If you can’t do it, you really don’t have a business.

Sure, you can eek out a living manually beating the bushes and pounding the virtual pavement, but that ain’t a business. It’s a job.

So like it or not, you need to learn how to do paid advertising and ride the tidal waves of change that are sweeping through the social media landscape.

And you need to cut through the BS and get to the truth about what works and what doesn’t.

You hear marketers bragging about getting 5 cent clicks and gaming the social media networks and it’s a bunch of BS…

Look at this test:

These are our top performing ads right now.

And here are a few surprising sacred cows toppled by this test.

>>> Top performing does NOT mean cheap clicks. You can’t cash clicks at the bank and nosebleed expensive clicks often give you a far superior ROI than cheap ones. Check the astonishing average session duration (time on page) of the winning ad in this test.

>>> Shorter ads get the click. So what? See above bullet. Yes, the shorter ad got more clicks, but the conversion rate (opt-in rate) was around half of the longer ad.

>>> PDFs make the best quid pro quo. Again, yes, you will most likely get the cheapest clicks and opt-ins offering a pdf. It’s instant gratification and having something tangible to pitch in your ad. But best ain’t necessarily so. I’ll say it again. You can’t cash clicks and opt-ins at the bank. See which ad had BOTH lower cost per click and higher time on page.

They’re both good ads.

One is a very direct and short appeal offering a pdf with plenty of fascination about what you’re going to learn in that pdf.

Click here for the landing page

This one is a story ad, longer, less direct but obviously more engaging, since it was the winner.

Click here for the landing page

The key takeaway from this case study?

Don’t step in anybody’s dogma, including my own. Measure the right thing (sales) and test things for yourself.

Daniel Levis
Founder, Science Of Client-Getting

P.S. I’ve got a few more strategy session slots to fill this week, so let me show you some of the most common traffic problems we encounter and how to fix them.

Traffic is the fuel that powers your offer, your lead gen, your conversion, and your follow up… but they all work together and if any one of them is misfiring or out of alignment, it doesn’t matter what kind of fuel you put in the machine, even rocket fuel is not going to help you all that much.

But assuming everything else is reasonably well nailed down, the trouble with traffic is that it is always a moving target… all of the social media platforms are constantly changing and evolving and there are an enormous number of variables and dials and switches to manage. And if you have any of these dials or switches misconfigured it can be like trying to run your Ferrari on diesel fuel.

And so right now you’re wondering what’s the dial, what’s the switch, what am I doing wrong and why isn’t this traffic converting? And so we’re going to find out on the call, but let me give you an idea of some of the common pitfalls.

Tracking and optimization. Most of the social media platforms are using machine learning to optimize your targeting, and if you are not feeding accurate information back to them about who is converting, then it is unlikely that you will be able to scale too far on that platform. And so if you’re having trouble scaling, the first thing we’ll want to do is audit the accuracy of the data you’re giving back to the platform.

Goal selection is another one. Your goal is ultimately sales, not impressions, not clicks, not opt-ins, not booked calls, sales. That doesn’t mean your goal has to be sales, especially early on, but if you’re optimizing too high in the funnel, then the ad platform is going to send you cheap traffic that doesn’t convert. On the other hand, if you’re trying to optimize low in the funnel, for sales as example, then it’s going to cost you a fortune to get any meaningful data back to the platform, so you have to know what to optimize for and when …

Targeting is another one. If you’re targeting too broad, then it’s going to take a hell of a long time for the ad platform to figure out who is a good prospect for you. Target too narrow, and you might get a little bit of good traffic and then it will peter out. The best approach is to layer multiple different interests together, so you can have the widest possible reach while having the best odds of hitting a qualified target.

And of course, creative. None of this other stuff matters if the copy and the visuals and delivery of your ads fail to captivate attention, interest, desire and action…

But it’s amazing… just one little tweak to the targeting, goal selection, optimization or creative can instantly light up your funnel and transform your financial destiny in a heartbeat.

So book a free session, and we’re going to see where the lowest hanging fruit actually is… and if it’s traffic, then that will be the focus of our discussion. What’s the fastest, easiest way to get the traffic you need to scale things out?

If you’re smart, you’d pay a fortune, but the good news is — it’s FREE!

Not only FREE, but you can have an infinite number of “these tools.”

Because TESTIMONIALS are there for the taking… IF… you know how to collect them and how to use them correctly.

So let’s dig a bit deeper into this powerful but underused tool and ask the most important question:

WHY Make Such a Big Deal about Testimonials?

Because no matter what you say about yourself ―how persuasively, how often, or  how powerfully― what others say about you is 10 times, no, make that 100 times more convincing… even if your testimonials seem to stutter on paper, have misspelled words, and they read like they were written by a 3rd grader.

There is just nothing like testimonials to instantly provide PROOF that you’re as good as you say you are―even better than you’d dare say about yourself because no one would believe it if YOU said it anyway. But when your clients, customers, and patients praise you from the rooftops, even the “outrageous” is easy to swallow.

And let’s face it, no one likes to be “sold.”

Just remember the last time you were in a store where some pushy salesperson was on you like white on rice―when you just wanted to browse. It’s really annoying and makes you dig in your heels like a two-year-old. Makes you want to do the opposite—even if you were planning to buy in the first place.

 So instead of being pushy or desperate, let your testimonials do the talking for you. It’s like when you were a kid and had an older brother or sister stick up for you.

2 Most Ridiculous Myths About Testimonials

Myth #1: The biggest myth about testimonials is that people will automatically give them to you just because they’re happy with you.

This is very much like the mistaken belief that if you’re great at what you do, the word will spread, and your business will be packed with clients.

That may have been true a hundred years ago, but today, with a daily barrage of thousands of marketing messages, word-of-mouth is unpredictable so you’re better off taking charge of the process yourself.

And bottom line, there’s no shame in this. You’re just tapping into a natural process. Most of those who are willing to say good things about you are already saying them to their family and friends. But it doesn’t do you much good out there in the ozone.

Sure, maybe you’ll get a few new clients now and then… but we’re going after a tsunami of testimonials and in a way we can predict and control. We don’t have to leave it to chance. If you want a deluge, you’ll have to ask.

Myth #2: A corollary to the above is that you shouldn’t have to ask for testimonials, that it’s somehow beneath you, and that asking is demeaning and cheapens the testimonial.

I’m here to tell you that you should not only ask for testimonials, but you should ask and request that your clients give you the specifics you want in the testimonials — I’ll show you how and when to ask.

And surprisingly, most folks will be flattered — even proud that you’d ask them and want to use their name. Few will turn you down. You’ll be surprised.

How to Extract the Perfect Testimonial

WHEN to Ask.

Having a nice big batch of testimonials and presenting them the right way and at the right time, gives you real marketing clout. The more you have, the more your proof becomes insurmountable, uncontestable, and irrefutable!

So when is the best time to ask for testimonials?

Well, using one of Robert Caildini’s powerful psychological triggers, you ask for a testimonial at the point of highest reciprocity… which means when they’re the most delighted with their progress or success and what you’re doing for them.

Because that’s also when they’re subconsciously feeling obligated to do something in return. In other words, strike while the iron is hot!

If you wait too long, they may forget how happy they were in the heat of the moment.

