Omnichannel - Ego-Based vs Wisdom-Based Selling: Staying in Integrity with Parmees Yazdanyar

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

Send us a text🎙️ In this episode, Parmees Yazdanyar and I (Dominika Legrand) unpack the difference between ego-based selling and wisdom-based selling, and what it really means to stay in integrity while growing a business.We explore what ethical marketing actually looks like, how to sell before you have testimonials, and why some sales tactics feel off even if they technically "work."This conversation is for anyone who wants to sell in a way that is honest, skillful, and rooted in real service, not manipulation or inflated promises.We cover:Launching signature offers before having testimonialsThe pressure to craft bold, irresistible promisesSelling the skillset and transformation without overpromising resultsWhy Parmees doesn't use money wins in her marketingEthical ways to launch your first programThe manipulation hidden in “spiritual” sales languageHow to create intrinsic motivation to buyTrusted advisor vs vendor energy in salesBalancing rational and emotional buying behaviorWhat to do when someone joins your program but isn't a fitWhy client retention works best when you're not trying to retain anyoneWhether you're launching your first offer or refining your tenth, this episode will give you a grounded lens on how to market with integrity while honoring your own growth and your clients' autonomy.Get a FREE Copy of the High Converting Online Events Book: https://book.dominikalegrand.com/

because I didn't know what the end result was going to be. I didn't know how people are going to respond. I didn't know. I didn't have any testimonials. I didn't have any of that. But what I had was a set of skills that I had developed with people over a long period of time, which I then took and put into a group program. I think that there's a fine line where sometimes I myself have called out clients on some of their BS and said, Hey, this is a fear that's coming up. This is not actual intuition, but that has not been in the sales conversation.

That's been when they've actually become clients. And when we're talking about them doing something difficult or doing something outside of their comfort zone, and I can feel that resistance coming up and I challenge them and offer some of that like coachy pushback, something that you've embodied, like you're putting your heart and soul into creating your marketing material. And I genuinely believe that without that heart and soul, your marketing material is not going to do well.

Okay. Love all that. And since you mentioned frantic sales and desperation, and let's just go into the rounds of sales today, specifically ethical sales. And I know behind the scenes, we talked a lot about this. We have our own opinions of it. But what I want us to examine in this episode is the first line is, what do I offer? Like how can we stay in alignment and integrity with what we offer? And then how are we selling it?

So let's go with the first one. Yeah. So I think what you offer is an interesting, it's in a kind of way to think about it, because I think most service providers, most entrepreneurs are pretty clear on what it is that they do. And they're pretty clear on what are the results that they can facilitate for their clients. I think where it gets a bit messy is when people start to think, well, how do I position this in a way that will actually sell? How do I position this in a way that is super juicy, tangible, sexy? Like how do I make the promise something that's a no brainer? How do I make sure that people understand what it is that I'm selling? And of course this could be a whole separate discussion when it comes to like actual messaging and stuff, which is, which is what I do with clients. However, I think the issue is there's been this, this great conditioning in the marketing and offer creation space that you need to have big promises, you need to have a promise that's a

no-brainer in order for people to buy and with that type of conditioning a lot of people have kind of converted their promises into something that maybe they themselves haven't fully achieved or perhaps is something that is greater than what they can totally guarantee that they can offer or that they can deliver in hopes that that message is going to land with the right people. Now I feel like there's two schools, there's people who actually unethically do that because they care about the transaction and then there's other people who might not even fully...

Unintentionally. Right, they're unintentionally doing it because they feel, well, my offer is so unique or the transformation is so vast. It's hard for me to encapsulate it into like one promise. And so I'm going to promise this big thing that can capture a lot of people. So I think knowing what you offer comes down to not attaching it to some grandiose promise or not attaching it to something that you think people are going to want. And, you know, that's the thing that people are going to pay money for. But rather bringing it back to why did you create this offer in the first place?

What was the need that you saw in the marketplace that forged this idea or that made you come up with this proprietary process or helps you put together this package and speak more to the skill sets and the knowledge that people are going to take away from this offer rather than the end results of you know the money the fame the status like all the other things that we think we're going to get to and the second way that I want people to kind of filter through is to ask themselves where am I at in my own application of the very thing that I offer? So as an example, I have a messaging and positioning mentorship for personal brands. And a lot of the marketing for this program is speaking to what this person is going to learn, what this person is going to take away, what skill sets are they going to embody that they perhaps are having a hard time

embodying right now? What are some of the problems that they might be facing with their current positioning or sales process or their content creation process that I can solve for them? But very little of my marketing is focused on the big numbers or, you know, the potential of how many people can enroll or the sold out launches. And the reason for that is because there's so many extraneous factors that go into creating a result like that, that I cannot promise that that will happen for you within this container. What I can promise is that I'm going to equip you with the knowledge, the skills, the tools, the resources to know how to navigate messaging and positioning your brand better. But I'm not going to promise a particular outcome that I know a lot of work is going to go into that and you might not get to that result just within this container.

