   Links to resources: Health Coach Group Website https://www.thehealthcoachgroup.com/ Use the code HCC50 to save $50 on our website Leave a Review of the Podcast

This was a sample segment from the Joyful Productivity program: www.GeorgeKao.com/TLCComment here:https://youtu.be/tyDlhukEVjw

Learn more here: https://www.GeorgeKao.com/SoulGym

Today I'm talking to George Kao about a controversial topic: charging more money to get more motivated clients. He wrote a LinkedIn Post about this, which I'll link to below. George is a business mentor who infuses his teachings with a unique spiritual perspective. Since 2009, he has helped thousands of coaches, consultants, healers and course creators on their path to creating sustainable and joyful businesses. George has published five books spanning the topics of Authentic Business, Content Marketing, Joyful Productivity, and Spiritual Growth. You can find George Kao on Instagram, Youtube, LinkedIn, and his podcast. Or discover his curated best writings & videos at www.GeorgeKao.com. In this episode, you'll learn about charging more to get more motivated clients as well as... George's own story and experience with charging higher prices George's (and my) take on the presumed relationship between higher prices and the client's commitment The right thing to do in pricing Pricing on enoughness What volume has to do with smaller prices George's current offerings and prices And so much more George's Resources George's LinkedIn article: Charge More Money to Get More Motivated Clients? George's Website Soul Gym Program & Community Connect with George on: LinkedIn Facebook YouTube Instagram Sarah's Resources Watch this episode on Youtube (FREE) Sarah's One Page Marketing Plan (FREE) Sarah Suggests Newsletter (FREE) The Humane Business Manifesto (FREE) Gentle Confidence Mini-Course Marketing Like We're Human - Sarah's book The Humane Marketing Circle Authentic & Fair Pricing Mini-Course Podcast Show Notes We use Descript to edit our episodes and it's fantastic! Email Sarah at sarah@sarahsantacroce.com Thanks for listening!   After you listen, check out Humane Business Manifesto, an invitation to belong to a movement of people who do business the humane and gentle way and disrupt the current marketing paradigm. You can download it for free at this page. There's no opt-in. Just an instant download. Are you enjoying the podcast?  The Humane Marketing show is listener-supported—I'd love for you to become an active supporter of the show and join the Humane Marketing Circle. You will be invited to a private monthly Q&A call with me and fellow Humane Marketers -  a safe zone to hang out with like-minded conscious entrepreneurs and help each other build our business and grow our impact.  — I'd love for you to join us! Learn more at humane.marketing/circle Don't forget to subscribe to the show on iTunes or on Android to get notified for all my future shows and why not sign up for my weekly(ish) "Sarah Suggests Saturdays", a round-up of best practices, tools I use, books I read, podcasts, and other resources. Raise your hand and join the Humane Business Revolution. Warmly, Sarah Imperfect Transcript of the show We use and love Descript to edit our podcast and provide this free transcript of the episode. And yes, that's an affiliate link. Ep 155 [00:00:00] [00:00:00] George intro: [00:01:00] [00:02:00] Hello friends, welcome back and happy 2023. I look forward to spending time with you this year as well. On your walks in the gym or wherever else you are listening to these episodes. I truly am excited for 2023. I think Humane Marketing is in the site, Geist finally, and I know that because after three years of running the Humane Marketing Circle with a very tight-knit community, now more and more of the [00:03:00] right people are finding their way to us because they want to do things differently as well. [00:03:06] And just a hint, if you're one of them, you can obviously check out the humane.marketing/circle and join us whenever you want because the doors are now open all the time. And I also know because I have some of the, Old guru marketer crowd people that I know from way back 2007, 2008 they are contacting me and congratulating me about humane marketing. [00:03:34] And admitting how burned out they really are from the old way of doing things. So yes, I truly believe that 2023 is a pivot year, and I'm excited for it. I'm always ahead of the times and it seems like finally the times are catching up with me and I'm ready for that. Okay, onto today's show, which fits under the P of pricing.[00:04:00] [00:04:00] If you're a regular here, you know that I'm organizing the conversations around the seven Ps of the Humane Marketing Mandala. And if you're new here and you don't know what that Marketing Mandala is, you can download your one page marketing plan with the humane marketing version of the seven Ps of marketing@humane.marketing slash one page. [00:04:22] That's the number one in the Word page, and this comes with seven email prompts to really help you reflect on these different Ps for your business. So today I'm talking to George Cow about controversial topic, which is charging more money to get more motivated. Clients. He wrote a LinkedIn post about this which I'll link to in the show notes, and I thought it would just make such a good topic for one of our episodes. [00:04:51] So George is a business mentor, he who infuses his teachings with a unique spiritual perspective. Since 2009, [00:05:00] he has helped thousands of coaches, consultants, healers, and course creators on their path to creating sustainable and joyful business. George has published five books spanning the topics of authentic business content marketing, joyful productivity, and spiritual growth. [00:05:19] In this episode, we talked about George's own story and experience with charging higher prices, George's and my take on the presumed relationship between higher prices and the client's commit. The right thing to do in pricing. Pricing on Enoughness. Something that George was talking about in his article, what volume has to do with smaller prices, George's current offerings and prices and so much more. [00:05:50] So I really think you will get a lot out of this conversation. So without further ado, here's George Cow and [00:06:00] myself talking about pricing. [00:06:05] video1268242934: Hi, George. I'm so excited to have you on the show today. Yeah, thanks, Sarah. This is a thank you for inviting me. Always, always a, a joy to talk with you because we share these deep values and I think we'll have a great conversation today. Yes, yes. It's a, it's kind of a, I. Highlighted it as a bit of a controversial conversation. [00:06:26] Right. Uhhuh. . Because yeah, there's different opinions about it, and I think anything related to pricing is always, you know, has different opinions and it's tough for people. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's one of the most listened to episodes, I would say. Whenever it's, I, I position it under the P of pricing. Yes. You know, you. [00:06:46] A whole bunch of listeners. So that's, yeah, that's great. And I'm so, yeah. I'm so grateful for for your point of view and your perspective. So, so let's kind of go there because I reached out to you again, we've talked [00:07:00] previously but I've reached out to you again because you just posted something on LinkedIn about pricing. [00:07:07] And the, the exact title was Change More Money to Get More Motivated Clients. Yeah. Charge More Money. Yeah. , should we charge more Money ? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's kind of what I, that's what I want to unpack. And you know, I have some questions and I think. I think overall we agree, but then there's al also certain points where I'm like, Hmm, what if we look at it this way? [00:07:33] So Sure. Just Of course. Yeah. I'm here to learn too this conversation. Yeah. But maybe first. , it'd be interesting for listeners to kind of hear your story with pricing and Sure. When you started out, was it always clear how you price your things or Yeah. How has it evolved over time? Oh yeah. Thank you. [00:07:52] Yeah, so I think my history is instructional because this is, I've kind. Run the [00:08:00] gamut of the pricing in my industry. I started in 2009 with my you know, coaching business, coaching and training business. And back then I, I knew relatively little about online marketing, so I was learning from the big boys, usually mostly boys, back then the big players who were, were, it's so interesting. [00:08:22] It was, they were always there, all they all charged the same price. $2,000 or 1997 or 2, 19 95. You know, they always, they, they all, they all, back in 2009, 2010, they were all charging the same price. 2008 was when I started buying courses. So they all charged $2,000, which today is even more money. But no matter the lengths, like, or how long were these programs? [00:08:47] I have some of them on my shelf right now, you know, and it's not that, It's just, it's, it, it's shocking to me, genuinely. I mean, so the way they, they, you know, they call it stack the [00:09:00] value or, you know, stack the stack. It's like you go to the sales page, it's like you get, you get this course typically valued at, you know, $500. [00:09:09] This course typically valued at 3000. This course typically valued at, you know, 1,500 or whatever, and all bundled up, you know, instead of paying a hundred thousand dollars or something ridiculous like that, you're only paying 2000. It's like you're getting a 98% discount. Or it's something they, they, they, they did that kind of manipulation which of course, at the end of the day, they're sending you a bunch of PDFs, you know, they're sending you some PDFs. [00:09:34] For $2,000, they might send you something in the mail physically and you know, like a binder and with some papers and I'm like, I have them on my shelf. And as I look at it I'm like, this is stuff that, a lot of stuff you could, some of the stuff you can Google, but some of the stuff, sure. They have like sample emails they printed out and I look at the emails, I'm like, I wouldn't send this kind of email cuz this is some manipulative. [00:09:55] And anyway, long story short, those were the people that, [00:10:00] because when I, when I was learning online marketing, those were the loudest. , right. You know, and so $2,000 per course and with almost no interaction with them live, I think they had some like larger group calls that lasted for like, you know, three months or something like that. [00:10:16] But you know, I go on there and actually didn't really know what to ask in the early days and just kinda listen. And it's like, it's hard to get their attention anyway. So I thought, okay, well that's the industry standard price. So that's what I. , I charged $2,000. Now I thought I was pretty generous because for $2,000 I was giving a whole year of q and as with me. [00:10:40] Mm-hmm. , you know, and it's like a whole year of weekly q and as. And eventually, I, I went to twice weekly q and a for a whole year back in the 2009, 2002, 2011 days. And you know, I was teaching everything. I taught them everything for 2000 bucks and it's like so that's when I started charging for, for a course. [00:10:58] And, and, and, [00:11:00] I think for like standalone courses, I was charging like $700 or something like that back in 2009, 2010. Standalone meaning, okay, you take this particular topic like social media marketing or something like that and you get, you know, three months of q and a or something like that. So funny thing is these days my standalone, as of this recording as you know, there, that could change. [00:11:21] As of this recording, my standalone courses are a hundred. In 2022 prices mm-hmm. , you know, compared to 2009 prices. My, no, my absolute numbers have, my absolute pricing has gone down now. Gratefully, my income has been, has been good. Very good recently, but it's like the, it's like if you looked at inflation, I, I should be charging. [00:11:44] you know, a thousand to 5,000 easily for my courses now, but I've, I've brought it down to a very humane , I think, or accessible level of 150, and they get, you know, two months of q and a. And it's a very, you know, I, I [00:12:00] think my content is even better than it was back then because of all the experience I've had. [00:12:04] So, like I said, the experiences I've had, so the, the reason why I stopped charging those high prices is because I notice. , and maybe you have to, I don't know, Sarah and everyone listening, I charge these prices and people buy into them and not everybody uses the program. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And in fact, a lot of people don't use the program to the extent that I want them to. [00:12:35] Sure. Maybe like most of them will like, at least get started, but then it's easy for them. Oh, shiny new object. Oh, here's another $2,000 course. Oh, here's another thousand dollars course. Oh, here's another fi. Whatever the pricing is. Oh, here's another thing that looks really good. Sign up. And so I started noticing this dynamic. [00:12:56] Okay. There's this dynamic happening within myself and within [00:13:00] the the student. I notice this, okay? First, within the student. I started to recognize, and actually this was one of my students told me this. I'm so grateful that, that, that he did. He said, George, you know, I, I started noticing something after a while. [00:13:13] When I spend money to buy a course, I sign up for a course. My brain tricks me to think that I've gotten something done. I've made some progress. Mm-hmm. and. That there's a kind of a letdown or the not, not a letdown. There's a letdown of mo. There's a, there's a decrease of motivation that happens afterwards that's like, oh, I've spent the money, I've paid, I've enrolled, I've signed up, and now somehow, somehow this not as motivated now to like do something with it. [00:13:39] Or maybe we should say that doing something with it is riskier. There's more. , the possibility of failure in involved. Right? Whereas the buying process is easy. It's like, oh, it's so exciting. Oh my God, this looks so great. The fantasy has been created in our minds for what's possible if we. You know, join this program. [00:13:57] It's like, and now I'm gonna make all this money, or I'm gonna [00:14:00] create all these results in my life. That's, the buying process is so exciting. But then the actual, after you buy, now, the rubber hits the road. You have to like watch the things, read the things, study the things, and then try it out in your own life, which could work, could not work. [00:14:14] It's. Much scarier now. And so the student, that's why it's so easy for them to go, well, let me chase another buying process. Mm-hmm. , this is, this is really dangerous. Yeah. And really a lot of, myself included, I've , I've all these on my shelf. I spent tens of thousands because I've been through that process my, so there's that dynamic. [00:14:34] And then my dynamic from the seller side was I was starting to feel guilty. About taking all this money from people and go, well wait, you barely went through module one, or you went through modules two and three and then you stopped. I had 12 modules for you and you, why did you stop? It was too hard. You want what? [00:14:53] And sometimes I'm like, hello, are you still there? Like, I'm emailing them, you know, they, they've moved on to the next product, right? [00:15:00] I'm gonna stop here because , there's a lot. There's a lot here. Yeah. There's so much to unpack it just in what you just shared, right? So there's the, yeah, the integrity piece, feeling. [00:15:11] You are not really actually getting them to do, to do the results because they just, yeah. They, they have this shiny object syndrome and moving on to the next thing and, and, and it, what I heard out of what you shared also is this empowering the client piece that has Yes. Unfortunately over the last decade been erased. [00:15:33] Like we only, well, we started to use these manipul. Techniques to get the buyer to buy, but they were still buying in this kind of frenzy and kind of scarcity. Mm-hmm. mentality that they were too frozen to actually get anything done or Right. You know implement anything that that you had sold them. [00:15:56] Right. And so that led you away from [00:16:00] charging these, these higher amounts. Yes. So what I wanna get into also is this relationship between, because what you talked about in this article is that. You know, you were being told that there's a relationship between the client's progress and the higher amount. [00:16:21] So these high ticket pricing? Yes. Price coaches, yes. They're telling us basically you have to charge a lot of money, right. So that your clients actually do the work that we want them to do. Yes. And. Well, yeah, I'll let you comment on that. . Well, there are two types of people, now this, whenever I say that, that's always funny cuz you can, you can segment personality types and humanity into as many ways as you want to. [00:16:51] We all, but I'll just, for, for fun right now, I'll just say there are two types of people, right? One type of person is [00:17:00] in the excite, they love the buying experie. , they love signing up for things, and then they're not really ready to apply it. And when I say two types of people, I mean they're, they're, that, those two types are within ourselves too. [00:17:14] Okay. For, for, for various things. I mean, I, I, I also sometimes buy products or services because it's exciting to buy and then I realize, oh, I'm not really ready to use it, or I'm not dedicated enough to that pro process to. Engage with it. Right? So I myself, ha ha, ha have both parts in myself, but , that's the one part is like, oh my gosh, bye bye bye. [00:17:38] And then, okay, I'm not really ready to, to, to, to, to do the the challenging work or the, the long-term work, you might say, of gradually making changes, you know, that create, create a different life. So that's one, one type or one part. And then the second type of person or second part is the person who. [00:17:57] More considerate about buying something [00:18:00] and once they buy it, they, they might even before they buy it, they might even go, you know, Hey, how long are the calls? And let me make sure I have them on my calendar. And how long does it take to do the homework? , you know You know, and, and then once they, they buy it very considerably. [00:18:15] And then once they buy it, they've already maybe even calendared in or they've set up their, their structures to actually use the product or service or program. And they're going to come to the q and a calls. They're going to ask questions, they're going to to apply things, and then they're gonna report back, and they're gonna see the changes in their life, you know? [00:18:37] Like I said, we have both parts within ourselves, depending on what we're buying and, and what stage of life we're in right now. Right. And both types of people, or both parts are within every single socioeconomic strattice, within every single price point. There are both types of people. I just, I realized that. [00:18:58] Mm-hmm. , because Sarah, [00:19:00] With the $2,000 people who were spending $2,000 with me just like that left and right. I mean, I, I literally have been, I remember, you know, the height of my high ticket days, you know, 2012 or something. I was on a webinar, selling on a webinar, my own product, and I got 35 people on that webinar to buy my $2,000. [00:19:25] So it was a $70,000 webinar for me, , right? I made $70,000 in an hour. Mm-hmm. and, and 35 people bought it. And I'm like, and then later on, as I, you know, did all 35, of course there, among the 35, there were some people who loved the buying experience. Not so much the application and then some people who actually, a few people who thoughtfully applied to everything, right? [00:19:48] But I was feeling guilty, obviously, of the, those who didn't apply things and just moved on to another product. So Sarah, so basically there, there's that. So there doesn't matter if you charged [00:20:00] $10,000 or Okay. Maybe a hundred thousand dollars. Well, even a hundred thousand dollars. I mean, I, I've heard of coaching programs that charge a hundred. [00:20:07] right? Yeah. They're out there and you might say, well, gosh, a hundred thousand, I mean, you, you must be, you, you must be like, maybe, hopefully considerate for months or for, you know, you, you should ask everybody, you know, should I spend this money? No. Some people make millions a year. Yeah, right? And, or some people have millions and they're like, a hundred thousand dollars. [00:20:25] Great. You know, maybe they, right. It's like every single price point, there are people for whom that's not a big deal. Mm-hmm. , you see what I mean? Mm-hmm. and, and what, what was sad for? Was the people who spent the 2000 with me, for whom it was a big deal. And yet even some of those people love the buying experience and are not ready or not willing to, to do the work. [00:20:48] So, like I said, every single price point, there are these two types of people. And the other examples there, I, my books at this time of this recording, my books are $5 on kind. . All my [00:21:00] books actually, my, my spiritual book is $1 on Kindle. Doesn't matter. My business books are all $5 on Kindle and I have some $5 book readers who email me and say, George, in chapter, you know, chapter 17, you talk about like, Hey George, I read your book, book and cover to cover. [00:21:17] I've read all your books and I've been applying it de and then they comment on my videos. And there are people of these two. every single price point, right? People who buy my books who like study it like, you know, on their nightstand. I mean, people tell me, George, I have your books on my nightstand, and I read the, I read a big a bit every morning or every night, and then I think about it, I'm like, This is wonderful. [00:21:38] Thank you. And yet I have what you're saying, basically, George, is that it doesn't matter really whether it's these two types of people, $50,000 investment or a five, $7 investment. Like I said, I, I have literally been to a conference where this, you know, I, I, I went to the conf. It was it was a Brendan Bashard conference I remember. [00:21:59] [00:22:00] And at the end of the conference, he sold his $10,000. $10,000 Mastermind or whatever, mastermind with several hundred people in the mastermind, so-called. And my buddy, I met a buddy there and we, we, we struck up, became really good friends. I thought we would be lifelong friends and we were so excited we were sharing. [00:22:16] And then he said, yeah, I'm signing up. And he signed up for it. I didn't because I was like, 10,000 that that's gonna, yeah, it's not really my price point. He signed up and I followed up with him. I said, how did it go? Whatever. And. I could, from what I could tell, he moved on to another program. Mm-hmm. . So 10,000 for him was just like, oh yeah, that's then 10,000. [00:22:35] So, so that's so interesting that there are people Yes. Typically, I, I, I ho I, I think, you know, if, if you look at some kind of curve, there are these two types of people. Yes. The, the higher the price you go. The more considerate people who are considerably buying that thing than people who are buying an impulse and just moving on. [00:22:55] Mm-hmm. Sure, there's more of them, but still there are lots of people who buy [00:23:00] on impulse or without the structure to apply. Yeah. Well, given that this is the Humane Marketing Podcast. Yes, yes. I mean, 10 years ago maybe you and I would've told everybody, well just, you know, try it out to put up a $50,000 program and you'll get those people who buy on impulse and Yes. [00:23:21] And who cares, you know, as long as you make your 500 K per year and you're gonna be happy. Yeah, exactly. Well, that's not the conversation that we're having here, and, and I know that. I heard that from you. It's like, well, my integrity told me to change direction and do something different. And so you, you lowered your prices, like you said. [00:23:46] And so that's where you're at now, right? You, you still have the group programs, but at a lower price point. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting cuz I'm just, right now as of this recording in. [00:24:00] Annual phase of launching my group program. Now it's two group programs for the next year. Mm-hmm. . And one of them is essentially you know, 2,400 for the year, and one is 1200 for the year, and 2,400 is my high ticket now. [00:24:18] Mm-hmm. , where they get three q and a calls with me a week. , it's like there's only 25 members allowed in that. It's like my highest premium is not 50,000, it's not 10,000. And after all these years, it started 2009. After all these years, my highest ticket is 2,400 a year and they get like the most attention from me and I get to know them the best and all that stuff. [00:24:40] And, and it's, and guess. , it's enough money for me. Mm-hmm. even, even though I live in San Francisco. Yeah. Yeah. You live in an expensive place in the, I live in one of the most expensive cities in the world, and yet, , I have set up my lifestyle and I've set up my price points and my business model such that, well, of [00:25:00] course you have to think about how many I sell. [00:25:02] And, and from 2009, now my audience is ab obviously bigger than it used to be, and I'm able to fill enough spots in my programs where I'm like, that's enough. And it's, and the, and the questions there that I think everybody needs to continually ask is, what is success? and why everybody? We learn, not everybody, not, not you and me, right. [00:25:24] Certainly. But a lot of the marketing people we learn from. It's like always more money. Always more money. I, I, I have a hobby of following the Facebook ads of people in my industry. Mm-hmm. . And every time I look at the ads, I'm like, you just, you're always selling more money or you're selling, oh, just copy, paste these emails or, or copy paste this webinar funnel I have and then suddenly you have all these clients. [00:25:46] I'm like, You know Right. I, I've been there, , I've been all over, I, I've been around all this and it's always, it's always these people like selling. I, I make 54 million a year. I'm like, really? Like, [00:26:00] yeah. And, and, and, and it's the, the question again is, is success means you have to make more money every single year? [00:26:08] Yeah. Or is there a different metric of success that is more sustain? in every way and more and le and more personally meaningful, you know? Yeah, yeah. I think that that's exactly what we're talking about in humane marketing. Yes. That's where it all starts. It's with your def definition of success, and not just because of personal wealth, but also humane marketing really tackles. [00:26:38] You know, our planetary health and wealth and enoughness and, and if we all are still in this individualism where we are actually making 54 million. Per year. What does that mean for the rest of the world? Right. And what does that mean with climate change? Because as far as I know, it's [00:27:00] not those kind of people who are then, you know, using that money for good and investing back. [00:27:05] No, they're still, you know, getting more jets and more cars and more and more and more. Yeah. They're still in that old business model. That. Yeah. That was very, you and I grew up in that business model, but it's time to change. Yeah. And I, I wanna, yeah, I want you to tell us more about this because you say in that article, I recommend charging your fees based on enoughness and I, you just explained a little bit of what that means for you. [00:27:35] Yes, yes. But I also really wanna highlight that this is different. everyone. Mm-hmm. , because clearly our listeners course are not where you are at now, right? Yeah. They don't have a huge audience, they're just starting out. Sure, of course. And so I sometimes have a problem with. You know people like us who have our kind of experience right. [00:27:57] Saying, you know, you shouldn't do this, [00:28:00] or height prices are not good. And there's kind of this trend of going lower and lower. Yeah. But then people who don't think about this enoughness, well they don't have enough if they're charging or people who are working on that part. Yeah. Yeah. So tell us more about that. [00:28:17] Enough. Yeah, absolutely. I, I totally hear you. So. Whether we should charge higher or lower fees? Depends on, well, like I said, I think okay, so enoughness aside, it depends on. How many we can confidently enroll . Right. So it it, okay. It depends on, depends on how much are we expecting and requiring of our business to support our lifestyle. [00:28:47] That's where it starts. Yeah. How much do we need, right? Yes. How much do we need specifically from our business, because Right. We might our, our, our, our grocery bill, our our rent, [00:29:00] our mortgage. , some of that money might come from other income sources or other wealth sources or whatever. I mean, yeah, some of us are lucky to have some family support. [00:29:08] I don't have any, but some people have family support. Some people have savings. Some people have a part-time job, some people have other sources of money, right? And so the question is, how much are you requiring from your business? Because the more you require from your business, then the more stressed you have. [00:29:26] Let's think about. The more stress your business has, right? It's like, I must like who, who, who says you have to make $10,000 from your business. Well, maybe you, but who says, why do you say you have to make, you know, if I talking, it's like, where, where did that come from? Like, you know, like, because the more money you require of your business, the more stress for your business is the more marketing you have to do, the more people you have to recruit the higher price. [00:29:50] Like it's all, it's all true. And. So that's really the first question I have. But, but let's say, okay, well, George, okay. I don't have a part-time income. I don't have family[00:30:00] support. I don't have savings. I have to make all my mortgage and rent and grocery bill, and, you know, insurance, whatever you're paying for from my business. [00:30:10] And what the question, of course is, is that true? Like, like, might it be a better and less stressful idea to get a part-time job? I don't know. Or to ask for some family support if that's, you know, reasonable, whatever. . Okay. Now that you've gotten some number that you require of your business thoughtfully, so, all right, fine. [00:30:31] Then my question is, how do you even, what, is that realistic for you to require that from your business? Or did you just come up your business coach or someone said you should be able to make 5,000 from your business? Well, is that because I, I always tell, I always ask people, when people gimme a number to say, George, I'm gonna make $10,000 or a hundred thousand dollars. [00:30:48] This. Okay, help me do that. I'm like, I can help you, but my first question for you is how did you come up with that number of making X dollars for this launch? Because, and usually it's [00:31:00] mainstream success definitions, you know, six figure, seven figure business, whatever. Because, because the thing is, I also have targets for my launches, but my targets, my, my numbers are very reasonably based on guess. [00:31:15] Pattern recognition past history of my launches, because it's like George, someone comes to George, I, you gotta make me make a 50,000 launch this time. I'm like, let me ask you, what was your last launch of this product? Mm-hmm. for this size of an audience. Right. Oh, my