Persuasion

Blessed are the proud

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“No man succeeds in everything he undertakes. In that sense we are all failures. The great point is not to fail in ordering and sustaining the effort of our life. In this matter vanity is what leads us astray. It hurries us into situations from which we must come out damaged; whereas pride is our safeguard, by the reserve it imposes on the choice of our endeavour as much by the virtue of its sustaining power.”
— Joseph Conrad, The Duellists

Here’s one thing that’s kept me interested in direct response copywriting for so long:

The best sales letters are not really selling what they seem to be selling on the surface. So they are not really about 100x stock gains… or getting your ex back… or ways to travel free on luxury cruise ships.

Rather, they are about being a man of vision… or being a man with a hole that nothing can fill… or being a man who knows others are always plotting behind his back.

That’s why the seven deadly sins and their offshoots are so powerful to think about when you write copy.

And even though I’ve thought about this quite a bit, I always thought that the two most powerful human failings — vanity and pride — are overlapping or even synonymous.

The passage I quoted above was the first time I heard anyone make a distinction between vanity and pride. The passage even puts them in opposition.

This made me think what the difference between pride and vanity might be. After some thinking, here’s what I’ve come up with:

Pride – the internal belief in your own worth or superiority

Vanity – the desire for others to acknowledge your worth or superiority

So for example:

If, as in the Conrad story above, an old soldier enters a woods with two loaded pistols, with the intent to kill or be killed by his opponent, according to the norms of civilized, honor-bound men…

Then pride is doing it to prove to himself his courage and his greater skill than the opponent. It doesn’t matter at all if nobody else will see it or know it.

But vanity is doing it so others will witness and acknowledge his courage and his greater skill. The audience is the whole point. If nobody sees it, the victory itself means nothing, or is worse than that — a wasted opportunity.

So pride and vanity are really two fundamentally different human drives, and I suspect, motivate different types of people.

At least that’s my interpretation. It might be relevant to you for two reasons:

One are those pesky hidden motives that underlie so many purchasing decisions. Again, it’s not really about the stock returns, the toxin-free pots and pans, or the better golf score.

Instead, it’s about vain status-seeking and wounded self-respect. Understanding these things, and having a good name to attach to them, can help you when it’s time to write breakthrough copy.

The other thing is something I’m personally curious about:

Why we put so much emphasis as a society, at least historically, on the evils of pride. Pride is even supposed to be the head of all the deadly sins, from which all the others spring.

Which brings me to one of my “competitors” I mentioned yesterday.

He might have something to tell you about why our society says pride is so bad.

The man’s name is Jason Leister. He started out as a direct response copywriter. He then wrote daily emails for years about clients and why they suck and how copywriters can cope with that fact.

But gradually, Jason drifted off into new and uncharted waters.

He now lives somewhere off the grid with his wife and ten kids.

And he’s stopped writing about copywriting and clients.

Instead, he writes about… well, check it out at the link below. That’s where you can sign up to get on Jason’s email newsletter and get Jason’s lead magnet, “How the World System Was Constructed to Make You a Slave and What You Can Do About It.”

You might find Jason’s ideas repulsive, conspiratorial, or like me, intriguing and sometimes enlightening. If you want to check them out, here’s the link:

https://sovereignbusiness.org/

The most tastless and offensive Christmas song ever?

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“I’m not singing that line. I’ll sing anything, but I’m not singing that line.”

“You have to. That’s the line I saved for you. That’s the one that’s going to make them hurt the most.”

Here’s a potentially offputting and offensive Christmas eve story:

Some 37 years ago, on November 25 1984, dozens of British and Irish pop stars gathered at 10 Basing Street in London.

The event was Band Aid:

An attempt to record a hit song in just one day and get it to the top of the charts before Christmas. All proceeds were to help relieve the crisis in Ethiopia, where drought had put 7 million people at risk of a slow and miserable death.

Against all odds, Band Aid turned out to be a success.

The song, “Do They Know It’s Christmas,” became the fastest- and biggest-selling single in UK history. It raised some some $25 million outright. It also spawned later efforts like Live Aid and USA for Africa, which raised hundreds of millions of dollars more.

