For the past several days, I’ve been hiding in the wilderness in Croatia.
I came to bear-and-wolf country for a break from the city and to avoid having to celebrate my birthday.
It’s been mostly good, except not one wolf, not one bear. Beyond that, this place (Risnjak, if you ever need somewhere to hide) is very nice.
Now, even in the wilderness, you can learn something useful about human brains and persuasion.
For example, today, I wanted to see two things: a lake and a park.
I asked my host how to get to the lake.
(Bear with me for a moment now, because we get into some simple geometry.)
It turned out the location of Bejako, lake, and park were like this:
Bejako —– Mountain
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Park ——– Lake
So my host told me that to get to the lake, I’d need to head out, pass the mountain peak, and then turn right.
So I did. I found the lake. It was nice.
And then, completely on default, without consulting the map, I headed back from the lake, across the mountain peak, to my original starting point, so I could get to the park.
I hope I haven’t lost you with all this topology.
If you look at my diagram above it should be clear how stupid I was, and how I spent an unnecessary 40 minutes in the car.
Because the location where I was halfway through the day, the lake, was about 10 minutes away from where I wanted to go, the park. I only figured that out at the very end.
And now the persuasion point of all this:
People are not logical. They will not choose what is best for them in some grand and impartial scheme of things.
Human brains love shortcuts, even when those shortcuts mean a three-times longer distance in real life.
Thing is, these mental shortcuts are well-known and predictable.
It is your job as a copywriter to catalogue these shortcuts, and to use them to guide your prospect where you want him to go.
What’s that? You want an example of what I mean by “mental shortcut”?
Well, here’s a powerful one which I unfortunately take all the time:
Mental Shortcut #1: People will almost always take the disinterested advice of others rather than trying to figure out something on their own.
For more shortcuts, as they come out, you might like my daily email newsletter.