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Episode #76

Your State Is Your Marketing

Stress hormones are contagious. The state you are in when you create marketing determines whether people trust you or tune you out.

10 min
Listen on:SpotifyApple PodcastsYouTube

Key takeaways

  • Check your state before you record or write. Stress hormones are contagious, and your audience will feel what you feel, regardless of what your words say.
  • Use calm authority instead of urgency. People want to feel trust, certainty, and excitement when they consider buying. Pressure does the opposite.
  • Build honest scarcity, not manufactured pressure. If you only work with two clients a month, say that plainly. The mechanism does the work for you.
  • Reset physically before you market. Hit the gym, do breathing work, get physically tired. A calm body produces marketing that lands deeper with your audience.
  • Watch the state of the marketers you consume. Fast or slow does not matter. The feeling underneath is what transfers to you.

Timestamps

00:00Intro: the most overlooked element of marketing
00:58Managing bars in Mallorca: urgency as a default
01:26The feedback that changed everything
03:32Urgency in marketing works against you
05:08Calm authority vs. the noisemakers
07:24Honest scarcity and how waiting lists actually work
09:39How to reset before you record
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Read the blog article

Why Calm Authority Sells Better Than Urgency in Marketing

Show notes

What This Episode Is About

Paul Veth makes the case that your state of being is the most important element of your marketing. If you are stressed when you record, write, or sell, that stress transfers directly to your audience. Stress hormones are contagious, and no tactic compensates for that.

The Mallorca Story

Paul was managing multiple bars and a nightclub in Mallorca during a chaotic summer launch. He was running on a few hours of sleep, physically sprinting between locations, and constantly pushing his team. A colleague pulled him aside and told him the staff felt stressed because of him. That feedback became a turning point, not just in management, but in how Paul shows up in every form of communication, including marketing.

Noisemakers vs. Calm Authority

Paul distinguishes between two types of marketers:

  • Noisemakers: high urgency, manufactured scarcity, telling people they must buy now. It works short-term but erodes trust.
  • Calm authority: clear, honest, grounded. The mechanism does the work, not the stress behind it.

Honest Scarcity Still Works

Scarcity and waiting lists are legitimate marketing tools when they are true. Paul uses a waiting list for Identity First Marketing because the service is still being built. He uses it to gauge demand and gather feedback from future customers, not to manufacture pressure. Two honest client spots per month do not need urgency behind them. The truth is enough.

A Practical Reset Before You Record

If you are stressed, do not record. Do a breathing exercise, go to the gym, get physically tired. When you are physically tired but mentally calm, the words land differently. They land deeper.

Topics

marketing state of mindcalm authority marketinghonest scarcitystress in marketingIdentity First MarketingPaul Veth podcasturgency marketing tacticsentrepreneur mindsetwaiting list strategyvideo marketing presence

