Reader Brooks Allisen writes in with a question I don’t know how to answer:
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Hi John,
Sounds like a real adventure you’re on Stockholm – don’t forget to try some traditional home-grown Scandinavian delicacies – they aren’t spicy like you would find in Mexico, Asia, or India.
Here’s my question:
Having studied con men, pick-up artists, and professional negotiators, what’s one principle you apply in your own marketing (that you learned from them) which most marketers ignore?
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I have tried some of the traditional home-grown Scandinavian delicacies in my trip to Stockholm… and I’ve been mighty pleased. I wouldn’t imagine Sweden to be a culinary destination but the entire week I’ve been here, but I’ve been eating well.
As for Brooks’s question… I kinda wrote an entire book about that?
I don’t know how to answer this question without giving away valuable stuff that I have in my new 10 Commandments book. I don’t wanna do this, because I put a lot of work into making the book good, and I want you to read it.
The alternative is to give away supposed “secrets” that simply weren’t good enough to make it into the book. That would make for a weak email today, which is also something I don’t wanna subject you to.
So what to do? How do I handle Brooks’s question and similar questions I’ve gotten?
Like I said, I don’t know. I hope you can help me out. In fact, I’ll even make you a deal. We can do a tit for tat.
I’m looking for examples and ideas for how to apply the “commandments” from my new 10 Commandments book to marketing, copywriting, daily work, and personal and business life.
Here’s the deal:
1. If you’ve read my new 10 Commandments book, write in and let me know how you would apply one of the commandments I cover in that book, or how you’ve seen somebody else apply one of these commandments to their marketing, copy, personal life, etc. (Just please don’t feed me back the examples I give in the book.)
2. If you do this, I will reply to you personally and tell you how I applied Commandment I just a couple weeks ago, during an affiliate promo that didn’t feel like an affiliate promo.
(In spite of over 1k people who have bought and supposedly read my new 10 Commandments book, many of whom also read these daily emails, nobody spotted me using this commandment in public, or at least nobody called me out on it.)
And I can tell you this isn’t simply a curious thing to know for the sake of collecting cool marketing ideas. It’s a legit and valuable marketing strategy that can 1) make your work easier and 2) make your affiliate promotions more successful.
Do we have a deal?
I hope so. If you want to take me up on this deal, then think a bit and reply away with your best examples of my 10 Commandments in use in the wild, or ideas for how to apply these commandments.
And if you haven’t yet read my new 10 Commandments book, you can find it, including the first commandment that I applied recently, at the following candy-colored pasture: