It's Just Business

86. Exploring Ethical Marketing with Tori Martin

July 06, 2022 Dana Dowdell and Russ Harlow Episode 86
It's Just Business
86. Exploring Ethical Marketing with Tori Martin
Show Notes Transcript

What is ethical marketing? What's an example of ethical marketing? What is the impact of ethical marketing practices? We explore these questions with Tori Martin the founder and CEO of Good Marketing Co. Tori created an agency that focuses on the relationships with people and always remembering there is a human on the other side of the transaction. She doesn’t use shame or blame tactics to get customers. As the founder of Empact™️ she teaches companies how to market ethically.

Where you can connect with Tori Martin
Website: https://www.goodmarketingco.agency/ 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goodmarketingco.agency/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victorianmartin/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/goodmarketingco.agency
Pintrest: https://www.pinterest.com/goodmarketingcanchangetheworld/

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You can find Dana @adashofboss, @dana.dowdell and @hrfanatic
Dana DowdellBoss Consulting – HR Consulting
Google -  https://tinyurl.com/y4wxnavx

You can find Russ @reliable.remediation
Russ HarlowReliable Remediation – Disaster Restoration
Google: https://g.page/r/CXogeisZHEjMEBA

Dana Dowdell  00:06

I'm Dana,

 

Russ Harlow  00:07

and this is Russ,

 

Dana Dowdell  00:08

and you're listening to it's just business.

 

Russ Harlow  00:11

We're a couple of small business owners who are trying to figure it out as we go. And as we grow our businesses, we want to help you grow yours. If we've learned anything, it's not personal. It's just business. 

 

Dana Dowdell  00:22

 Hi, Russ.

 

Russ Harlow  00:24

Good morning!

 

Dana Dowdell  00:27

You're coming in with a big energy.

 

Russ Harlow  00:29

Yeah. Well, it's, it's one of my favorite topics, to be honest, because there's so many different philosophies and so many things to learn from everybody we talked to. So I'm excited.

 

Dana Dowdell  00:39

Yeah, so we're talking to Tori Martin this morning. She is the creator of good marketing tow and the founder of impact. And she focuses on helping companies to market ethically, which we haven't talked about, and I'm really excited. So Tori, welcome to it's just business.

 

Tori Martin  00:59

Hi, thank you. I'm so excited to be here.

 

Dana Dowdell  01:02

So tell us a little bit about how you became an entrepreneur and how you kind of found this niche of ethical marketing.

 

Tori Martin  01:13

Yeah, so my journey is like most people's kind of up and down and all around. But it kind of happened, sort of twofold, I don't want to say was forced into entrepreneurship, because that's not exactly right. But I was kind of forced into entrepreneurship. And what I mean by that is, I spent years working as a project manager for one of the big four consulting firms in the country. And I loved it. I also wanted to have a family. And once I had my daughter, I wanted to expand my family. And let's just say they weren't super amicable to that. So when you know, I requested to not have to travel so much, it was kind of like, Oh, hey, this is the job description. I was like, Well, I can't breastfeed my baby, if, you know, I'm states away all the time. So anyway, I made the decision, I sort of made the decision to not work there anymore. And you know, that I kind of switched gears, I had a friend of mine, who was a marketing director for Estee Lauder, who is just amazing. And she was a great mentor to me and really took me under her wing and just kind of was like, you can do this, you know. And so I kind of learned marketing, like trial by fire, by working in agencies, and just learning all the ins and outs of that. But I realized very quickly that a lot of marketing agencies were just like corporate America, and that a lot of times, I wasn't doing things that align necessarily with my values, or how I wanted to do things. And I know that a lot of us who have left corporate America have used that soul sucking sort of label to talk about our work. And that's kind of how I felt after, you know, working for a couple of different agencies that I just, every time I was having to, you know, create campaigns that were absolutely targeting people's insecurities and shame based tactics, and it just made me feel so gross. Like, as a person. I'm like, This isn't how we should talk to people. This isn't how we should want to get sales, right? So fast forward to January of 2020, right before the world shut down. I decided, let's open a business because I was kind of over it. I'm just like, you know, what, I can create the agency that I want to work for or with. And so yeah, that's how my business started. And then, you know, like I said, month and a half, two months later, the world shut down. It was such good timing.

