🎭 A con artist taught me more about marketing than most business courses

Katya McEwen

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13d • General Discussion

🎭 A con artist taught me more about marketing than most business courses

I watched Dirty Rotten Scoundrels in the theatre today.

And I have not stopped thinking about one song since the curtain went up.

“Give Them What They Want.”

It’s sung by Lawrence, a smooth, silver-tongued con man who makes his living charming wealthy women on the French Riviera. His entire method is simple. He figures out what each woman is dreaming of, a prince, a hero, a fantasy, and he becomes it.

He gives them what they want.

And sitting there in the dark, I thought… oh no. He understands marketing better than most heart-centered entrepreneurs I know.

Stay with me, because I promise this lands somewhere good.

Here’s what I see all the time in our world of healers, coaches, readers, and creatives.

We market what people NEED.

“Heal your inner child.” “Rewire your subconscious patterns.” “Do the deep shadow work.”

All true. All important. All the actual transformation.

And almost nobody buys it.

Because nobody wakes up at 2am thinking “I really need to rewire my subconscious patterns.” They wake up thinking “why can’t I charge what I’m worth” or “why do I freeze every time it’s time to promote my offer” or “I just want to feel excited about my business again.”

That’s the want. The need is hiding underneath it.

So we keep marketing the need, the audience keeps scrolling past, and then we conclude that marketing doesn’t work, or worse, that WE don’t work.

Now, back to Lawrence.

The reason he’s a scoundrel isn’t that he gives them what they want. It’s that he takes the jewelry and disappears. The want was bait. There was nothing behind it.

You can speak to the want AND deliver the need.

When someone joins my community because they want to create a beautiful oracle deck, and along the way they heal their relationship with their own intuition, find their voice, and finally believe they have something worth sharing… did I trick them?

No. I met them at the door they were already standing in front of. Then I walked them into the whole house.

The con artist and the honest marketer use the exact same first move. The difference is everything that happens after the yes.

Lawrence gives them the fantasy and takes their money.

You give them the want they came for, and then you over-deliver the need they didn’t know they had.

So if your offers aren’t landing, let me ask you: are you marketing the medicine, or the moment they’re actually living in?

Because your people are not searching for your modality. They’re searching for relief, confidence, clarity, connection. Your job in your marketing is to speak their 2am language. Your job in your delivery is to give them the real transformation.

Give them what they want. Then give them what they need.

That’s not a con. That’s kindness with a strategy.

Tell me, what does your ideal person actually WANT, in their own words? Drop it below, I’d love to help you translate it 👇

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🎭 A con artist taught me more about marketing than most business courses