HOW to Ask.

There are plenty of ways to ask, but the main thing to keep in mind is that your clients are busy.

So the easier you can make it for them, the more likely they’ll respond the way you want them to.

In fact, you can even offer to write the testimonial for them, then let them look it over and give you their approval (you must have written approval).

Another way to make it easier is to have your own testimonials available for them to model. If you have an office, you can have a testimonial book on the table with the magazines. If you’re strictly online, send them to a page with a big batch.

This serves two purposes. First, they have a “template” which shows them what you’re looking for. Secondly, reading your testimonials reinforces the fact that they’re in the right place and you’re the expert they need.

One more key point is to think of all testimonials like the ones you see in a weight loss ad — in other words, you want to get as close to a BEFORE and AFTER photo as you can.

For example, here are a couple from one of our landing pages.

Notice all the specifics and the attention-grabbing headline at the top:

“Dug Far Deeper into My List and Quadrupled My Sales…”

“Science of Client-Getting dug far deeper into my list and quadrupled my sales – for real, that is not hype. It generated a tsunami of orders I had no idea were even there.

In just two weeks, we pulled $300K in immediate sales for 3X Sellerator, plus another $100K+ in payment plan sales, all from a list of fewer than 25,000 names. People who had already been exposed to a recent launch for 3X VSL Generator.

That’s well over $16 per name! Amazing!”

Jon Benson, Author, marketing consultant, creator of 3X Sellerator

Here’s another with specifics and a bit of a story-like description, which is one more persuasive element you can ad, especially if they want you to write it for them:

“Scaled to a Mid Six-Figure Turnover Within 4 Months…”

“Not only did this give me an excellent system to model my own work on, it helped me add massive value to my clients as conversions simply went up. The fact of the matter is, the ‘done for you’ templates and systems allowed my team to scale rapidly, yet all the while developing a valuable asset in the strength of our marketing.

Another added bonus was the business element of the curriculum, which gave me financially valuable ideas that we were able to leverage immediately, and within 4 months we had scaled to a mid-6 figure turnover with relative ease. A huge win!” –Dan Meredith, The Fitness Copywriter

How to “Frame” your request.

Here’s one last thing about how to present your request for a testimonial, from my days as a chiropractor, but the strategy works for any niche.

I’d frame the request by asking…

“Would you be willing to help me help another person in pain?”

And of course, they almost always say yes, so then I’d go on to tell them a little story:

There was a guy, I’ll call him Tony, who’s back we fixed up. And the upsetting thing is that after his back was feeling great, he asked me if I could treat headaches.

I almost kicked myself.

I couldn’t believe I hadn’t gotten the word out about one of the most common problems we treat―and very successfully. Headaches aren’t usually too hard to fix, so I don’t want people to be wondering if it’s something we do here. And that’s how I want to use your story, to get the word out about what we do.”

When it’s true and you’re sincere, people respond and are more than happy to help you out.

OK, that’s enough about testimonials for now, but here’s a link to see more examples using video, headlines, photos, niche celebrities, etc.

Because a variety of presentation styles will appeal to different prospects.

Check it out here. The testimonials are under Daniel’s talking pitcher’s mitt LOL.

In the meantime, Happy Selling!

Unlike direct mail and space, where you can, if you so desire, effectively “push” your entire message out to cold prospects, the Internet demands you communicate your message in a series of linked steps, each one “pulling” your prospect deeper into your overall message.

The downside to splitting your process up is that it becomes difficult to track and manage. Each additional component adds exponentially to the amount of time and effort required to co-ordinate the various piece parts into an optimized whole.

The process of scrupulously defining the objective of each element in your process flow and measuring the effectiveness of each element is crucial…

…And there are three overriding principles you need to apply to move your prospects successfully across the various pieces of media you will use from touch point to sale.

You must stimulate their curiosity… arouse their self-interest… and inspire their belief at each link in the chain.

When I’m troubleshooting a funnel, the primary question I ask myself is whether those transitions are as effectively positioned as they could be. Do the breaks occur in the optimal places? Could we be stimulating our prospect’s curiosity and interest about what lies on the other side of each click more effectively?

How to build a bridge of belief…

I look at each piece of media in succession and ask myself if the target audience will be ready to accept the message conveyed.

Throughout your funnel, all of the copy you’ve written… all of the promises you’ve made… all of the proof statements you’ve assembled… all of the questions and objections you’ve answered… all of it must be put together with one overriding purpose:

To take your prospect from what he believes at the exact point he collides with your touch point, to what he must believe before he’ll buy into your program.

This is the rite of passage you must guide your prospect through if you are to be successful.

You do that by sequencing your messaging in such a way as to create a stream of acceptances. At each juncture in your campaign flow, your prospect must be nodding his head in agreement, seeing his existing beliefs affirmed and gently extended, one delicate step at a time, until the bridge is crossed, and the gap is closed.

Suppose you’re teaching people how to play the piano. Your prospects, at the point of impact, believe it takes years to learn how to play the piano and that only very gifted people can play by ear, not them.

Your big promise is that you can teach them to play any song by ear instantly in 4 easy steps. So in order to make your sale, your audience must become convinced there is a good chance that it is indeed possible for them to learn to play by ear.

This is one of the gaps you need to cross. Is the gap too large to span in a single step — ad to discovery call?

It probably is.

You’d be much better off luring people to your site with the promise of free lessons and then collecting their contact information in exchange for access to those lessons. That way you’ll have multiple opportunities to prove to them that it works and they can do it.

Regardless of whether you opt for a simple or complex process flow, the sequence in which you present the various promises, proofs, and calls to action that comprise your overall sales message are of prime importance.

Why no fact, feature, benefit, or advantage is an island unto itself…

Gene Schwartz, one of the greatest copywriters of all time made up his own word for this in his watershed book, Breakthrough Advertising.

He called this process of beginning with your prospect’s existing beliefs and gradually affirming and extending those beliefs to where you need them to be, “Gradualization”.

Persuasion has been built on this principle since the beginning of time. The Socratic method, which forms the bedrock of successful personal selling, is in fact a process of gradualization.

The fundamental premise is this: No selling element is an island unto itself. Every promise, every proof, every call to action, every fact you articulate in any selling argument has two sources of strength—

1. The content of that statement itself, and,
2. The groundwork you’ve laid for that statement (The Set Up), or your acknowledgement of the prospects existing biases toward that statement.

When I was a sales rep selling long distance services in the early 90s, I had a script that I used to book appointments. Ringing people up on the phone and trying to book appointments was tough. Without gradualization, it would have been impossible. The script that I used went something like this:

“Hi Mr. Customer, Daniel Levis here from XYZ company. How are you today?”

“Fine, what can I do you for?”

“We’ve helped a lot of businesses in your area to slash monthly long-distance costs by as much as 25% with a new technology that lets you monitor the usage of your employees to ensure they aren’t making personal long distance calls on the company dime. In fact, we offer a free audit that shows you approximately how much you could save based on your existing call detail records. I’m calling you today to set up a time to come by and share the details of this exciting new service with you. Am I calling you at a bad time?”