 

Dana Dowdell  03:53

We have talked to so many people who, so twofold, similar boat where they decided to have a family and it changed their perspective of looking at like the typical corporate structure or like the typical nine to five and so kudos to you for making that decision to exit. I think that's a huge and I think that's incredible. But we've also talked to a ton of people who started their business right before COVID.

 

Tori Martin  04:21

It's almost like somehow we collectively, I don't want to say no, but there was just like this, okay, we got to start setting things up, and then boom, the world shuts down.

 

Dana Dowdell  04:30

Well, it's so interesting. So you know, I'm an HR consultant. And so I saw so many people start their businesses once COVID started and they got laid off and they were basically just kind of like, fuck it. I'm going to do my own thing. So what was the impact for you and what did you experience starting your business when you did and, like, did you see growth that you weren't expecting?

 

Tori Martin  04:55

Yes and no. So I kind of my first started I I really wanted to focus on small business owners just because I kind of maybe it was partially because, you know, in hindsight, looking back, because I was a small business owner at the time, and I just had a kind of a soft spot for them, you know, I had just seen, you know, Black Friday wasn't that far away, and all of the huge corporations and you see, you know, Small Business Saturday with people, like actual people do happy dance, new buy from them, you know, I know you guys have probably seen that meme all over the place. But, you know, so I have a bit of a soft spot for small businesses. And I really wanted to focus on them. But as you said, a lot of people started a business during COVID, because they were laid off, but also means their marketing budget was next to nothing, which is in terrible no shame. It's just a matter of facts. And so I sort of had to pivot, I still, of course, love working with small business owners, but I kind of had to pivot and be like, who am I speaking to here? Because it was the people who were speaking to really resonated with my messaging. And if they didn't have the budget to be able to actually work with me, right. So I kind of had to say, Okay, who do I want to work with? And where can I make an impact? But also, how can I make sure to be able to pay my staff and be able to pay, you know, my bills, because I have to unfortunately, that's just the way it is, right? That's how business. I wish I could help every single small business, but unfortunately, I also have mouths to feed to right. So that's kind of how I got into the ethical side of things. Number one, I realized there wasn't anybody else doing. Ethics isn't sexy. Nobody wants to talk about ethics. Okay, let me just tell you that, which is why I'm so very glad that, you know, I feel very confident myself. But when I was realigning sort of my messaging and wanting to well make sure that my messaging was aligning with not only buyers, that would resonate, but also buyers that were ideal clients, and that they could afford things, right. It's great to talk to people, but it's not so great if everybody says, Hey, I can't afford your services, right? So I kind of went back to the metaphorical drawing board. And I said, Okay, how can I make an impact? Because impact matters to me, like, call me a millennial, okay, I care what my work does. All right. So I said, How can I make an impact? I said, well, the whole reason I started this business is because I didn't want it to be like other marketing agencies. I didn't want it to be the, you know, the blame and shame tactics, and just the gross scarcity mindset, that kind of plagues people and kind of forces us into this buying situation because of our fight or flight sense. So I said, what, you know, how can I, what can I do here? And I was like, well, it's really all about ethical marketing. That was kind of my internal monologue. And I was like, oh, wait a minute. Well, this is my business, is because I started wanting to make that impact. And I realized that I knew how to do that. But my, a lot of companies don't understand how to do that. A lot of companies just do what works, which don't fault anybody for that anybody in business is out to make money. And there's nothing wrong with that. And if it's, you know, there's that old adage, if it's not broke, don't fix it. But that's the thing is, I think it is broke, and we haven't tried to fix it, because nobody knows how, because at the end of the day, people are still making money. So they don't really care to fix it. I care a lot.

 

Russ Harlow  08:35

I find it interesting, because I mean, it's like that, like madmen, right? It's that whole idea. Like we're just exploiting human behavior, to sell what we got. So we can make the money. I mean, I see it in my industry, where we deal with mold remediation, and people are trying to scare people about health issues or Black Mold. And just like, from me, so I love talking about this, because I mostly just talk people off the ledge. I'm like, Hey, let's just take a look at it. You know, you probably Google educated yourself on this thing. And you're scaring yourself now to and now. So I love this idea of finding a way to answer that issue that the client is facing without scaring them or exploiting them. So I really want to dive more into kind of your philosophy on that and how that kind of plays into your marketing message that you shape for your clients.