In spite of all this, “Do They Know It’s Christmas” has had many critics over the years.

People hate the song for different reasons, but one strain can be summed up by the disgust at the line that fell to Bono of U2 to sing.

Bono initially refused to sing the line.

But Bob Geldof, the organizer of Band Aid and a personal friend of Bono’s, was too persuasive and won out in the end.

And so at the end of the first verse of “Do They Know It’s Christmas”… after contrasting the world of British plenty to the world of dread and fear in Ethopia, Bono belts out:

“Well tonight thank God it’s them instead of you”

Was this necessary? Would the song have worked as well without it?

We won’t ever know. But going by how much controversy, attention, and outrage this one line has caused over the years… it’s possible it tipped the scales of guilt and shame needed to stir action.

So that’s the rather harsh and out-of-season message I have for you tonight.

You might feel reluctant to offend, to say something that people might find provocative, shocking, or tasteless. You might put it off and say, “It’s not the right moment now. I’ll do it after the holidays… in the New Year… once corona passes… when the Cleveland Indians win the World Series.”

Sooner or later though, this attitude means you will miss an opportunity to make a real difference.

So Merry Christmas. And let me sum up my message with a few words by the original Grinch of direct marketing, Dan Kennedy:

“There is never any need to be or behave like a prick in order to be successful, but you must be okay with some, possibly many, people thinking of you as an insufferable prick.”

And on that note, I’d like to advertise my email newsletter. It’s been praised by many people in the direct response industry… and it’s been ignored by others. If you’d like to check it out, you can sign up here.

A bit of magic and faith to persuade hardened cynics

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I hear it’s Christmas time, so here’s a little gift. It’s taken from the Christmas classic Miracle on 34th Street.

If you’ve never seen the movie, it’s about department store Santa who just might be the real Santa Claus.

He looks like Kris Kringle…

He acts like Kris Kringle…

He even calls himself Kris Kringle.

Of course, while Kris Kringle soon makes some folks believe that magic is real and he is Santa… a few cynics refuse to allow faith into their hearts.

And so Kris Kringle winds up in the kounty kourthouse. He’s on trial and the point is to prove he is not really Santa, because Santa doesn’t really exist.

And then there’s the following scene, which I thought you might find valuable:

KK’s lawyer and the opposing lawyer both approach the judge.

KK’s lawyer holds up three letters from kids to Santa, which have been delivered to Kris Kringle.

Since the USPS is legally bound to deliver letters to the intended recipient, the lawyer argues, the US Government is throwing its authority behind the fact that Kris Kringle is actually Santa.

The opposing lawyer says, “Come on, three letters to Santa, that proves nothing.”

“I have additional exhibits,” KK’s lawyer says. “but I hesitate to produce them.”

The judge is intrigued. He insists. “Let’s see them. Put them here on my desk.”

“But your honor…”

“Put them here on my desk!”

It turns out KK’s lawyer has been holding back. Three letters not enough? How about this:

A dozen mail carriers carrying sackfuls of letters come into the courtroom. They pour them out onto the judge’s desk. The judge ends up buried in letters, all addressed to Santa, and now delivered to Kris Kringle.

Case closed!

Look, it’s a family movie, and it’s about Christmas and faith. It doesn’t have to make 100% sense.

But sense or not, I think that courtroom gambit is a powerful technique, and something you can benefit from in your own marketing.

Maybe you can see exactly what I have in mind. Or maybe you’d like me to spell it out.

​​In that case, write me an email and simply state your wish. You can address your email to the North Pole or to me specifically. Google will deliver it either way. Oh, and don’t forget to sign up to my newsletter before Christmas.

How to turn failure into prestige

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In the year 52 BC, the Roman army, led by Julius Caesar, secretly advanced their massive siege towers towards the Gallic walled city of Avaricum.

The sentries on the walls were hiding from heavy rain.

Caesar took advantage of the situation, and he took the walls without much fight.

The remaining Gallic soldiers grouped themselves in the middle of town. They were set on a desperate fight to the end.