Now, if Mr. Customer happened to be fuming about long distance costs or had a suspicion that Nelly in the steno pool was yakking to her boyfriend in Poughkeepsie on company time, sometimes he’d agree to an appointment right away, especially if he didn’t realize that my company was a competitor of the reseller he was already using. Often though, he would object, and say something like:

“Oh, you’re with XYZ, we’re not on the market for long distance services right now, we’re using ABC.”

“Are you satisfied with ABC?” I would ask.

“Oh yes, they do a wonderful job for us.”

Undaunted …

“How long have you been using ABC?”

“About 2 years now.”

“And before that, did your firm use a reseller?”

“No, our company was using the phone company before that.”

“Then I’d probably be safe in thinking you had a great deal to do with the switch to ABC?”

“Yes, you would.”

“And you made that switch, or recommended that switch, based on quite a bit of analysis and research, didn’t you?”

“Yes, we did a tremendous amount of research. We did a complete market analysis covering 10 different resellers. Our research convinced us that ABC was the best.”

“You were looking for significant savings when you did that study two years ago, weren’t you?”

“Certainly.”

“And the results have lived up to your expectations?”

“Yes, they have. We’re very satisfied.”

“Tell me, since you’ve saved so much money over the last 24 months by considering and then making a change two years ago, why should you deny yourself the opportunity to repeat that process? Your research back then led you to savings that contributed directly to the bottom line of your company and greater professional prestige for you personally. You did it once, so the possibility must exist that you can do it again, don’t you agree?”

“Yes, well I have to agree with that. It’s a possibility.”

“Great, what day is better for you to look at this new free service that’s helping companies in your area to save up to 25% on their long distance… would Friday be good for you, or would Monday be better?”

Do you see gradualization at work there? Do you see the stream of acceptances I engineered into the conversation? You’d be amazed at how often this tactic got my foot firmly wedged in the door of a new account.

The power of gradualization to open somebody’s mind to a proposition they would otherwise patently reject is profound.

What an irresistible promise often needs before it can generate profits…

Schwartz cites a great example of gradualization in his book …

An information publisher was unable to profitably sell a manual that showed TV owners how to conduct their own repairs. They were losing money with a single step ad. The headline read “Save Up To $100 A Year on Your TV Repairs!” At the time, that was a big promise.

Schwartz identified a significant gap in what people believed about their ability to accomplish their own TV repairs and what they needed to believe in order to buy the manual.

Even though the repairs were very often only adjustments made at the back of the set, when people saw the headline, they just didn’t believe they could do it. They felt they had no business messing with such a delicate piece of high-tech equipment, and didn’t bother to read the ad.

So Gene took the above headline and used it as a sub-head instead, preceded by a stream of acceptances. The new headline read, “Why Haven’t TV Owners Been Told These Facts?”

It seems hard to imagine now, but at the time Gene wrote this ad, people were spending a lot of money on TV maintenance contracts, and there were certain unscrupulous repair organizations that were gouging people.

Gene’s new headline tapped into the widely held suspicion that TV owners were being taken advantage of. It met the target audience at their point of belief and built a series of graduated acceptances that allowed them to accept the much larger, direct promise contained in the original headline.

I’ve discovered the same phenomena online. Very often a huge promise in the headline, no matter how true, will fail to pull a correspondingly spectacular sales result.

The sequence in which the promise is made can make a dramatic difference.

Is your copy begging to be “gradualized”?

So here’s your homework assignment. Examine your funnel and sales process from top to bottom and ask yourself: How can I sequence my copy more effectively?

Are there opportunities to restructure the order in which I present the various copy elements I’ve created?

Are there facts, arguments, features, benefits etc. begging to be gradualized?

Am I meeting my audience at their point of belief?

Can I eliminate any redundant steps in my sales process?

Am I stimulating curiosity and arousing interest for what lies on the other side of each click?

Why don’t you join me for a free live training on all this stuff and more? It’s happening later this week.

Until then, Good Selling!

People respond to people much more readily than they do to faceless, formless entities. It doesn’t have to be you, but you need a spokesperson delivering the majority of the copy.

What makes a great spokesperson?

In a perfect world, it is someone with whom your target audience already identifies with. Additionally, this person should have a need for the program or service you’re selling, and actually use it. And finally, your target audience needs to be able to accept this person as an authority figure.

Obviously, if you can find someone who fits this description, your job becomes substantially easier. Your copy simply needs to remain consistent with the existing positive associations. If on the other hand, you or your surrogate is unknown to the target audience, you have your work cut out for you.

Thankfully, there are many ways to engineer these qualities into your spokesperson with your copy and your graphic design.

OK, so you’ve chosen your spokesperson, what’s next?

You’ve got to create a bond with your audience, especially if they are unfamiliar with the person doing the persuading. Why? Because if your audience likes you, they are much more likely to take the action you direct them to take.

This requires much more than simply throwing somebody’s picture up on the page or their appearance in a video. Believe it or not, facial expression and the sound of the person’s voice is incredibly important.

Halos and Horns …

Social scientists have identified a peculiar trait of human nature termed the “halo” effect. The halo effect is all about first impressions. If our first impression is positively impacted by some trait we observe in another person, we tend to turn our critical discrimination off to a large extent and automatically assume every other trait that person has is similarly positive.

Of all personal traits, physical attractiveness contributes most to the halo effect. We see someone who is physically attractive, and we automatically assume that person is more likable, trustworthy, honest, intelligent, competent etc. than somebody who is less attractive.

Now here’s another incredible secret for you …

A big part of physical attractiveness, and therefore likability, is attributable to the expression on a person’s face. A person of average attractiveness who smiles warmly and whose eyes sparkle with friendliness will be perceived as being more attractive than someone with perfect features, a faultless complexion, and a glum look on their face. Even the person’s voice will be perceived as more attractive.

I proved the power of this principle for myself in the early nineties. At the time I was selling phone systems, and in order to do so, needed to book appointments with the decision makers at the businesses I was selling to. A big part of the game was getting by the receptionist or secretary who had been instructed to “protect” the decision maker from the hoards of barbarous salespeople who accosted them.

Using an identical script, I would approach the gatekeeper, one day in a normal manner, and the next day with a hyper-effervescent smile and sparkling eyes. The difference in results was stunning. With a thousand watt smile and all the charm I could muster, I booked at least 4 times as many appointments. Even more amazing, it worked just as well over the telephone.

So what does this have to do with marketing online? Plenty. You see, the image of the persuader can have the same kind of “halo” effect. If you have a warm smile, sparkling eyes, and are making wonderful eye contact, your prospects will automatically like you, trust you more, see you as being more competent, and respond more readily when you ask them to do so.

Just as powerful as the “halo” effect is the “horns” effect. If your spokesperson has a frown, or is looking away from the camera, or in some way looks shifty and unattractive to your audience, every positive word you put in that person’s mouth will be suspect.

The same holds true for the way you are dressed, and the setting in which you are displayed. The web is your virtual home, and its aesthetics contribute to your audience’s perception of you. If your copy, graphics or video production is sloppily done, it can put “horns” on you, and damage response.

Could you have been photographed better? Could you have been dressed in a way that makes you look more authoritative… or in a way that will allow your prospects to identify with you more easily? What kind of “props” could have been used to show your spokesperson enjoying the dreams your prospects aspire to?