 

Tori Martin  09:31

So first thing I should probably preface is that I do work a lot with service based businesses and not so much product based businesses. I will say that although there's absolutely need for this and product based businesses, so if you're listening and you are your product based business, don't feel like this can't apply to you because it can and if you need help, you can always email me, but really, I think it comes down to who empowerment and who do you want to work with? And what I mean by this is, I think a lot of fitness coaches, you know, anybody in the coaching industry, anybody, anybody really trying to sell anything that sort of, for betterment of your lifestyle type services, right? If you were working with someone, think of these two different people. First Person is someone who is incredibly scared or incredibly, like, I'm just in so much pain, I just feel like I have to do this, right, because I, you know, I'm tired of being bullied or I'm tired of, you know, feeling overweight. I'm thinking more right now, like health coaches, right now, I'm not picking on health coaches, they're just an easy one to use as an example. But you know, I'm tired. I feel like this, but it's not truly because hey, I want to make a lifestyle change. It's, I'm in pain, right? And we say that pain is a motivator, and pain is a motivator. But is this sustainable? is pain, a sustainable motivator? And that's what I think people have to kind of ask themselves, because if you come to somebody who's like, been bullied into sort of, through these tactics, it's like shaming tactics that has been basically bullied into saying, Okay, fine, yes, I'll work with you are they going to get the results that you as the person selling them will get, versus somebody who comes to you and says, Hey, I've seen your really motivating, uplifting, you know, content that really has educated me, and it has empowered me to make this decision, that person is going to be way more motivated to actually in that is, that's a much more sustainable client to work with, then somebody who feels like they have to do this, somebody who wants to do something. And so I think it comes down to the, like, the core philosophy of selling to desire and not pain. Because if I feel like I have to do something, I'm probably not going to actually do it. If I feel like I want if I desire to actually make a change, because intrinsically, in me, something feels that desire to make a change, I will stick with that. I'm not going to stick with something when I feel bad about actually having to do it. 

 

Dana Dowdell  12:21

You know, I feel like this idea of ethical marketing is like the solution for authentically running your business. You know, like, when you start a business, and we we talk about this all the time, how there's just so much noise, like, Oh, you have to do two Instagram rails a day and don't, you know, like, there's just, you know, there's there's just so much noise, and then you, you're a consumer of other competing businesses messaging, and then you think that you have to do it the same way. And it sounds like this is this is a way to market your business while staying so true to who you are as a business owner.

 

Tori Martin  13:03

Yeah. And thank you for saying that, because that brings up a really great point, I have a framework that basically teaches people or businesses how to do this. And it's a four pillar, so there's multiple steps, but it's like four pillars, right? And those things are really just buckets that you can mold into any business, any type of person, there is no, you have to have this you have there are no rules we don't create, okay, you have to create this many things, you have to, because to your again, to your point, there is so much noise and there's so many people out there wanting to or found something that worked for them, and then goes, Okay, well, this is now the rule, this is what you have to do. And that's not true. You don't have to do those things. And if something, again, doesn't feel good to you, you're not gonna do it, right. I have clients that come to me and we talk about strategy, because a lot of times, especially when you're a small business, or you kind of feel like you're throwing spaghetti at the wall, you don't really know what's going to stick. And so you, you know, saw XYZ, person on Instagram, that was an influencer rose, you know, 10 million followers, and you're like, Oh, what a post this, like, you can almost kind of try to reverse engineer success, which is there's nothing wrong with that. But they also might not realize that that person got their following in 2020, or 2025 2015. And Instagram is not the same as it was in 2015 as it is today. But so anyway, but my point is in sharing that sorry, I kind of went off on a little tangent is good. I will sit down with folks now say hey, so where do you like to spend your time? I'll be like, Oh, I hate Instagram. But I feel like I have to be there. I'm like, Oh, interesting. You hate Instagram and you haven't posted in 12 days, huh? It's almost like you shouldn't send your time because it's not productive. If you don't feel good hanging out there, so why are why is that your main marketing platform? And so I think that there's just a lot of times people feel like they have to do these things. And when we, again, when we feel like we have to do these things we're not going to.

 

Russ Harlow  15:15

So isn't it more effective just trying to figure out where our clients or our potential clients hang out? And maybe that person's potential clients aren't hanging out on Instagram, so it's okay that they're not there.