And I also know that just because I've, let's say reached six, seven, whatever figures in my business does not automatically mean that within a short period of time, I'll be able to relay that knowledge to you. The other thing I won't do is I won't promise something that I personally have not yet achieved. And I think that that is something that, like I said, a lot of people might intentionally or unintentionally do intentionally feeling like, Oh, I need to boost my results to position myself a certain way. And unintentionally, because again, they fall into that trap of feeling like, well, if I don't promise this thing, people might

not buy it, but it's running it through the filter of where am I at in my own business? What have I been able to do? What have I been able to attain? What problems have I been able to overcome using the tools and the tactics that I'm going to teach my clients rather than promising the potential of what these tools and teachings is going to provide for the client. Because if you yourself haven't gotten there yet, even if you do a really good job of messaging it or marketing in a certain way, it might work for a short period of time. But I truly believe that energetically you will never be able to outsell what you yourself haven't been able to do. The truth always comes out.

Unless you are a psychopath and you don't have any issues with lying and you can speak with conviction even though you don't have the results. True, true, but even with that, it might get the result, meaning it might get the sale, you might get the person in your world, they might buy your program, your offer, your package, whatever it is. But I do believe that once someone is in your world, it becomes very difficult to conceal the truth of whether you've actually been able to maintain or create that result for yourself.

So you might get the sale intentionally or initially, but to retain that person and have that person really trust you and energetically feel like you're in alignment with your own teachings, that's a whole other story. What I wanted to go after this, first of all, all that you shared was super, super valuable. But what came up to me is what if this is the first time you're selling this offer? And I want you to kind of go back to your Neural Message program, the big one, the one-year one, which is now one-year one. It started to be like a six-month thing. So when you started that program, obviously you didn't know what this is going to be

morphing into. And I imagine that as you were in it, you kept refining it. What was that initial launch for you for that program? How were you feeling about it? And how did you stay in alignment with the way you sold it? Yeah, okay. So my answer is going to be multi-layered. And the reason for that is because oftentimes, or at least in my experience and the people that I work with, when we're going through a program launch for the first time, it isn't the first time that we are actually delivering that thing. It's just the first time that we've packaged it in that way. So anyone who knows me and kind of my philosophy on how to get into business, I

always believe that we need to go through an apprenticeship phase in our business or an experimentation phase in our business where we are not making big promises, where we are not trying to enroll people. But we have this what I call kind of like consultative selling where we're not making a promise in terms of like a deliverable or an outcome, but we are simply saying to ourselves, I have a skillset. I might not know exactly how to package it yet. I don't know exactly how to name it, what to call it or how to structure it, but I do

know that I can help a lot of people. So in the beginning days of my business, and this is like going way back, like after I decided to no longer be a done for you copywriter and get more into like the consulting space, I still was in this like period of limbo of like not knowing how to package my services because I'm making this big pivot and how I'm offering my stuff.

I would get onto consultation calls with people, which were super no pressure. It's not like I was gonna sell them something at the end, but I just wanted to hear them out and see what were the problems that they were facing when it came to articulating their value, retaining new clients, or getting and retaining clients. When it came to describing the value of their services and positioning themselves, when it came to content creation, because those were all the things that I knew I was good at, but I had no idea how to actually talk about those things. So I couldn't say, Hey, if you work with me by the end of 12 weeks together, you're going to have boom, boom,

boom, boom. So I would listen and on the spot, I would come up with solutions for them. And it's like, Oh, you're having a really hard time. Let's say selling multiple things at the same time. Well, here's what I would do in that situation. I would make sure that, you know, each offer has a very clear, distinct situation. I would make sure that, you know, each offer has a very clear distinct promise. I would make sure you have this and make sure you have that. So in these consultation processes, I would I was getting practice on understanding what are the results I can actually deliver for clients. And the more of these connection calls I had, the clearer it became. What was the need in the marketplace and what was it that I thought I could solve for people with that. I put together what most people would call a minimum viable offer, which was six one on one sessions with me to help you go from having an idea and not knowing how to brand

it package it, promote it to after the six sessions, knowing exactly what your offer is, what your idea is and how to talk about it in a way that's compelling and in a way that builds demand. And I ran through these six sessions, which none of them looked the same for any of my clients, by the way, like everyone looked very different, even though like in my head, I was like, okay, session one, we'll do this. And session two, we'll do this. It kind of took a life of its own. But what those sessions did with those clients is that I became clear and clear on what my process is, what my philosophy is on how to get someone to go from not knowing

how to promote themselves at all to actually having a very well developed personal brand. And then I finally decided, okay, instead of bombarding myself with one-on-one clients after like a year and a half of working with one-on-one clients and working within other people's containers and still getting those reps in and practicing delivering the thing that I do, I finally was able to say, okay, it seems like the majority of the people coming to me are struggling with this, this, and this. And those became the three pillars of my NeuroMessage program. So this is why I said my answer is multi-layered because you didn't ask me this, but I'm telling you the background anyway.

