In its most straightforward sense, this expresses what's beautiful and good about marketing--connecting people with products and services that will help them accomplish their goals.
But there's a darker side to that phrase. It's not just drill-marketers who are selling holes.
Every day, we're inundated with images designed to make us feel helpless and inadequate. "You have a [product]-shaped hole in your life."
One of the most egregious examples is a television ad for a lawyer seeking clients in financial distress. Ominous words flash across the black screen as a grim voice inquires about your financial worries, accompanied by a loud, thudding heartbeat. The heartbeat grows faster and faster as the voice lays out various worst-case scenarios, and asks about the effect the worry may be having on your health and relationships.
Suddenly the tension breaks. Come-to-Jesus piano music softly plays, as the lawyer stands ready to welcome you with open arms. Regardless of the past, you can have a fresh start if you call right now.
Most of the time it's a lot more than subtle this, but it's everywhere. People are selling us holes so that we will pay to fill them up again. They're selling us despair and hopelessness and dependency, and I don't want anything to do with it. I'm not buying it, and I certainly don't want to sell it either.
This is why I love multi-level-marketing: we're in this together, but we each have the freedom to choose what it's going to look like for us.
For me, it's a high priority to make sure that I'm selling freedom and joy, not frustration and dependency.
And I want to sell the confidence that you really are capable of learning to use oils safely and well, and if you choose to do so, you can take charge of your own wellness in a new way.
You can have an awesome life just fine without essential oils, but they have brought much beauty and joy into my life, and I'm pretty sure you'll love them as much as I do.
It's hard work, but it's worth it: if it's not about freedom, I don't want anything to do with it.