 

Tori Martin  15:28

So traditional marketing will tell you, yes, you have to find where it go where the people are. There's what now 7 billion people on the planet, you're gonna go anywhere you go, there's gonna be people, okay, like, let's just be clear, there's, there's no platform that you're gonna go to be like, oh, there's only seven people and none of them want my services. That's just not gonna happen. So I always instruct my or not even instruct, just share this philosophy with my clients that whoever is running or if you're a small business, it falls on you. You have to be the one that does the marketing, right? You have to want to do it. So cool. Are you feel good? If you enjoy, tick tock, go to tick tock, go hang out there. There's how many millions of users on tick tock now, go there, you're gonna find your people. You love Instagram still and refuse to do reels and just want to post the little squares? Okay, they're going to tell you that that's not going to work. Because Instagram is prioritizing reels, I guess what it doesn't. It doesn't matter to people. It's about how you show up as the business owner, yes, you do need to find your market. But like I said, your market is on every platform, no matter where you go, you're gonna find somebody who wants health coaching. No matter where you go, you're gonna find somebody who has a house that has mold in it. So it's about how you show up as the business owner. Because if you're not a willing to show up there, because you don't want to spend your time there, then it doesn't matter, your people aren't gonna find you there anyway. But if you are to that was for the small business owner, right. But if you have a team now, so let's say you have a team, you're like, hey, I, I really still love Instagram, I growing my business there, I have a following of you know, 5000. And I still get really great sales there. And I don't really care about tick tock even though that's all the rage right now. That's okay, so I'm tick or stay on Instagram, do your thing, your people are still gonna be there. But if you have a team in place, it gets to be even easier for you, because they knew systemize those things, and you're still showing up in a way that is authentic to you. It's just you have a team implementing it. And so then it's not as big of a issue. But I think that's the thing is that so many people get bogged down with this, I have to I have to I have to, and they don't actually want to. So do what you want. That's more authentic authenticity is what's going to, to danas point like, that is what's going to sell when you start trying to look like every other coach or service provider of whatever industry you're in, you lose you. And you don't have I say this with all respect to people who like, are trying to emulate success or reverse engineer other people's success, you lose the potency of what they have, because they're showing up authentically. And that's what works. So when you try to copy that, there's nothing wrong success leaves clues find those clues. Absolutely. But when you are unable to show up as yourself while doing it. You just seem like a watered down version of someone else. And I don't know about you guys, maybe it's the red hair but like, I want whoever I'm working with to be just on his fire as I am.

 

Dana Dowdell  19:00

I love that success leaves clues. And we I think we have to try to copy and paste someone else's success. And you're right, it's, it's, you know, you can take components of it, but you don't need to copy and paste the full version of that other person or that other business.

 

Tori Martin  19:18

 Oh, in totally, like very few things in the world are original least most most things are in some way a form of another thing, right? And, and that's okay. And the cool part is is we get to take those things and then make them our own. That's the cool thing. So run with that. You see, you know, Susie online doing XY and Z but you want to do it this way. But you see that she does it a certain thing like this, okay, maybe you take that and apply it to how you would change it. Make it yours.

 

Dana Dowdell  19:53

What about someone who says they're an introvert or they like, you know if it's showing up authentic Definitely, but the authenticity gives them the sweats. You know, like, is there an alternative? For someone who feels that way about kind of being a public? figure in a way?

 

Tori Martin  20:15

You know? That's a really great question. Nobody has ever asked me anything about introverts or extroverts explicitly. So thanks, because now I have like something fun to chew on in my brain. And I'll probably be thinking about it tonight and wake up at 2am and be like, Oh, I should have said this. 

 

Dana Dowdell  20:27

But that's, that's probably because you market to people who are like, you know, I'm an I'm an extroverted introvert, or like, I love being alone. But I also am totally fine, like doing a training. So like, you probably market to people who are similar in that space, where like, they're not afraid to show up authentically as a version of themselves.

