The Weaponisation of ‘Soul-Led’ Marketing Training

Terms like soul-led and heart-centred are used by marketing trainers targeting coaches. Far from being harmless spiritual language, these terms are deliberately wielded to exploit coaches who believe marketing is inherently unethical.

The coaching profession labours under a widespread misconception that marketing is somehow grubby or unpalatable. This belief often stems from coaches’ exposure to poor marketing – the shouty, braggy social media posts and high-pressure sales tactics they’ve experienced from others.

Marketing trainers who target coaches understand this discomfort deeply.

Rather than address the real issue – that coaches lack practical marketing skills – they lean into the discomfort. They position their training as different, special, more aligned with coaching values. By using terms like “soul-led” and “heart-centred,” they suggest their approach transcends ordinary marketing.

Calculated Manipulation

This is calculated manipulation by trainers who understand their market well. They know that coaches are driven by a desire to help others and typically feel uncomfortable with traditional marketing approaches. They also know that most coaches have no marketing experience to use as a benchmark for good practice.

These trainers exploit the fact that coaches want their marketing to feel aligned with their values, and they use this knowledge to position their ‘special’ approach as the solution to coaches’ discomfort.

The ‘spiritual’ terminology creates a false promise that marketing can be transformed into something entirely different if approached through their special lens. It suggests coaches can avoid learning actual marketing skills if they just follow this ‘higher path’.

This exploitation is particularly cynical because it:

1. Reinforces coaches’ fears about traditional marketing
2. Promises an escape from learning proper marketing skills
3. Charges premium prices for basic marketing concepts dressed in spiritual language
4. Delays coaches from finding genuine solutions to their client acquisition challenges

What makes this approach especially damaging is that it keeps coaches stuck in their misconception about marketing. Rather than learning that effective marketing is simply clear communication with the right people, they’re sold a mystical alternative that rarely delivers results.

The Cynical Marketing of Marketing Training

When marketing trainers promote soul-led or heart-centred approaches, they’re not offering a genuine alternative to traditional marketing. Instead, they’re exploiting coaches’ anxieties about marketing to sell their own services. It’s a calculated strategy that suggests their approach is somehow more ethical or aligned with coaching values than ‘regular’ marketing.

This is deeply disingenuous.

These terms create a false dichotomy – regular marketing (portrayed as manipulative and unethical) versus soul-ledmarketing (positioned as pure and aligned with coaching values).

This is nonsense.

Good marketing is inherently ethical – it’s about clearly communicating value to people who need your services.

The Truth of Effective Marketing

When marketing is done well, your potential clients recognise themselves in your message

1. They understand exactly how you can help them
2. They know your pricing before they book a call
3. The sales conversation becomes a simple confirmation that you are who your marketing suggests

None of this requires mystical terminology or spiritual positioning. It requires clarity, consistency, and genuine understanding of your ideal client’s needs.

The Exploitation at Play

Marketing trainers who use spiritual language prey on coaches’ misconceptions about marketing, feeding into pre-existing doubts and anxieties. They manufacture solutions to problems that don’t exist, implying that traditional marketing is broken and needs their special fixing.

These trainers position their approach as uniquely ethical, suggesting their soul-led or heart-centred methods are morally superior to standard marketing practices. What they’re actually selling is basic marketing principles wrapped in spiritual language, but with a premium price tag attached to this mystical positioning.

Here’s the thing…

Ethical marketing has nothing to do with being soul-led or heart-centred. Instead, it’s about understanding exactly who you can help and communicating that clearly.

It’s about delivering a consistent message and being visible where your ideal clients spend their time.

You build trust by demonstrating your expertise, not by using mystical language, and you maintain that trust by being completely transparent about what you offer and what it costs.

Moving Past the Mystical Manipulation

Coaches need to understand that they don’t need spiritual sugar-coating to market ethically. Good marketing is inherently ethical when done properly – it helps the right people find the help they need by being clear about what’s on offer. It builds genuine trust through consistency of message and approach.

When marketing is done well, it eliminates any need for pressure in sales conversations because potential clients already understand what you do, how you can help them and what it costs.

The next time you see marketing (or client acquisition) training promoted as soul-led or heart-centred, recognise it for what it is – a cynical attempt to exploit coaches’ marketing anxieties rather than address them with practical, effective solutions.

What coaches actually need is straightforward training in comfortable, effective marketing principles and implementation – and that’s what I do.

No mystical terminology required.

For more marketing guidance, why don’t you read my book? It’s available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback.