Marketing Clean Language

[Judy]

How do we promote and “sell” Clean Language and Symbolic Modelling? It’s a question that’s been exercising my mind for months – and on Small Change Company's Module 5 this week (which was fantastic, by the way) I had the chance to sound out other people’s views.

Below are brief notes of one lunchtime conversation on the subject. I’d love it if they sparked a wider discussion here.

1. Are we selling Clean or are we selling the benefits it can bring? Coaches etc who use Clean Language as a methodology are presumably primarily selling benefits, while Small Change Company, for example, is selling Clean itself. Some businesses sit between the two, if their use of Clean as a methodology is part of their unique offering.

2. There needs to be balance between focussing on what people want vs what we are and can offer. It’s no good only looking at what people want from us if it means they then seek to buy something we can’t congruently sell. Offering (making available) something people want cannot be a bad thing.

3. Why might people be reluctant to “sell” Clean?

• They think selling is “dirty”, either in the sense of “bad” or in the sense of “not code congruent” ie promotional materials must contain some content
• There is a pattern, observable in a wide range of fields, that creators/originators tend not to want to market/popularise their work: “It would be like selling the kids”. Therefore anyone looking to originators for a marketing lead may well wait a long time.

4. What are the attributes of Clean Language/Symbolic Modelling? They include safe and new – an unusual combination. Something powerful and unknown is rarely safe.

5. What metaphor do those attributes suggest? Like waves in the sea, like a new summer frock etc

6. Clean Language may best be sold using stories eg case studies, rather than brash claims.

7. The best way to get people interested in Clean Language is by giving them a personal experience. Therefore, anyone using Clean as a methodology is potentially bringing new people into the Clean community.

8. There will be a “tipping point” where the thing takes off, and there is a sense that we may be close to it right now.


Any comments, suggestions, ideas, arguments?

[Annemiek]

I completely agree on the validity and importance of the issues raised, and am adding some thoughts and ideas below. Please do add yours too!

All the sharing we can do will benefit us all!!

How do we promote and “sell” Clean Language and Symbolic Modelling? It’s a question that’s been exercising my mind for months – and on Small Change Company's Module 5 this week (which was fantastic, by the way) I had the chance to sound out other people’s views.

Below are brief notes of one lunchtime conversation on the subject. I’d love it if they sparked a wider discussion here.

1. Are we selling Clean or are we selling the benefits it can bring? Coaches etc who use Clean Language as a methodology are presumably primarily selling benefits, while Small Change Company, for example, is selling Clean itself. Some businesses sit between the two, if their use of Clean as a methodology is part of their unique offering.

Why not look at both and use this forum as a means to develop a shared way of selling the concept of Clean, that we all can use & tweak, so as to give 'Clean' the biggest momentum we can get. I am thinking of some clear-cut answers to questions like:

• What is CL/SyM/CSpace? (in laymens' terms, not aiming to be complete)
• Why CL/SyM/CS?
  • for clients
  • for facilitators (anyone working with human interaction and change)

2. There needs to be balance between focussing on what people want vs what we are and can offer. It’s no good only looking at what people want from us if it means they then seek to buy something we can’t congruently sell. Offering (making available) something people want cannot be a bad thing.

'We' is very differentiated in this. So maybe start at the beginning: What is it a client gets when someone works 'cleanly' - again in language/words that make sense to the specific client. What is their benefit?

3. Why might people be reluctant to “sell” Clean?

• They think selling is “dirty”, either in the sense of “bad” or in the sense of “not code congruent” ie promotional materials must contain some content
• There is a pattern, observable in a wide range of fields, that creators/originators tend not to want to market/popularise their work: “It would be like selling the kids”. Therefore anyone looking to originators for a marketing lead may well wait a long time.

4. What are the attributes of Clean Language/Symbolic Modelling? They include safe and new – an unusual combination. Something powerful and unknown is rarely safe.

Let's collect more attributes before mving on to the metaphor. To me Clean is also about:

• respectful
• essence
• Who else? ...
  

And: What kind of safe is that safe?
What kind of new is that new?

5. What metaphor do those attributes suggest? Like waves in the sea, like a new summer frock etc

Let's come back to this after some developing.

6. Clean Language may best be sold using stories eg case studies, rather than brash claims.

Completely agree. So can we, aside from writing artivles about cases, also all gather client's statements about their experiences and share them? Small case-study descriptions? As well as our own statements and descriptions. What does it bring us? Who is up for sharing for the 'joined good'? Case descritions from group applications are also very welcome! I'll put in mine if you join in!

7. The best way to get people interested in Clean Language is by giving them a personal experience. Therefore, anyone using Clean as a methodology is potentially bringing new people into the Clean community.

As long as the 'anyone' also has language / words that can easily convey what ist is they are using! (Back to the first point!)

8. There will be a “tipping point” where the thing takes off, and there is a sense that we may be close to it right now.

All people involved in Clean need to be aware of this, to help the tipping.Let's all saet the thing in motion by talking, writing about our experiences with Clean to create that point!! It'll be in all of our interest.

Any comments, suggestions, ideas, arguments?

[Judy]

Damn, I can't find anything to argue with there! :-)

[Annemiek]

What about the answers to:
What kind of new?
What kind of safe?

Really interested to hear your views.

The respectful I talked about is that Clean means that all of our views of the world are acknowledged, and we don't have to abandon them by taking on someone else's view. It might mean that we build on the different views and come to something new. But then I was part of the process of creation, and it will link to my view, will be part of how I experience the world.