 

20:51

 So it's funny that you say that part because I actually did this little reel, it was really funny, I thought it was really funny. It was talking about this idea that this kind of is a good example of like, the shame and blame kind of thing is, like, I see a lot, I have a lot of coaches on my timelines and things and in my feeds and stuff like this, right? I will see people routinely say things like, Well, if you're not showing up, you must not want it. If you really cared about your business, you would just post you realize it's not a big deal. If you know things like go on, but you know what I mean, these types of comments that I think are said a lot of times in the spirit of tough love. But I don't need tough love from a stranger on the internet. I need tough love sometimes from my sister knows me understand, like my journey. Who else understands possibly my triggers not saying that we're responsible for other people's triggers? Because that's a lot. If that's the case, none of us would ever say anything, anything can be a trigger. But what I mean is that, when you're Can I go off on a little rabbit hole real fast? Sorry, guys. Okay. So if I may give a very personal example of this trigger warning for anybody who sexual violence or trauma or anything like that. I experienced younger, young in life, a sexual assault. And I didn't realize that at the time, but I, I just like, developed PTSD from I didn't realize until I was in college, and I was, you know, speaking with a therapist, I was like, Oh, I have PTSD. That's something wrong with me my whole life, my whole life, just few years, but it still. And it wasn't until I was like, fully an adult, I mean, past like three years from now that I realized that situation, coupled with the fact that that person then stalked me afterwards made it incredibly hard for me to want to show up online for a long time. Because I was constantly worried well, what if he's, quite literally, like, as silly as that sounds? From like, a logistical standpoint, like, it's been years, he's been blocked on all things, I don't even know where he is in life anymore. You know what I mean? Like, the chance that you know, me sharing something that you like that he would see, you know, or you sharing a post of mine, and he would see it, you know, it's just my logical brain knew that probably wasn't going to happen. My little lizard brain that keeps us safe inside that tells us all the things that like literally is programmed that when we wake up, we look for the things that are can hurt us, because that's survival. And that's how our brains work. Today told me, You're not safe here. You're not safe to do these things. So you can't do that. So it was incredibly hard for me to feel safe in showing up. Right? And so this is something that I actually do take, I promise, I'm gonna bring this back around your question. This is something that I actually think about a lot with my clients is because a lot of times people come to me because they're overwhelmed. They're not sure how to market they don't want to do like sleazy sort of bro marketing. They also don't want to show up for themselves, like they don't want to be visible. So they just say, hey, if I hand it over to you, at least it gets done because I don't have that problem for them. I don't have that block there for them. So their business keeps posting their business keeps showing up. All the while. I get to and I'm not saying in any way that this is like therapy or anything because I'm not a therapist. But it's so much easier for me to then just send message and say, Hey, can I just have like a little 10 second clip of you just pointing at things? I know that sounds silly. And I know, it's like, everybody does it, but it's just a little thing that they can do. They're there. And then they're doing other things. And then next thing, you know, like, not next thing, you know, three, six months later, they're actually on there talking, like, they're like, Hey, look at this stuff, like, you know, instead of just, it helps kind of provide, not that I need to be a cushion for people. But it just sort of, I recognize that people. Alright, the reason why people are showing up isn't always because they don't want to or isn't always because they don't care about their business, like, a lot of in fact, those things don't even help us take action, because now we just feel shitty about sorry, to my customers, I'm so sorry. It just makes us feel so shitty about the fact that we aren't showing up. So now you're shaming me, it's even more inaction. Because now I'm like, I'm gonna dwell on the fact that I'm not showing up. But I recognize that a lot of people have a lot of barriers to visibility. And so my services are able to make sure that their marketing is a doing it in a way that's ethical, as long as like said, as long as they want you, I'm not forcing anybody into this, I'm not going to tell you, if you don't market like me, or should be person, like that's not the case, I am just going to tell you that this is an option. And if this is a way that you want to work it, I can help you with that. And we start working together. And then while they're over here, running their business, not having to worry about the marketing. They're also growing as a human being, you know, like, we are always doing things that kind of change our perspective. And so when I'm able to, you know, I've had clients who are super like, I have to have things look a certain way and just very involved in what we're doing right as like, even though they've hired me to do this, they're very involved in what I'm doing, which is fine. Cool. That's your thing you want to sit you want to do all right. Now, they don't even care now now, like it wasn't because there was, you know, they actually really good, there was something else, you know, now it's like, they've gotten to the point where they're just like, Okay, you do you do that. And I will not focus on this, because like we all have growth in our lives, whatever the issue is. That's, and I think that's a big part of, for me, at least the ethical marketing side of things is that there's always human on the other side of every transaction, always that human that comes with trauma, healing, beliefs, core values. We don't get to separate that. In business, we think, Oh, well, we can separate business and personal No, we can't. Yeah. Because business is personal. Or business that happened between me and a sloth. A business happens between me and another human beings who have conscious thought. And I don't know where we thought, really, I don't know why we thought we could separate these things, that these things absolutely matter. And if we could truly separate them, so many businesses wouldn't use emotions, as marketing tactics.

