The hidden religion of persuasion

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“Well… I need to tell you all something. And it’s the most important thing I could ever say to you. In a little while, you’ll know for certain that I’m putting my very life on the line, and the safety of my family, by sharing this with you. So I hope that buys me at least a few minutes of your precious time.”

So starts out the video by one Altiyan Childs.

Childs was the 2010 winner of Australian X Factor. He came back to relevance last month because he released a YouTube video, lasting five (5) hours, which was shot in what looks to be his bedroom.

In the video, Childs exposes the hidden religion that all stars, celebrities, and people in power belong to, and are bound by an oath never to reveal.

How does Childs know?

Because he himself belonged. But he is now publicly renouncing this evil religion (he found another religion, Christianity, following a near-death car crash) and warning the rest of the world of the danger we’re all in.

The video got about a million views on YouTube in the first few weeks while it was still up.

That’s actually not a crazy number. I saw a similar video, with a similar expose, featuring a similar level of celebrity, pop up last year and get almost 20 million views in a few months’ time.

And I guess even this 20 million is peanuts to the overall popularity of the belief that some kind of evil cabal controls world affairs.

I think there are many marketing and persuasion lessons that can be sucked out of that need and out of Altiyan Childs’s video. Today I just want to focus on one.

Because what really underlies the popularity of such beliefs? Here’s my own secret revelation:

Such beliefs put our messy lives into an order-creating context.

Take a bunch of seemingly random and unconnected facts… draw surprising connections between them… and then place them inside of a bigger frame that gives the whole picture a simple and clear meaning…

… and this creates the feeling of insight.

And this feeling, as I’ve written before, might just be the most powerful and secret persuasion tool that the powers that be don’t want you to know about.

My point is that if you take those three steps outlined above, you can sell not only Christianity… but you can also sell supplements, coaching programs, and financial newsletters.

That’s a big claim.

And I can’t blame you if you’re still skeptical.

All I can say is, I’m putting my very life on the line to dig in further to bring you the full facts on this.

Once the facts are revealed, you will be able to see the truth and make up your own mind.

In the meantime, I hope this buys me a few email opens of your precious attention. You can sign up for my newsletter here. Because I will be back with this topic soon, assuming that the powers that be don’t get to me first.

GROHMO trumps FOMO?

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Painful personal confession:

I went to high school right up the street from the offices of various Agora companies.

Unfortunately, this was long ago, at a time when I had never heard of copywriting. So when school would get out, I’d spend my afternoons identifying local trees and kicking cans around the abandoned cement factory.

Had I been smarter, I would have gotten a job cleaning ashtrays at Agora HQ. And bit by bit, I probably would have learned enough about copywriting to be a multimillionaire today.

I bring this up because I recently applied for a copywriting job. Not a freelance project. A proper job.

I tell myself there are lots of good reasons why I applied.

My reasons are all the stuff you can put in a cover letter:

​​I could learn a lot. It could be a step forward in my career. I like the people I might be working with.

In other words, it’s a great opportunity. And I don’t wanna miss out. Except…

Would any of this really count had I not missed out already, in a much bigger way, back in high school?

I recently heard Dan Kennedy talk about writing for the opportunity market. You know, business opportunities and get rich quick stuff. Like copywriting.

And Dan said something that matches my experience above:

Lots of times, the real motivator is not the opportunity in front of us now, which we don’t want to miss.

Rather, it’s the opportunities dead and gone, which we have missed already.

The guilt and regret over having missed out yesterday (GROHMO) is really the underlying cause that makes us susceptible to FOMO today.

And if you’re a smart marketer or copywriter, you can exploit this. You can put up a bunch of pictures of smiling and satisfied men and women and say,

“Look at them. That could’ve been you. These men and women acted when you didn’t. And look at them now. Look at how happy they are. And as for you… well… don’t feel too bad. Because I have some good news. A new opportunity just opened up…”

And it’s true:

I’ve been promoting my email newsletter for a long while. Over time, I’ve had many people sign up. They have been amused and sometimes moved along the way.

More importantly, they’ve learned a lot and they’ve been exposed to copywriting and marketing ideas, like the one above.

These ideas I share have helped my subscribers make more money, enjoy their businesses more, all while working much less.

In other words, my email newsletter is quite the opportunity. Not to be missed out on. Especially since it’s not clear how long it will go for, in case I get a proper job.

In case you want to join before the opportunity disappears, here’s where to go.

Mating and marketing pandemonium

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In case you ever wondered how African elephants mate:

A female elephant runs around the savanna while a bunch of horny male elephants chase her.

As she’s getting chased, the female emits a noise known as an estrous roar. This roar is meant to get the attention and interest of even more males, who join in the chase.

Eventually, one of the males, if he can get out of the way of his own enormous erection which is hindering his jogging, manages to catch up to the female and slows her down by putting his trunk on her back.

If all goes well, the female stops.

The male elephant then mounts the female and after an immensely satisfying three to four seconds, the act is over. And that’s when all the elephants, male and female, who were alerted by the roaring and the chasing and the sexing, enter a state known as:

Mating pandemonium.

This is the elephant equivalent of all your friends and family bursting into your bedroom immediately after climax and shouting, “Oh my god, I can’t believe you just had sex! That’s great!”

Except elephants do it by making loud pandemonium roars and pandemonium trumpets, flapping their ears rapidly, and maybe urinating or defecating in excitement.

If you’re wondering how I know so much about elephant mating behavior, the answer is I’ve spent the morning on the Elephant Ethogram site.

This is an online video collection of 404 individual elephant behaviors (rapid ear flapping, estrous roar), 109 constellations of behaviors (mating pandemonium) and 23 contexts in which those behaviors are triggered (attraction and mating).

It seems to me that studying elephants in the wild is fun work and needs no further justification. But the elephant scientists who created this site make the following justification anyways:

“African savanna elephants are among the most socially complex non-human species on our planet.”

And that’s my point for you today.

Elephants exhibit hundreds of behaviors, triggered by dozens of complex social contexts. Humans are the same. Probably more so.

As people who want to influence those behaviors, we often try to reduce it all to a single universal principle, such as “acts in self interest” or “makes decisions based on emotions.”

The fact is, there is no central principle, at least as far as I can see.

Instead our lives are a mishmash of different behaviors, which get triggered in different contexts.

Sometimes we’re trying to impress others. Sometimes we’re trying to run away from pain. Sometimes we’re just moving along with the herd, so we don’t have to spend any energy thinking or deciding. Sometimes we’re measured and logical. Sometimes overwhelming greed kicks in.

On and on and on. Hundreds of individual demons all living in each of our heads.

And if you want to eventually produce the simple behavior of a button click followed by a credit card whip-out…

Then you have to catalogue all of those demons… create checklists of the contexts in which they appear… and then practice and test how to summon them, because sometimes the demons are sleeping, and other times they interfere with each other.

One thing is for sure:

If you don’t do this, you’re gonna miss out on a lot of sales.

​​But if you do it, and you’re successful, then marketing pandemonium erupts. Roaring, trumpeting, cash register ringing. Possibly followed by urinating or defecating in excitement.

And then when the noise settles:

If you want more advice on making the cash register ring, you might like the Human Ethogram available inside my daily email newsletter. Available here, for free.

What never to say when somebody’s angry, upset, or riled up at you

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In a small town bar, a drunk farmer pushed his way through the crowd and got in the face of a meek and proper-looking man.

“You sent that tornado that leveled my house,” the farmer roared as he grabbed the meek guy by the lapels. “Now you’re gonna pay for that!”

A flash of panic spread across the other guy’s face. He threw a glance to the door. No bouncer to help.

So in another flash, this meek man changed his panicked face into a convincing scowl. And he grabbed the farmer by the lapels in turn.

“Yeah, that’s right about the tornado!” yelled the previously meek man. “And I’ll tell you something else! I’ll send another one if you don’t back off!”

Which the farmer did. “Hey buddy… take it easy! I was just kidding…”

You might know this true-life anecdote because Robert Cialdini used it in his book Influence.

The meek guy at the bar was a local TV station weatherman. Cialdini used the story to illustrate the power of association, which hounds weathermen with threats, insults, and occasional beatings whenever the weather they announce turns bad.

Yeah, that’s right about association. And I’ll tell you something else:

This same anecdote is also a great illustration of another social phenomenon, the power of agree-and-amplify.

In many situations, when somebody’s angry, upset, or riled up, the worst thing you can do is to try to calm him. Instead, it often works much better to agree with what he’s saying, and to push him further into the negative.

It’s like pushing the rug out from under him. Yes, pushing. Because instead of having a firm piece of ground to stand and fight on, your adversary finds he’s moving away from you. And so his natural instinct becomes to give up his spot, and to take a few steps back towards you.

Which might be interesting if you’re meek by nature and you ever find people attacking you, expecting you to buckle.

But what about copywriting?

Would you ever want to use agree-and-amplify in your copy?

I would say no, not as I just described it above. But this agree-and-amplify stuff connects in my mind to a copywriting and marketing topic I wrote about recently. This other tactic allows you to take something negative, and use it in your favor, even in your copy. In case you’re curious:

https://bejakovic.com/a-transparent-but-effective-marketing-ploy-thanks-jay-abraham

Green Valley must fire its warehouse manager

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Last week, supplement company Green Valley, which was founded by A-list copywriter Lee Euler, sent out a panicked email that started with:

Dear John,

We discovered somewhat of a sticky situation last week…

So I’m hoping maybe we can help each other out…

You see, late last week our warehouse manager called to let me know that we have NO room for a large shipment that’s already on its way to our fulfillment facility here in Virginia…

That means I now have to get rid of a few pallets worth of one of our top sellers…

So, I’m knocking 70% off Gluco-Secure—a natural breakthrough shown to…

I don’t know who’s at fault here. But I find the warehouse manager’s “not my circus, not my monkeys” attitude contemptible. ​​Particularly since he allowed a similar situation to happen last September. That’s when Green Valley sent out an email that started:

Dear John,

I never do this.

But I have a small problem and I think maybe we can help each other out.

Yesterday afternoon the Green Valley warehouse manager let me know that they have NO room in the warehouse for a truckload shipment of product that’s scheduled for delivery next week.

Somehow wires got crossed but it turns out we have 4 pallets of our top-selling joint pain formula that we need to clear out FAST to make room quickly for new inventory.

So, I’m doing something I never do…

I’m knocking 70% off a powerful joint-healing discovery…

Somehow wires got crossed?

Twice in under one year?

I don’t know what this warehouse manager is doing all day long. He’s clearly not doing his job. That’s why I say Green Valley must fire him, and must do it now.

But one person they shouldn’t fire is their email copywriter. Because that guy obviously knows about the power of reason why marketing.

Reason why is the most widespread and effective click, whirr mechanism in advertising.

​​Click, whirr, by the way, is the useful but somewhat-dated analogy Robert Cialdini used in his book Influence. You press the tape player button click, and whirr goes the automated behavior tape.

The incredible thing is that, just as with canned laughter and obvious flattery, reason why is effective even when it’s blatantly untrue.

I’m not saying you should lie… but you might choose to stretch the truth, until it turns into a reason why.

Because reason why works on you too. So if you ever need to justify why stretching the truth is ok, you can always say, for your own peace of mind and your customer’s,

“I never do this. But I have a small problem and I think maybe we can help each other out…”

Speaking of sticky situations:

I recently had an influx of new subscribers to my email newsletter. And I’m getting really close to a big round number of subscribers that I’ve always coveted.