Let’s say you’re selling “a carefree retirement with enough money to travel the world in style”. You can show your spokesperson doing just that, with his or her significant other in tow. Do you get the idea?

Now what about the copy?

Four sure-fire ways to build an almost blinding rapport with your best prospects …

Your track record is powerful proof of your competence. The more specific the facts and statistics you can put forward concerning that track record, the more competent you will appear. Examine the proof statements you can make that reflect on your track record. Look for ways to make them more specific and tangible to your prospects.

Are you giving enough detail to convey maximum believability? Are there ways that you can make the numbers come to life? For example, did you help Joe Blow make a million dollars last year? How much is that a week… a day… an hour? Help your prospect to appreciate the significance of your abilities. Draw comparisons between where Joe Blow was before and after buying.

Remember also, that all of these proof statements are far more powerful if they are stated in a voice other than your own. Look for ways to move some of these competency proofs to the voice of a client, or another authority figure. Also look for ways to fortify the facts and figures in your copy with visual proof. Show Joe sitting on the hood of his brand new Bentley.

As powerful as competency proofs are, they are not enough on their own to ensure conviction. Your prospects must give themselves permission to believe the facts you put before them. No matter how cut and dried your evidence may appear, there are two other factors at play.

Why bonding multiplies the power of proof …

There’s an old axiom that says: “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care …”

It’s another one of those hackneyed old sayings that contain a healthy dose of truth.

Before your prospects will allow themselves to believe your proof statements, they must also believe you are honest and have a genuine passion for wanting to help them.

You must communicate these intangible qualities in your copy if your credibility is to be fully accepted. Accomplishing these additional objectives should happen early, often and throughout your copy …

One of the most powerful ways to build rapport is to demonstrate that you are like them, and can therefore empathize with their plight.

Don’t try to make yourself super-human. Show your target audience you have some of the same beliefs, ideals, desires, frustrations, feelings, faults and frailties as they do. And communicate these things in the same words they use to describe them.

I stalk blogs and forums, put entry and exit surveys on my webpages, and talk to buyers routinely, not only to discover what they are thinking and feeling, but also to uncover the words they might use to express those thoughts and feelings in casual conversation.

At some point, you need to stop thinking about your target audience as an audience. Build a composite picture of your prospect in your mind. And begin communicating with that person.

Do you have him or her in your mind? I find it’s helpful to take a few moments to describe this imaginary person in writing, or picture somebody you know who is like them.

Imagine sitting across the table from this person in the flesh. How would you talk to them?

Would you say something like the following? “With the growing prevalence of unsolicited email, American business people today are finding it increasingly difficult to manage their inboxes. XYZ company realizes this, and has just…”

No! You’d speak plain English, wouldn’t you?

You’d get the same point across in a much simpler and more casual way. Perhaps you’d say something like: “I don’t know about you, but I’ve had it up to here with spam. Up until just recently, I was spending a good 2 hours a day just deleting the damn stuff…”

It’s easy to fall into the trap of using the kind of detached language I used in the first example because that’s the way we’ve been trained to write in school.

So go through your copy now, and look for opportunities to make it more personal, replacing references to third parties with references to your prospect wherever possible, as in the second example. You might be surprised by how many opportunities to do this you’ll find.

Flattery will get you everywhere  …

Another way to get your prospects to like you is to compliment them. Show them they’re the kind of person you admire. “In my book, Sunday Post readers are today’s real heroes. You tend to be fiercely independent, tough-as-nails individualists, with the hearts of lions… and a steel-willed competitiveness… ready to take on the world, and WIN!”

How can you not like me when I say things like that about you?

I saw a similar phrase in the Daily Reckoning that went one better. I don’t remember the exact context of the passage, but the phrase I remember went something like this …”It’s the same stuff all good Americans used to be made of – a robust spirit of self-determination, a healthy distrust of big government and its propaganda, and more than a dash of orneriness and grit.”

Do you see the implied common enemy mixed in with the flattery there? That phrase packs a walloping one-two punch that’s almost certain to build a blinding rapport with a properly targeted audience. The presence of a common enemy “big government”, binds the prospect and the spokesperson together still further.

Have you ever wondered why the exposé format is so popular? It’s not just the curiosity factor, or the vengeance angle. By its very nature, an exposé implies an injustice, which in turn allows you to easily position yourself as an advocate fighting for your prospect. Having a common enemy glues you together with epoxy cement.

Go back and look at your copy now and see if you can’t incorporate flattery or camaraderie — or some clever combination of the two. Position yourself as a tireless hero doing battle against a common enemy, simply because you’re committed to helping the kinds of people your prospects are. Have a passionate cause that transcends the sale.

You have to give before you get  …

And finally, true friends are generous with one another. They give before they get. By giving your prospect something of value without requiring him to buy anything, you are endeared.

Your copy should come across like editorial, imparting useful information. If you do this properly, your prospect will feel subtly indebted and obliged to reciprocate by taking the action you direct them to take when you close in the copy.

Of course, everything I’ve related here happens automatically when you leverage our new Conversational AI powered lead gen strategy.

Until next time, Good Selling!

Because whether you’re a high-flying entrepreneur, an agency owner, a professional copywriter, a coach, a mom-and-pop business, or somewhere in between, you HAVE to have a firm grasp of persuasion and copywriting.

There’s no choice in the matter.

You don’t necessarily have to do much writing yourself, but you do have to be able to recognize powerful persuasion.

Because it’s the words you use that determine your bottom line.

So today, because copywriting is such a huge topic, I’m going to take you through just one simple part of copywriting, arguably the most important part.

And no, it’s not the headline but the headline’s best buddy.

What does that mean?

Here’s our first example, taken from the 26-email sequence that pulled in over $400,000 in just 16 days for entrepreneur extraordinaire, Jon Benson.

[NOTE: In a minute, I’ll show you how to get the whole document for your swipe file with all the emails in this fascinating sequence]

Subject Line:
Cash Cow for Entrepreneurs Who Hate Marketing

Dear Steve,

If you don’t hate marketing, you should.

But only if you’re interested in the good life… with easier, faster profits, and not being eaten alive by unnecessary stress (https://orderklonopin2mg.com/generic-ativan/).

As you can see, there’s a handoff between the subject line and the first line or two.

Both the subject line and the first line are attention grabbing because they make you stop and scratch your head for a minute and ask, “I should hate marketing?”

This “pattern interrupt” makes the barriers drop momentarily and opens the door for more persuasion.

So it’s critically important that the first line grab attention just as powerfully as the subject line… something that’s neglected by most copywriting trainings that focus exclusively on the headline.

Now let’s check out a few more examples so you really get the importance of that first line.

Lock and Load Their Attention

Another reason the opening line is so important is the visual presentation of an email in your inbox.

Because when you open your inbox, the first line is also often visible along with the subject line.

So it’s another opportunity to “hook” your reader and get them to click and start reading.

Here’s another couple examples from the Jon Benson campaign:

Subject Line:
Rabid Profits from Hoaxes, Hate, Scams, and Lies

Dear Sarah,

“Everyone loves a train wreck.”

Both the subject line and the first line tie together and appeal to the looky-loo factor that lies hidden in all of us — which are both big-time curiosity provoking.

