Morning Rant

I hate sales funnels.

I especially hate sales funnels when used by sacred businesses, healing businesses, mystic-focused businesses. I was reading an excellent, deep, profound article on Substack last night when I clicked on a link to learn more, and I was dumped on one of those long-ass, continual scroll pages with short, punchy lines telling an Important Personal Story (TM) with appropriate pauses for your agreement—and your buy-in, so that by the time you reach the end of the gods-damned page, you’ll sign up for anything and any cost, bc this person had such amazing results! And so did all the (totally real, I’m sure) people who provided testimonials!

I felt empty, hollow, jaded, duped. This person had written a (mostly) soulful article (spattered with moments of AI, to be fair) that reverberated through my energy field. In one click, I went from “Man, it’s so nice to find someone who gets it in such a poetic way!” To “Seriously?! You’re just like everyone else, with the almighty dollar in mind? Do you even mean what you say? Was it all an act, a performance, so you’d get my money?”

Would I have felt as betrayed if the landing page had been written differently? If it hadn’t followed the by-now well-worn path of sales preached by every business coach ever? I was willing to accommodate the obvious sections of AI writing, because I understand how sometimes, AI can summarize what we’ve been trying to say in a really succinct way. I get it. AI can be a helpful thought partner, and how easy it is to just copy and paste what it wrote. (I’ve done the same, and will do again. Every article I write has an article-specific disclaimer about how much AI was used in its creation.) But this landing page betrayal stuck with me so hard that it’s 12 hours and one night later, and I’m tying this on my phone (I hate typing on my phone) while I drink my morning coffee (I’m usually meditating right now), because I have to understand and process it RIGHT NOW.

This form of sales has been prevalent for years now, and yes—I’ve used it in the past. We’re told by every witchy/small/art/fitness/sacred/author business coach that THIS is the way to gain business. Get them sucked into with a story, get their email address, and send them a whole series of automated emails meant to badger them into buying your services, before it’s too late! This is the most effective way to make money. Here’s the formula, now go forth and prosper.

Making money is really important, even if you are an anti-capitalist. Commerce doesn’t equal capitalism, I keep telling myself. Yet, there’s something empty and strange to me about landing on a page explicitly designed to part me from my money, for the seller’s gain. That doesn’t feel like commerce. That feels like extraction.

Maybe it’s my 25 years working in/adjacent to marketing. Maybe it’s the fact I’ve been hearing people in the corporate world talking about “manufacturing” growth.

I keep returning to what I thought as a kid: Growth for growth’s sake isn’t sustainable; it’s cancer. It’s parasitic. It’s the Virginia creeper I’m looking at in my backyard slowly suffocating everything it grows on. Whether it’s happening on macro scale (the US economy) or a micro scale (an individual small business), it’s the same energetic current. (To me. Maybe not to you, and that’s okay. You have a different path than I do.)

I don’t ever want to engage in the practice of manufacturing sales. Of writing copy designed to get you to click. Of writing landing page after landing page filled with urgency and punchy lines meant to manipulate your emotions.

Will I ever be “successful” in my own business if I don’t use these tactics? I don’t know. But I’m ready and willing to commit to it.

My guides have indicated that it’s time for me to step back into my calling. Into healing and helping and community. But my gods, I can’t help heal by using the tools and formulas of the oppressor. Those are tactics meant to work within the old way of doing things.

So I’m not gonna. It’s scary and weird and probably crazy, and I’m sure lots of people will tell me all the reasons why using sales funnels and marketing formulas works for them, even though they, too, are anti-capitalist or don’t like it. That’s great; I’m glad you have found a way to be okay with it. I haven’t. And I think I’m okay with that.

I think.

I don’t know for sure. I’m terrified. I don’t know what the future holds. I mean, no one ever does, but right now? With the collapse of the empire actively happening all around us? No one alive has seen this before. We may have books and internet sites and history professors and astrologers and content creators theorizing about the future and telling us what to expect, but that’s doesn’t help our body-brain. Our bodies only learn and understand through experience, through practice and continued application of theory.

So I’m gonna apply this anti-capitalist practice: I refuse to write another landing page filled with sales tactics meant to create emotion in the reader so that I get their email and can send them heartless, soulless, automated messages designed to part them from their money.

Instead, I’m going to keep writing weird articles in Substack (although maybe not on my phone next time; my fingers HURT), I’m going to keep being my weird, eccentric, honest, and true (and sometimes wrong and brash and ignorant—but always willing to learn) self on Threads and other platforms. I’m going to maintain my website and share information about how I can help and keep writing free articles on Substack as my way to build reciprocity on my end with the universe at large. Because it’s in the service of offering that I believe the universe responds.

And I’m gonna talk about it. And how scary it is. Not for money. Not to separate someone from their hard-earned dollars. But for honesty and for possibly attracting the kind of people who prefer this form of marketing. Because yes, I need to advertise that I exist and can offer particular folks great guidance.

So, hey, hi. It’s me, Hawth. I have a unique way of looking at the world and some people find that really helpful. I’ll always be honest and upright with you if I’m trying to sell you something, so you can consent to being sold to.

And yes, I know this was written with short, punchy paragraphs. But not because I wanna sell you anything. Just because I have something to say.

And now it’s time to finish my coffee.

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Hawth Reiter is a trans husband, dad, writer, philosopher, animist, and threshold guide who illuminates potentials and possibilities for folks at the crossroads. Learn more or book a reading at HawthReiter.com.

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AI use disclaimer: Zero AI was used in this post, not even as a thought partner. This morning, it’s me, my dog, and the Virginia creeper outside.