This is the third and final installment in my series about marketing mistakes made by healers.

To illustrate the third mistake, I will tell you a story about my friend who went to a new dentist. On his first visit, he felt very “upsold.”

Before returning for his next visit, he did some on-line research and found a YouTube video of the dentist being interviewed on a marketing webcast. In the interview, the dentist is proudly explaining how she is monetizing her practice, and the tricks she is using to make the most money from each patient.

This confirmed what my friend had felt; the dentist was more interested in his money than his mouth.

At his appointment, he told the dentist how he felt. She was offended, but couldn’t say much when mentioned that he saw her on YouTube claiming that she commonly did exactly the thing she was now denying.

My friend has a new dentist, one who care more about keeping her patients healthy than she does about taking their money.

The third heinous marketing mistake is caring more about marketing than you do your clients. That mistake is compounded if you, like the dentist on YouTube, brag publically about your unsavory practices.

The best advice here, is have ethical marketing practices. Don’t take advantage of people. Don’t be greedy. If you are inclined to take advantage of people, don’t be a healer. If you are a healer who takes advantage of people, don’t brag about it.

There is a crass edge to some marketing enthusiasts. In the first installment of this series we talked about not being shy about marketing.

Today we will add something to that.

Don’t be shy about marketing, but also don’t be crass.

Marketing people often freely talk about how much they make. They love to talk about six figures. “Six figures! I’m making six figures, and you can too!” I can guarantee you, people who make real money, and people who are worthy of the money they make, don’t talk about it quite that way.

When you give something away, give it freely.

I once interviewed a healer who is well-known for providing great free services. I commented on that, and asked her about her philosophy on business and freebies. I expected to hear something about sharing, or giving back, or even sampling. What I heard was a comment about generating hits for her website. She even told me, off the top of her head, the number of hits free offers were generating.

To me, that’s crass. It may be true, and it may be the kind of thing we talk about privately in strategy sessions. If you are a healer, service should be your top-of-mind priority always. Web hits and six figures are the happy byproduct of that, not the goal.