How To Trash Your PR At The Touch Of A Button: Of Holosync, Bill Harris, and Silencing Critics
“You will literally meditate like a Zen monk at the touch of a button!!”
That’s one of the oft repeated sales pitches for the Holosync system, a set of binaural-beat brainwave entrainment CDs from Bill Harris’s CenterPointe Research Institute. According to the rest of the sales material, it slices, it dices, enlightens and happifies, fixes you buttered toast, and offers you fresh squeezed orange juice. Organic, I’m sure.
Ok, I made a lot of that up.
Still, the actual benefits claimed for Holosync are both pretty darn vague and pretty darn sensational. CenterPointe’s head honcho has quite a rep for hard-core (and some would say obnoxious) marketing practices, so vague and sensational are to be expected. It’s a methodology that drives some people away, turns others into True Fans, and generally makes a heck of a lot of money in the process.
But back to that trashing your PR thing…
This past month, Bill Harris, made a mistake – a pretty surprising mistake for someone so widely recognized for his business & sales skills.
He (allegedly*!) tried to silence a blogger.
*pauses to let the gasps of shock die down*
I say allegedly, not because I actually doubt what happened, but because I don’t feel like risking any defamation lawsuits myself. So I’m just reporting on what others allege is going on. You see?
Now, those of you familiar with the blogosphere know that there’s one thing a big-wig, multi-millionaire or corporate type never, ever wants to do… it’s threaten bloggers with legal action after they criticize you.
It just never turns out well.
It doesn’t matter if you’re right. It doesn’t matter if you have the money to pursue it until hell freezes over, and that the blogger will probably have to rely on pro-bono legal help. It doesn’t matter if you eventually win the lawsuit, and make the blogger’s life miserable.
You will lose in the court of public opinion, because you’re not really dealing with the ONE small blogger, but the entire blogosphere. See, threatening a lawsuit against a blogger is like, well…
It’s like pushing a big red button that releases a pack of rabid hounds.
A pack of rabid hounds that races wildly around the countryside unchecked, braying about it at the top of their lungs until EVERYBODY knows.
It’s not pretty. It’s very slobbery. It’s wildly infectious.
And it’s very, very bad PR.
Once bloggers have the scent of blood, they tend to spread the very material you wanted to suppress far and wide. It becomes “news”, and passes through blogging networks, bookmarking sites, and Twitter. It elevates the status and traffic of the accused blogger, guarantees that the damaging post in question will be reposted and archived on multiple sites, discussed, Tweeted and debated into infinity. The whole thing will rise in the search rankings of Google, meaning that even non-blog-readers who are looking for product info will stumble upon the controversy.
It’s a serious marketing fail.
And it makes you look like a bully.
Here’s how the button got pushed. Allegedly.
Over on BeyondGrowth, Duff McDuffee has a habit of poking at personal development gurus with a big stick (something I’ve been known to do in my spare time, as well). In November, Duff was poking at James Ray, the fellow whose Arizona sweat lodge went so tragically wrong, left three of his clients dead, and sent another 17 to the hospital.
Somewhere along the way, Duff uncovered links between James Ray and Bill Harris of Holosync. Now Duff and Bill had previously shared a few heated words here and there, and neither seemed fond of each other. It’s totally understandable, really – I mean, after all, one of them is a personal development guru, and the other one pokes at personal development gurus with a big stick. I wouldn’t expect them to form a mutual admiration society, you know?
So Duff writes a post specifically poking at Bill, filled with lots of criticisms and some pretty harsh words. (The post just happens to quote me, by the way. Check it out if you’re curious.)
Apparently Bill didn’t like being poked at.
He didn’t like it one bit. I understand that, I do. I mean, Duff was wielding a very big, pokey stick. I wouldn’t like it either. 
And sure, Bill talks a lot about enlightenment and personal development and dealing with personal “shadows” (which, I gather, is pretty much just heavy baggage that makes you have knee-jerk angry and prejudicial reactions) and overcoming them but come on…
It was a REALLY BIG POINTY STICK!
Even the Dalai Lama would have slapped Duff around for it. Ok, maybe not the Dalai Lama. He’d probably have just smiled and patted Duff on the head.
But you get my point. Even if it’s not on a stick.
Anyway, here’s where Bill manages to trash his PR “at the touch of a button”; instead of opening a conversation with Duff, asking nicely, or even just refuting the information in Duff’s comment section or with a post of his own… Bill (allegedly!) threatens Duff with a defamation lawsuit.
The story (allegedly!) goes something like this:
Bill has his lawyers draft a Cease & Desist letter, threatening a defamation lawsuit unless the pointy-post is removed, the claims prominently retracted, and Duff promises to never, ever again say bad things about Bill, CenterPointe, or it’s products.
Never-EVER!
Chilling, isn’t it?
But Bill’s lawyers accidentally sent it to the wrong address, so it didn’t have the desired chilling effect. (Oops.) Bill himself did manage to email Duff about the matter, informing him of the pending litigation and just how it would ruin his life if he didn’t comply.
You can see the full text of THAT letter here, about midway through this post on SaltyDroid. And I must say, the tone is not at all what I’d expect from a personal development guru. Er… quick correction: It’s not what I’d *HOPE* for from a personal development guru. It is, however, pretty much what I expect from one these days.
Now, to me, that letter it feels very threatening. But maybe it would seem different if I were a personal development guru with an enlightened and elevated perspective. Maybe I would see it as a kind, simple explanatory letter urging caution. Maybe Bill didn’t even write the letter, and it’s all a figment of someone’s overactive imagination. Allegedly!
Seriously…
The whole thing makes Harris looks like a bully.
Who can’t take criticism.
Which really isn’t very good for his image as a personal development leader.
So for all of you big-wig, multi-millionaire personal development gurus out there, just itching to throw your weight around by trying to silence your blogging critics?
Just don’t.
Before you push auto-dial on your smartphone to reach your lawyers, before you push “send” in your email program… take a time out. Calm down.
Then open a line of communication. Consider playing nice with the critic in question. Recruit other bloggers to tell your side of the story.
Maybe you can even find bloggers with bigger sticks to be on your side.
And maybe, just maybe, you can keep from trashing your PR at the touch of a button.
As an added bonus, you won’t have to pay your lawyers to read through meandering posts from multiple bloggers like me, who are reporting on the whole slobbery mess for our own amusement.
(And yes, I know… none of the graphics lived up to the promise of the first one. I ran out of inspiration. And IStock credits. Because some of us aren’t multi-millionaires)
(Oh, and here’s the previous post of mine that is quoted in the Ceased & Desisted post of Duff’s: Review Of The Holosync Demo Raises Ethics Questions. Just in case you feel like reading it.)
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Love it! The new culture of transparency is rising, slowly…
Great work! This is a really thoughtful post!
It’s fascinating to me that so many of these middle age guru types like Bill Harris choose to double down on their original mistake rather than doing the right thing. Bill made a mistake. He endorsed James Ray and then James Ray killed 3 people at a retreat (whether a jury concludes it was homicide or “only” manslaughter, these 3 people aren’t coming back). And Duff pointed out this mistake — and linked to the video.
At that point, there really isn’t any place for Bill to go — he’s caught, on video, endorsing a guy whose actions contributed to the deaths of three people. It doesn’t take a PR expert to figure out that Bill needed to distance himself from Ray as quickly as possible. But rather than owning up to his mistake, Bill Harris doubled down and tried to intimidate Duff into silence. As you explained, it’s a PR disaster — a textbook example of exactly what one is NOT supposed to do. Bill is destroying his brand and destroying his company in order to avoid admitting that he made a mistake. And the craziest thing is, doing the right thing (saying ‘yep, James Ray is a creep’) would have been easier than doing the wrong thing.
excellent! you nailed it!
for someone who blogs, Bill seem to not have internalized the power of the blogosphere. this is PR nightmare for him. i wish him well and I hope he realize his mistake, drop the C&D threat, and give Duff a big bear hug!
~C
yep.
&: TRUTH ALONE TRIUMPHS. –Upanishads.
I maintain that if this device costs that much money, and has claims to improve one’s health, it should be reported to the FDA as a medical device that does not work. This is their bailiwick.
Who brought all these fascists back into the world? Did we fight a big war against them two or three generations ago? Mussolini would be proud of this guy.
You’re so right about how to handle negative comments/ reviews of your product. I once wrote something negative about Squidoo and got an email from Mr. Seth Godin himself. We exchanged some emails, talked it out and I ended up seeing Squidoo through Mr. Godin’s eyes.
I now have much greater respect for Mr. Godin and will go to bat for him anytime, any where.
This is just what ex-members of a cult, reading and contributing on my blog need to hear, thanks! They were TERRIFIED by the idea of the cult leaders taking any legal action against them. The fear the leaders installed in cult members is HUGE and took as long as 3 years for some of them to share their experiences openly in my blog, so reinforcement is good. Thanks so much for your post!
(I’ve been having this wacky comment reply anxiety. No, I’ve no idea what that’s about, but at least that explains my extended silence in response to all of these interesting, impassioned comments!
But I was yanked out of the closet-of-neurosis by @Deerfield.. so…)
@Deerfield, wow. I’m humbled to think this somehow helped recovering cult-members…. here I thought I was just poking at an overzealous new-age marketer
Over-zealous-new-age-marketers and full blown cults are different critters, but the protections are the same. The Electronic Freedom Frontier gives a good rundown of the legal protections here: Blogger’s Rights. I’d think the information there might help some of your contributors a great deal.
And you’re sincerely welcome for any encouragement I may have provided.
I know this thread has probably been dead for quite a while, but I can’t resist mentioning how this reminds me of another severe lack of “enlightened” behaviour I found on the internet a long time back from someone purporting to be in that kind of state.
A claimed Chi Kung master took the time and effort to post on the FRONT PAGE of his website about how a “former student” (who was even named) had never progressed due to being unable to curb his overwhelming desire to “play with himself”.
Can’t wait until I read the self development book that tells me slagging off those who annoy me is the path to enlightenment, sounds sweet!
[...] Bill Harris sells something called “HoloSync” or maybe hollow stink??, that was required reading during the Death Ray seminars. Apparently, these $300 CDs that he sells are done much better by other people and they only charge $49. Harris also acts like a big d-bag. [...]
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