The reason why I was able to sell NeuroMessage from a very confident standpoint, even though I had never sold it before, is because even though I didn't know what the results of the container might be, because it was the first time I was running it as a group, it was the first time it was a six month mentorship, it was no longer one on one calls, there was going to be a portal of trainings and videos that people can watch, it was going to have weekly mentorship calls, I was going to give feedback on marketing assets. So it was like a whole thing that I created.

I had to ask myself here, what is the promise of this program? If everybody's coming in at different levels and everybody could potentially have different results, my strategy became not to sell the results because I hadn't run the container before I had never done this mentorship like this. But I started to promise the things that I knew and that I had gained confidence in being able to deliver in those one-on-one sessions. So I started to focus on, let's say my pillar one was brand identity. So if you don't have a solid brand identity, if you don't know what you stand for, if you don't know who you are, what the unique value is that you bring to the market, it becomes really difficult for you to explain and to write copy. And so in pillar one, we're going to make sure that you

feel super, super clear on what's your differentiator. We're going to get you super clear on how to talk about the work that you do in a way that's different and doesn't sound like copy paste from everyone else and helps you feel a lot more anchored in your expertise. So if we want to develop proprietary frameworks or anything that becomes your unique intellectual property, we're going to do that in phase one. And obviously by having intellectual property and knowing how to speak about your services in a different way, people are going to be compelled to work with you. Phase two, now we're going to get into the actual content and the messaging of how to start building up demand.

So do you see how I wasn't actually promising like an end outcome? I started to focus on the micro transformations that I knew I was confident in, that I knew for a fact that if people were to come into my world over time, they will learn how to do for themselves. So that's how I sold the program in the beginning, because I didn't know what the end result was going to be. I didn't know how people are going to respond. I didn't know. I didn't have any testimonials. I didn't have any of that. But what I had was a set of skills that I had developed with people over a long period of time, which I then took and put into a group program that in my mind I'm like, I'm gonna test this out if it's successful great If it's not I'm gonna have to go back to the blueprint and make some make some changes

But I saw it all as an experiment So to anyone who's like, you know launching something for the first time and they're like, well, I've never done this before I don't have testimonials. I don't have you know, I don't know what the results gonna be Like how do I sell this in an ethical way, always come back to the skill sets and the knowledge transfer that's going to happen. And ask yourself, what is this going to enable that person to do? So if someone gets clear on their brand identity, people are not coming to you because they want to get clear on their brand identity, what they want to get

clear on or what they want to achieve is feeling confident in their brand message, knowing how to stand out, knowing how to be different, and feeling grounded in their brand message, knowing how to stand out, knowing how to be different, and feeling grounded in their expertise. Like having solid intellectual assets that become theirs that help them sell more and help them stand out from everybody else in their field that does the same thing. So I wouldn't say you're going to come get clear on your brand identity. I would list all those things out. I love that.

So basically focusing on those micro wins or like those micro things that you already know that you're confident in instead of trying to paint a big picture and giving those massive promises. One thing I noticed as well that I don't see you ever share like K-launch, you know, like those screenshots from your newer message, you know, students that you know what their wins are, you know, you kind of keep that as well. Like, I see some testimonials, but I'd never see like money wins. Is that intentional? That is intentional. And the reason for that, it's this is a touchy debate, because a lot of people are saying, you know, when I see money wins, it inspires me, and it shows me what's

possible and all of that, which which I understand that has its place as well. The way that I see it is that money wins don't actually hold any inherent value for the decision-making of someone who actually wants to build the skillset of what I teach, meaning somebody can have a 100K launch and that will mean nothing about what I taught them, about what they did to get to that result, or it doesn't communicate any tangible value

to somebody else in terms of how they can create that result because it doesn't paint the whole picture. It, I don't know how many people were in this person's list. I don't know how long they've had their brand. I don't know what the offer was. I don't know how many people it was geared towards. I don't know what the price point was for lack of knowledge. It could be a thousand dollar offer and they sold two people into it.

But so there's a lack of information there where if someone has a hundred K launch at first glance, it's like that initial chemistry. Oh my gosh, like if that person did that in that program, I'm sure I can too, but it's incomplete information. And so when I do share testimonials, I'm very careful to share testimonials of people's experiences and reflections of what they took away from the program or what people were able to implement and do as a result of something tangible that I taught them in the program. So you won't see me say, Hey, this person made 25 K this week off of this one content strategy that I taught them. You will see me sharing a testimonial of someone saying I was so stuck not knowing what to talk about, but

after I watched some of your trainings, now the ideas are flowing. That's an actual before and after that shows a tangible transformation. So it's not necessarily just the end results, which I can't promise, right? I can't promise the 25k week. I can't promise the a hundred K launch because there's so many other factors that will go into that. That is outside my control. But what I can control is making sure that you're picking up on the habits, the skills and the knowledge that will help potentially facilitate that results. Do you ever ask for testimonials or you are just screenshotting from comments or messages

or what's the process behind it? Yeah, this is a really good question. Actually up until recently, I had no process for testimonials. It wasn't like a mandatory thing like when people are out of your program. I rarely approached clients and asked them for a testimonial. If anything, most of the testimonials were screenshots of messages I've received after people have done something that they're super proud of. And obviously with their permission, I'll ask if I can share that.

