Ethical Marketing, Redefining Niching & Making Business Beautiful w/ Tad Hargrave
What if marketing wasn’t about getting the sale—but about getting to the truth? What if it could be beautiful?I sit down with Tad Hargrave, founder of Marketing for Hippies, to explore how ethical marketing, niching, and cultural values can come together to build a business that feels good to offer and good to receive. Tad shares his journey from high-pressure sales tactics to finding a more grounded, honest, and human approach to business—one that prioritizes integrity, right-fit clients, and restoring beauty to the marketplace.This episode is a must-listen for meditation teachers, coaches, and conscious creators who want to market with meaning and stay in deep alignment with their values.
Key Takeaways
What if niching wasn’t about narrowing your options—but about something far more natural and freeing?
The deeper reason why so much marketing feels off—and a more honest way forward.
Why “getting the sale” might be the wrong goal altogether—and what to focus on instead.
A new lens on discovery calls that could change how you show up to every conversation.
How to recognize whether your marketing is helping—or subtly harming—the people you serve.
One clarifying question that could reveal your true place in the marketplace.
And why beauty isn’t an afterthought in business—it may be the whole point.
I'm hosting Tad for a free workshop! Sign up for 7 Fundamentals of Ethical Marketing Here: https://shorturl.at/PSjhu
GIFT FOR YOU
If you’re a meditation teacher or coach who wants to create unique meditations people listen to over and over again, enroll in my free course Meditation Script Mastery
Music Credit: Nova by River Roots - https://www.youtube.com/riverroots
Podcast Transcript
Lou: Hello there, dear friends. Welcome to another episode of the Art and Business of Meditation podcast. We have a special guest, Tad Hargrave. Tad is a hippie who developed a knack for marketing and then learned to be a hippie again. Since 2001, he's been weaving together strands of ethical marketing, Waldorf School education, a history in the performing arts, local culture, making anti globalization activism, an interest in his ancestral traditional culture, community building and supporting local economies into his work, helping people create profitable businesses ethically grown while restoring the beauty of the marketplace. He is the founder of marketing for hippies. And I found UTAD just a month and a so maybe two months ago. And it's like someone who, once I started listening was like, this is my gospel. Someone was preaching my gospel. Like I didn't know I needed this, these words and like, so grateful to know that this is being shouted out from the rafters, the way that you approach marketing. So I'm so excited to have you on the show and share you with everyone listening.
Tad: Thank you. It's very good to be here.
Lou: So I'd love to start. There's a few things I'd like us to explore. Both or all ethics, niche point of view and beauty. I don't know if we're going to get through all four. That's a lot. But maybe starting with beauty. When you talk about restoring beauty to the marketplace, what do you mean by that?
Tad: Well, that the marketplace hasn't always been so ugly. Main street preceded Wall street and before it was Main street, it was something. If you go to London, England, there's the Borough Market, you know, this just outrageous market and vendors everywhere. You know, in Vancouver you got Granville is. And these places are very lively. There's performers and artists, there's people who've often made these things by hand, you know, family run businesses. And of course back in the day that's all it was, was family run businesses. And people come from this farm, people come from that farm. And the potter and the baker and the butcher and the candlestick maker would all come together as a way of saying to each other, here's what I've been up to since I saw you last, you know, and you can see it here in my stall. And there was a study done and I mean, no surprise to anyone, but the number of conversations that happen at a farmer's market was like 10 times that of a Safeway or a Sobeys or you know, Tesco or some chain store. So there's a kind of hubbub, there's A sound that the. The real thing makes, and it's the sound of. Of community and a great love and respect for each other. And that's something beautiful. If you go to a farmer's market, it's such a beautiful thing. You get to know these farmers, you get to know their stories, might have even have been to some of their farms. And whenever you spend the money, you just, you know, you're spending the money on something wonderful, supporting a real family instead of supporting a corporation or, you know, Blackrock or Vanguard or State street. They're not getting the money. This money is staying in your community. So I think the market originally was. It was a way that we came together to. To share what we'd been working on and a way of sustaining each other in the community because there wasn't anyone else. It was this way we. We took care of each other. Of course, there's trade happening as well, but even trade was done beautifully back in the day. Now, I may have some of the details wrong, but I remember Stephen Jenkinson was talking about in Mali, and I recall it as silver and salt being traded. And I may have the details wrong, but the gist of it was this. The trading would be done where I might have the salt and I'd bring up my whole caravan of salt. Boom. And I'd put it at the appointed place and I'd leave. A little while later, the person with the silver would arrive, they'd see the salt that I'd left and they would measure out what they thought was a fair trade in silver and then they would leave. Then I would come back and I would look at what their offer was. And if I thought the offer was good, I'd take the silver and leave the salt. If I didn't think it was good, I would just leave the salt there. And then they could come back and decide maybe were they going to add some more or is. Oh, that's. I'm offended. And they take it and they leave. But you see, all of this is done without anyone talking. All of this is done in the spirit of incredible trust and goodwill and immense regard for the other person. To be able to make a discernment like that of what a good exchange would be. And that's beautiful. So the old school way of, of trading, of sharing these things with each other, when things shifted from this gift economy more, you know, we have to use money and all of this, there's still a real. There was a beauty in the way it was done. So I don't see the Market as a fundamentally ugly place, though I think most of it is now the kind of cartel capitalism that we have got going, the monopolies and all that, that's not beautiful. But the coming together to share our work and to support each other, that's beautiful. So that's. That's a little of what I mean.