But the Romans just stayed on the walls, watching the Gauls from above.

Gradually, panic took the defenders. They started running out the city for dear life.

They didn’t get far.

The Romans massacred them along with everyone else in the city, women and children included.

Out of 40,000 Gauls inside Avaricum, only 800 survived.

The leader of the Gauls, Vercingetorix, was stationed outside the city with his army. He had been tasked with fighting Caesar in the open and keeping the city of Avaricum safe.

Vercingetorix had failed spectacularly. The fact that he had vocally opposed the idea of making a stand at Avaricum didn’t help, either.

As the few remaining survivors from the city dragged themselves into Vercingetorix’s camp… there was a real chance that the soldiers’ sympathy with the survivors and general anger at Vercingetorix would cause a riot.

But let’s pause for a second with the massacring and rioting.

Take a moment. And ask yourself, what might you do if you were in Vercingetorix’s sandals?

It’s not just an idle hypothetical.

Say you have an online presence today and you hope to position yourself as a leader in your field. There’s a good chance that sooner or later… you will be involved in some kind of scandal, failure, or controversy, whether deserved or not.

When that happens, discontent might bubble up among those who normally follow and support you. It might even break into a riot that lands your metaphorical head on a metaphorical plate.

So what can you do? Let me tell you what Vercingetorix did:

He called a council of war. He spoke to his troops and asked his army to not be disheartened by the loss.

The Romans didn’t beat them through superior courage in a fair fight. Instead, the Romans did it through trickery and their knowledge of siege warfare.

But Vercingetorix would soon repair this setback. He would lead his people to greater successes.

He was well on the way to uniting all the Gaul tribes against the Romans. And when Gaul was united, the whole world could not stand against her. In the meantime, it was time to get to work fortifying the camps.

Maybe it’s not clear from this what Vercingetorix’s real message was. So here’s an explanation, in Caesar’s own words:

“This speech made a good impression on the Gauls. What pleased them most was that, despite a signal disaster, Vercingetorix had not lost heart or concealed himself or shrunk from facing the multitude. And so while a reverse weakens the authority of commanders in general, his prestige, on the contrary, in consequence of the disaster, waxed daily greater.”

So here’s my takeaway for you, if you are a leader or you hope to be one some day:

The crowd mind hasn’t changed any in the past two millennia.

Today as then, when you face a crisis or setback, the crowd will tear you apart — as soon as you back down, apologize, or show weakness or fear.

The good news is, it’s easy to show no weakness or fear when you have a computer screen to protect you. And when your angry army is armed not with sharp swords… but with dull Twitter accounts.

Keep this in mind, and when disaster hits, you will see it’s really an opportunity. Not just to survive. But to get the crowd to love you even more.

Ok, so much for the history and leadership lesson. If you want more like this, you might like my daily email newsletter. You can give it a try here.

Don’t call me insecure

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“All right, all right, I apologize.”

I want to quickly share with you a scene from my favorite comedy, A Fish Called Wanda. This scene might be instructive if you’re a marketer or copywriter.

In this scene, Kevin Kline, playing an ex-CIA assassin called Otto, forces another man to apologize.

That other man is who we see in the scene, standing stiffly against a brick wall, making the apology.

“You’re really sorry?” asks Otto, somewhere off camera.

“I’m really, really sorry,” says the other man. “I apologize unreservedly. I offer a complete and utter retraction. The imputation was totally without basis in fact, and was in no way fair comment, and was motivated purely by malice.”

As he says this, the camera rotates right side up.

It turns out the other man — a barrister named Archie Leach, played by John Cleese — is not really standing against a wall. Really, he’s being dangled out of a window, held at his ankles by Otto.

And here’s why this might be relevant if you do marketing or if you write copy:

Otto the CIA assassin fancies himself a bit of an intellectual. He reads philosophy books all the time, and he’s fond of quoting Nietzsche.

But he also thinks the central message of Buddhism is “every man for himself.” And he knows for a fact that the London Underground was a political movement.