Full transcript

View full transcript
0:00
0This aspect of marketing is what most people forget and maybe, maybe, just maybe, it's the most important thing. I will tell you, I was working as a manager at Majorca for several bars and a big club And it was just it felt like a startup because some restaurants were just opened and the club wasn't open yet while the summer already has started. So a lot of tourists came to that place and I was working as a manager and I felt the urgency to make for the tourists to make it a nice time to give them the best time ever on Mallorca or on any holiday whatsoever. So I felt this urgency and I was working till 04:00 in the morning and at 10:00 in the morning I started working again. Every morning I was like, Okay, let's go with the whole team.
0:58
0Let's go. We have to make it happen, we have to grow, we have to improve, we have to learn. And every day I was almost running from one bar to the other to arrange everything in the big club. It was running all the time because we didn't have microphones or something like that. When I have to arrange something I had to hit all bars and we have to chase the other part of the island for glasses and stuff like that.
1:26
0And it was just this energy till somebody from the management team came to me, my colleague, and he told me, Paul, people feel a little bit stressed because of you. They don't feel control. They don't feel trust. They don't feel authority. They just feel stress.
1:48
0And they were right because of the urgency I felt. I was like, Okay, we have to do it all today and that's not possible. And stress hormones are very contagious. So if I feel stressed as the authority, Which I was because I had the role of manager, so people see me as an authority and if the manager is stressed, the rest of the staff is stressed as well and the guest will feel the stress as well. It's never a good thing.
2:21
0So at that moment, something clicked in me. Besides that, that I had a whole transformation, a personal transformation at Mallorca working and living there. I will tell you about it in a different video. But because of that clicked, had another management function with a big phone company here in Holland and suddenly I felt because summer was over, I found a job here in The Netherlands and suddenly I felt so calm and so. Certain well, we still had the same startup because it was not the same, but it was a different startup.
3:08
0It was at the phone company, but we were starting to work with fiber so it was new. So there was a lot of urgency as well. A lot of stress as well in the company, but not for me. I started to talk in a calmer way to approach things and people in a calmer way. And yeah, there were there was urgency.
3:32
0We want to do things in a quick way. We want speed, but you don't need the. Feeling of urgency within you in every touch with customers, guests, staff. With within a connection, there's no need for urgency. And the same is for marketing and videos, and I did the same thing again wrong because I feel urgency in the AI era we live in right now, and I want to bring that urgency to you.
4:16
0But it's not up to me to give you urgency. It's up to me to tell you, hey, look at this. This might be something you want to look into and that can help you. So this video as well, I want you to think about marketing and I want you to watch videos from people and to watch what kind of state the people are in. Are they in the calm state?
4:47
0Are they in the urgency state? Are they fast? Are they slow? It doesn't matter because people can be fast and still feel calm and people can be slow and still feel like they are stressed. So it's not about speed, it's about the feelings like the stress hormones are contagious.
5:08
0If you feel my urgency that will be stressful to watch. It's not fun to watch. It's not calm to watch. It's not easy to watch. And in your marketing, not only on video, on audio as well, in text the same, you want to bring in some calm Authority.
5:33
0And maybe you have to slow down your breath, your heart rate. You have to slow down your talking. You have to use some filler words, not too much because I like the content to be pointy as well, especially when it's in text and video. It can be long form. It can be a little bit different, but it's important for you to understand that the state of being when you are doing your marketing.
6:02
0Like I said, maybe is the most important thing, because if you are talking on camera or audio with the sense of urgency. People don't want to feel that stress when they are doing business or when they buy a service or some products. They feel they want to feel calm or excited or. Sure or certain stuff like that they feel they want to feel trust. That's one of the most important things.
6:36
0But if you stress out, people probably don't feel trust. And then you come to people. Who use this urgency and stress to let you buy things. They are going to tell you, you have to buy it now, you have to do it now, now is the time, now is the time. I don't open up for another year anymore.
6:59
0Now you have to buy. If you want this, if you want all the customers, then I'm going to help you. That's not how you want to buy things and that's not how you as an entrepreneur want to sell things. I call them the noisemakers. They shout a lot, they tell you a lot of times, a lot of things in a very short amount of time.
7:24
0They bring on live campaigns and watch this, I don't say you don't have to use timers or waiting list or scarcity, because that's working very well, especially when it's fair. If you are a coach and you tell people, okay, I only work with two life clients each month, then you have real honest scarcity that works. You don't have to tell people that in an urgent matter, you can just say, okay, I'm working with two life clients a month and this month I only have one spot left. It's just like that, you don't have to bring stress to them, the mechanism is doing the work for you, if it's honest. Same with the waiting list.
8:15
0For me, with my company Identity First Marketing, I'm building a waiting list because the service I'm going to deliver there is not ready yet. That's why I have the waiting list. It's not like, Okay, this is the waiting list, a lot of people want it. No, that's not fair and that's not good marketing. Good marketing is fair, I'm building this service in the AI era, Identity First Marketing to help you with strategy and therefore we have the waiting list.
8:47
0Also for me to see how many people want it, but also to send them messages on the waiting list and ask them questions so I can improve the service. It's just like that. There's no urgency behind it. And yeah, when the waiting list is full, maybe there can be scarcity as well. Because I can say, Okay, I open up the doors for the first five people because I want to have case studies.
9:16
0I want to work with them. I want to give them a good price because they are the first five customers. It's all honest marketing and there is scarcity. And at that moment when the waiting list opens up, there can be a case of a feeling of urgency, but not because I'm stressed about it. So leave the stress out of your marketing.
9:39
0That's the most important thing. If you feel stressed. Don't do the marketing at that moment. Make sure you do some breathing exercise or yoga exercise or hit the gym and when you're tired, then start recording because you're you're physically tired, not mentally. It works because at that moment you can talk to a camera, you can talk to a person, you can talk to a team member or member of the board with calm voice, with authority, and at that moment all the things you say land much better and deeper within your customer or your potential customer.
10:25
0And that's the most important part of marketing.

Frequently asked questions

Why does urgency in marketing backfire?

Stress hormones are contagious. When you market from a place of urgency, your audience absorbs that stress. They do not feel motivated, they feel pressured. People want to feel trust and certainty when they buy, and urgency erodes both. Calm authority consistently outperforms manufactured pressure.

Is scarcity in marketing dishonest?

Honest scarcity works and is legitimate. If you genuinely only take two clients per month, say so plainly. If your waiting list exists because your service is still being built, say that too. The mechanism does the work when it is true. You do not need stress behind it.

What should I do if I feel stressed before recording?

Do not record. Paul recommends a physical reset first: breathing exercises, yoga, or the gym. When you are physically tired but mentally calm, you can speak with authority. That calm lands deeper with your audience than any tactic you layer on top.

What is a noisemaker in marketing?

Paul uses the term noisemakers for marketers who rely on volume, repetition, and urgency to push people into buying. High-pressure countdowns, repeated calls to act now, and manufactured scarcity are the hallmarks. It may convert short-term but it does not build trust.

How does Identity First Marketing use waiting lists?

The waiting list for Identity First Marketing exists because the service is still being built. Paul uses it to measure real demand and gather input from future customers to improve the offering. It is a functional tool, not a pressure mechanism. The honesty behind it is the point.

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Discussion

The idea that your emotional state literally transfers to your audience through your marketing is a big claim, and it tracks with a lot of real experience. What have you noticed in your own content, when were you in a calm, grounded state versus pushing from stress, and did the response actually differ?

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