Now, here’s the 6^th email in the 26-email sequence and the hook of the headline was “Coke,” which attracted attention because we’re all nosy and want to know about cocaine shenanigans.

But in this case it’s done in an amusing, tongue-in-cheek way that’s not offensive or that makes the reader resentful for being deceived.

It’s more like the punchline of a joke that catches you off guard in a good way:

Subject Line:
[Starting Soon] Coke Profits

Dear Jim,

It was 1985.

And since the competition was stealing their sacred market share (after having a virtual strangle hold for decades)…

Explanatory note: a surefire way to grab attention initially, which I learned from Matt Furey, is to use person, place, action, and/or time… right off the bat.

Like this:

On Tuesday, June 17^th, 1999, Michael hung onto a lukewarm cup of coffee, in a rundown diner in Manhattan, with his Glock tucked securely under his arm.

OK, here’s another one:

Subject Line:
TRUE STORY: Suicide Pact for Success

Dear Tony,

Here’s why my suicide pact is the absolute KEY to AUTOMATING your marketing, which of course, means automatic PROFITS!

Jon’s “suicide pact” story is one of my all-time favorites — because it’s so ridiculously outrageous and after checking out the subject line, prospects found it impossible not to read what it was all about.

As a side note… most people have some similarly crazy story that they’re not using, so dig deep to find it, then use this valuable persuasion fodder to attract clients.

Now, one more from the Benson campaign:

Subject Line:
[Brief EMail] Register Quick: Maltese Brain Expert’s Headline Breakthrough

Dear Sarah,

There’s a small private island off the coast of northern Italy in the Venetian lagoon.

This one has a triple whammy for a subject line.

First of all, it promises to be short, which lowers the barrier to reading any further.

Then there’s a sense of urgency when it says, “Register Quick.”

The rest of the headline is exotic, with a “Maltese Brain Expert,” plus a “Headline Breakthrough.”

By the way, offering or promising anything that’s rare, exotic, or hard to find, makes it FAR more appealing.

The ideal product would be a miracle healing herb that comes from an unexplored mountain, desert, or jungle, where no human has been before.

Add to that the fact that it can only be harvested once in a blue moon, and you’ve got a winner.

More Gold From Successful Campaigns

OK, now a few more dynamic duos from successful campaigns in other niches, then I’ll let you go for now — except you don’t want to miss getting your hot-little hands on the full download of the ultra-successful Benson campaign (link at bottom).

This one is from an ultra-successful “Quit Smoking” campaign that led to opening 70 clinics in 30 countries. The headline for one of the ads was…

It shouldn’t be this easy to quit smoking.

Then the first line was tied right into the headline and almost forces you to keep reading:

Quitting is supposed to be agony.

Or how about a one-two punch from the nutritional supplement niche, with big pharma as the enemy:

The Drugs No Senior Should EVER Take

Congress confirmed it, a top medical journal published it — and the medical  profession almost totally ignores it.

Then there’s the biz-op niche and an ad from marketing legend, Jay Conrad Levinson, with the following headline:

Dozens of marketing tactics to attract new customers and keep them buying — a must own program for marketing and sales professionals.

The first sentence was equally long—but equally powerful:

New information shows you how to dominate your market, snatch business away from your competition and outthink, outmaneuver, outwit, outpace, outsell, and outperform every competitor in your field — large or small!

And finally, an example from the rare coin niche, selling gold:

From Breadlines To BMWs — How The New Russian Economy Has Turned The Market For Vintage Gold Red-Hot!

Dear Oxford Club Communiqué Subscriber:

When I hear the word “Russia,” I must confess the first thought that comes to my mind are images of the old Soviet era: Empty department store shelves and long lines of grim-faced Muscovites waiting to purchase a piece of bread.

OK, that’s it.

As a reward for reading this far, here’s the link to download the entire Benson campaign.

It’s a powerful addition to your swipe file.

And while I’ve got you clicking, you may have heard about our client-getting breakthroughs using Conversational AI, the Anti-Funnel, and Identity-Based Persuasion, check out this short video.

In the meantime, Happy Selling!

My guest etiquette was abominable, like eating caviar with a spoon and mistaking the gravy for soup.

It was awkward and embarrassing, but Itamar did ask some very good questions and hopefully you can learn from my answers (and my mistakes).

Enjoy!

The good news is you can see and study the power of beliefs at all times, everywhere you look — on TV, in movies, watching politicians and religious leaders, with salespeople, lawyers, doctors… and in conversations with your family and friends.

We’re actually swimming in a sea of beliefs, which is why we included this familiar story in the email template we created for one of our clients this week. You’ll recognize the little snippet that went like this:

“Two young fish who are swimming along one day when they run into an older fish who waves a fin and asks them, “Good afternoon boys, how’s the water?”

And you know the response—the two young fish turn to each other and ask, ‘What the heck is water?’”

So… because beliefs are easy to spot (it’ll be easier after you’ve read this post) to really “get” and master this topic, which gives you immense power in your marketing. You don’t have to buy a bunch of courses or read a lot of books if you use what’s all around you and have an inquiring mind. 

In a minute I’ll give you examples that will set you on the path of deepening your grasp of this all-important subject that has such far-reaching consequences in your business and your life.

But first, let’s look at how beliefs actually work.

Beliefs That Control Our Life and Business

It’s important that you identify these beliefs because it allows you to take back control of your life, instead of being manipulated by invisible strings that make you dance like a marionette.

And in your business, recognizing beliefs gives you deep insights into the recesses of the brains of your prospects and clients.

With that knowledge, you have immense power in your marketing.

So… what are examples of common beliefs that form the foundation of our lives?

Here are a few:

– Parents should discipline their kids.– Money doesn’t grow on trees.

– The earth is flat.

– All politicians are snakes.

– Patience is a virtue.

– Everyone is doing the best they can.

– There’s no such thing as failure.

– If it’s going to be, it’s up to me.

– A stitch in time saves nine.

– Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

– Out of sight, out of mind.

– Rich people are greedy.

– Money is the root of all evil.

– Life is good.

– Life’s a bitch, then you die.

– Adversity makes you stronger.

– Whatever your mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.

Or as Henry Ford famously said…

“Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right!”

Why Do We Believe Our Beliefs?

We’re indoctrinated with beliefs from cradle to grave… by our parents, friends, teachers, bosses, role models, the culture we live in, and… we make them up ourselves.

But even when we “get” them from others, there has to be an internal agreement that the beliefs are true in order for them to have any power in our lives.

And what a belief really is, is a hypothesis about what things mean.

For example, let’s say that every time you’re about to close a sale or enroll a client in your coaching program, they bail at the last second.

The belief you then choose will determine your success going further.

If you decide that, “Clients are too stupid to ‘get it,’” your attitude will shine through and you’ll inadvertently repel them even more.

But if you believe that, “The buck stops here,” you’ll look at what YOU are doing that makes prospects abandon ship at the moment of truth.

The beliefs you choose become the lens you see the world through.

And no matter what the belief, if you collect enough “evidence” the belief becomes more solid and becomes a fact that is now “true.”

This isn’t all bad, of course, because beliefs relieve the brain of having to figure everything out from scratch all the time.

In other words, it’s much easier to figure out once, that snarling dogs are dangerous, than to get bitten over and over.