Lou: You mentioned Stephen Jenkinson. I know that he's been a teacher and a mentor for you for a while. I had only gotten into his work, really gotten into his work intensely in the last year and got to experience the process of matrimony through. I don't know if you know Wendy Fife Robertson, but she led our ceremony anyway. And before that time, I would have had no idea what culture work was like. It would. Wouldn't have really. That term wouldn't make sense. But after going through that experience and seeing what happened in the few, the community and the family and the friends, how it just opened up doors, how it was a healing experience, it profoundly shifted the possibilities and my understanding of what cultural work is. And when I'm hearing you share what you just shared around beauty and how things were and kind of handmade, like, there is this culture behind it. There is this community kind of feeling sense behind it. And you shared with me a. You share with me a substack that you wrote. You also write a substack on culture making, which seems, I think, separate from your marketing for hippie's work. And correct me if I'm wrong, but you talked about the difference between culture and coaching. And I just want to share something from your writing and then kind of dovetail and continue on this exploration. But something that stuck out for me was you shared. Coaching rarely has much more than a shallow and indirect lineage. Culture can trace its lineage back to the dawn of time or before. Culture work is set around the needs of the community and that which sustains the community. In this model, if you are the one learning, you are the guest and they are your host. The protocol is profoundly different here. Coaching is about making a living and getting paid. Culture work is about feeding life and everything that sustains it. Coaching is about helping people learn how to get what they want. Cultural work is designed to help us become something beautiful as a gift to the world. And that last line really strikes me. It makes me emotional because I remember a time eight years ago when I was laying on the grass and still figuring out how to make this work work. The work that I wanted to do around meditation and having a business and really just I quit my job and I Went all in on it and still wasn't figuring it out. And I just kept praying or speaking, like, make something beautiful out of me. And I've used that invocation in a way as a continual ask, like, how can my life, how can the work be an expression of beauty? And I know I don't always get it right, and I know I veer off the trails, I'm sure, but it sounds like from what you're sharing before, what you're doing is cultural work, in a way, with marketing for hippies. And I'm just wondering, do you see, do you see a distinction in, in the, the coaching? I don't know, like, wondering if you see yourself doing that sort of work or is it more on the coaching and the business and how you distinguish what you're doing in that. If that. I don't know if that makes sense.
Tad: Yeah, I. It's a Venn diagram. And the overlap keeps getting bigger and it's interesting. Yeah, you made that bridge between beauty and culture. Because I was just thinking the other day that. So there are three major strands of my work. It's ethics, effectiveness, and beauty. And so ethics,
Tad: to me, the main way that I look at addressing that is this process of filtering that you come to conversations with the intention to get to the truth of is this a fit or isn't it not with the intention to get to the sale. And so, so every conversation becomes a mutual filtering of is this, is this the right thing? And then effectiveness is really strategy and thinking things through logically. And okay, well, how do we. What's going to work? Because it has to work. I mean, it has to be effective. That's the part of it. But then the beauty piece, the way that we come to that is with this cultural lens, because beauty is the human incarnate. Culture is the human incarnation of beauty. I mean, nature is the, the beautiful thing that's the real source of beauty. And I mean, you could say the divine is. Nature comes from the divine, and that's the real source of beauty. But. But humans are not the originators of beauty. Humans are not the.
Tad: Yeah. And modern society is not beautiful. I mean, civilization and empire is not beautiful in, in a really deep human way. It's not that there aren't eruptions of it, of beauty that appear in the middle of civilization, because that's certainly true. But as a whole, this endeavor is. Is in no way beautiful and doesn't make anything beautiful of us. And I think our ancestors around the world understood how to live beautifully, understood what that Meant to live in a beautiful way. And so that's who I take my marching orders from. I'm not comparing myself to other business coaches or marketing coaches. I don't tend to read a lot of their books. I don't tend to find much of a lot of what I hear overly compelling. But I think our ancestors had certain ways of living, certain values that guided them, and that's. That's what I try to base this work on. So the culture. Culture is our human attempt at creating beauty. I think that's one. There's a lot of ways to speak about culture, but I think that's one way to say it. We're trying to model ourselves on nature and live in. In a. In a natural way, in a way that's as beautiful as nature. And so that we're feeding the. The beauty that's been feeding us all.
Lou: Along, I think that's what maybe stands out and why your work feels different. Like, it feels like this is so different. Not that saying that you're trying to be different than other marketing coaches or business coaches. It's like, wow, this is. There's so many things about how you're structuring your business that I don't see being done anywhere. And the way that you're talking about things like, I'm just not. It's like, I try to say something similar, but, like, you just really are dialed in on a lot of this. And so I know you learned. You know, speaking of learning from other people, it was interesting to read more of your story and learning from Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Zig Ziglar. Like, these are kind of OG people where people that I look up to now, like a Seth Godin, who I think is really. I really love Seth's work. And he talks about learning from Zig Ziglar. And so I read Zig Zig sort of stuff, and I'm like, I don't know if this is really for me, but what was valuable about that and what did you have to unlearn or shift your understanding around?