So I’m going to do something I never do, in the hopes of quickly filling up those extra few newsletter subscriber spots.

For today only, I’m opening up my email newsletter to anybody to subscribe, for free, right here on this page. This opportunity might not come again for a long time. If you’re the type to grab a great opportunity when you see it, click here to subscribe now.

“Huge Hack if YOU Sell 5k-250k products or programs”

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Two months ago, in a private Facebook group, I saw a post by a well-known real estate investing guru:

Huge Hack if YOU Sell 5k-250k products or programs.
We found a LEGIT funding company that will finance your customers.
VERY Easy qualifications:
620 credit score
40k in income
They will pay you 100% up front of what ever you charge, and the customers payments to them will be fractional to anything they pay you!
We have literally 3 folded our income with them overnight.

The guru was offering to make an introduction to the company, and he didn’t reveal their name. In fact, I still don’t know.

But just yesterday, I saw that Flippa (the online business marketplace) has partnered with a company called Yardline.

So now, if you’re looking to buy an online business through Flippa, assuming you can jump through a few hoops, then you can get 250k from Yardline to finance your purchase.

I’m not sure what kinds of terms Yardline offers.

​​All I can say is that if I were looking to buy a business, I’d look for investment partners directly, rather than going through a company like this.

On the other hand, if you do sell a high-ticket offer, and you target people for whom that much money is an issue, then Yardline and similar companies might be something to look into.

​​If I’m reading the Facebook post above correctly, it sounds like an easy way to grow your income without changing your offer, your marketing, or really anything else inside your company.

Plus I think this is jut a bit of curious industry news. Because a few days ago, I speculated whether the direct response industry is at a “Netflix moment.” In other words, if we’re at a kind of tipping point, where things go mainstream.

I don’t think the emergence of companies like Yardline is any kind of hard proof of this. But it is another data point for you to consider… when you think about which direction you want to take your own career or business.

And if you want more direct marketing industry news and predictions:

I write a daily email newsletter. You can sign up for it here.

Flattery is to listening as sincere compliments are to…?

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Today I have an idea that might help you if you ever talk to friends, clients, or even random strangers like your wife or husband.

I thought of it yesterday when I saw a family of three walking in the park.

Mom was trying to have a serious conversation with dad. Meanwhile, their 8-year-old daughter kept trying to get mom’s attention:

“Mom! Mom! Mom!”

So in between sentences to dad, mom put her hand on the back of the little girl’s head and said, “Tell me, sweetie.”

The girl rattled off a few sentences, a typical 8-year-old’s story that goes nowhere.

“That’s great,” the mom said. And then she picked up the conversation with dad right where she had left off.

Meanwhile the daughter, satisfied at having made an important point, went back to playing and left her parents to talk in peace for a few moments.

A few days ago, I wrote that flattery works great. Well, so does listening, even if you only make a show of it. That’s what I was seeing in that family scene above.

But just as sincere compliments are a step beyond flattery… there’s also a step beyond listening.

Negotiation coach Jim Camp called it blank slating.

That’s when you drop your preconceived assumptions and ideas… give the other party your full attention… and allow them to draw on your mental etch-a-sketch.

Camp thought blank slating is so important that he made it a cornerstone of his negotiation system, which was used in billion-dollar deals as well as in hostage situations (FBI’s Chris Voss was one of Camp’s students).

Blank slating is not easy. But with practice, it becomes possible.

Except… why? Why go to the trouble?

If plain old, in-one-ear-and-out-the-other listening works already… why put in the effort and practice needed to blank slating?

Only this:

Because you’ll uncover information you wouldn’t uncover otherwise.

And this:

Because you’ll build deeper rapport.

And this:

Because your own brain might kick in, and produce new options and alternatives you hadn’t thought of when you entered this situation.

Finally, because you might avoid some real bad situations on occasion. Speaking of which, here’s a bit of barber-shop humor that comedian Norm MacDonald once did on Conan O’Brien:

I looked in the mirror and all I see is a fat old man.
So I says to my wife, I says to her:
Sweetheart I feel old and fat.
I need you to give me a real compliment.
So she says, your eyesight is perfect!
So I says to her, you dirty dog!

Now let me leave you with another analogy:

Listening is to this blog… as blank slating is to…?

If you said my daily email newsletter, you win the prize for most attentive and open-minded. Click here in case you’d like to sign up.

Humans are not savages, but they can be made so on demand

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Yesterday, I read a fantastic yet true story, a kind of real-life Lord of the Flies. Except the outcome was very different from the book:

As you might know, Lord of the Flies is a story about a bunch of boys who get shipwrecked on an island.

Pretty soon, they become mean, thuggish, and destructive. Some of the boys are killed by the others. Half the island is burned down.

What can you do? People are savages, and kids even more so. Except maybe not:

The real-life version of this story involves six boys from the island kingdom of Tonga.

They were bored stiff at their English boarding school.

So they decided to steal a local fisherman’s boat and sail away to adventure, and maybe even make it to New Zealand.

They didn’t make it.

After months of search, the boys were declared dead back home. Funerals were held for them.

And then, 15 months later, they were discovered by an Australian adventurer fishing in the waters around an uninhabited island named ‘Ata. The boys had shiprecked there and survived, alone all that time.

And here’s the real-life twist:

All six boys were happy, healthy, and harmonious.

They had survived by eating fish and coconuts and drinking rainwater collected in hollowed-out tree trunks.

They had broken up their chores, such as gardening, cooking, and guard duty, and they took turns doing them.

They built a gym and a badminton court, and they played a makeshift guitar made out of the wreckage of the boat.

When one of the boys fell down a ravine and broke his leg, the others climbed down after him, brought him back up, then set his leg using sticks and leaves. He recovered while the other boys took turns doing his chores.

So is this really the true nature of human beings?

​​And if so, why does your typical junior high school look nothing like it?

​​Why does Lord of the Flies resonate with us instead?

The answer comes from another real-life variant of the Lord of the Flies theme. A bunch of people stranded on an uninhabited island… with a TV crew and a prize to be won.

I’m talking about the TV show Survivor. I’ve never watched it, but I know the basic setup:

Direct competition for something scarce.

It’s all you need to turn people into savages. A finding that’s been repeated in different settings, not just on reality TV.

So let me leave off today by saying I can see two options:

One is to disconnect as much as possible from the doctrine of healthy competition. This might require moving to a deserted island, or at least turning off the TV.

The other option is not to disconnect from anything, but to profit from it. Because creating scarcity, even when there is none, and encouraging competition, or at least reminding people of it, is a great means of control.

Marinate on that for a bit. And if you want more real-life stories on the topic of profit and control, you might like my email newsletter. But better be quick, because spots are limited and others are taking them as you read this. Click here to sign up.

Superior solution, inferior marketing results?

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Direct marketing is counterintuitive. For me even the basics don’t come easy, so I have to use all kinds of metaphors to trick myself and avoid making stupid mistakes.

Otherwise, I end writing copy that seems perfect to me — but that makes as much of a splash as a feather floating down a well.

So here’s one metaphor that helps me and might help you, too. Let me illustrate it with a scene from this morning:

The apartment I’ve been staying in for the past few days is cold. This morning, I got cold while working there for an hour. Then I went out for a walk.

My body was tense and alert and guarded. Cold.

Outside, the sun was shining. And whenever I walked into a patch of sunlight somewhere, my body relaxed and my scowl changed into something like a smile. Warm.

But then I’d step back into the cold shadow next to a building or a bunch of trees. Each time, my body tensed up again and the scowl came back.

And so on. Over and over. Warm sunlight leading to a moment of openness and hope. Cold shadow again, making me closed and guarded.