As another example, let’s say someone tells you you’re stupid.

If you already struggle with whether you’re dumb or not, you may get defensive or attack your accuser.

But if you’re confident and comfortable with your intelligence, it’s as if they’re telling you you’re a green giraffe — there’s no emotional attachment to the belief.

I love the example of my great niece, when she was about 7 years old, a bully came up to her and angrily yelled in her face…

“Nobody loves you!”

She wasn’t intimidated by the intensity of his attack and she calmly and thoughtfully said, as if puzzling out a math problem with a furrowed brow and a finger on her chin…

“No, my Mom loves me, my Dad loves me, my brother loves me, my Grandma loves me…”

Since she didn’t believe it was true, the belief couldn’t stick — there was nothing for it to attach to.

But if the remark struck a chord in her own psyche, it would be more proof that she was unlovable.

And once believed, she would go about gathering evidence to support that belief. Some people carry this on for their entire lives.

Why a Deep Understanding of Beliefs Determines Your Bottom Line

One of my mentors said, you need a “preponderance of proof,” in your marketing, because proof is what holds a belief in place.

This is what we’re doing in our marketing all the time!

We’re making our prospects question their beliefs like:

 – I can’t trust this guy.

– It’ll work for everyone else, but not for me.

– These testimonials are fake.

– Marketers are swindlers.

– I don’t have what it takes to succeed.

This is why, when we’re working with our members who need more clients, we have them WORK HARD at uncovering the intricate details of what makes them tick.

Here are the instructions that go with one of the worksheets from our “Click-to-Client Lifecycle Training:”

When you gain this deep level of insight into their needs, desires, fears, frustrations and beliefs you will be able to truly connect with them in your marketing.

This process will also help you to more clearly identify the kinds of clients you don’t want on your list. Side benefit: By shoeing undesirables away in your marketing you pull the desirable ones closer to you.

The idea here is to exercise your creative imagination. You may struggle with answering many of these questions. That’s good news. It’s telling you something …

Most businesspeople are too focused on the products and services they sell. They lack genuine empathy for the people who use them. Take this little exercise seriously and follow through with the remaining modules and you will absolutely slaughter your competition.

Now here’s an example from Worksheet 1-b of the process our members use to build a foundation most entrepreneurs only give lip service to.

We’re gaining a deeper understanding of our prospect’s worldview, their hopes and fears… in other words, their network of beliefs:

As tedious as this may seem at first blush, doing this process gives you persuasive power in your marketing — because you can laser focus your persuasion in a way your competition can’t.

It’s one small piece of our comprehensive training that automates, simplifies, and systematizes the client-getting process.

And understanding beliefs is a cornerstone of scaling your business.

For more insights into grabbing the ultimate competitive advantage, we’ve prepared a short video (check it out here) that shows you how to implement this automated process that makes attracting clients a dream… instead of a nightmare.

In the meantime, Happy Selling!

The ancient selling axiom — no problem, no sale — is absolutely true. There are a great many selling situations where you should not be shy about agitating your prospect’s fears and frustrations before inspiring their dreams.

But there is a potential pitfall you need to be aware of …

Success Key #6 – Indirection and Soft Suggestion

It’s human nature to revolt against criticism. We don’t generally like to be reminded of our fears, faults and failings. Often, we put up walls against those who try to point them out to us.

You, as a coach, consultant, advisor, agency, service pro or solution provider may not wish to put yourself in such a position. You may want to build a bridge of rapport, not a wall of alienation. Fortunately, there is a proven formula that allows you to slip in under the radar and accomplish both goals.

Ironically, this method flies in the face of what you may have been led to believe…

One of the first things you learn in copywriting 101 is to write predominantly in the second person. The late, great copywriter Ted Nicholas had a little litmus test that goes something like this: Go through your copy and count the number of times you see the word “you” and derivatives thereof, and compare that with the number of times you see the word “I” and derivatives thereof, and then eliminate as many of the latter as you possibly can.

The thinking behind this little exercise is sound, at least in theory. It is based on the truth that we are all self-absorbed creatures who love to read about ourselves.

And of course, the word “you” and its derivatives satisfy that need quite nicely. But in practice, writing in the second person can backfire when you’re trying to intensify your prospect’s awareness of a problem.

Suppose you want to open a wound and twist the knife a little in order to focus your prospect on an emotional void in her life that she desperately wants filled. Is it wise to say, “Feel like you’re ready to break down and cry, because no matter how hard you try you just can’t seem to keep the weight off?”

Or would it be better to tell a story about yourself and how you overcame the same struggle?

The Amazing Diet Secret Of A Desperate Housewife!

My name is Nancy Pryor. I am 39 years old. I am a housewife and mother of three children. I would like to tell you something personal about myself. One day last September I just broke down and started to cry.

I couldn’t help it. I had reached my breaking point. I felt like I was going to have a nervous breakdown.

It happened one Monday morning right after I got on the bathroom scales to weigh myself …

In these few opening paragraphs, Gary Halbert used the word “I” or a derivative thereof 13 times, and the word “you” appears just once. Yet this ad was enormously successful. Why?

Because the prospect projected herself into the story. She wasn’t thinking about Nancy Pryor when she read Gary’s ad. She was thinking about herself. Gary didn’t come out and tell her how to feel. He used the gentle arts of indirection and soft suggestion to make her fully aware of her sadness and frustration before coming to her rescue with a solution.

Success Key #7 – Matching, Mirroring, Pacing and Leading …

It’s human nature to be self-obsessed. We are all narcissists, absorbed in self-admiration a good deal of the time.

Have you ever noticed how you and people you’re close to have similar tastes? You dig the same music… enjoy the same foods… share the same beliefs and ideologies… maybe even dress alike. If someone were to video tape two of you together, you’d probably be amazed to see you were actually mirroring each other’s body language and speech patterns while you were together.

When it comes to magnetism between people, like attracts like.

Persuaders have known this for centuries and used the art of matching and mirroring to build a blinding rapport with those they wish to persuade. The way to entice people out of their shells is to become like them, in fact a mirror image of them. People truly love themselves, but what they love more is to see their ideas and tastes reflected in another person.

Hypnotized by their mirror image, they relax, and become open to you. Soon it becomes easy to begin leading the dance, and taking them in the direction you desire.

The same dynamic holds true throughout the entire funnel, in copy and graphic design, when enrolling a new client, everywhere and anywhere. The words and images you use should echo back to your ideal prospects their own pre-existing ideas, biases, and opinions. You must appear to be one of them, communicating with them in their own words, and portraying them in ways that are complementary and comfortable to them.

Only by meeting your target prospect on this common ground, can you begin to build upon their existing pre-conceptions and self-perceptions, molding them gradually to where you need them to be.

Success Key #8 – The Forbidden Fruit

Most of the time, people maintain their self-control and a certain degree of discipline when it comes to the satisfaction of their myriad desires. It is a great myth that people do not want to spend money. They love to spend their money on things that make them feel good.

But if they were constantly giving in to every attractive exhortation they would come unglued. They usually win the struggle. But it doesn’t come easy. Temptation is everywhere!

They read about people who have more than they do… see others having adventures they’re not… and hear about people who’ve achieved more than they have. Naturally, they’re envious, and this creates a constant tension. It is hard for them to repress their desires.