Tad: Interesting was Val. I haven't had even tried to think that thought for a while. Well, for a young man, they had a certain kind of masculine energy that was probably very. Well, definitely fed something in me. I don't think it's the healthiest version of it I've seen since, but it. It wasn't nothing, you know, it was something for a young man who, you know, my father died when I was nine, so I think that was just hungry for that. So at that Level. This very focused, goal achieving, you know, vibe about it was enormously compelling. It was enormously compelling too. The thought of being able to persuade people have these tools to feel powerful, you know, when we feel powerless. I think that's a, that's a compelling pitch. And yeah, it wasn't all bad. Some of the stuff, particularly around marketing, the notion of having a unique selling proposition, the notion of reducing the risk. I mean, Jay Abraham in particular, there's still a great deal I value about his work on the sales front. I don't know how much of it I,
Tad: I feel like I still credit more of the stuff on the marketing front. There's less of that I'd throw out. There's some I would. And there's very little on the sales front that I, I still credit. All because the fundamental premise of all those people we named there was get the sale. That was the fundamental algebra of the whole thing. And there was different ways of doing it. You know, you can use NLP and match and mirror and get rapport and use their meta programs and elicit their buying strategies and you know, figure out if they're visual, auditory, kinesthetic, you know, you can do all this stuff or you can use assumptive closes or you can yada yada. I mean there's all the tools and there's the Dale Carney how to win friends and influence people and there's, it's not that there's not beauty in some of it and goodness in some of it. I'm having a hard time remembering on the, on the sales front because when the fundamental, this is the thing, it's not that the tactics were off necessarily. That's not the problem because people will try to corner me and say, what about this tactic and that tactic? Do you. But it's almost never the tactic. It's the underlying intent of the tactic. For example, people say these discovery calls, they're terrible. It's like, well, if your intent in a discovery call is actually not to discover anything but to just get them to buy, then that's gonna feel manipulative and it will be manipulative. But if your intent really is to discover is this a fit, it's great, you know? Well, putting people in trance is terrible. Well, I don't know. Not if I, I, I've never heard of it being done. But if there was a real intent to get to the truth and that was the way you were going to do it with a client and they were up for it, you know, knock yourself out, it's great. So it's not, to me, the tactics, it's that they are done with this explicit agenda that's always hidden to get somebody to buy, to get somebody to do something. And so if you're coming from that understanding, it colors everything. That's what I found in so much of the sales stuff. It's all colored by that hidden agenda, which. It's strange. It's like in the conversations, it's hidden, you never talk about it, but it's all they talk about in the books. So now you've got this strange double life of this thing you're, you know, you're doing that you can't tell them you're doing. It's one of the great tests of how ethical it is, is would you tell them, be willing to tell them what you're doing while you're doing it? Would you be willing to give them the director's commentary on that conversation of what was actually going on in your head, or was there your private inner life and the public thing and you're just trying to make sure they don't pick up on what's really going on? Yeah.
Lou: So on discovery calls, because that's a question I had for you, and I know you don't do discovery calls in your work currently. You know, this getting to the truth and getting to the sale, I find. And maybe some people that are listening can resonate with this. You know, I've been trained in coaching multiple coaching methodologies that feel really robust to be able to work with a wide variety of issues, let's say. And so fortunately in my work, I have, you know, there is a frame, like there's some things I clearly are out of my scope of practice, and I will say that. But tends to people, you know, people find me through meditations that I put online. They've already spent some time with me meditating courses around motivation or purpose or confidence or things like this. And so these tends to be like, the theme of it. And, you know, on the call, it's, you know, when I really had to ask myself, like, have I ever said, like, hey, I don't think this is a right fit, like, how to get honest with myself. And, and it only happened once, just recently, and I made me wonder about that. It's like, what I. So what do you, what, what do you say to people that, like, feel like, feel like I think I could help? I don't know. Like, I'm not sure. You know, I'm. I'm trained to help people through whatever Their issues are it's, you know, this person's not coming with, like a mental health diagnosis. I'm not stepping out of my scope of practice. I'm not sure if, you know, but let's see. So how do you, like, for a lot of coaches, and I know maybe your answer is going to be like, niche, niche, niche. But for a lot of coaches that maybe feel this way, like, how do we get to the truth of it if we think we don't, we think we can help them, but we don't know. Like, I think you're catching what I'm saying.
Tad: Do. Yeah. So,
Tad: right. If you don't know who you really want to work with, anyone could seem like a fit. The first thing I'd say is if it's working, it's working. You know, if you're. If you're having clients and they're thrilled and they're happy and you're happy, there's no problem. That's first of all, like, you know, people can lead a very complete life without ever hearing anything I say about niching and everything be fine. So if it's good, it's good. That's the first thing. Now, the. The place I would be curious about for somebody in such a situation is, okay, you've been doing stuff for a while and it's working out okay. People are paying, people are happy, you're happy, you're getting paid, life's wonderful. But now you've had a chance to work with a number of people if you're honest with yourself, or do you enjoy them all as much? Number one, like, do they all light you up in the same way? And number two, are they all making the same kind of progress, or does some of them make really great progress and some just seem stuck forever? Now, if the answer is that I love them all equally and they're all crushing it and making progress, then again, you don't need me. You figure this out somehow on your own. And I would just genuinely, truly, don't listen to me. Keep doing what you're doing. Don't overthink it. Screw it up, maybe keep going. But if you say no, you know, when I think about it, there's some people that are kind of a drainage. There's some people that I just, when I show up to the calls, like, ah, okay, but I'm not that excited. And some of them just seem to be in the same place they were five years ago or two years ago when we started working, and there's not a lot of progress. Then I would say okay, then you know, do what you want. But consider that there is an opportunity cost happening here that I mean, this may seem so obvious but if I said look for the next year I can fill your practice with people who are terrible, they're just not a fit at all, draining you, it's going to be terrible. To the second coach I say I can fill you, I'm going to fill your practice with mediocre clients. None of them are going to be great, none of them are going to be terrible. Always middle of the road and third person, I say I'm going to fill it with just people who number one they light you up and number two they're crushing it. They make amazing progress. So when I say it like that it's very obvious. All of us want to be number three just for the enjoyment of our life. But I say wait, wait, wait, you're getting paid the same amount, so is the only metric your enjoyment? They say well yeah, because the money's the same so I'd rather just enjoy my life. And I said but you're missing the major piece of this which is that is the reputation and the word of mouth. Because if you're working with for a year with a bunch of people who aren't a fit, who are terrible as a fit, they will complain about you. I mean do you think they're going to have the self awareness to say, you know, it just really isn't a fit and we got put together in this year long contract and I'm just, but I'm seeing my side of the bargain. No, they're going to go tell everyone they know that you're not a great coach anyway. So it hurts your reputation and the word of mouth becomes a downward spiral and things get harder and harder. And if we go to the positive side of it, they're getting progress, they're doing great in their work, in their lives and they're going to tell everyone about it. So now you get this positive word of mouth. So it's if, if you're finding yourself, you're in the middle of the road coach where everyone's pretty good, that's fine. But it's there is an opportunity cost 1 of your quality of life but 2 of the word of mouth and reputation which is long actually where most of your business will come from long term. The dominant force in marketing is word of mouth is reputation. That's how you know especially locally got especially if you're doing a local business. That's how it almost is. All done. But even online. So you're either being helped by your reputation or being hurt by it. And all things being equal, why not be helped by it? Why not build this great reputation and have people rave about your work and also have the satisfaction of you really actually helped people? Because there's also that opportunity cost for their lives. Okay, so these people are working with you and it's okay. They don't want. Okay, they want something fantastic for their lives. So are you taking their money when somebody else could help them better just because, what, it's convenient for you because you need the money? Well, that's great for you, but what about them? They really need some specialized help for this issue. So if there's somebody else who could help them better, who are you to hold them back from that? It's the same thing. If you're in a romantic relationship, and I think most of us can relate, you're with somebody and you love them, but you're not in love with them. And it's getting to that point in the relationship where you realize, I don't think this is headed towards marriage or kids, and they want that. And if I stay with them because it works out for me and it's comfortable and I love them, then that works out for me short term, but it's going to cost them long term, which will ultimately then cost me something to. So to me, it's the height of love. It's the way you express your love is you end the thing and you say, you deserve this and I can't give it to you. And so with a client, if they're not making progress and you're not being lit up, there's a certain point where you sit down with the client, you say, look, I don't think I'm the coach for you and I want to help you find somebody, or I'm going to point you in the direction of some people who I think might actually really be able to help you. Here's the irony. If you do that move, they respect you so much, and the word of mouth gets very positive. I guess I was working with this coach, but he was so honest. And then it gives you a chance to clarify, wait, this person, it's not really on fire, is it? What is. What's the mismatch here? And then when you. You can tell them to say, look, you're looking more for this. But what I offer is this. I'm offering something different. I'm coming from a different standpoint. So I think you need. But in the sending them away, you've clarified to what you do and to yourself. So why be miserable? I don't know, why make anyone else miserable? Why not work with the clients where at the end of the day you feel so satisfied? Oh my God, I actually helped these people. And we, I think we can get stuck in a kind of comfort and mediocrity about this. And we never touch the. Who do you want to help and what do you actually want to do? Are you actually doing the thing you want to do? It's an exercise I've given a lot in my one on one. I do puttering sessions where I putter around my house and tidy while I'm coaching people. And this is, I just did this exercise today and the exercises and I encourage people to give this a shot. Five minutes of your life. You'll be glad you did it, you blank piece of paper. And the question is this. A group of people come to you and they're as close to your ideal clients as you can imagine. Whatever problems you help with, even if it's sort of general, that's what they got. And they say, you're the person, Lou. You're the one we've been looking around at. Something about you you don't need to pitch us, it's you. Now we're on this journey that you help people on and we, we kind of figure we'd like to get a year program and we really want to get from A to B during that year. So there's got to work. But we also, we just figure if you design something that you are lit up by that that's going to work for us. So that's our kind of thing. We don't worry about the money. We got the money. Charge what you want, make it extraordinary, make it something you'd love and, and we'd love and we'd make progress on. And I give people five minutes to design. Like what do you actually want to do? I mean, forget all the marketing rules, forget all the bring in every weird thing that you've ever thought about but been too nervous to bring in. Design the thing you actually want to do. And when people do that, they suddenly get so excited. I mean, five minutes and they're having all these ideas they've never had. And then we say, okay, now let's reverse engineer. Who would be interested in this? Because those are your people by definition. Your people are the people who would see your ideal offer and say, I'm in.
Lou: Yeah, it's really interesting. You. I actually did. I Feel like I did that exercise literally just before today, too. I think I've been crystallizing a lot of what I am. A new offer that I've been cultivating and creating specifically aligned with people and audiences for this podcast. So meditation teachers and specifically meditation teachers that are just starting out. And as I started writing about it, I could see it. I could see the vision of it. And I just, I've never haven't been this excited. Like, it was a notable, like, whoa. I'm really excited about this in a way that I haven't been excited about writing copy. And I looked at some of my other copy and I'm just like, this is just broad and not really. Yeah. Not really speaking to anyone. So, yeah, I encourage people to do that. It feels resonant with just what I was doing this morning of following this thread. And, yeah, really excited. Really excited about that. And that's been helpful for listening to your work. Has been helpful in me thinking about this a little bit deeper.
Tad: It makes me. I can't remember whose quote it is, but he said, don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask what brings you alive, because the world needs more people who are alive.
Lou: Yes. Howard Thurman.
Tad: There we go. Yeah. And it's, it's, you know, this is rooted in the understanding that. And this is very core to my. The spiritual understanding that underwrites my work is that dear friend of mine, Lewis Cardinal, who's a Cree fellow from Alberta, he said that his elders had told him that when we're born, you know, we have come in with our fists like this, and that the reason babies have their fists like this is because they're bringing something for us. They have gifts for us. And so a major function of culture is about identifying and cultivating those gifts. They understand that wealth that came with that gift. We must need it. We don't know we need it even yet, but we must. It's coming down the road. There must be a need, and we're going to need that person to have that gift at that time so that we all have these gifts to give. And if we don't give them, the world is a little bit poorer. I mean, it's no sin. The world goes on. It seems to adapt, but there's. There's a hole where that gift should have been. And so it's important that we do that. We're. And I think that that's when we're most alive, is when we're giving the gifts that we're here to. To bring but there's the other side of it, which is the potential clients who you're talking to, the people who express interest in your work, they came with their fists balled up, too. They have something they're supposed to be doing, and anything we do that seduces them away from that is a grand transgression that they have something that they're supposed to offer the world. And it's very easy to just say, oh, but I'm going to focus on getting the sale and getting their money. But wait a minute. What if you charge a bunch of money and it doesn't help them at all and it just puts them in debt and now they have to spend all their time making the money, you know, to pay off this thing that was no good for them anyways, and. And they're less able to give their gifts to the world as a result of that. What if you get them into this program? That's not. It's a big waste of their time because it doesn't actually help them show up in the way they need to be showing up in the world. It's a sort of theft from the commons.
Lou: I'd love to ask one more question on ethics, maybe both broad and specific, I think broadly speaking, because I think something I resonated with you is, you know, you see a lot of these conscious sales programs out there. You know, I saw one recently called Sold Right S O U L E D. And, you know, sure, like what they're promoting is, you know, what do you do with objections, all the things that you probably hear about in sales programs. So I'm just curious, like in the. Maybe spiritual coaching, wellness space, anything else that you see that feels like common but. But is maybe more unethical. And I know you're not like the arbiter of right and wrong, and I'm not trying to make you that here, but I think it's valuable for people that just don't know any better. And I think that's a lot of us in some ways, even the people that are doing it. I'm sure there's like an innocence that can go astray pretty quickly. So that's a broad question. And then there's just one specific question. I'm just genuinely curious about your opinion on, you know, on the Discovery call. And I think it's probably a. There's probably a. There's probably multiple answers to this, showing your price beforehand. Right. You get on a call, they either know your price or sometimes they don't know your price. And I feel Like I've gotten back and forth, is this, is it not ethical to like, you know, you go to anywhere, there's a price on the website, there's a price on the car, even if they're trying to have you in a sales program versus oh, this feels like a fit. And now we have to tell the price and oh, that's too much for me. So Those are like 18 questions at once. But that was the specific and broad. Take it, take it wherever you feel called to.
Tad: Yeah, you know, so I've come across from time to time people who the marketing copy says heart centered, heart based, conscious spiritual marketing. But then when you look under the hood of the car, it's a, it's not, it's an old engine. You know, it's the same car. It's just got a different exterior to it somehow. They put a different shell on the old thing. And yeah, you know, you can't just put lipstick on a pig and say this, this, it's still what it is. And so whenever, you know, even hearing this, overcoming objections, there's that there's a whole world view in that, that that's what it is, that they're saying is an objection, that that's a fair rendering of it, which it might not be, and that the thing we need to do is to overcome it, which. And so there's a whole worldview. So in my experience, it's more heartbreaking. I think this is the challenge. People maybe have gone through some of the mainstream sales training, didn't like it. Ah, finally a conscious thing. I'll do that. And the gas lighting is so much more intense there because then when they don't do it, it's. Well, this is. You just don't believe in yourself. You don't believe in the value of what you're offering. You obviously have some limiting beliefs here. You have some, some wounds you need to get over to about being seen or being. And a lot of money in therapy can be saved if we just understand that it may not be a limiting belief that you have, it might be a conscience. That part of you that's resisting doing those things may not be the, the worst part of you, it might be the best part of you. So I, I don't know what to say other than I've seen it. And it's depressing when I see it, when I see the old tactics dressed up in a white and indigo shawl speaking the same things but just with a different kind of dialect, making it, enshrouding it and, and you know, enshrouding is like hiding something's being concealed. You can't see it, that it's, it's the old thing. And then you really do. You do feel like God, I must not be enlightened. I must not be very spiritual, that I can't do this spiritual approach. But a lot of it at the end of the day is just rationalizations for selfishness. How do I rationalize doing these terrible things? Novocaine for the soul. So, so there's that. And then in terms of the pricing thing, I don't know. People got to figure this out. Yeah, I'm, I don't know if that's a really a. An ethical thing, but I would just. This is how I relate to it. I want to know the price. I don't want to get into a call and then be shocked, have sticker shock on the price. And I don't want to have somebody on a call who's going to hear the price and say, oh, that's way too much. Why would I want to get on a call with somebody who can't afford it? It just seems like a waste of their time, a waste of my time. Why would I spend an hour delving into this thing of something that's never going to happen anyways? I suppose the, the sense is, well, but once they really. You stick in the knife, you twist it around, you punch the bruise a bit and you build up this vision. Maybe they suddenly could afford it. Well, that could be. But it, that's a lot to roll the dice on. And I, I just think there's other ways to, to get to the, the same end of a full roster of ideal clients than withholding the price. It just seems like a very indirect way to go about it. I have colleagues who, who withhold it. I just disagree. I, I don't think that's the most respectful approach. It's not, it's not what I would want as a client. I don't like the stress of it. I don't like the thought of going on a call and having just no ballpark for what it's going to be. The only time I could see this making sense is if your services are so kind of a la carte that you've, you can't really give an exact quote because you're, you're gonna, it's going to be bespoke. But even then you can give a range. You can say, look, the minimum this will be. Is this the highest? It probably be. Is this. That's the Range. So if you're not okay with that range, don't book the call is the way I would do it. To me, the price is one of the filters.