Or they have been from, let's say snippets from calls and things that have come up where people have shared something extravagant that they've done. And until recently, when I've started to kind of be a little bit more intentional with how I'm positioning the different levels and tiers of my offers, that's when I approached people and I said, again, I don't want, I did ask for testimonials, but it was like, I don't want you to talk about like how great this program is. Amazing you are. Yeah, like, oh my gosh, Prime is so amazing to work with. I don't want that. I want you

to paint a picture of the before and after of what were you able to do or what weren't you able to do before this program? And as a result of what you've learned, how has it shifted your perspective in marketing? How has it changed the way that you show up in your brand? How has it maybe facilitated some new insights on how you present your offers or how you do things? So I want them to speak about their internal transformation and experience rather than like this program is the best thing ever, or I was able to finally hit this one goal.

And it's like, that's fine, that's great. But to the decision maker is not actually showing the transformation. It's just building on hype. You don't like hype? I mean, it works, but it's just, it's one of those things where it works short-term. I don't think that hype attracts the highest quality client. No, that's, that's been something I've, I've learned also from working with others in collaborations and also in myself.

So when it comes to selling and we can go and move into that realm at the end of this episode, it's such, you know, testimonials, you know, money wins, all of that. What are some of the ways that you see the industry selling in unethical ways in your experience? And maybe we can, I have a lot too, but let's see if we can. call ego based selling rather than what I think I would do in my marketing, which is wisdom based selling. So I think ego based selling is a lot of the hype and urgency tactics that you see and that we see being used that kind of give people like us the ick, but unfortunately they do work. So when you, a couple of examples of ego is when you are selling purely based on lifestyle, personal results, money wins, other

people's experiences, and not actually demonstrating what is the problem that's being solved. What is the shift that you help implement? What are some of the obstacles that you help your clients overcome? Like getting really granular in helping shape people's understanding, like a deeper understanding of what is the problem that needs to be solved here? Why is it that they're actually investing? So the ego based marketing side of things will attach your kind of ego to the end desire of easy money, results, status, clients, fame, fulfillment, whatever it is that they know you desire and making it seem like the pathway

there is effortless, like making it seem like they can, they've got the secret potion, they've got the trusted blueprint, whatever it is to help get you there with minimal effort. And again, unfortunately we're human and that works on us because we want the path of least resistance to get to where we want to go. Whereas wisdom-based marketing, in my opinion, is a lot more what I would call teach to sell. And I also know that, you know, the educational content has kind of been demonized in the last year or two, which again, I strongly disagree with.

I think if educational content is done in a good way, it actually enlightens a person and empowers them to have a deeper understanding of why they're not where they wanna be and what are the necessary shifts they need to make to get to where they wanna be. And of course, if they need support or if they need a more resourced way of doing that,

they would hire you so that you can help facilitate that transformation. So I think wisdom based selling requires a lot of integrity. It also requires a lot of mastery of your craft, which unfortunately in the age of AI and everyone becoming an expert overnight and things, I don't think that that's something that many people put a lot of weight on nowadays is true mastery of what it is that they do. And I also think that it requires a really deep desire to actually serve and not just create a business that gives you freedom and helps you make a lot of money and barely have to lift a finger. And all of a sudden you're making money overnight, but it actually requires you to want to help and to have a certain degree of passion or skill in solving

the thing that you want to solve. And if you don't have those things, yeah, it's very easy to fall into the bucket of overly relying on people's insecurities, you know, making them feel like there's something missing in their life if they don't have this or making them feel badly about themselves if they don't take action or making it seem like it's all about the frequency and it's all about you need to decide and make the right choice because this is what successful people do and if you don't then you're in the wrong energy. So there's a lot of manipulation tactics to pry on people's egos and insecurities to get them to make a decision rather than operating from wisdom and really seeing the person as an

empowered being that is autonomous. And your job is simply to educate and to prevent or to present solutions. And that person is at will if they want to choose to work with you or not. I love that. And I think in one of your podcast episode, I listened that you did with someone, I don't remember who was that person, but you talked about creating intrinsic desire when it comes to buying a product or service or buying into a program. Can you explain to the listener what that means and how that in, you know,

relation to ethical selling, how would that look like? Yeah, I always tell my clients and this is a philosophy I've embodied for myself for a long time, which actually received a lot of pushback in the beginning days of me getting into marketing, is that I would always want to position myself as a trusted advisor rather than a salesperson or a vendor when it comes to creating sales. And I think when you see yourself as a trusted advisor, to evoke that intrinsic motivation in someone, people who know and people who are aware of their problem, the gap, and what their desired outcome is,

