 How do we market our business during a national or international disaster? While I'm recording this, there has recently been the Turkey-Syria earthquake, which has, I think the death toll is at least 33,000 people at this point. It's incredible. I mean, I hope this is a once in a lifetime kind of situation. And naturally, everybody in the world is concerned about this. Everybody in the world is, so many people are trying to give back, and that's been, you know, hopefully, understandably, a lot on social media posts about this. And what I hear sometimes is certain people who believe in ethical business, ethical marketing, and they put out these rules. And I've heard of rules like ethical marketing during a disaster. And by the way, I'm in the United States. We have, sadly, mass shootings, police brutality that happen multiple times a year. Right? Like, how do I deal with this? Like, you know, and so the ethical marketing, some ethical marketing people give us some rules like, number one, do not say anything about your business. Number two, only talk about the event and how you're getting back. And number three, put a black square as your profile photo or some kind of solidarity profile image. And to me, I am natural rebel. I don't like rules. I don't like bureaucracy. And every time I see someone said, you must do this, I'm like, sorry, but I don't agree. I think, I think you're being too harsh. You're being too authoritarian, might you even say it's so ironic. Some people who don't like authoritarianism are very authoritarian. And I could be that sometimes too, right? Talk about no funnels or no, I always talk about rebels. You're always welcome to rebel against my teachings. I welcome rebels because I like to be challenged. I like to grow and learn. And so I don't like people following rules and go, I'm supposed to do this because it's the right etiquette right now, even if they, unless they feel authentic for it. If it comes out of you authentically, wonderful, do the black square, do the stop your talking about your business. But I think also for a lot of us, and this is, this is true compassion for small business owners, a lot of us can't stop marketing our business because we won't have enough business to survive. We won't have enough income to pay the rent. Oh, mass shooting. Okay, I'm going to stop promoting my launch for the next two weeks and therefore have, you know, nobody show up to my course and I don't know how I'm going to pay my bills. You know, it's like the mass shooting not only destroyed a lot of people's lives but also destroyed my business for for a quarter or something like that. It's like, no, I feel more compassion towards, well, because those are my people I feel compassion towards my small business owners like so. So what I do now I know what I do is an ideal, but it's authentic to me, and you have to sense out. I'm just giving you another example in other words, and I'm just giving you these two examples right one example is follow these rules black square or whatever solidarity profile image or or band on your profile image you know, in support of you know whatever you can do that if you want, you know, stop only post about how how you're giving back on to me to me. Again, this is my opinion. I don't know what's virtue signaling, and what's real. That's my problem. Like, I'm like, when I see people do this stuff I'm like, Sure, I could do that too but I don't feel authentic when I do that. I mourn privately. I don't mourn publicly. That's just my style. Right. You don't see me posting about the turkey series not that I don't have a heart. I'm crying privately and I'm like, it's devastating to me, but I don't go out and go. Well, as I said, some of you do it publicly and it's natural and authentic to you and you do it. You do you. For me, if I were to do it, it would feel to me like virtue signaling. That's how it would feel to me. And I'm not judging others who do it, because I don't know whether. But some people I kind of feel like, I'm not too judgmental, but there's some marketers right some marketers in my industry I'm like, Yeah, I don't know if you really feel that or you're doing this because it's good for your business to do so. To you know, like during the black, black lives matter really big. Everyone, you know not everyone but all the smart smart marketers had the black square and everything I'm like, I feel it too I'm in San Francisco I mean I'm in California of course I feel it. I'm in solidarity but I do that stuff privately. You know, so I know everyone's like no you should do it publicly and in solidarity get the message out there and all this. I know I know I know. There's many reasons to do it publicly. But for some of us, it's more authentic to do it privately, and you should respect us for that. Right. So, if you have true compassion, right. So, so that's what I say and and so I don't believe in following those rules. But what I do, I just continue marketing my business like nothing happened. I know it's not ideal for my public image. People I'm sure are judging me and going George you have you have no heart. You're not championing the cause. Whatever cause black lives matter, climate change, systemic injustice. Turkey Syria, Ukraine, I did not publicly champion any of those causes. Because I don't care about them. Of course I do. I read about them more than you think, you know, and I talked to friends about them more than you think and I. Anyway, I, but I don't talk about publicly I just continue my business and you also notice that other people do the same thing too. So yes, there are others who also continue just marketing themselves doing their regular content. Like nothing happened, even though, but we don't know if they're warning or doing other things privately, not in the public eye, at least not in the social media channel. If you if it's natural to you if it feels right to do it then do it, then do it. But I don't think it should be a blanket. You must do this or otherwise you're not a good person kind of a kind of a thing so I hope that my example will be one extreme for you. Because oh, that's possible too. And of course there's the other extreme of, I'm going to shut down my business for two months, you know, and only talk about the talk about the cause, which, like that both I think are applicable. If it's done authentically. So, I hope this is helpful. Let's say that you do have a program or service that's related to the healing that's going on in your cultural space in your national space. And remember that it is a resource for people. Sure, there is a there's a price attached to it because it's part of your business, but any product or service that is has a positive transformational effect, my opinion, is either worth paying for or is worth donating or is worth giving back to in some way, right. Like, and so you might, if you wanted to do some kind of healing experience, again related to your expertise, or some transformational thing that's related. There's a couple ideas, one, you know, some people already doing this like hey, I'm launching this course and part of the proceeds are going to go to support this cause. And it's very common to do right. But if you had a program or service that's literally helps people heal from the situation, then you could say, I'm doing this program, because I really believe, I really believe in the power of this kind of healing, or transformation or process to to you know, for the benefit of the situation. And I, because it's part of my business there is a fee attached to it. And here's where you may, because of the situation you may want to play with pay from the heart kind of model or some kind of sliding scale or a donation based model. Or you could do the kind of thing that I usually do would just free to attend paid recording kind of experience it's like, it gave you attend. It's free. If you cannot attend you can buy it as a nominal price later, maybe even as a, you know, as a donation or part of the go to the campaign, because at the end of the day, when you have people interact with you in a program. They're more likely to continue working with you in some way. Of course, people don't expect people have various kinds of expectations for what can be paid where you can write what can be sliding scale. When they're working with you one to one. They know they're taking the most time and energy from you. And it's least reasonable to say well sure I can do it for free because during a national disaster or sure I'm doing it pay because it's my likelihood. When it's a group situation, people have a bit more expectation that there's a bit more of a flexibility with with the pricing so I hope this is helpful and if you have any other thoughts about how someone might market their program or business during a crisis or during a cultural moment that needs healing. Please comment below and give us your examples if you'd like.