My point is:

This is the same thing that’s going on with your prospects right now.

And if your marketing or copy is not getting all the results it’s capable of, it’s because you’re taking the focus off your prospects and their problems.

It’s a mistake that’s easy to make.

You try to get people to believe your message. You try to show them how you’re better and how you’re an expert and how you deliver results. How your solution is superior and solves the problems they have.

But people can’t hear you.

Because they’re shivering in the shadow, looking for a bit of warmth. The problem is you’re shifting the focus off them too soon, and onto some external thing.

People say they want a solution to their problem, but they really don’t. Not for a long, long time.

What they want is to be understood, to be validated, and to get an understanding themselves of why they’re in this mess to begin with.

That’s the warm sunshine that gets people’s body temperature up.

So keep the focus on them.

And only when they get so sweaty and uncomfortable that they can’t take any more hot sunlight… do you provide the cool shadow of a leafy tree and say, “Here, here’s what you need. And can I interest you in an ice-cold lemonade as well?”

Well, can I?

Because if you want more ideas on how to improve your marketing results, I write a daily email newsletter on that topic. You can sign up for it here.

Where to go when a negotiation hits no

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Do you dread having to negotiate?

Is it worse than having to take a cold shower in the middle of January in a bathroom without heating?

If so, maybe the following news item will help:

Women’s tennis world no. 2 Naomi Osaka just shocked the world by withdrawing from the French Open. As you might know, the French Open is one of the four Grand Slams, the biggest tennis tournaments of the year.

It all started a week ago, a few days before the French Open began.

That’s when Osaka wrote a post on Instagram, saying she won’t do press appearances during the tournament. Talking to the press is harmful to her mental health, Osaka said, and it feels like kicking a person when they’re down.

This created a lot of buzz in the tennis world.

A few days later, the French Tennis Federation, along with the other organizing bodies of the Grand Slam tournaments, put out a statement.

They offered support to Osaka, but also said she would be fined each time she failed to talk with the press. The fines would escalate. Eventually, Osaka could be disqualified from the tournament, and even banned from participating in future Grand Slams.

That’s when Naomi Osaka decided to withdraw.

​​She wrote to the tournament organizers for not explaining her position in a better way. And she said she wants to work together in finding a solution. But for now, she is taking time off the court.

To which the French Tennis Federation made its own statement. They said they were sad and sorry at Osaka’s decision, and they want to work with athletes to ensure their well-being. They wish Osaka all the best, and they look forward to seeing her next year.

I don’t know what the outcome of this will be. I just want to point out that everything in life, at least anything that has to do with another person, is a negotiation.

And like negotiation coach Jim Camp used to say, negotiation starts with no.

This is not a matter of hard-line posturing, or telling people to take it or leave it, or walking away.

But real negotiation starts with no. And it doesn’t end with yes.

When I first heard Jim Camp say this, it sounded bizarre or intentionally contrarian. But when you look at negotiations in the real world, like the Naomi Osaka situation above, it becomes obvious Camp is right.

Naomi said no.

Then the tournament organizers came back and said no in their own terms.

Then Naomi came back, and said no in a different way.

And all throughout, the two parties are still engaged, are still talking, and are still working together to reach an agreement.

The question then is how to best manage that process.

What do you do when the other side says no… and you say no… and yet you both have an interest in working together in some way?

The best guide I know for that is Camp’s book, of course titled Start With No.

​​It lays out a system for negotiation, so you can get to an outcome you want, while minimizing that “cold bathroom” feel.

Plus if you write sales copy, this book might have the knock-on effect at making you more persuasive. (A couple of million-dollar marketers say this book is their favorite copywriting book, even though it never mentions the topic.)

Fair warning:

Camp’s book is dense and it might take multiple reads to grasp. But in case you’re curious, here’s the link for more info:

https://bejakovic.com/start-with-no