last launch, I never launched this product. [00:31:34] I never, I don't have an audience. I'm a never launched before and now you're gonna say you're gonna fit. I'm like, how did you come up with that? Because, The first time we, we could make 50,000 in this launch. We could. It's a possibility, or we could make $500 this launch. W the first launch is the start of the pattern. [00:31:52] It's the start of the history of your numbers so that we can then go, well, last launch you made 10,000. [00:32:00] Great, wonderful. This launch. Let's aim for, what do you wanna aim for? 15. , do you wanna aim for 12,000? Do you wanna aim for 20,000? Okay, well that means something has changed dramatically. If you're gonna go from 10,000 last launch to 20,000 this launch, something must have changed dramatically. [00:32:14] Mm-hmm. , did your audience grow double? Are you using a different strategy that any strategy that's different that you're using is always test? , it's always an experiment. Are you gonna change strategies on me? Okay. If you use the same strategy, same size audience you made 10,000 last time. If they're not fatigued by that launch yet, if they, if, if you think a lot of people haven't bought yet, then we might make 10,000 because of everything kept the same, right? [00:32:40] So in other words, I tell, the reason why I'm saying all this is because it reflects it. It therefore says what our pricing. Because you go, because my question is how many are you going to enroll this time? You know, when I say launch, I don't mean for the person who's at George. I don't have a [00:33:00] product. I just have a one-to-one service that's just ongoing. [00:33:04] So when they say launch, I don't understand what you mean. Here's what I mean. A launch in my definition is simp. A concerted EF effort to let your audience know about your service. That's it. Mm-hmm. So what, what I tell people is, I'd say gentle launches , which I think you'll really resonate with too, and you can borrow that if you want, but I say gentle launches, which basically means two emails. [00:33:29] that's it. Two emails to our list. If we have a list. If we don't have a list, don't worry. Two posts on social media. Wherever you have some Facebook, you have three Facebook friends, fine. That's . That's you're launching to three people, right? Right. You have LinkedIn's, you have 30 LinkedIn connections. Fine. [00:33:44] You post on LinkedIn, you're launching, quote unquote a 30 people. That's what a launch is, is simply posting twice, right? Is what I call a gentle. Anyway, so my question is how many, so. I always tell my, my, my audience, please do a gentle [00:34:00] launch every month if you can, if not every two months, at least. So the my question is, okay, every time you do a gentle launch of two emails or two posts, or both, how many do you expect to enroll? [00:34:12] So George, I don't know because I've never, I've never enrolled anyone. Okay, fine. We're gonna keep going until you enrolls you, until your gentle launch enrolls people, we'll have to tweak, you know, your launch materials, your, your launch messaging, your offer, blah, blah, blah. Anyway, but when we, we'll keep launching until you say, oh my gosh, this, this launch got netted me 10 clients Wonder. [00:34:33] Wonderful. Good. So then next one I wanna, I wanna interrupt you because I wanna bring in the pricing conversation in, in this piece. Yes. So, so if this is a new client who's never had anyone enroll or even just had a one-on-one client Yeah. What's your conversation there then? Do you kind of advise to go a bit higher prices? [00:34:54] So, because they somehow, the reason. Sustain their living. Yeah. Yeah. Or do you say, well, [00:35:00] you don't have that much ex experience. Let us start with a lower price just like I do. Yeah. But then it's not really equal because you have volume. Yeah. And they don't. Yeah. So you see where I'm going with this. So the reason why I said all these numbers about the launches is because I, I believe we should set our price based on how many we can confidently enroll. [00:35:23] Mm. , right? Because if I can confidently enroll a hundred people, my price doesn't have to be as high if I, of whatever I'm requiring of my business, it's all kind of cascading down to this moment, right? So if you say, George, I have no idea how many I can enroll. I'm just starting. So what should I charge? [00:35:44] Here's, here's my advice on that. You charge what you you charge. The number that is the perfect balance, which of course we're always finding that perfect balance. You charge in numbers that is the right [00:36:00] balance between what you feel so confident you can deliver a great experience, if not results, at least a good experience. [00:36:10] right, if not results. You confident. That number that you're charging is like, I'm, I'm feeling really good about this. I feel like, I feel like, guess what? I feel like they're getting a good. . Mm-hmm. . Yeah. And I don't feel resentful. I, that's, that's where the balance is. I feel good. I don't feel resentful charging this at this number. [00:36:25] Mm-hmm. and I also, they not only do I feel they're getting a good deal, they tell me it's a good deal. Mm-hmm. , see that's the thing, because Sarah, you know, somewhat could come on, could come to you. Go, Sarah, I think you're an amazing deal at a thousand dollars an hour. If I could spend an hour with you, a thousand bucks, easy, sign me up. [00:36:45] And if you. Yeah, I'm giving people a really good value, great experience. I mean, my time is so valuable. A thousand dollars an hour. No problem. Then I said, please charge a thousand dollars an hour, because there you got that balance between. Between, [00:37:00] maybe you would say, George, I would feel resentful if I charge 500 an hour because my time is worth more than that. [00:37:05] I feel my time is worth more because I could be doing many other things and I would start to feel resentful at 500 or seven 50 or 900 an hour and thousand makes me feel like, okay, you know, that feels good. That feels right. . Good then. Then again there, there's that. There's that balance between your feelings and the market's feelings and if the mark, if your audience, your market goes great, a thousand dollars an hour, great. [00:37:26] Easy sign up. Then I would say a thousand. But then a lot of people might go, wow, a thousand dollars. I don't know. I would feel badly if I charge someone a thousand, cuz how? What can I give them in an hour that's worth a thousand in my heart, in my experience, my ground? And I said, fine. Then we have to keep going. [00:37:41] until we get to a number where you're like, oh yeah, 150 an hour. I feel like I could really deliver great value and the market agrees with me. There's the number. It's so complex, isn't it? There's so much to it. There's our own integrity. There's the fact whether we're just, that's why there's no starting out or not. [00:37:58] There's no formula. There's no [00:38:00] formula is not there really is. It's there like you're a starting coach, therefore it's 75. Who says that? I mean, maybe the formula is such that there's a market message out. , right? There's, there's, there's market rates and maybe the mark. Of course, how we feel is right for us to charge is influenced by the market rates. [00:38:19] We see the people around us charging this amount, that amount of course that influences us and the amounts we've paid also, right? Like, like, you know my wife, she pays quite a lot for her coach. And at first, at first I was a little resentful of. Obviously we, we, we share money, we won't tell. And so I'm like, I'm like, oh, you're paying that much for your coach. [00:38:43] I'm like, oh, maybe you should try something. But then over the years I realized that the fact that she's paying it, it up-leveled her sense of the money as well. Mm-hmm. Because she's like, well, I'm paying, you know 200 an hour here, so maybe I may, maybe charging [00:39:00] 175 an hour for me. Just fine cuz you, you see what I mean? [00:39:03] So it's like, it's, it's, it's bo it's everything. It's the market. It's what we see people charging is what we pay ourselves. And that informs sort of our own intuition about things. And then when, then we, we go out there and we charge that money and we see what people say to us. And that whole thing has to do with how we build our credibility and all that as well. [00:39:21] Right. . Yeah. And then there's the complexity of do we offer this time one-on-one or is it in a group group setting? Yeah. It's a huge difference. Yeah, because another thing you mentioned in that article is, you know, you found that higher fees decrease client inquiries. So if you start charging a thousand dollars for a one-on-one session, go ahead, give it a try. [00:39:42] You're, you're gonna have a difficult or a more difficult time to find. At that price, but I would argue it depends whether. You maybe don't want all these clients, like Sure, course I give you my example. [00:40:00] I, I clearly say I only work with three one-on-one clients at a time. Yes. There we go. And I want it that way. [00:40:07] It's deliberate. That's how my energy works. I cannot Beautiful work with more people. One-on one probably should The program at one on one hour or something. Yeah. Yeah. And, and so that's, it's not a thousand per hour, that's for sure. But it's a, it's a higher investment. , you know, it, it is deliberately so, and, and I'm, it doesn't come from that argument. [00:40:29] Yeah. You know, you need to charge more so people actually do the work. That's not how I reflected and came up with that number. Right. But it, it's more about, well, . If I lower my prices, then I need to hustle more. That's because then that I have right. All these clients and yes, oh my God. And yes. And then I don't feel good. [00:40:50] That's, and I don't That's right. Have time to focus on my community, which is a very low investment. Yes. Right? Yes, yes, yes. And that takes me actually just as much time as [00:41:00] the one-on-one clients. Yeah, of course. Yeah. But I enjoy spending my time there. Yes. Right. And so it's also, you set up your business model about your own. [00:41:10] what you want, you know? Yeah. Not just what your clients want, what you, what do you want as well. Yeah, yeah. You're exactly right. I mean, there are I mean, back to example of my wife who is a therapist. Like she used to see 18 to 20 client hours per week. and there are therapists who see even, hi, like I've heard a therapist who see 22 to 25. [00:41:34] I mean, that's a lot. Yes. I mean, it, it's like emotional labor, a lot of emotional labor, you know, all that presence and all. It's interesting. But anyway, it's like, now, you know, now she doesn't want to spend as much energy on that, and now she's like, and now the rate goes up. And so, so absolutely. It's like you, you, we, we need to set. [00:41:54] You know, with experience, with the grounded experience of what we enjoy doing, what where [00:42:00] we feel like we're giving the best value, we need to set up our business model such that it the business model has to do with our gifts, our talent, and our. and our pricing, and it's like we set that up in such a way that, okay, I have a group thing here. [00:42:18] I have a one-to-one thing here. Maybe I sell online courses, you know, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. Maybe I sometimes do intensives or retreats. I offer that, you know, et cetera. Yeah. . Yeah. I like the mix because that feels like that's fair, right? There's different options. Mm-hmm. . Yes. And your clients, depending on where they're at, they choose what they can afford and you know what feels good for them as well. [00:42:41] Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so it, so this whole thing of like motivating let's talk about a bit about that because mm-hmm. , that's kind of where I first heard. , it's you, you charge more. Could you get people who are more willing to apply, more willing to like, like I, you [00:43:00] know, we started from that in the very beginning. [00:43:01] Yeah. But then the question is, well then if I, if I'm not using the high price to motivate people, how do I motivate them? Mm-hmm. . Okay. And I say there's basically two ways. One way is, well, you've got to learn how to structure your program. more effectively, whether your one-on-one program or your group program. [00:43:25] You have some accountability structures in there. You have sort of like easy onboarding, stepping in so that they start to feel momentum. I mean, you gotta, these are all program design questions that the more experience you get at that, the more you go, okay, this is how I really, I I don't overwhelm people in the beginning or whatever. [00:43:43] Like, get them going and get them seeing that they're, it's possible. Oh my gosh, this, there's something possible here. I'm gonna keep going. I'm gonna invest more of my energy cuz sure you got them to invest the money. , but it's a whole other skillset. Get them to invest their energy, right? Mm-hmm. . So, so, because [00:44:00] that's just as, that's more important, even for their own transformation. [00:44:02] So that's one side of it is like program design. And then the other side of it is, you might say credibility because the more, like, I'll give you an example, right? , everyone probably most people here have heard of Brene Brown. Mm-hmm. or, or, or let's say Tony Robbins. Pick, pick your, pick your I prefer Brene Brown, but doesn't matter. [00:44:25] Pick your influencer that you really respect, right? Mm-hmm. , if you got into a program with Brene Brown that you were able to easily afford, hopefully it doesn't, you know, caught you a second mortgage, but you, you, you got into a program with Brene Brown, you could afford it. and you get personal time with her in some way, or, I mean, we would all work our butts off probably, right? [00:44:47] Mm-hmm. , we wanna show up, right? Because she has so much credibility with so many of us. Mm-hmm. Again, pick your influence or pick your thought leader that you really, really respect. Right? Doesn't have to be someone famous. Someone [00:45:00] who is listening to this podcast, Michael, my gosh, if I could be one of Sarah's three clients, knowing that she, she only picks three people to work with at a time, I'm. [00:45:08] I'm gonna work my butt off. I'm gonna, I'm gonna show up. I don't have to hustle and like, but I'm gonna really dedicate my self structure. Right. That's the credibility piece, right? Yeah. Right. Like, like that is what marketing at its best is about, is showing up with such trustworthiness that credibility is. [00:45:35] Well-deserved credibility is created and when there's such kind of credibility and they, they then, then, even if you're not so good at program design, on the aspect of they, it's this balance. It's like the more credibility you have with them. The more likely they're gonna do stuff as when they buy. And then of course the better the GR program designed, the easier it is for them to do it. [00:45:54] So, so that's how I think we should be motivating, aside from the price [00:46:00] point, which is a separate discussion, the motivating part really should happen in that way. So I love that you brought that in and it, and it kind of, you know, brings us full circle also to humane marketing or authentic marketing like you call it. [00:46:15] We're really Yeah. Motivating the client already before he, she buys the program, right? Yes. Yes. And that also means empowering them. That's right. I really find that it's time to give our clients the power back. Yeah. Lead them invite. Them to make a decision, a buying deci decision, but not push them down some kind of funnel and, and buy just so we can make a profit. [00:46:43] So it's that empowering piece that we need to really, that's great