 

Russ Harlow  28:17

Yeah, I think that's important understand on both sides of the coin, just like you're saying, one, I'd like to say thank you for feeling comfortable enough to share your story. I think it opens the eyes to on how much fear sells, right when when we're in marketing, because if somebody else is afraid, it's natural for me to be afraid to write that's, and I think that's what kind of gets exploited in that marketing realm. But as business owners, we can also be afraid. And I think that affects, you know, how we choose to show up for marketing. So what do you do to overcome that idea that, well, I mean, fear still is going to sell. So how do you combat that? You know, with your clients and with your, with your business in the way you choose to market.

 

29:12

We combat it in the same way that I combat everything I'm afraid of, with education, knowledge is power. When I'm feeling upset or scared about something that's going on in our fields, I find information, what can I do? How can I take action? What are the things I can do? I think that businesses are the same way if we're saying hey, fear is selling this person is selling scarcity tactics, and of course, I want that too or like I this person is selling scarcity tactics and those people are buying I want people to buy to how do I do that? Well, what are they what is the fear they're selling? How can you empower your audience? Instead of talking about, oh, there's a recession coming, there's a recession coming, hide your kids hide your eggs hide your gold coins? Why don't instead we talked about what is recession actually is and what actions we can take to safeguard businesses to actually keep money flowing in the hands of our communities.

 

Dana Dowdell  30:25

Why don't we talk about that instead? What considerations does a business need to take if their entire marketing strategy for the last two years has been fear based? And then they commit to showing up more authentically and practicing ethical marketing? You know, is there any, like lead in time to switching the messaging or the strategy?

 