In other words, Otto is a bit of an idiot, and somewhere deep down, he knows it. That’s why his tagline throughout the movie is, “Don’t call me stupid.”

So when he secretly overhears Archie… right as Archie is about to say that Otto is stupid… well, that’s how we end up with the scene at the window.

The point is, when someone is insecure about a quality, they take any challenge to that quality very seriously.

But you probably know that already. It’s standard playground psychology.

What you might not know is that there’s another possible reaction to being very insecure about some personal quality. And that’s buying direct response offers.

Because if you are insecure about a thing… you have the belief and maybe life experience that this is a part of your life that you cannot get sorted on your own. God knows you’ve tried. That’s why you’re in the market.

Of course, not everybody who buys direct response offers is insecure. Some small fraction of people are successful already or will soon be. They are just looking for a slight edge.

But those people are the tiny minority.

For the vast majority in any direct response market, you can count on a wounded ego… at least in relation to the problem you’re offering to solve or the promise you’re making.

So if you’re smart, you’ll be aware of this self-esteem thing in your marketing and copy.

On the positive side, it can be very valuable if you just soothe and calm that insecurity.

On the negative side, it can be even more valuable if you poke and prod that very spot.

That’s why one of the most successful direct response ads of all time had the headline, “Do you make these mistakes in English?”

And it’s why Gary Bencivenga… the most celebrated copywriter of the past 50 years… used the same “Do you make these mistakes” formula when selling his own book on job interviews.

In fact, If I had anything to sell you right now, I might subtly prod some secret insecurities I know about.

But I won’t do that. I’ve got no direct response offer for you today. Well, nothing for sale. Just the free offer to sign up to my newsletter, in case you’re looking for a slight edge.

Everything is free

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I know a lot of people in the marketing world worship at the altar of Seth Godin. I myself have had no contact with that religion, until today.

Today, I read an article that Seth wrote earlier this month, with a provocative title:

“Customer service is free”

Seth says that because of word-of-mouth and the value of loyal customers, you should stop looking at customer service as a cost.

That’s a point I’ve heard Ben Settle make before. Ben says that customer service is the #1 sales skill, which will allow you to charge higher prices… give you an advantage over your competitors… and allow you to make up for your shortcomings.

But here’s something that puzzled my mental squirrel:

Ben Settle has been making this point about customer service for years. It never made as much impact on me as the Seth Godin article. Because Seth’s presentation was more powerful.

Perhaps, and this is just a hypothesis based on my own experience today, the power of “FREE” is greater than the power of “profitable” for getting into people’s heads. Sure, once you open up a path into somebody’s brain with the ice pick of FREE, then you can bring in the “profitable” argument. But not before. And that’s what Seth Godin does — FREE in the headline, profitable in the very last sentence of his article.

But whether that’s a universal truth or not, one thing is universally true:

All your offers, whether ideas you are pitching or actual products you are selling, should be FREE. Of course, not free today. But FREE. Here’s what I mean:

The next time you are faced with a prospect who’s holding your offer in his hands, interested but still not sold, then apply the following free idea, and it will pay for itself immediately:

Put your arm around your prospects shoulders and point to the rainbow on the horizon. Then point back to that product of yours, there in your prospect’s lap. And then once again, point to the rainbow.

“Do you see now?” tell your prospect. “In 9 weeks, it will pay for itself. So really, it’s FREE. And after that, it will even start to make you money.”

Speaking of making money:

I have an email newsletter in which I share money-making ideas about marketing and copywriting. You can sign up to my newsletter today at a small up-front cost. But really, don’t think of it as a cost, think of it as an investment. One that will pay off before the end of the day.

The status pirate game

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Imagine a large and hairy sailor, wearing a striped blue-and-white shirt and a bandana wrapped around his head, looking nervous.

​​The year is 1717, and he is the navigator of an English trading vessel that’s sailing through the Carribean.

A few times, the big navigator makes like he’s going to say something. But he stops himself.

His eyes keep darting forward — out toward the horizon – and then at the captain next to him, who is looking through the telescope.

It’s dusk and there is a ship up ahead. It’s very strange — there is nobody on board.

