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Judith Sherven, PhD and Jim Sniechowski, PhD are a husband and wife psychology team and the best selling authors of 5 books. They’ve been marketing online for less than four years and are best known for their latest book #1 best seller The Heart of Marketing - Love Your Customers and They Will Love You Back (Morgan James Publishing, May 2009) and producing the only Internet marketing conference for the soft sell community which they call “Bridging Heart and Marketing.”
Their Soft Sell Marketers Association is fast becoming an international hub for Soft Sell training and support.   
 
They also created their popular copywriting course, Soft Topic Copywriting Secrets, which is dedicated to the specific needs of heart-based marketers. And with their partner Tom Justin they’ve developed the only course for the true entry level Internet marketer - First Step Internet Marketing. As guest experts they've been on over 2100 television and radio shows including Oprah, The View, 48 Hours, CNN, Canada AM, and The Daily Buzz.

Thank you Judith and Jim for taking the time to answer some questions for us!  Please tell us a little more about your latest projects.

We went from being psychotherapists to Internet marketers who created and promoted our own relationship programs - which followed easily since we are best selling authors of four relationship books. But finding combat driven hard sell marketing offensive and damaging to the potential customer we soon saw the need to develop our own style of soft sell copywriting which we taught and now market as a home study course softtopiccopywritingsecrets.com
 
That was followed by the awareness that our soft sell service provider audience needed their own marketing conference so we started producing our own "Bridging Heart and Marketing" conferences bridgingheartandmarketing.com devoted to spiritually-oriented Internet training in the soft sell marketing approach. And that was followed by establishing our Soft Sell Marketers Association which is an international hub for the growth and success of soft sell marketers' businesses  softsellmarketersassociation.org
 
And now through our #! best seller The Heart of Marketing -- Love Your Customers and They Will Love You Back (Morgan James Publishing, May 2009) we are inspiring an ever larger audience to create a soft sell heart-based platform for their businesses. 
 
Now, coming from our lower-middle class non-business backgrounds, with no experience in sales or marketing OR Internet technology this has been a tough sled a lot of the time. Yes, we’ve had tremendous success, but there have been plenty of days when we both wanted to throw our computers out the window and join the Peace Corps. What kept us moving forward? The knowledge that, like anything else, dedication and persistent learning are key - AND we have a mission, a heart-and-soul cause that we know is exactly what we were born to do – teach and promote Soft Sell Heart-based Marketing --- which the world needs desperately.

Do you also do speaking engagements, or seminars?

As we said, we produce our own conferences "Bridging Heart and Marketing" - and #3 will be a Virtual event running October 8-18! We also speak at a wide variety of events.   

How has your education, profession or background helped you in your writing career? Or conversely, how has you writing success helped you in your  profession?

Certainly the academic background we share (earning PhDs in psychology) and our careers as psychotherapists specializing in relationships have had an enormous influence on the work we currently do -- infusing relationship awareness into marketing. Both of us have enjoyed writing from our high school days and the more we write - the better we get at it - because practice really does make a big difference.           

What kind of other works (books, scripts, poems etc.) have you had published?

We've had 4 relationship books published by traditional publishers -
The New Intimacy - Health Communications Inc (they published all the Chicken Soup for the Soul books)
 
Opening to Love 365 Days A Year - Health Communications, Inc
 
Be Loved for Who You Really Are - St. Martin's Press
 
The Smart Couple's Guide to the Wedding of Your Dreams - New World Library
 
And we've written five film scripts. Our favorites are a romantic comedy "Mr Perfect" and a Revolutionary War epic titled "Providence."       
 
Is there any aspect to your profession that gets you in touch with your readers directly?

We receive a lot of feedback through email from our readers and it's a joy to hear how our work has changed their lives, their careers, their relationships. 

What are your plans for upcoming projects?

We will start our next Soft Sell Marketing book some time in early 2010 - and we're very much looking forward to expanding on the life-changing, business building elements of marketing from the heart!  

What type of work is the most rewarding or satisfying for each one of you?

We both especially love writing, speaking, teaching, and private coaching.    

What can you recommend for writers who are just getting started and are trying to make a name for themselves?

Focus your writing on your area of expertise. Write as often as you can. Get published anywhere to start. And know that marketing and promotion are the name of the game -- no matter how good your writing is. 

How did you get started as a writers?

We wrote articles for newsletters and local newspapers (for no money - just to get started) 

Which is your favorite book/work published? Is there a favorite?

In our relationship books, Jim's favorite is Be Loved for Who You Really Are (St. Martin's Press) and Judith's is The Smart Couple's Guide to the Wedding of Your Dreams (New World Library)
AND now - for both of us - our clear favorite is The Heart of Marketing http://TheHeartOfMarketing.com
 
Finally, a most important question: what was the last song you sang out loud when you were by yourself?  :)

Judith - "Summertime"    Jim - "You've Got A Friend"

Thank you Judith and Jim - we wish you much success with your future projects!