What people secretly want is to throw off the shackles of prudence and give in to temptation. Your task is to hold forth a unique kind of enticement, something particularly potent that allows them to throw caution to the wind.

And one of the most powerful ways to do that is to hold out the promise of forbidden fruit. People are perversely excited by what they cannot or should not have.

Tell them someone (a common enemy) is trying to keep them from something… or that they will have to somehow qualify to become worthy of obtaining it… or that it is normally outside of their reach for whatever reason… or even that it may be somehow dangerous for them to have it… and they will want it all the more.

Success Key #9 – Fascination and Surprise

In my hand, I hold an ancient book. It is a family heirloom at least 100 years old. The leather binding is worn, the pages are brown, particularly around the edges, and when I open the book to read it, there is a slight mustiness that wafts up into my nostrils. Its contents were compiled over a thousand years ago from stories even more ancient.

Inside this book are 1001 tales told by a beautiful young woman. With the telling of each story, her life hangs in the balance.

The book is called The Arabian Nights. The story begins with a king who discovers his wife plotting with a lover to kill him. He has the pair executed and decrees all women are unfaithful. Each night thereafter, he takes a virgin as his new bride, and has her executed at dawn.

Eventually, the King’s Chief Minister cannot find any more virgins, and so he must offer his own daughter. Her name is Scheherazade.

Scheherazade escapes her fate by telling the King a story that culminates in a cliffhanger at dawn so he will postpone her execution out of a desire to hear the rest of the tale.

She does this night after night, keeping the King in constant suspense. When one story ends, she quickly starts up another, and keeps this up for 1001 nights. On the final night she presents the king with three sons. He is convinced of her fidelity, and her life is spared. She becomes his Queen.

As a marketer, you are like Scheherazade. You must continually titillate the curiosity of the marketplace. The moment people think they know where you are taking them, their interest is lost, and you’re dead. Mystery is what pulls us into the unknown.

Every business transaction involves this kind of anticipation. Indeed every business relationship demands it from one transaction to the next.

Until next time, Good Selling!

Some of these businesses are extremely successful. And success leaves clues. One of the most beneficial things about being involved with these businesses, and helping them to become even more successful are the lessons I learn along the way.

While obviously I can’t name names, or reveal any nitty-gritty specifics that would be deemed proprietary, what I can do here in The Sunday Post is share the advanced success keys that make these businesses tick. And that’s exactly what I’ll be doing over the next couple weeks, beginning today …

Success Key #1 – First Things First

Almost everyone who gets into the expert business initially puts the cart before the horse. They arrive at the erroneous yet logical conclusion that what they do comes first, and that if you simply build a better mousetrap and market it well, the world will beat a path to your door.

This is very dangerous thinking, because people are not looking for better mousetraps. They’re looking to fill an emotional void in their lives. Your first order of business should be getting to know your clients, and identifying those voids.

Only when you understand what remains unfulfilled, will you be in a position to design a program that hits the sweet spot of the market. Remember, happy people make lousy prospects.

The second fundamental sequencing error fledgling coaches, consultants, advisors, agencies, service pros and solution providers often make is to create the product, service, or program first and the copy that sells it second. To the outsider, they appear to be separate, but in reality a successful offer is merely an extension of the marketing that sells it. The offer is born from the copy’s correlation with the emotional vulnerabilities of the market.

Third, there is an overwhelming tendency to try and be too many things to too many people. Your cost of sales, and the amount of money you will be able to spend to attract a new client are impacted greatly by the narrowness of the appeal.

People want things that are created specifically for them, and are willing to pay substantially more for such items. A program on dog training might sell for $1900, while a program on training Doberman’s will sell for two or three times as much — and cost half as much to sell.

Success Key #2 – Make Them Come to You

A spider never wants for food. It finds a harmless looking little corner to build its web, and while busying itself with other tasks, awaits its prey.

Highly effective selling works the same way. You make yourself visible in the places your target prospects are likely to find you, and lure them into your web with free content.

Like the spider, you personally attend only to the very best prospects that have fully ensnared themselves, while automating your interaction with the rest.

Once inside, your systems draw each prospect/client deeper and deeper into your web in a series of graduated steps, each one increasing the level of commitment.

To make them come to you requires a soft sell. You haunt the periphery of their existence, appearing in different places, never approaching them, but continually teasing them to betray their interest by requesting specific information from you.

To them, this information is just what it seems, information. To you, it is sales copy, carefully designed to subtly communicate the various benefits of your solution… install buying criteria… overcome objections… and intensify their desire to fill the emotional void in their lives that attracted them to you in the first place.

Success Key #3 – YOU Are the Product

Your mission — should you choose to rise to the challenge — is to execute continuous and gradual improvements to the stickiness of your web.

At the front end, this means increasing your effectiveness at converting prospects into buyers, lowering your cost of sales, and reinvesting your gains to widen your net.

In the back end, it means continuing to hit the sweet spot of desire, thus keeping your client in a perpetual ascent to ever-higher levels of achievement and spending.

And in the greater scheme of things, making things so tight, systematic, and measurable until you’re spending more than anyone else in your niche to attract and acquire a new client.

Extreme profitability and business equity comes from the small group of clients who remain loyal to you over the long term. This is the elite inner circle that buys everything, sight unseen, no matter what it costs.

Building a core following like that requires more than mere products, programs or services. It demands your clients develop a strong personal identification with you. At a certain point, they stop buying your offers, and they start buying you.

You become the product. And you must be interesting enough as a person to maintain their curiosity.

It is crucial that you reveal your personality, ideals, opinions, and ideologies, and it doesn’t hurt at all if they are extreme, controversial, unpredictable, or even a little paradoxical.

Keep them guessing, and you’ll have them eating out of the palm of your hand.

Success Key #4 – Become an Object of Desire

We are all social creatures, influenced greatly by the people around us. We want what other people want.

Imagine walking down a busy street and looking for a place to dine. On the left is a steakhouse with a long line of people snaking around the building. Why are they waiting to get inside? There must be a reason.

On the other side of the street is a Seafood House. There are just a few cars in the parking lot. Why are there so few people inside at the dinner hour? There must be a reason.

In both cases, there may be no reason at all. Or the reason may have nothing to do with the taste of the food, the quality of the service, or the ambiance of the decor. The Chef and Maitre de may be standing at the ready inside the Seafood House to give you the finest culinary delights you have ever imagined — supposing you were to go inside. But alas, you probably won’t.

Desirability is a social illusion.

Your own reputation may or may not be that alluring. Regardless, you must find ways to suggest that many others, or at the very least those in high places have benefited from your counsel. There’s nothing like a restaurant full of empty tables to persuade us not to go in.

Desire is both imitative, and competitive. Not only do we want what other people want, we want to take it away from them.

Limit the space in your inner circle. Force your clients to compete for your attention. Make them see you as a scarce and sought after commodity, and you will become shrouded in an aura of desirability.

Success Key #5 – Sell Them What They Want, Then Sell Them What They Need

John Maynard Keynes — the father of modern economic theory — formulated his policy recommendations to government upon the idea that as people become richer, they spend smaller and smaller portions of their income.