and people who have the willingness, the grit, and the knowledge of what needs to change, oftentimes will sell themselves into your programs or into your offers or into your courses without the need for extrinsic motivators like fear and urgency and fast action bonuses and bonus calls and things if you act now because The people who actually want to change and transform and in my opinion the people who are going to be the best fit to work With you are gonna be the people who don't need to be forced or don't need to be convinced of why they need to take action on something. So when you see

yourself as a trusted advisor, your job simply becomes to educate that person deeper on why they're experiencing the stuckness that they are. Why are they not where they want to be? What are some of the common obstacles or the myths that they fall for? What are some of the false beliefs or the narratives that exist in their space? And what are some of the things that you have created? What are some proprietary methods or what are some unique concepts or what are some solutions you've put together that can actually help alleviate their situation? That to me is being a trusted advisor. That to me is selling without selling. You are helping that person make an empowered decision on something that they themselves are intrinsically motivated on wanting to solve. Rather than

being a vendor or a salesperson, which sees it as I have this thing to sell, I need to sell it. What do I need to say to sell this thing? So it takes the person out of the center of attention and it puts your offer or the sale at the center of attention. And so that's when you start to go into extrinsic things like, okay, what discount do I need to apply to this? What launch method do I need to apply to make this work? What juicy bonuses do I need to attach to this to make it a no brainer? And again, that's not really taking the person into account.

That's extrinsically pushing someone into seeing the value of your offer rather than demonstrating them, demonstrating to them how their life can be different if they were to create these changes. I love those. And I want to take this a step further. And the reason to that is I recently have been observing, you know, someone selling in a way that it seems like an entire, like an inner desire to buy. But then this desire has been framed and reframed and self-guess sliding into like, oh, you need this.

And as some of the things and lines this person was saying was, oh, if you're feeling resistance to buy something, it means that you're growing and resistance is good, you know, or fear is great. Like if you feel fear, that's amazing because you are just about to step into your full power and just feeling like positioning themselves into an ally. Like I believe in you. I got you. No one else does but me, you know? And in this energy, if you stay in the energy, then we go together,

we go far. So it seems from an outside perspective as you pull the trigger, it's on you to make that decision. I'm not going to tell you that you have 24 hours or the offer is gone. But I'm going to say to you, just build those beliefs, frame the entire sales conversation in a way that you're almost stupid if you don't come. Like you fail yourself. You're calling your higher self for bullshit like that. This is where it gets really sticky because if you were to translate literally what she's saying, she has a point. Meaning in life, when we're about to make a massive change, when we're about to invest into something scary, when we're about to up a massive change, when we're about to invest into

something scary, when we're about to up level, we're bound to have resistance come up, we're bound to fall back into our previous identities. So the literal translation of what she's saying is she's right. However, this is positioning yourself as an ally or trying to evoke intrinsic motivation in a very dark manipulative way. This is kind of like using reverse psychology on people where it's like, hey, you're the one in charge. You know, if you want to step up and if you want to elevate, it's totally on you. I'm not going to force you into it, but I'm gonna subtly drop hints that imply that if you don't take action on this, then you might not be ready for growth. You might not actually be committed to the business that you're trying to grow to the degree

that you thought you were. You're not part of the cool kids club, the people who are willing to invest in their growth, the people who are willing to take that leap. You're not part of that. She's not overtly saying that, but if you listen to the message behind the message and read between the lines, that is what is being said. So am I okay with this type of messaging? No. And this is where like the energetics become really important too, because I don't remember

if you and I spoke about this on our last podcast episode, I touched on it around objection handling and my like my aversion to objection handling, because I genuinely believe when someone is truly ready to take action, they will take action, they will not need to be forced or have their arm twisted into taking action. I think that there's a fine line where sometimes I myself have called out clients on some of their BS and said, Hey, this is a fear that's coming up. This is not actual intuition, but that has not been in the sales conversation. That's been when they've actually become clients. And when we're talking about them doing something difficult or doing something outside of their comfort zone,

and I can feel that resistance coming up and I challenge them and offer some of that, like coachy pushback that they pay me for essentially, right? I'm not here to just be their cheerleader, but when it comes to making a sales decision, unless this person has an exquisite way of qualifying every single person that takes action to make sure that this person is at the financial, psychological, spiritual level to actually apply what it is that she's teaching, that's manipulation. So to say that, you know, it's, this is, you know, it's you needing to take action on your next level. And if the resistance is coming up, like that's manipulation. So to say that, you know, it's this is, you know, it's you needing to take action on your next level. And if the resistance is coming up, like that's normal. And like, you have to push through it, whatever. That to me is you have to put some skin in the game, you have to have skin in

the game as well. Right. And again, even saying that I agree with in business, you need to have some skin in the game, you do need to take some scary leaps, you can't be attached to certainty before you make decisions. Because as an entrepreneur, it's, it's kind of like that analogy of you jump off a cliff and you build a plane on the way down, you can't have certainty in entrepreneurship, you will have to put some skin in the, in the game and you will have to do some scary things that are not comfortable.

But with that being said, I don't like that this is being used in the, in the context of the sales conversation for her to get people to invest into something. She is right. You do need to have skin in the game. I tell my clients coming into my mentorship, this is going to be a lot of work. This isn't going to be, you know, apply these five frameworks and it's going to transform your business. I'm going to make you think, but that is what is going to develop your character and develop your grit. And it's going to help you succeed in the long run. So it's kind of like, it's not what is being said. It's the flavor from which it's being said from. It's the intention behind it. it's kind of like, it's not what is being said, it's the flavor from which it's being said from. It's the intention behind it. It's the energy behind

it. Is the energy pure? Is it coming from a place of genuinely calling you out and showing you what's possible? Or is it coming with an attachment to a pitch and making you feel like if you weren't to invest now, there's something wrong with you or maybe you're not ready or maybe you're not embodied enough or maybe you're not committed enough to your business. That's kind of what I have an issue with. Yeah, I love that. And as I was analyzing this entire pitch, it had a couple of pointers on what makes an intrinsic desire versus manipulative framing.

And the first point was respect's autonomy, which you mentioned as well, like whether or not you respect whoever is making the decision that they can make their own decision. And the manipulative framing basically says no. And if you say no, that it means you're just afraid, you know, and you let the fear win, essentially. The second was encourages reflection. If this is an inner motivation that yes, you can think and reflect or there's a prescriptive reflection, you know, thinking about how you're failing yourself or your higher self or whatnot creates pressure. There is no pressure or minimal pressure and there is strong emotional and moral pressure in a manipulative framing. Honors, no, it doesn't really. It suggests that no is weakness, you know, in that scenario. Activates self-trust. It says

often bypasses your higher self-knowledge. Like basically don't trust yourself. You don't trust yourself. You don't have to, you know. Your higher self-knowledge, you know. If you know, you know. Right, right. Yeah. One of the things that came up to me in this type of selling is like emotional decision-making when it comes to sales. And I'm curious to hear what your take is when it comes to you, someone joining your program, how much do you think that is rational decision-making versus emotional and do you pay attention into incorporating

both of those elements into the way you sell, for example? This is a really good question. Understanding consumer psychology is understanding that people will oftentimes make emotional decisions and then fall back on ration to rationalize why they made that decision. I actually feel I probably prompt people to think a little bit more rationally about this decision over emotions Because the way that I promote my program is is as if you're coming into a school meaning this isn't a Transformational program that you're gonna walk away as a different person Although most people most people do but this isn't like a I don't tie the program to particular results

I tie it to skill building though with that being said you, you need to rationally think, are these skills that I am missing, what are the benefits of acquiring these skills and is it worth my time, money, energy to invest this amount of time, money and energy into acquiring these skills right now? And so you could say that much of my marketing is still speaking to the emotion. I'd use a lot of storytelling, a lot of personal shares. I use a lot of helping people understand what is possible for them once they actually do have a successful personal brand. But when it comes to the actual sales and onboarding

process with clients, especially even going through like my application process and some questions I might ask them, it's really helping them reflect on whether or not they have the readiness and the capacity to invest both time and money into acquiring these skills for whatever level of business that they're in right now. So I think if we push people too far into rationalizing, we risk them overthinking, you know, all the possibilities of things not working out or them not making their money back or this being too much time or what not. But if we keep people too much in their emotion as well, that's where we get people who take action out of fear of missing out or out of feeling like they need this.

Like this is the missing piece. Like I don't trust myself as a provider. I need somebody else to help me and give me the answers. And so that's why I'm going to invest because I can't sit with my own thoughts and come to my own conclusions. I need somebody else's permission to do that. So I think to answer your question a bit of a complex way, it's a mix of both, but at the end of the day, you want people who want to be there because they recognize the value and understand

the depth of the value that you have to share rather than them getting in there because they think they're either missing something or that you're going to help facilitate a transformation that they otherwise would not be able to do on their own. I think that's taking the autonomy away from that person. Have you ever had someone jumping into the program and then realizing that you realizing they're not a fit? Yes. And like letting them know like, hey, it's time to go.

I'm sorry. Here's your money back. Yes. It hasn't happened often only because like I said, I have worked with so many people prior to the conception of this program that I think my filtration system of understanding who's a good fit has been really good. There has probably been maybe one or two people that I can think of and there wasn't anything wrong with them per se. I think it was the approach to business that they had that was not fitting in with some of the values and philosophies of what I teach my clients. So some of those being, you know, this person coming in with intentions of

wanting to build a personal brand, wanting to be a, um, you know, be a thought leader to, to develop their thoughts, to understand how to message and position themselves in a good way, understand how to build offers. But then as a result of being in multiple programs that all promise similar things, they were more geared towards some other strategies that I don't teach or kind of stand against. And again, I don't think everyone who comes into the program needs to like copy what I say and listen to what I say, but I do have certain principles that I think are our center to the program. And if you don't follow those principles, it would be very hard for you to actually

gain value from the program. So if you share what those are, I'm just curious. Sure. Yeah. Secret offers. So creating something that you yourself haven't even fully developed yet, but talking it up and making it seem like it's this big, amazing thing that people are going to gain amazing value from.