30:47

Yeah, so I actually have a freebie download. It's like, where to start with your marketing? Like, what do I do if I want to be more ethical, my marketing, and it's just a quick little PDF? I won't oversell it and tell you it's everything you need, because that's a lie. It's not what it is, is a good jumping off point for you to just kind of assess what are where are you at in your messaging? Does your messaging feel good? I know I say that feel good a lot. In fact, it's in a lot of my like tech lines and things like that. But truly like the feel good we as a society have felt so battered in bullied by just I don't know about you guys. But I said, I referenced that I'm a millennial, I remember being a kid walking in a grocery store, when magazines were like still totally a thing. And just thinking like the expectation even though I didn't know what it was, like subliminally being put into my brain through every image of the tall, slender, Big Blue blond, white chick, that that is the standard of beauty. One of my tag lines on my like thing, if you go to it says good marketing, just change the world. The reason why I feel like that is because of the fact that people don't realize how much power there is in marketing, your words matter. Your images matter. The things that you say and try to force upon people in how you make them feel matters. Too long, we have been told to not feel good that the only thing that will sell is finding our little pain points and then looking at them. I want you to feel good. I want everybody to feel good. And I think that I just recognize that there's so much damage psychologically that can be done through marketing. We are the sickest we have ever been as a nation not to get on a little soapbox, but pulling it out. So well, we are the sickest we have been as a nation, not just like physically, I'm not talking about pharmaceuticals or things like that, like, like mental health is at an all time like that's the crisis. And our word like our self worth or self esteem is not in a good place. I guess I just have noticed that, in my opinion. A big part of that stems from what we have had to consume and what has been put in front of us by companies that have the ability and the means to be able to plaster things on billboards, put things on Hulu, put things on ads in front of my Facebook, tick tock, Instagram, all of these places that matters. And I I personally feel that as business owners, we have a responsibility to our clients. Like I said, I'm not I'm not the ethics police. I'm not trying to tell you how to market I'm not trying to tell you that you have to do XY and Z. I would just implore you to please, please remember that there is another human on the other side of that. And if you read your messaging, and use like that is the place to start to answer your question. That is the place to start looking at your messaging read it objectively like not as you but as like your neighbor down the street who you know is struggling or your you know, sister who has, you know, depression or just somebody else just read it as not as you and think. Is this more damaging than helpful? Do you mind if I share like the four pillars with people just quickly, like I won't go into details on them, but just to kind of give people a sense of when for ethics. Ethics for me isn't just about like right or wrong. It's not. I'm not here to tell you what's right or wrong. As Next is about sustainability. So How sustainable is your business for you and your client? You can read into that how you want if you're talking about your product based business, and you're using, you know, plastic and everything, maybe not so sustainable. Are you using biodegradable where you can't you know, things like that, right? But it's also more than just the the eco friendly side. It's also like I said that that cycle cycle Earth, excuse me, psychological side of, if you're just kind of churning and burning clients, because you're using this fear based tactic, but then they fall off because yeah, they bought your program, but they fall off, and they don't actually get the results that you wanted to be able to sell to more people. And you're just like, How sustainable is that for you? And for them? The second pillar is about safety or shame breathe like, zone? Like, it's just how understanding are you to people's traumas and triggers and understanding that, like, your words have matter? And are your words have mattered, your words matter? And how you show up, is able to impact them, right? So again, I just want to say that this can be a hard line to walk sometimes, which again, ethics aren't sexy. Yay. But this isn't saying that you have to think of like, okay, let me brainstorm a list of all the triggers on the planet and make sure I'm not saying anything about any of those things. It's not that because at the end of the day, anything can be a trigger. I mean, you can put a baby ball roll on a counter, and it could be a trigger for somebody, you know, it's, it's just what it is. But it's about whether you are intentionally exploiting those, I think content comes into play here. I don't think I know intent comes into play here. And how you were people, I do it, I'm not infallible here. There are times that I say something, and then afterwards, you know, I think about it, like, I should probably change this or even simple things. Like, instead of saying her, you say they. Now granted, if you are working with just females, of course, use that. But if you are a company, instead of saying, hear him that works with everybody, be inclusive and say, hey, you know, simple things, it doesn't have to be the super in depth. Let me hire a psychologist to come in and analyze all my words, not what I'm saying. But it's about the intent. The second or the third is going to be see through transparency, which very much talks about not only you as an individual, and how authentically you're showing up what simple things Oh, my goodness, I can't believe it's 2020. And they still do this. But this is a big deal pricing. I don't know who in what decade, they decided I'm not gonna put pricing on things I'm gonna make you get on a phone call with me in order for you to find out what my cost is. Just stop. Just stop, put your pricing up. Because there is no guess what I can go looking for a car. And that Lamborghini salesman can tell me how wonderful and great and valuable that Lamborghini is. But if I don't have that, I don't know how much labor unions costs. That's how out of my price range they are. That million dollar car is or I don't even know, I don't know. Point is, I can't afford it. I can't afford it. No matter how good you tell me it is, even though I see the value. If I can't afford it, I can't afford it. Like, let people see that so that we can they're not wasting their time. They're not wasting your time. Why? Why do you want to get on a phone call with somebody and try to like, force them, force them into by? Just tell them whether that causes I don't want to talk to you if you can't like why? I mean, I do want to talk to you as a human. But you know what I mean? Like, I'm not trying to convince somebody who can't afford my services that they should be hiring me. Does ridiculous with your pricing on your website, please. Okay. I don't go to Target and have to wonder what I could register with something is going to. But anyway, and the fourth pillar is culture. And that's a that's actually more geared towards excuse me, companies and not so much small business owners, but it's more geared towards companies. But again, this impact framework is geared towards companies. But that's kind of just to give you a sense of what ethics is, for me, it's not right or wrong. It's just how we view these things.

 

Dana Dowdell  39:34

I have I have like so many responses and reactions to what your pillars like I go for it. When I first started business, I put some pricing up on my website because I same thing like I'm what I sell is not sexy, like you don't have to hire an HR consultant. You can do it on your own, you know, so I wanted people who could afford our services and who wanted to hire it out and by my mom, anything I post on social media, it's like I get a phone call or text shortly after. And she, you know, she has a comment about it. And a lot of times it's positive. But that's one thing that she called me on is she called me she's like, Danny, you're not supposed to put pricing on your website? I was like, Who to one? Who told you that? And to why why did I allow myself to be so easily influenced by my mom, because our mothers have a lot of influence on us. And I took it off my website, and now it and you know, now that I'm like, five years in I'm, I'm going on the other side of the pendulum, and I'm like, No, I'm gonna, I'm gonna put it you know, I feel comfortable, I feel I feel comfortable about the value that I provide at the price that we provide it. And so I'm going to start putting more pricing transparency on our website, because that's, that's how I want to run business.