It also means respectful of all the elements in our experience - the equal-opportunities employer. We don't have to delete, distort or generalise quite as much as we usually feel tempted to.

And 'essence' because it's so amazing that each fragment of a person's experience, put to words, will hold a footprint of the essence that that person is about. Not that you know what it is (or even have to know)- but by working with it, you know that you work with the undiluted essence. And the chances of essential change happening are all the bigger.

[Judy]

Hmm. Safe in the sense of "it's really difficult to do any harm with Clean." Which for me is a really useful distinction from standard NLP/hypnosis.

And new - well, I'm being told by the Emergence types that Clean is old-fashioned already. So maybe not new :-)

Personally, I think that Clean and Emergence are not that different, just different packaging for the same idea. Is that controversial?

[phil]

Judy said:

I'm being told by the Emergence types that Clean is old-fashioned already

Okay, I'll jump on the hook... but to keep this thread on topic, I'll thrash about on the end of the line here

Re Marketing Clean:

I think one of the key features of working cleanly is that it's as much about what we're NOT doing as about what we ARE doing.

Yet I reckon most prospective clients of our work want us to DO something, rather than NOT DO something.

In fact what most clients really want is RESULTS, the change they desire. They look to us to give it to them. If they could pay the money and we could hand it over, they'd grab it - who wouldn't?

So why do we offer a Clean approach at all, if it's apparently not what they want?

Why I do it is because I believe that if YOU want change in your life, it is more likely to come about and then stick around if it comes from YOUR world/perspective/map and YOUR realisations/decisions/actions. There may be information or other models that it may be useful to know about but the change, the decision, the ACTION must come from YOU.

Telling someone that what they need is something different to what they think they need has the potential to be patronising.

And even conveyed sensitively, it's not always a welcome message - I have had more than one client answer 'what would you like to have happen?' with 'Well, really I'd like you to wave a magic wand and for my problems to be over'. There are processes and coaches/facilitators who will offer that.

Then there is the fact that as a product, Clean is a PROCESS not a package of RESULTS. Typically clients aren't so interested in process as results - and preferably GUARANTEED results at that.

And since in this process, THEY are the ones who have to get the results and they have sought help precisely because so far THEY HAVEN'T succeeded in getting them, it's not hard to see why selling this apparently DIY process is tricky.

We need to congruently convey that they can have confidence in their ability to change. And to do that we must have confidence in their ability to change. Certainly case studies and client testimonials are very useful.

For the training side of things, other ways of promoting Clean would be to present it as a philosophy, a way of working/being in the world or a foundation concept/process upon which other interventions can be built.

As a way of interesting facilitators in Clean trainings, a principle of 'Clean First' seems logical to me. 'As a facilitator/coach/therapist, whatever interventions you normally make, whatever techniques or processes you employ to facilitate change, be Clean First'.

Clean First allows the client to self-model the present state and a desired outcome such that:

a) change can emerge naturally from the modelling,
b) the facilitator can gain a much better idea of what intervention s/he might employ and thus
c) use interventions/processes (if needed) sparingly and INTELLIGENTLY.

To read between the lines (David's definition of 'intelligence'), first you need the lines.

Clean will give the lines.

These were just some thoughts triggered by the thread. Any comments?

Phil Swallow

[phil]

I wonder if it would help to consider the marketing and the product separately. To make a clear distinction between being/doing Clean and being/doing anything else, be it marketing, running an NLP technique, telling someone to 'pull your socks up', introducing models, rehearsing a technique and so on.

So in marketing Clean, we might say something like: 'Here's a set of skills that you can learn that all togther we call Clean. It's a skill set that means that, in particular contexts and with a purpose in mind, you can choose to behave in a certain way with people. It's a way that allows them the maximum opportunity to express how it is for them and to explore how they would like it to be. Actually Clean can become a whole way of life but it's up to you how you decide to integrate this skill. What we are offering you right now is the chance to learn the skill of being and doing Clean when the situation demands it.'

Not those clumsy words of course but that principle: Clean is a skill set that you can learn and apply as appropriate.

'Offering' rather than, say, 'pushing' seems a good clean-ish approach to marketing: marketing can never be Clean but maybe it can be less 'hard' than making it a law!

Phil

[Corrie van Wijk]

Thank you Phil, I think that would be a good approach.

In marketing ecology in Holland we also used a pull-strategy: making the customers aware of the importance of a healthy environment. This encourages producers to go along with it, long before we can make any law on it. So it becomes part of their public relations to act like a responsible company that cares about the society in which they operate.

What would be Unique Selling Points of any client-oriented facilitation?

Corrie

[Angela]

I think that the more focused and targeted your message, the more clean it becomes.

So, in the extreme, if you were marketing (selling) to just one person, your marketing process could be:

* Ask clean language questions to identify what the person wants
* Ask clean language questions to identify the relationship between what you offer and what the person wants
* Explore and develop any benefits (resources) the client mentions
* Ask: and when (your offer) what needs to happen for (person's goal)

(cleanish...)

To expand this out to a particular niche market, by going through this process as a customer research exercise, you can discover and then use your potential client's own descriptions to explain the benefits of your service rather than your own.

Metaphors become wonderful descriptions to bring alive your marketing message

The wider the group you are attempting to market to, the less effective this will be as the benefits are likely to become watered down and too general.

Anyone else use clean questions in their marketing process?