And then, you know, coming to calls, let's say with me and trying to figure out what the details of the secret offer is. Meanwhile, you're selling it and people don't even like, you don't even know what you're what you're selling. That was a strategy that was being taught in another program. And this individual was very like determined to make the secret offer things work. I just felt really icky being on that call because I'm like I am very much like, you know What is it that we're selling with the problem that we're solving with them? What's the method that we use like?

I don't know my spirit guys will tell me I'll get the download and Right exactly and it's like, you know teach their own Maybe your secret offer is gonna be super powerful and maybe you have zero plan as to what you're gonna deliver and you're just gonna show Up on those calls and it's going to be fantastic, but that's just not really aligned with what I teach. And I found it very difficult to actually help guide this person with the contents of the program. And so I'm like, Hey, if that's something that you want to do, that's perfectly fine. I'm just not going to be supporting you with that in this program. If you're a part of another program and they're doing that, that's perfectly fine. If you want to come and actually learn

how to create an offer and how to keep the different pillars of your offer and how to create a proprietary method that becomes yours. And maybe that becomes like your signature core mentorship or whatever. I'm more than happy to help you with that. But if the secret offer thing is something that you consistently want to do, and this is your moneymaker, I'm not the person for you. So I think that was one. And the second individual, which again, I don't have any bad blood with any of these people. It was just not a fit is someone who, someone who, and this is maybe it's not just one person, but just an archetype of person who doesn't see the value in actually having skin in the game.

So it doesn't see the value in actually creating their own content. So meaning a person who was super focused on automation, how to be hands off, how do I get things to work without me? And while I think that all of us to a certain degree can benefit from having teams on automation, how to be hands off, how do I get things to work without me? And while I think that all of us to a certain degree can benefit from having teams and automations and things that take mundane tasks off our list, I'm a huge believer in mastery and I'm a huge believer in being involved with the craft and being involved with your clients, being involved in the content. So meaning the content comes from you. You actually write the content.

Yes. Like the content is, is, it's's it's an expression of something that you've embodied Like you're putting your heart and soul into creating your marketing material And I genuinely believe that without that heart and soul your marketing material is not going to do well But yeah, this individual was very, very focused on, you know, can you just give me a couple of templates and I'll run with it? I'll run it through AI. I'll run it through this. And I'm like, that's not what this program is about. Like this is truly, it is a transformational program about you, self-discovering who you are as a brand and what it is that you want to be known for and how do you bring value into the world and how do you communicate that

value, that's going to require a lot of effort and practice that's going to require you writing on a consistent basis. That's going to require you refining your offers and working with people. So if you're consistently looking for ways to not be involved, we're not a good fit. And again, in the beginning, this person displayed all of the excitement and all of the, oh my gosh, we're so aligned. I love your content. I love the way you do things. I kind of, again, it's not that I was a poor judgment of character, but kind of saw some of where they're at in business. And I was like, ah, I can absolutely help with that offer lunches. I totally got that writing content in a way that resonates with ideal clients. I totally got that. But then you kind of

notice their approaches might not be as aligned as you thought. One more thing before we go is you have a very high retention in your program. What do you think that keeps people staying? Keeps people? What do you think that makes people stay? So my answer to this is super counter intuitive is that my retention rate is because I try to not retain people. And what I mean by that is that my focus is not on retention. My focus is on helping provide the level of support that they need at every stage of evolution that they're in.

Meaning people feel prioritized, they feel their needs are prioritized. And I don't want to speak for people in my program, but I can almost confidently say that each and every person can probably stand up and say, I've never felt like she's tried to sell to me or resell to me. Meaning I answer questions, I try to go out of my way to provide an even deeper level of support than what they're asking for. Not from like an overgiving, overcompensating type of way, but just to like show them what's possible. Like I'm really committed to their growth and to their success. Committed to consistently being involved in my own craft, meaning it's not like,

oh, okay, here's a curriculum, go watch it. I'm consistently updating and like coming up with new trainings, coming up with new things and like keeping it fresh and relevant. And by the end of it, it's, it's really that detachment because if someone has felt like they've gotten all the value that they, it's really that detachment, because if someone has felt like they've gotten all the value that they needed from me and that they're in a different stage and they feel like they're complete with the experience, I have no problem with saying, I'm so proud of the progress that you've made and I wish you the best of luck.

There's no client retention strategy. I've been in other programs where there's an entire like re-enrollment strategy that's being deployed and you know, oh, a month before they re-enrollment strategy that's being deployed and you know, a month before they re-enroll, we're going to send them custom videos and then we're going to send them an email and then I'm going to send them a voice note. And it's all, you know, being done in the name of, oh, we care about the clients, but it's really just a transactional way of trying to get that person to come back to increase customer lifetime value.