“It might have been the plague, sir,” the large navigator says. “Sudden plague could have taken them all.”

The captain shakes his head. He’s not at all worried. “Pirates,” he says. “Dusk is their favorite time. Have you readied the cannons?”

The navigator starts shifting his weight from one foot to another. “It would be a very simple matter for us to alter course, sir,” he says.

The captain squints his eyes and looks back through the telescope. “I — never — alter — course,” he says.

That’s the opening scene of a movie that never got made, called Sea Kings.

As you probably guessed, it’s about pirates.

And it’s also about how the human brain determines value.

In this case, start with a large sailor. From his physical size and job title, you would assume him to be a brave man. And he might be, in most situations. But out here, faced with pirates on the open sea, he’s nervous.

Then contrast that to the captain. He’s at another level of coolness and bravery. Unlike the navigator, he’s not afraid of pirates. He’s seen it all before and he won’t flinch.

And because the screenwriter — William Goldman in this case — set it up this way, it makes the next moment all the more dramatic and impressive.

Because in the next moment, a figure appears on the ghost pirate ship. It’s human shaped. But it’s entirely black and it’s enormous. It also appears to be on fire. And then the figure starts to speak. Its deep voice carries across the sea.

“Death or surrender… surrender or die… the Devil bids you choose…”

The big navigator starts screaming and running around. “What is that? WHAT — IS — IT?”

And the captain, who until a moment ago was so determined and tough, suddenly isn’t any more. He’s turned pale. He drops the telescope.

“Run up the white flag,” he whispers to the navigator. “It’s Blackbeard…”

That’s how you make an entrance for your main character.

Not by showing a closeup of him, scowling and looking scary and ugly.

Not by his credentials — the many cruel and daring things he’s done in his career.

Not by an action sequence in which your main character — a hulk of a man — fights a dozen frightened and incompetent soldiers.

No, if you want to make your main character frightening and awe-inspiring, you just put him at the top of a pyramid:

Blackbeard
Normally tough captain
Big and strong sailor who shouldn’t be afraid
The audience, representing the rest of soft and weak humanity

The fact is, the game of status is only ever relative.

You can think of it as a Ponzi scheme, or an MLM. The more people you recruit beneath you… and the more people they recruit beneath them… the better and more valuable your position.

And perhaps you’re wondering how you can specifically use this in marketing and sales copy.

The fact is, there are many ways. I could tell you what they are, but instead I’ll make you an deal:

Get a few people who are interested in direct marketing and form a little study group. With you as the leader. And then get them all to sign up for my newsletter. I’ll share my insights then.

Don’t read this if you can’t stand harsh glaring lights

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“It is important that you get clear for yourself that your only access to impacting life is action. The world does not care what you intend, how committed you are, how you feel, or what you think, and certainly, it has no interest in what you want and don’t want.”
— Werner Erhard, founder of est

Last week, after I sent out my Copy Koala Millions™ email, a reader named Lester wrote in with this interesting point:

“The one other thing I remember from Carlton is how in almost all business segments, the customers want easy/painless/low effort results. BUT the body building/fitness guys want the opposite. You have to sell how fucking painful and hard it will be with what you are selling.”

It’s true — 99% of sales copy promises quick/easy/foolproof results, preferably accomplished by an external mechanism, which you activate by pressing a large red button that reads “INSTANT RESULTS HERE.”

But like Lester says, not every market is like that. Bodybuilders for one… maybe also small business owners and entrepreneurs.

For example, yesterday I wrote about Dan Kennedy’s “#1 most powerful personal discipline in all the world.”

Dan promises that this one discipline can make you successful beyond your wildest dreams.

But honestly, I didn’t need that promise to buy what Dan was selling. I became hypnotized as soon as I read the words “powerful personal discipline.” At that point, I was 86% sold already.

That’s why I said yesterday that I don’t need to sell this idea to you either. Because if you feel the twitching of this same drive for overcoming inside you… you probably perked up just because I kept stuffing the terms “self discipline” and “personal discipline” a dozen times in what I wrote yesterday.