Tad: I just don't want to waste anyone's time. And if I'm putting my price out and nobody's buying, there's a few things that are possible. One, the price is just too high. But it really, it comes down to there's. There's a number of things. Let's take them in order. First, you're not getting the attention of enough of the right people. It might just be a numbers thing. You know, only three people have seen your sales page. Mysteries temporarily solved. Right. But okay, you could say, no, no, no. Lots of people are seeing it, but no, nobody's buying. So the second thing is, have you actually established relevance? Is what you're offering really lasered in, deeply niched, an inch wide, a mile deep, very honed for a real problem that people have that this is actually going to help them with that that is urgent for them. That's where 99 of it falls apart. They don't. But if you say, no, no, no, this really is an issue. We did research and there's lots of them out there, and, and we know we've worded it right. This is their wording. Great, they're still not buying. So then it could be the third thing, which is credibility. So the relevance is there, but they just don't trust you and your approach to get the job done. They just don't believe you that it doesn't make sense. It's like, yeah, I want that, but this sounds like hype. I don't trust it. You might say, no, no, no. We got the niche and our point of view and everything's very clear, very credible. They're still not buying. So then it might be the fourth thing, which is the value. So that means that the, the return on investment is there, and that's where the money comes in. So it might be like, yeah, the price is too high for what they're perceiving they get. Or you're not doing a good enough job of conveying the value in it. Something in that level is the problem. But now it's even possible that you get all of that right. The price is the right price and they're still not buying. Because sometimes in some situations, the risk is so high that even though it's a yes and that's a great price, it's too risky. What will my spouse say? What would my community say? My Christian Community. If they knew I was going to this meditation retreat or becoming a meditation teacher, oh my God, you know, so there's that. And they. Everything might, you might tick all the boxes and they stop because of that. So then it could be that. But the goal is we're trying to, we're trying to get a full roster of ideal clients. So I just think showing the price, if, if you think that withholding the price is going to help you, I just think you're missing the rest of those things. It's one piece in a much larger construction and it's. You're putting probably too much attention on that. If you can't put a price on a sales letter and have people still be interested in the sales letter needs work. I say you haven't got the niche styled, you haven't conveyed your point of view or that the sales funnel, the kind of ecosystem of your business hasn't delivered people to that sales letter out of place when they're ready to, you know, they're already maybe convinced by your point of view.
Lou: Brilliant. Super, super helpful to receive that. And yeah, it's aligned with what I've been thinking about. And like I said, I've kind of gone back and forth on this specific topic. And so it's really valuable to hear and I love, would encourage everyone to listen to those, you know, those key markers of did I get this right? Did I get this right? Did I get this right? I think that's super valuable. So you're going to scoff at this next piece, I bet. But I have a podcast episode on this podcast called why you don't need a niche, why you don't need to niche down to succeed. And what I realized after getting into your work, what I was saying in that podcast episode was, I mean, somewhat because of my experience and never, not really up until now, really needing to niche. Like, I've succeeded, you know, air quotes succeeded. Like I make a living and, you know, I'm doing okay. And I hadn't really need to necessarily niche in the way that I see people, like talking about niching like, you do this thing for this thing, for this thing, da, da, da. And so I did a podcast episode on that. And then once learning your work, it clicked me. I was like, oh, that podcast episode is all talking about point of view. Like, that's what I was talking about. Like, all I was saying was, you know, you don't need a niche down to succeed. People are going to be attracted to you because of you, because of how you show up. And I realized, like, I'm really just talking about point of view. So I'd love for us to get into niching. I'm not. I'm not asking you to. I will. I would do that podcast differently. I wouldn't do that again now. But I love you. I love hearing the etymology of niche. I think that was just really sweet to start thinking about it. So maybe starting there. And for anyone that resists the idea, you probably get this all the time. For the people that resist the idea of niching, what are they missing? And what's a mistake you see them making when they try to define their niche?
