If you want to command respect and trust, as well as communicate a sense of your unique metaphysical gifts, it comes down to personal branding. Psychics, mediums, reiki healers, astrologers and the like—the people I call light workers—are still so often regarded as 'out there', flaky, or charlatans. Storefront psychics who take advantage of naive customers don't help our reputation any.
But most of us are genuinely helping others and are serious business people, too. We've studied with the greats and honed our natural talents over many years and maintain highly ethical practices. We charge a fair fee for our services and expect to be treated like the professionals we are. We all have to generate what we talk about in marketing as “KLT”, that is, ‘know, like, trust’, and these three things are especially important to we lightworkers, because as lightworkers, we are essentially selling ourselves.
How do you come across to people? Do you know—and is it how you want to be perceived?
An introduction to marketing and branding for spiritual entrepreneurs.
I help talented light workers develop a distinctive brand and deploy it in the marketplace so they can attract the people they were born to serve.
Most psychics, mediums, astrologers, and healers jump right in and roll around in the fun. They understand that we are taking the tools of advertising and using them for good rather than evil. ; - ) As they start to play, they fall passionately in love with their potential clients.
But occasionally, I get a client who doesn't seem to get it.
My last experience of this was with a gifted channeler. She channels one of the Ascended Masters. So, her work isn't for everybody. Her ideal clients need to be somewhat evolved and very open to certain metaphysics that a lot of people find hard to even believe. The Ascended Master she channels is not for everyone, either. He presents very specifically in culture, time, color, age, language, and vocabulary. In other words, his avatar is very well defined and does not appeal to every human on earth. It's not supposed to.
And that's the same for each light worker. We are not supposed to be attractive to every human on earth. Our responsibility as light workers is to become a beacon for those we were born to serve. To do that, we need to understand who we are and who our ideal student is, and then define ourselves as specifically as the Ascended Masters do in order to attract those students. Our students can't see us if we look and sound and feel like everyone else, or if we look and sound and feel tepid or timid or confused.
This gifted channeler did not want to define her ideal student. She claimed her teachings were universal and everyone could benefit. That's true. Everyone could benefit. I dare say everyone can benefit from the work every astrologer, Reiki Master, and psychic does. But we can't possibly serve everyone in the world; and not everyone in the world is ready for what we teach or wants to experience the work we do. We need to become visible to our tribe; our people; our perfect clients. We owe them that! And as a wise man once said, "if you're marketing to everyone, you're marketing to no one."
Even Jesus didn't market himself to everybody. His teachings are universal, for sure, but he targeted certain men of a certain age in a certain geographic area. He talked about their cultural experiences, their doubts and fears and ambitions. He appealed to them and they trusted him because he was one of them - he vibrated at the same wavelength. And like a pebble in a pond, those vibrations radiated outward, attracting more and more people. This is how great branding works.
Unfortunately, this gifted channeler clung to the notion that to define a person was to insult them. She called it prejudicial and unacceptable. Nothing could be further from the truth. To really see a human in all their uniqueness is an act of great love and respect. Now - if we judge a person less valuable than another for those differences, then yes, we are behaving immorally. in the case of this channeler, she couldn't see the difference. And I think it is because she was judging herself less valuable than others on account of her own physical features.
Instead of using this uncomfortable situation as a growth opportunity, she became angry and accused me of prejudice. We all know that what we project onto others is what we don't wish to see in ourselves.
Anyway, all this is to say that branding, for light workers, isn't the same as as branding for others. The process of developing a powerful, unique brand and stepping out with it is a journey of self discovery and an act of True Love.
When it comes to marketing, you’ll hear a lot of terms bandied about. You may have heard terms like ‘brand personality’, ‘brand story’, ‘brand identity’, brand avatar’, ‘brand promise’ and others like ‘color palette’, ‘headline’, ‘tagline’, ‘campaign’, and ‘messaging’.
If you’re confused, don’t worry. Even when I am working on something for a corporate client, I still sometimes have to confirm that we are using a term in the same way. Other times, it doesn’t really matter if we are using different terms, because we know what we are talking about and what we have to make happen.
Here is how I explain some key terms:
Marketing: The promotion and selling of products (or services), including market research and advertising.
Advertisement: An announcement about a product (or service).
Brand: The intangible sum of a product's (or services’s) attributes.
So, for example, if you’re a trance medium and you’re writing a blog about the entities that come through, you’re marketing—because you’re promoting yourself simply by publishing that blog (even if you’re not thinking of it as promotion). If you mention a workshop that you are leading on that blog or on your social media, you are advertising. When people read your blog, or attend your workshop, they are going to have feelings and thoughts about it all, that’s your brand.
Everyone has a brand, and we all advertise and market ourselves, even if we put no thought into the overall effect, at all. It’s up to each of us whether we want to have some conscious influence over how people understand us and what we do.
These are three essentials of branding and marketing for lightworkers. This is all you need to do:
(1) Uncover your personal brand identity
(2) Decide on where to let people know about you and your work
(3) Tell people about yourself and your work
There is a lot of noise and confusion out there about marketing and what is necessary. Don’t be distracted! Just #1 uncover what you stand for , #2 find out where your prospective clients hang out, #3 talk to them.
