Here is another case study of how message work can energize an already successful business:

Mark Silver called me last fall to ask for my help in solving a challenge with his messaging.

Now, if you don’t know him, Mark has a wonderful business that teaches heart-centered entrepreneurs kind and loving ways to work with themselves and to market to their clients. His work combines his training as a Sufi healer with his knowledge about building simple but effective systems to help businesses grow.

His company, Heart of Business, is well-established (multiple six-figures), and, as I like to joke, when it comes to communication, Mark is nearly as smart as I am! So why would he need my help with his messaging?

When you’re newer in business, you feel as if everything will be great once you are making regular money. But the truth is, as your business grows, so does your desire to make sure that your business is truly a reflection of the biggest, deepest message you are here to share. It’s no longer a question of how to get clients, but how to get the right clients and create the opportunity to do the right work.

What Mark told me was: “After being in business for ten years, I had a solid tag line (When you want to make a difference, but need to make a profit.), but the spiritual component of what we do was hidden. People had to really look deeper to figure it out. Even though the tagline and message were taking a stand, it felt like the current language was hampering us. The shiny-ness, relevance, and impact that I wanted to have weren’t there.”

He reported that it felt like his team was working harder to get the same results each year, and that it was hard for even happy clients to talk about them clearly and spread the word. Without the clarity in his message, he felt stuck in his decision-making and strategic implementation. Without the ability to name his essential message, he couldn’t move forward with the rebranding and website overhaul he wanted and he was reluctant to bring on team to support the effort without the confidence that he could communicate what the business was all about.

Jokingly, Mark said at the beginning of our session, “I’m hoping you can solve my challenge in about five minutes.” We laughed, though the truth is, the clearer the intention my client brings to the session, the more likely they get what they want. So, I asked him to tell me he wanted to convey that wasn’t yet being said.

The bottom line was, he wanted to be more explicit about the spiritual aspect of what he offered and the potential for people to engage in business in a way that is sacred. I listened carefully and, between knowing his work from the many calls we’ve done together, and reading his beautiful book “Unveiling the Heart of Your Business,” within about ten minutes I was able to reflect back what I was hearing and say, “so basically what you’re saying is that every act of business is an act of love.” Or rather, as we clarified, not that every act of business is an act of love but that “every act of business can be an act of love.”

Bingo! Mark knew immediately that we’d hit on it. Of course, I wanted to do my due diligence and asked a bunch of questions to make sure there wasn’t something more that needed to be said. I was impressed that when I asked Mark if his message was that if you are more spiritually connected, you have a greater chance of being successful with your business, he gave me a pretty emphatic “no!” He said it was a spiritually inaccurate message, as attractive as it might be to the audience.

Mark left the call elated that we had found the words to capture his core message. About a month later, he reported that bringing his message into focus had made a huge difference.

He was in love with the message (and the tagline that came out of it), and his team was as well. Soon after our session, he had brought on a designer and got moving with his web redesign because he could finally communicate the heart of his story. He felt the clarity and crispness of his message had improved, that his blog posts were having more impact, and that he was more on point when interviewed. He felt like he was planting a flag, saying “this is what I stand for,” without needing to hide behind other capabilities.

Curious, I later asked Mark why he’d chosen to work with me, given how well connected he is, and how many talented branding/marketing/copywriting people he knows. What he told me was that “the intersection of spirit and business isn’t easy to talk about. I appreciate your complex understanding of language and how language is used. You aren’t just about coming up with phrases, but getting to what it is we are trying to say. I knew that you could help me have a spiritual message that was also grounded and practical.”

Mark introduced his new website this fall, to rave reviews and enthusiastic comments, including for his new tag line. In fact, Mark wrote about our work together and his choice of a “rule-breaking” tagline in a recent post.

If your business has hit the wall, or you just feel ready to bust loose with a bigger, bolder expression of your work in the world, a good place to start is with your core message. Clarity is a funny thing. When you can name your bigger, deeper message, you unleash powerful energy that propels you out into the world.