Tad: Okay, so the etymology of niching comes from the French verb niche, which means to make a nest. So it's what we're doing when we're niching is we're just trying to figure out where we fit. Where are we going to make our home in the marketplace? My definition of niche for business anyways is what's the role in the marketplace that you want to be known for? So it's more of a function that we're playing. And I understand that that often it's the I help this kind of person with this kind of problem get this kind of result. That's the usual formulation, but that's for. And that's legit. I mean, I teach that and that's. That's old reliable, but it's only a part of niching. You can imagine a Venn diagram of six overlapping circles. You know, who, what, where, when, why, and how. All of those are part of your niche. The who is one of the six. Now, for a service provider, it's probably the big one, but. But, you know, it's people's like, I don't need to niche. I do this business of meditation. That's a niche. Like, that's a whole, you know, meditation itself. That's a thing. That's the what. There's. That's part of your niche. But it's. Sometimes what you do is so unique and nobody else does it. And so, boom, you know, you got your niche because you're doing this thing. And if what you're offering is something where there's a high demand and a low supply, I mean, you just roll with that for as long as you can, because it won't last. Why? Because other people are going to start doing that same thing too. You won't be the. The only one forever. So it could be where you do it. Some people do it locally, you know, some people do it in a certain Language and other people don't offer it in that language. Could be when sometimes businesses have unique hours or seasons that they're open. You know, you, we all know the thing. It's 2am at the festival and now the drugs are wearing off and you're cold and you're hungry and that shawarma place is open and it's the greatest thing you've ever seen in your life. It's the only thing that's, that's why you get it, it's open. And then, you know, there's the where, when, why you do it. Simon Sinek talks a lot about that. You know, your bigger why. Sometimes people are drawn to our businesses because of the stand we take, the, the larger causes. We speak out for the deeper values. And then how, and which is the point of view? Like, how do you do it? How do you go about your work? What's your style, your aesthetic, your world view, your philosophy? And then of course, there's, there's, there's you, who are you? And sometimes people just drawn to something about your vibe, something about your nature. They like your voice, they like your. Who knows, you remind them of their brother and they're suddenly in. So there's all of that, that plays a role in the niche. And I, the mistake, I, I see a lot of, well, besides trying to be everything to everybody, that's the big mistake. It's a kind of unspoken. Nobody would just say it like that. But that's what's actually happening is I just want to be everything to everybody because I don't want to turn anyone away, because I wouldn't want to hurt feelings, because I wouldn't want to limit myself. But that, this is the irony is that's the limit. Your unwillingness to contend with the very real limits of life is what's limiting you. It's, you know, you're trying to be everything to everybody with the assumption baked in that that'll work out, that you can, that you could get everybody if you wanted to. If you're just a nice enough guy, everybody's gonna like you. No, they're going to be people who can't stand you because you're so nice. Checkmate. I mean, there's no way out of this. There's no way to get everybody. But if you start from that premise, you know, so it's just the question is, is the niche that you've got set up consciously or unconsciously? Is it working for you? Are you getting as many of the, the kinds of clients you want and if you are, I mean, I'm happy, that's great, good for you. But if you're not, then it's worth looking at. Well, okay, do I really want to be everything to everybody? Because when I started maybe I was the only one in town doing this, but now a lot of other people are doing it. I mean there's more meditation people every year. There's more ancestral healing people every year. There's more yoga teachers and life coaches and DJs and stand up comedian. You know, it's just, it's expanding. There will always be more because people eventually get wise that the real way you make money is teach other people to do it, run a teacher training and you know, which, which isn't to knock that, but it just means there's now will be more. So now the ecosystem is becoming more crowded and that's not a problem. It's only a problem if you refuse to adapt and you say no, I'm just going to keep doing what I do and be everything to everybody. The opportunity actually is now there's more people, great, let's get together and talk about where we want to specialize. You know, now let's, let's hone our, let's put our niche, our nest in a particular, more particular place instead of nests everywhere or trying to build a huge nest. Okay, Like Martin Prel, he had a beautiful line where he just said that point of humans is not to be big, but is to, to come to know our, our specific smallness in, in the grandeur of the big thing, which is so immense. We're not the big thing, life is the big thing. So our niche is a very small thing. And the more competition there seems to be is actually the more diverse the ecosystem is becoming potentially. And there's more opportunity for specialization, which means the ecosystem is more resilient, which is what we want. Not everybody fighting over the same pie of students because there is a pie and it is limited. It's all the people that are already into this. But you might say, God, there's a lot of meditation teachers out there. And you could say, well you know, I really struggle with depression, so maybe I'm going to do yoga for depression. I really struggle with addiction. So I'm going to do meditation for those kind of people. Or I'm got all these white meditation teachers, I'm a person of color and I want to do it for my community. And or it's all these meditation teachers and they're also woo woo. And I'm more science Based and evidence based. And I'm going to do. There's a lot of different communities. And one of my two questions I would encourage people to ask themselves. One is, you know, our deepest wounds are often a doorway to our truest niche. So to really consider what is it that you've struggled with and overcome in your life, and to hold the possibility that that might be a direction to go. And number two is to ask yourself, who's the community you'd want to adopt you? If you. If you could be adopted by any community, what community would that be? And consider specializing in that, because there might be no meditation teachers in that community. You might be the first one to kind of bring it to them in a way that they can get. I mean, I've heard about yoga for the Christian community. It's just incredible. And they do a whole baptism in the yoga classes. You know, the. The bread and the blood and the whole thing. You drink some wine, so why not? You know, it's just. And the third thing is to consider what are all the. You know, if I were going to be working with. With your students, the. This is an exercise I'd recommend giving them. You make a. Have them make a list of all the different scenes they're a part of in their life. I just did this with the Scottish Storytelling center and a bunch of storytellers because they're all a part of the storytelling scene. That's the thing they all share. And there's a certain crowd, let's say, for the Scottish storytelling scene. And it's not infinitely large, it's a few thousand people. And they go. There are the hardcores, and they go to the different things. And if that's who you're fighting about and trying to get a slice of that pie, it's just. Everybody loses this game. But I said, what are the other scenes you're a part of? Somebody had the queer community, some of them, the reskilling and nature connection communities. Some of them was into astronomy and astrology. So, for example, this woman, Janet D. She wrote a book called Folk Tales of the Cosmos. So these are all about stars and stuff. So she took her interest in, you know, astronomy and her interest in storytelling and wove them together. So. And sometimes those. Those combinations are so confounding, they're sort of oxymoronic. They don't seem to go together. Marketing for hippies, it just. But that's interesting. Like, oh, you're combining things that don't normally go together. So if you're a part of A scene that is like kind of almost like the anti meditation scene. That's not the enemy of your meditation work, man. That's the coolest opportunity to come up with a niche that's actually fascinating. Like meditation for the BDSM scene, meditation for the like, I don't know, street fighting scene, whatever. You know, you can, you can find something very fascinating that you're, that would reach people. Other people aren't reaching. And so instead of fighting over the pie and taking pie from others, you're making more pie for, for everybody.