 

Tori Martin  40:52

Yeah, and I think it ultimately, I mean, of course, it's always, you, as the business owner, ultimately decide whatever if you don't feel comfortable. But again, that's a different story. All of this is individualized, if you don't feel comfortable putting your pricing on your website, you don't have to, but just from a standpoint, like from Think of the end buyer experience, if you have some sort of onboarding or like, interview process, sort of, that's fine. Be transparent about that. If you're not, if you don't feel comfortable putting your pricing up, because say, you're some high performance coach, or whatever, and you're like, oh, you know, my, I don't know, six month packages, you know, 10 grand or something like and that, you know, I understand not everybody can afford that. That's fine, you know, your market, but also like, put on the like this, here's part of as part of the onboarding, because I only work with certain types of people or I only work with, you know, select audience, I just want to make sure we're a good fit, I prefer to have an interview call before, that's fine. Like, dude, if that is your business model, that's fine. Just be transparent in it. Don't make it Hey, book, a free call, where I'm then going to bombard you with, or I'm going to let you ask two questions. And then I'm going to talk to you for 45 minutes about this thing I'm selling, that you didn't ask, but I didn't ask for that. I just wanted to know, like, what is the cost? Because most people are pretty shocked, and most people are. And that's not to say you have to have low prices, I don't have low prices to be completely transparent to listeners like I have. I have products that range from 1500 to 5000. Like, I understand that is not every single small business can afford that and that's okay. But I don't decide that for them. And I don't waste their time. By making them get on a call with me. I don't tell them how great my services are and how we can do X, Y, and Z. And they're like, yeah, we can, let's do that. And then to go, Oh, it's this amount. And they go, I can't afford that. You know how discouraging that as I have been in that situation, I hate it when I'm just like now now I have to awkwardly tell you no. And now I have to listen to you try to convince me that I can win. I know I can know. That is not how I like to do business. And that is why I think transparency, like like I said, I always just think of retail, I don't go to a store and have to get everything that I want. And then go to a register have them bring it up. And then we go oh, I need to remove this, this and this. Because this wasn't what I was expecting. You know, like, have your pricing be confident in your pricing.

 

Russ Harlow  43:47

I mean, there's a very practical side here, you are looking for your ideal client that you work with, and you're helping them self select, by allowing them that opportunity to go oh, I don't think I can afford that maybe next year, you know, maybe I have to go. So by having that transparency, you're you are you're saving everybody's time and there's a great practical side, they're probably not your ideal client anyway. So you've just saved yourself time and money. You just save them time and money. 

 

44:18

I am a believer that time is more valuable than money. And so I'm I have a lot of boundaries around that for myself because of my own journey and my own triggers my own things right like so. Yeah, there has their people I think you because I feel like at the end of the day, it just comes down to the fact that I personally in the way that I do these things. I respect people's time.

 

Russ Harlow  44:50

What where can people learn more about you and what you do and ethical marketing? Where can people connect? Where's the best place to find you?

 

Tori Martin  44:58

Yeah, so If you want to learn more about these services, I have a website that you can go to I create it for that purpose, good marketing Co dot agency. And there you can see the two sort of legs of my business. And that is the agency side that is the done for you implementation. And then the other is the impact framework type stuff is more about consulting. And if you are a business owner, and want to have your team implement this or teach your team how to do this, that's where we do that.

 

Russ Harlow  45:28

So reach out to Tori at good marketing company.com or no is good marketing dot agency. And we'll have them all there. Yep, we'll have them all there in the show notes. And we've got a good reminder too, that we always kind of end little tagline is not personal. It's just business. But the fact is, business can be very deeply personal and you've given us a good reminder of that. So thank you for that. Thanks for stopping by the podcast. Thanks to our listeners who stop by today. You can find us at it's just bought. It's just business podcasts on all the places and it is just business. That's us.