Keynes believed that people are much more strongly motivated to fulfill their basic needs, such as food, shelter and clothing than they are to purchase luxury items after their basic needs have been met.

Back in the 1930s, Keynes gazed into his crystal ball and foresaw a day when the average American would own a four bedroom home and a car, and warned President Roosevelt of the grave dangers that lay ahead.

He said that once people had seized The American Dream and made it their own, they would become less productive, curtail their spending, and start squirreling away a large portion of their increasing incomes. And naturally when people stop spending, recession or even depression ensues.

Keynes encouraged the introduction of interventionist monetary policies like deficit spending… progressive taxation… and the manipulation of interest rates… all designed to “regulate” the economy by keeping the more productive people in society working, and preventing them from hoarding too much of their excess income as their affluence increased. Indeed, these monetary policies survive to this day.

There’s just one problem with all of this. Keynes was totally wrong. He was a blathering idiot who had no clue about human motivation and the real reasons people spend their money. Even sadder, is the fact that his ideas have been hijacked by political parasites the world over to embezzle the wealth of hard working people. But don’t even get me started.

The simple truth is this …

People do not spend to meet material needs, and therefore do not curtail their spending as their wealth increases. The more they earn, the more they spend, and the more they acquire, the more they want. Upscale consumer demand is insatiable. And the reason is simple…

People buy because they’re looking to fill an emotional void in their lives. All of us hide behind a social mask. We pretend to be surer of ourselves than we really are. We don’t want people to glimpse our doubts, fears, insecurities, and feelings of lack. So we shroud ourselves in symbols that express the identities we wish to portray.

No matter how affluent or satisfied people appear to be on the outside, they are always suffering from a sense of incompleteness at some level on the inside.

All copy should not be a bed of roses. You must identify the dominant emotional weaknesses within your target market and ever so gently bring those doubts, discomforts, and anxieties to the surface of your prospect’s awareness with your sales copy and your marketing.

No one will follow you until you can get them to reflect on themselves first and become aware of their failings. Sometimes it’s necessary to draw their attention to their inadequacies briefly, even twist the knife a little, stirring feelings of tension, anxiety, and dissatisfaction with their circumstances and with themselves.

Everyone deep down is insecure at some level. Bring their fears and insecurities to the surface, then come to the rescue, and people will follow you. Make them feel the pain, and they will appreciate the solution.

To my knowledge, there’s no such thing as a perfectly satisfied person.

God help marketers everywhere if such a person exists.

Stay tuned for part two of Advanced Keys to Sales and Marketing Success next week, where I delve deep into the subtle arts of indirection and soft-suggestion that allow you to glide effortlessly under your prospects’ sales resistance radar.

Until next time, Good Selling!

Exhaustion played tricks on his overwhelmed brain as the rain lashed the windows and a branch scraped… like fingernails on a chalkboard… against the roof.

That’s when he heard a door creak, a chain dragging… and… were those shuffling footsteps approaching?

OK, I admit I’m not Stephen King, but here’s the point.

Both you and I know… as does Stephen King… that storytelling can fill your appointment book, sell oodles of products and services, and keep your clients spellbound and waiting for the next marketing communication from you.

So with Halloween upon us, let’s dig a little deeper into using stories… even scary ones… to crank up interest, engagement, and profits.

The Storied History of Scary Marketing Stories

Halloween is a great example for using stories in our marketing to engage, connect, and in an under-the-radar way, pull people in.

And it’s got a great history to draw on.

So when you adhere to Robert Collier’s admonition, “Always enter the conversation already occurring in the prospect’s mind,” your storytelling becomes even more persuasive and powerful.

For example, on the national stage, did you know about the Heinz “Tomato Blood” campaign with limited-edition ketchup during Halloween? It’s gruesomely brilliant and has a whole story line to go with the campaign.

Then there’s the cat food brand, “Temptations,” that released a limited-edition “Tasty Human” flavor.

Even better, Mars candy has their own take on the season with their disgusting Halloween flavors of “Zombie Skittles,” which includes Boogeyman Blackberry, Mummified Melon, and even a ‘rotten’ Zombie flavor.

But not only are there Halloween-focused products, each of these comes with involvement devices that take the fun of the stories even further… with blogs, contests, bonus videos, etc.

Skittles even sent out a press release that said;

“It’s an utterly disgusting taste experience that will elicit strong reactions from anyone and everyone daring enough to try it.”

More Scary Storytelling

Back in the day, when I was creating ads and monthly newsletters for a chiropractic franchise with over 300 clinics called HealthSource, I’d come up with a theme for every issue, whether it was St. Patrick’s Day, school starting again, New Year’s, or Halloween.

So here’s an example of using that scary theme and creating multiple stories around it.

This was the cover of the October issue with a table of contents that patients would see when they looked at their mail. It was impossible to throw away and had multiple points of interest to get them to open the newsletter:

You may not be able to read the small print, so here’s part of the table of contents:

The Scariest Issue Yet!

How Harry Houdini Died on Halloween—of Suspicious Circumstances… p.4

Can a MONSTER Pig—1051 Pounds—Solve Your Low Back Problems… p.2

13 Unlucky “Bone” Jokes—So Horrible Only a Chiropractor Could Love Them… p.4

Notice that it’s all tied together in a Halloween theme with multiple stories that all relate to chiropractic.

If you put your mind to it, you can create a story about almost anything, and in a minute, I’ll show you how to make it even easier.

Here’s another example from that same issue, this one more focused on back pain with the lead story… about FrankenBack!

The first paragraph says:

What’s a FrankenBack? It’s when your back is a raging monster. When it feels patched together with leftover scraps and they’re all fighting each other. It’s when you’ve got…

• monstrous pain at the beltline
• hideous burning down your leg, creepy tingling in the thigh
• horrible stiffness all across your lower back, pelvis, and hips

The Shortest Shortcut to Master Storytelling

Years ago, when I was already writing copy for my own chiropractic practice, I stumbled on the definitive storytelling training.

It was called:

Effortless Influence: How to Master the Art of the Sales Story

I bought it and went through the complete training, meticulously, 4 or 5 times and it transformed my storytelling completely.

In fact, it’s how Daniel Levis and I connected in the first place about a decade ago when I contacted him about how much the course had opened my eyes to the nuances and subtleties of storytelling.

The good news is Daniel has decided to make a SCARY good offer by letting you grab this deep dive into advanced persuasion for a HUGE DISCOUNT.

You can check it out here, but hurry because this special Halloween offer is only available until MIDNIGHT. You’ll need this promo code “ EI $500 OFF ” to grab the discount. Just copy the red characters between the quotes, then paste the characters into the promo code field on the order form, hit the “apply” button to the immediate right, and check out.

And if you do nothing else, at least check out the description of the modules, case studies, theory, interviews, bonuses, and the 59 different annotated exhibits.

Of course, you don’t have to buy Daniel’s course to get this same information.

You can just go out and buy the 60+ books he distilled to create this course, but I don’t recommend working that hard when you’ve got the ultimate shortcut at your fingertips.

I do personally recommend Effortless Influence and I see its impact on my marketing every day — you will, too!

Until next time, Happy Selling!

P.S. I especially like the hard copy option where you can underline, highlight, and digest it all while listening, at the same time, to the audio version.