My personal take on 5 key ingredients to successful, prosperity-minded marketing:

1) CARE: You’ve got to truly care about the welfare of your clients/customers

2) CREDIBILITY: You must build trust and gain credibility with people before they care about what you do

3) CONNECTION: Create a true, mutual connection with others by giving of yourself and your work, and listening and learning from others, through different avenues that engage and enliven

4) CLARITY: Know who you are, stay true to that, and share a viewpoint that enlightens, entertains or educates in some essential way

5) CALLING: If you’re not passionate about what you’re doing, change directions

 If you’re wondering how these principles look and feel like in the practical world, below are some tactics that support these core principles:

 1) Care – About Your Customers, Clients, and Community

 The world has changed. Everything you do today as an entrepreneur, marketer, writer, thinker, speaker, etc. is transparent, clear for all to see. Your motivations, your desired outcomes, your behaviors and thinking – it’s all out there now. The truth is, if you don’t really care about the welfare and success of your clients and customers, and if you’re thinking only about is how you can succeed, you won’t. To succeed and thrive, you must create a world of mutuality and reciprocity – give and get, love and be loved, support and be supported. If you don’t hold up your end, and if you don’t start from a place of “How can I best serve?,” you just won’t succeed in the big way you dream of. If deeply loving and caring about the people you serve is difficult or impossible for you, it’s a sign that you have to change what you’re doing.

 2) Credibility – Build Trust and Respect

 Thousands of entrepreneurs and marketers today don’t understand one key marketing concept – that people do business only with people they like, trust and know (thanks, Scott, for making that crystal clear). You must build a relationship with people first, before they’ll engage in buying your services or supporting your work. And you have to demonstrate that you’re a credible, reliable voice in your chosen area over time.

I and many others mistakenly believed the “build it and they will come” myth – that simply because I’ve hung my shingle as a coach and consultant (and am a darn good one at that), that I’ll have customers and clients aplenty and the flow will be constant. It ain’t so! You must create a way to a build relationships over time with people that serve them well, and then – perhaps – they’ll buy or enlist in your services (and only when they’re ready and only if your services and prices and packages fit their needs, not yours). Develop engagement strategies (a newsletter, speaking, tweeting, free articles and information, blog, social media, free resources) that allow you to give of yourself and your expertise in ways that energize you, but also that build trust and credibility.

3) Connection — Listen, Respond, and Serve

Think about the great, fulfilling connections you have in your personal life – they’re typically based on common interest, caring, curiosity, like-mindedness, love, mutuality, reciprocity, and authenticity. So it is in the business world as well. Connect with those you wish to serve – in person, at events, in writing, in social media, through your blog or newsletter, etc.. Find ways that you enjoy to connect with your community, and listen to what they’re saying and caring about deeply. If you’re sitting alone in your office day after day, disconnected and disengaged from others, you’re marketing into a vacuum. Also a must – truly listen to your community, and elicit their feedback, comments, and ideas, and integrate these ideas and comments – respond!. In short, create a real connection and authentic conversation with those you wish to serve.

4) Clarity – Know Who You Are and Share It

One thing I love about following Scott’s work is that he 1) knows exactly who he is (foibles and imperfections and all), and 2) unabashedly shares who he is with the world. There’s a neat list on his blog of “25 things you didn’t know about me.” It takes guts to publish a list like this. Do you have that kind of courage to share yourself openly and nakedly with your community? What’s your list of 25? Are you clear about who you are, uniquely? What makes you tick, what lights you up, what makes you so mad your head will explode? Know these things about yourself, and make use of them in all you do! Understand who you are and let that specialness shine out, in your writing, your services, your products, and your community.

If you don’t, you’ll never be able to be your true self in your work, or stand apart from the many thousands of others who are afraid to be who they really are, or share with honesty and courage what they stand for.

5) Calling- Passion is a Must-Have

There’s a very large difference between a job and a calling. To be successful as an entrepreneur or marketer or service provider, you have to have passion for it – a deep, abiding drive to make a difference and be of service. If you don’t have it, “marketing” yourself and your products will be extremely challenging at best, a terrible failure at worst. So figure out what you’re passionate about, and if it’s not your business or your practice or your creative endeavors, it’s time to make some significant changes.

I was a corporate marketing director and VP for many years, and truthfully, I stopped liking it early on and was often bored silly by it, (the whole thing felt like “theatre” – ya know?) because I was marketing products and services I simply didn’t connect with or feel excited to support. It’s a terrible feeling to dislike intensely what you do for a living, and feel absolutely no connection with it, right?

Now, I’m really jazzed about using my marketing skills to help others thrive in their careers and businesses, and to grow my own business. If you’re proud and excited about what you’re marketing or promoting, then put your whole self into it. If you have no connection to what you’re marketing, you most likely won’t have anywhere near the success or fulfillment you want.

The bottom line

The “new marketing” is this…connecting and engaging authentically with others you love so as to be of the highest service possible, drawing on the many talents and skills you love to offer.

The ultimate outcome of well-executed marketing is that you get to build a like-minded, interrelated (and fascinating) community that truly “gets” you, and receives deep benefit from learning with and from you. In the end, it’s about creating a global network of people you love (yes, LOVE!), and who find in your work something that helps them become more of who they truly want to be.

And you get to become more of who you want to be by being of service in a way that draws on everything that makes you special.

Now that’s a lot more exciting than just “marketing,” yes?