And to me, honestly, as cheesy as it sounds, the customer lifetime value that I think is most important is that person walking away being like that, you know, that program really changed me or this person really cared. I could tell that they cared. I could tell that the energy was pure. Some people, most people will consistently re-enroll and will happily stay and don't want to go anywhere. I've jokingly had people tell me that they feel like they're a part of an ethical cult. I don't like the word cult, but it's something that's come up. But I honestly feel like the reason why it's become that cult is because I'm trying my best to not make it a cult, if that makes any sense.

Has it ever happened to you that you had a person in the group and they were like end of the year or end of their term and they were like, I'm going to stay and you were like, end of the year or end of their term and they were like, I'm gonna stay and you were like, yeah, but you're ready. Like, just get the fuck out. Like you have no like, you're ready. Like there is nothing I can teach you. It's time for you to start like flying, you know, has it ever happened to you or you felt like there's always depth and layers and levels that they can, you know, if they think they want to stay stay they would. It's so my answer to this is nuanced. I've had multiple occasions of that of people being like, how do I re-enroll?

And I'm like, oh, I thought you were good. You thought you were good to go. And of course, there's things that I've worked on in terms of having like Ascension offers and things that I can continue to provide support. But I think what gets people to stay is not so much like the new things that I'm gonna teach them, but the sense of community that they've built and the connection to feeling like their ideas and they have a place to go to, to have a sound board. So it's less about learning new stuff. And it's more about like, I know their business inside and out. Everybody in the group knows their business inside and out.

And it's that shared sense of like, I will get value from this. Now, with that being said, there have been people that I'm like, I actually don't think you need to reenroll. And if it's people who've been on the fence as to like, I will get value from this. Now, with that being said, there have been people that I'm like, I actually don't think you need to re enroll. And if it's people who have been on the fence as to like, I really want to stay, I really like the space, but I also feel like it's time to go out on my own. I always say that there's seasons for support and there's seasons for self trust. And sometimes the best support that I can give to someone is actually to throw them out of the nest and say, it's actually time for you to self trust. Meaning you're no longer coming to me for feedback, you're no longer coming to me for permission,

but you fully trust that everything that you have and everything that you want to create is within your capacity and that it's time for you to trust that your expertise and what you've gained so far is enough. You don't need more. And so that's happened as well. Yeah. Love that. All right. Thank you, Parmiz for being here. Of course. I wanted to ask you one final thing, which is like, what's your future plans? But I feel like, okay, it's a stupid question. So I'm going to skip that question because we don't know. We don't know. We'll see. One thing is certain that there is no certainty. But maybe I'm going to ask you if there is one thing that you learned about yourself throughout these past three years that you think it would be valuable for people to hear.

Oh man, to bring it down to one thing is tough. There's so many. But I think, okay, I think the one thing that maybe encapsulates it all is that, and it sounds cheesy to say it this way, but you are capable of a lot more than you think you're capable of. Because when I have conversations with people, and of course, maybe, you know, not all of your listeners will know all of the stuff that has happened in the last couple of years and the chaos of it all, but a lot of people would tell me, man, you're so strong because I don't think I would have been able to do what you did. And my answer to that has always been, I didn't even

think I was able to do what I did. If you would have told me, you know, four years ago that, hey, by the way, your next three years are going to look at look like this, I would say, you know what, I'm good, opt out, I'm fine. I want to do that. So you don't actually know how much you're capable of until you're put in a situation where you have no choice but to be to survive. And I think that aligns with business as well. Because oftentimes, you know, business can be hard, there can be unpredictability, there can be instability, there could be conflict, there could be periods of time where you're thriving

and periods of time where you feel lost to kind of subtly answer your initial question as to like, what is in the future, because we don't know, I think I'm also going through a little bit of a period of time of realignment, not because I think I need to scratch my entire business and start over. That's that's definitely not the case. but feeling like I've gotten to a point where I've matured enough and what I've taught that there is another iteration that's brewing.

And there's ideas in terms of just my, all my experiences that I've accrued over the last three to five years and how I want to iterate my business into this next level, but it hasn't fully landed yet. So I'm also in a little bit of a messy middle of like, yeah, I do the messaging, I do the positioning and that stuff is great, but there's a level of personal mastery that I want to embed within the personal branding stuff. And it hasn't fully clicked for me yet as to how I'm going to do that,

but it's recognizing that you're going to go through seasons of hardship. You're going to go through seasons of feeling lost. It's just simply trusting that you are capable of facing whatever is thrown at you. If you, if you deeply, deeply believe that you can get through it and you realize that not all seasons are there forever. There's certain seasons that are meant to develop your patience. Other seasons that are meant to help open your eyes to certain things. And it's just flowing with life rather than resisting it. So yeah, to anyone out there who's like, Oh my gosh, like, I don't think I would ever be able to survive blank, you can and you will. You just

don't know it until you're actually in it and you have no choice but to be in the present moment. Whether you're striving right now and everything's going well or whether you're kind of lost and trying to figure out what your next footing is, like you can get through it as long as you actually have that belief. Love that. You're right. Thank you so much for coming Parmiz. Of course. Thank you for having me. It's been, it's nice to get back together. Hopefully we'll do it again soon.