Lou: So beautiful. I hope people take some of these exercises. I think they're really simple ones to, to implement and, and maybe when I know Tad's going to be joining us in Meraki Mastermind and so maybe we can explore some of that in that group as well. Tad, I want to be respectful of time and we're coming up to a few minutes. You have an incredible bounty of work and I mean you could charge 10 times more than it looks like what you're charging probably pretty easily. And it just, you talk about having a no brainer, just offer like wow, this guy's like, it's 100 bucks a month for his membership. He has all this information and all this stuff and he's like always giving like it's, it's insane. It's, it's absolutely insane. Like you know, I tell, I'm starting to tell people, hey, don't pay my, my stuff. Just Tad's doing like just go to Tad. Like he's, he's. It's insane. I don't know if I have a question in that, but I just want to speak to that because it's really amazing how you've been able to structure it because all the marketing people in this world are like you know, 25k to join their year long mastermind and you're just the complete opposite of that in some ways. So it's just really, it's, it's array of how to do things differently. It's a really good example for people to just check out. And this is not to say that I'm all for having a premium offer and doing that, you know, and doing that work and sometimes that's what's needed. And that's actually what I'm thinking about too with as I'm starting to niche more is something separate like that. But just, yeah, just wanting to honor that and maybe closing like if someone feeling like marketing is a burden in their life, like any last words on how they can make it a bit More beautiful again or, or think about making. Bringing a little bit more beauty into their work.
Tad: Yeah, well, I love, I love that you name it as a burden. It is a burden. I mean, it's work. It's. It's. All of us just want to work with clients. None of us actually want to be doing the marketing. I mean, we all want to be just out there helping people, but there's some work involved. I mean, yeah, all of us just want to eat the food. We don't want to grow the food. Secretly. It's like, oh, God, just can you feed me? That's perfect. So. But the work has to be done. And it's a, It's a beautiful way. You've. You've questioned, framed it because you didn't make them opposites of each other. That it's a burden and that it can be beautiful are not mutually exclusive. I think this is so much of the. The teachings of traditional cultures is that they're not separate things. That beauty can and must be brought into the work and the work be done in a beautiful way that, I mean, Martin Pro says it so well. He says being beautiful on the way to the answer is the answer. So how do we bring more beauty to the. To the work of marketing?
Tad: Gosh. I'm trying to think if there's a way to sum that up. I think it's by understanding you can't separate it from the effectiveness and the ethics, that there's a kind of braiding that has to happen. And if we take. Try to take the beauty out on its own, it doesn't work. Because if it's not ethical, it's going to be hard for it to be beautiful. If it doesn't work, it's not so beautiful. But to, to have as the central intent that we do something that is beautiful, that people would be inspired by what we do. Not just the work, but the marketing itself. That they would look at the marketing and they would say, wow, that moved me, that touched me, that inspired me. That's possible. And maybe the last that I'd leave is this. It's very easy in marketing to kind of drive by or the car of marketing by looking at all the things we don't want to hit. So people say, well, I just don't want marketing to be gross. I don't want it to be pushy at all. That's not a good way to drive a car, is by staring at everything you don't want to hit. That's a way to hit the things you didn't want to hit in the first place. It's much better to just look at where you want to go. So if beauty is a word that resonates with you, great. But it's useful to pick like what are the three words that I would want people to say about my marketing and then just every piece of marketing you do is it this is it this is it this could it be more this? Focus on what you want in your marketing, not on what you fear in your marketing and you'll, you'll be further ahead anyways.
Lou: Mic drop. Thank you Tad. We have we're sharing TAD a free workshop with TAD and I think it's 7 Fundamentals of Ethical Marketing April 3rd, 12pm PST we'll have a description link below to sign up and yeah, we'd love to have you there and we'll send a replay out too if you can't make it live. All right, thanks friends.
Tad: Thank you so much.