practice with humane par marketing. I love that. Yes. Empowerment is right because the traditional, conventional marketers are essentially trying to control. [00:47:00] As much as possible. Yeah, disempowerment, that's true. Right? Because think about it, like all the stuff they teach, right? [00:47:06] Like again, me surfing my Facebook, the Facebook ads and seeing the people on my industry and goes, do you just have to, you know, copy paste this or do this and set up the system and then you'll get people salivating. to buy from you. And then I, I literally saw , Sarah, you, I literally saw a video ad just yesterday, a client in my sentence to me, cuz they, he thought I'd find it amusing. [00:47:29] I found it scary, right? Because the, this person, this video ad was saying, what is this? These are the, the emotional color wheel. And in my program I'm gonna teach you how to get your potential clients through the, through ex, having them experience fear and then anger, and then greed, and then blah, blah, blah, blah, all this stuff. [00:47:49] So finally they'll buy from you cuz you, God. I'm like, okay. . Let's, in short, let me teach you how to manipulate people based on their emotion, the emotional [00:48:00] vulnerability and their susceptibility to buying. Because you've put them through these, these, these experiential states that you have designed, you know, with the, with an ulterior motive, right? [00:48:12] Mm-hmm. . And so, and that, that's that. Persuasion psychology at its best. Mm. Yeah. Sarah, right? Like you at its worst, let's just say, because at its worst. Just making things clear here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but it's, this is what people learn. The, the, the conventional, and frankly, if I could say this is, this is a real term, right? [00:48:32] Yeah. Psychopathic marketing. I, I don't mean to trigger people, but, but really, I mean, if you, if you, if you study psychology, And understand what psychopathy is. Psychopathic ex, you know, personality types, narcissism and all that stuff. It's people who are are, who don't have any qualms about bringing people through the emotional states so they can get the way they want. [00:48:57] Right. Essentially. Exactly. Yeah. So, [00:49:00] so that's, that's you and I, Sarah, are basically seeing that and go, oh my God, I, I'll say I myself have learned from those things. I myself have done those things. Same. Yeah. It never sat, it never sat. Right. Which is why I stopped in 20 12, 20 13. I broke down, like my, my, I had this kind of spiritual breakdown. [00:49:18] I'm like, I can't do, if this is going to be my career, I'm, I quit. I don't want it. . It's like, sure, the money's coming in, but it's like, it feels so bad every day and they're telling me that you, they're telling me this is success. Yeah. You know, and I'm like, this is success. I, I basically gave it all up and I, I, I, I ended up taking on this hero. [00:49:39] Sarah, you might appreciate this person called him Peace Pilgrim. Hmm. I don't know if you've heard of Peace Pilgrim, but never heard of him. Okay. She is, she lived she, she died in 19, 19 83. And this person's amazing. I'll just tell you this two minute story. She [00:50:00] grew up and had an early, early success in her life. [00:50:02] I guess she's very smart and had early success in her career, and then found it very meaningless. And one day she went into the woods for a whole night just to contemplate about the meaning of life. And she came out of the woods that day and. I'm not gonna work for money anymore. Mm-hmm. , and this is radical. [00:50:20] This is a radical person. I'm not she's my hero. I'm not. She's my hero in terms of values. I'm not like literally gonna sell everything I own, but that's what she did. Okay. So this is one of the classic stories, and she really made it work. She sold everything she owned and became a walking pilgrim. She walked from one end of America to the other end something. [00:50:41] 20 times in her lifetime, something like that. Oh, she walked, she did the, she did this. Some people like heard her hear her story and some some you know, sort of like I idealistic, you know, 20 somethings, try it out. And I, I heard the story of some idealistic 20 something, trying it out and like going back home to mommy after two days and go, I can't do this. [00:50:59] Let me [00:51:00] get a job. Right. No, this is an extraordinary saying. I mean, she, she literally did this not for two days or two months, 30 years. And, and the, the only reason she stopped doing it, so I, the iron, the biggest irony cuz she, she did this, she became famous. Walking, walking throughout America. What did she do? [00:51:18] She walk, she basically, she only, she helped everyone that she saw. Everyone who needed help, she went and helped them. And she never asked for money and she never asked for shelter or food. She, she just, she never asked for anything. And only when people go, would you like to stay at my home tonight? Would you like to stay at my barn? [00:51:37] Or would you like a meal? Every, otherwise, she was sleeping on the highway. She, she took blueberries from the road. She just, she never asked for anything. She only received, and she helped everybody for 30 years. She just walked like this and then finally she got so famous. She was giving talks now, right? [00:51:53] Mm-hmm. people invited her. She never took a single penny for her talks. People just invited her. They wanted her inspiration. [00:52:00] So in one of these talks, someone said, insist to give her a ride. They had a car accident and she. In a car accident. Isn't that interesting? Like she, so anyway, so, so long story short, I had this spiritual, I learned about her story. [00:52:17] I learned about other things. I had a spiritual breakdown, breakthrough in 20 12, 20 13, 20 14. Those years, like I just wrestling and struggling with what the meaning of life was and what my career should be. And in 2014 I reemerged and I said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna stop doing those high ticket things. I mean, whatever I was doing, I knew didn't feel right. [00:52:36] I don't know what the right part is. I was still trying to figure out humane marketing, right? I didn't know any of this stuff. And so I'd start experimenting like, doing one to one, like at the lowest price I could possibly charge. Again, finding that balance. Ah, this would feel resentful. This would just, just be outside. [00:52:52] the resentment point. Back then, I think I was charging like 125 an hour. You know, as many clients as who wanted to sign up, you know, just, and [00:53:00] then, so just kind of like gradually, gradually increase, increase, and then started a group program charging, I don't know what it was. I think charging $50 an hour for a group 50 $50 a month for a group program. [00:53:10] Then and like gradually, gradually raising it, raising it, raising it. Just gradually. So as my, like I said, that balance between, ah, this would feel resentful, you know, and this would not, that I just kept, kept going up from there. Shining that zone. Yeah. Finding it. Yeah, exactly. Right. And then to today, like, okay, yeah, this number feels right, this number feels right, and then the markets seems to be responding. [00:53:33] I have also, Sarah, like, I, like, I've also sometimes raised my rates too quickly. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Whether it's online course or, but it, it just shows that it's such an experiment and, and, you know, and, and also what I appreciate from, from your story is that it takes time to Yes. Really grow into the price that is right and kind of giving yourself permission to try it out slowly. [00:53:59] And, [00:54:00] and I think most importantly, listen to necessarily what everybody else is telling you out there. Yeah. But listen to Yeah. Your gut and, and just make sure. Also, I just wanna say it out again that you're, you have enough for yourself because you can't be a humane marketer if you're not also caring for yourself. [00:54:21] You, that's right. You want to care for your clients and the plan, but you also need to care for yourself. And you know what's, what's interesting is that enoughness. I had such a radical experience of listening to, and I recommend this to everybody. Peace, Pilgrim, audiobook. You just Google it? Mm-hmm. , it's free , of course it's free on SoundCloud at this time, and it's been free for all these years, 10 years, and it's still free. [00:54:45] So I'm, I hope, I expect I keep it for free, but the voice, it was actually not P Peace Program's voice who recorded it was like a voice. Friend of hers, but that voice along with peace, Pilgrim's words, is like the perfect combination and like settled me so much and it gave [00:55:00] me this feeling, Sarah, like, okay, no matter what Sarah, if Peace Pilgrim could have done it at that enoughness level, literally like never asking a single dime and like just waiting until F Food and Shelter came to her. [00:55:16] like, okay, that's like if someone was able to live like that, like. If I ever have to go homeless , right? I'll just be a peace pilgram. Obviously that's not, you know, realistic for the vast majority of us. It isn't, but it, it is almost like you have to come down to that level. And that's why I always say in, in, you know, when I talk about gentle sales and the yes, the serene garden and, and all that, I say, you are. [00:55:44] even if you never, ever make a sale anymore, . And I think that that is so important That's right. For people to understand. Yeah. And, and it, it's not something you just say you really, it's almost like you have to somehow go through some kind of breakdown in order to [00:56:00] realize Right. That well, and, and actually say, I'll say this. [00:56:02] All of us go through periods of low. , right? Yeah. Still to this day. Of course. Yeah, of course. I mean, I, even though thankfully I have been structuring my system so that my income is very, but it's like there are still certain launches that surprise me. I go, huh, wow, that was not as high as I expected. I mean, we all have relative numbers. [00:56:23] Low for me, maybe a while. He saw 50 courses that for that, right? But low for someone, maybe zero, right? I've had zero myself in the past. Right? So we all have periods of low sales and that period of low sales, I. instead of feeling easily to feel depressed or or afraid right or, or sad, or feeling low self-worth, or whatever. [00:56:43] Instead of that, here's my invitation. The next time we experience the inevitable low period, low sales moment, I hope we'll go. Oh. This is that opportunity that Sarah and George are talking about to remember and remind [00:57:00] and feel into the enoughness again of who we are right now in this moment. Mm-hmm. [00:57:05] Because if Peace Pilgrim could do it, and she was the happiest person that people knew around her, everyone around her goes, I've never met a happier person in my life. And she has nothing. Right Literal. Yeah, so it's like if we can sense into our current enoughness around us, like thankfully, hopefully this month we can pay rent, or if not, let's move to a cheaper place. [00:57:26] You know, nobody can sense to enoughness then. Then everything from there is abundance , right? Gratitude and the gratitudes there ironically, I think does shift. Whether you wanna call it vibrational frequency or whether you wanna just say that the gratitude gives us a positive attitude, which keeps us going. [00:57:46] It does bring, I think, better business over time. . You know, it really does. Yeah. Practice it every night, . Ah, yes. Good. This has been beautiful. Thank you so much for this [00:58:00] deep conversation about pricing. Go figure. You know, only two introverts can go deep on pricing . Exactly. So love it. Thank you so much. [00:58:10] Please tell people where they can find you and thankfully find out about your courses. They could Google me. My name George Cow. K a o g e o r g e k a O. Just google my name and you could go wherever, you know, my website or social media or whatever stuff is great. Yes, . Yeah. Wonderful. So thank you so much. [00:58:30] Thank you Sarah, for inviting me to this. You know, I knew we would have a great conversation and yeah, thank you for being such a great host and yeah, creator of this podcast. So thank you for. Loved it. Thank you so much for coming on. Yeah, thanks. Take care. [00:58:48] George outro: I hope you enjoyed this episode and you can find out more about George and his work@georgecow.com. That's K a o.com. George has [00:59:00] recorded over thousand videos and mini talks for his YouTube channel, and you can watch the best ones without opting in@wwwgeorgecow.com slash videos. You'll find the show notes with all of these links of this episode@humane.marketing slash H 1 55. [00:59:22] And on this beautiful page, you'll also find a series of free offers, such as my Saturday newsletter, the Humane Business Manifesto in the free gentle confidence mini course, as well as my two books, marketing like we're human and selling like we're human. And if you're an audiobook fan, I have good news. [00:59:40] Marketing like We're Human is now available in audio format on Audible or anywhere else where you get your audiobooks. Of course, read by yours truly. Thanks so much for listening and being part of a generation of marketers who cares for yourself, your clients, and the [01:00:00] planet. We are change makers before we are marketers. [01:00:03] So now go be the change you want to see in the world. Speak soon.

Once a year I teach my business plan course for the coming year.It's my most important course and I require all my clients to take it, so that we can be on the same page re: effective & authentic business planning

I'm launching a coaching program & community to help coaches/mentors/healers get (and stay) consistent in creating authentic content: The Soul Gym -- https://www.georgekao.com/SoulGym (www.GeorgeKao.com/SoulGym)

Clients -- you'll attract more clients (and more ideal ones) because the practice of creating authentic content somehow changes your energy -- you get more in touch with a deeper authentic power than before. Plus, some of your content will get shared and find new ideal audience members. Calling -- by exploring your ideas, experiences, passions and putting it out into the world, you discover more of the intersection between your creativity and the market's wants. Creativity -- you will grow your "creativity fitness" -- the skill of being creative on demand. I'm launching a coaching program & community to help coaches/mentors/healers get (and stay) consistent in creating authentic content: The Soul Gym -- https://www.GeorgeKao.com/SoulGym (www.GeorgeKao.com/SoulGym)

My focusmate group: https://www.focusmate.com/signup/georgekaocommunity (https://www.focusmate.com/signup/georgekaocommunity) My in--depth program about joyful productivity: https://www.GeorgeKao.com/TLC (https://www.GeorgeKao.com/TLC) Comment here: https://youtu.be/TWryykCEync (https://youtu.be/TWryykCEync)

Comment here -- https://youtu.be/XqIMy7oEfhA (https://youtu.be/XqIMy7oEfhA) This snippet is from MasterHeart Business Mentoring: https://www.GeorgeKao.com/Group (https://www.GeorgeKao.com/Group)

It's been a long time that I've hoped to facilitate a community of coaches & creators to support each other in spiritual/personal growth. It's finally happening :) See here: https://www.GeorgeKao.com/SoulGym (https://www.GeorgeKao.com/SoulGym)

"I'm loving the course as it has already generated more action on my part than the whole preceding year. But I do have a tendency to want to solve everything NOW… and some degree of frustration that my life just doesn't allow for that!" Comment here: https://youtu.be/AZchuttsra4 (https://youtu.be/AZchuttsra4) This is a segment from the https://www.GeorgeKao.com/TLC (TLC program).