The fact is, there’s a very real need inside most people for occasional struggle, suffering, and proving their own worth.

Suffering and struggle might not sell in front-end copy going out to a cold list of people who are already suffering and struggling with a problem.

But it definitely does sell, including in sister markets to direct response. Such as the seminar business, for example.

Werner Erhard, the guy I quoted up top, ran est, the biggest personal development product of the 1970s. est consisted of two weekend-long seminars where people would literally piss themselves because they weren’t allowed to go to the bathroom — in a giant hall filled with hundreds of strangers.

On day two, attendees would go through the “danger process.” From the book Odd Gods:

“A row of the audience at a time would go on stage and be confronted by est staff. One person would ‘bullbait’ all of them, saying and doing things in order to get them to react. Other volunteers would be body catchers for those who fell, a common occurrence.”

Like I said, this went on for two weekends in a row. In other words, people would show up one weekend, get humiliated and brutalized, and come back the next weekend for more. When it was all said and done, people found it transformative, and enthusiastically recommended est to their friends and family.

My point is simply a reminder. We are no longer living in the world of one-off sales letters pitching a book of Chinese medicine secrets. Today, there’s plenty of money to be made by being strict, demanding, and harsh. Yes, even in your sales copy.

… well with one caveat. I’ll get to that in my email tomorrow. Read it or fail.

Getting hosed by trolls and haters for the win

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A quick but slippery story today about dealing with trolls and haters:

Back in 1978, the TV show Taxi went on the air. It had an ensemble cast of past and future stars: Tony Danza (who became one of the biggest TV leading men of the 80s)… Christopher Lloyd (who became Doc in the Back to the Future movies)… Danny DeVito (who became the Penguin, among other things).

Oh, and then there was also Andy Kaufman.

Kaufman was famous already. And he would become more famous still, thanks to his kooky and anti-humor characters on Saturday Night Live and David Letterman.

Anyways, it was a few months in, and the cast of Taxi was gelling. They liked working with each other. They felt they were on to something big — the ratings were good.

But there was a problem:

Tony Danza really didn’t like Andy Kaufman.

“I was a team player,” Danza said. “And this guy is meditating in his car. He’s eating seaweed. He doesn’t come to rehearsal. But when we have a gag reel, he doesn’t make any mistakes. That galls you too.”

Danza decided to do something drastic to provoke Kaufman. He wanted to make it clear to Kaufman that his better-than-you attitude wouldn’t fly.

“I’m not proud of this,” Danza said. “But I took a fire extinguisher. It was a water fire extinguisher, not chemical. And I shot him with it, figuring he would get mad.”

But no.

Andy Kaufman just stood there.

Danza emptied the fire extinguisher.

But Andy Kaufman just kept standing there, blinking and looking harmless as usual, focusing his baby-sphinx gaze on Tony Danza.

“I was so frustrated,” Danza said. “Because he didn’t do anything.”

Frustrated? Sounds like a win for Andy Kaufman. And get this:

Fire extinguisher now spent, Danza apologized. And over the coming hours and days, he decided to take a second look at Kaufman.

At the time, Kaufman was doing a show on Sunset Boulevard. Danza decided to go.

“The show was the craziest show I’ve ever seen,” he said. “I started to think, holy mackerel, this is something really different.”

The two performers went for milk and cookies after the show (no joke). And over time, Danza ended up considering Kaufman a pretty close friend, and an amazing performer.

And in case you’re wondering:

I am not saying that you should allow yourself to get hosed down to win over trolls.

But I am saying that remaining emotionally detached in the face of various haters can be transformative. To you and to them both.

In the short term, once your troll or hater empties out his provocation hose and still finds you unfazed… well, it’s a win for you.

And who knows? In rare cases, maybe the troll will even become converted, and decide to give you a second, less hateful look.

But easier said than done, right? Because, like me, perhaps you find it hard to stay emotionally detached.

In that case, you might want to take a page from the book of Andy Kaufman:

Invent a character and play him in real life.

It doesn’t have to be a completely different character, either. It can be somebody who looks like you… lives your life… shares your experiences… but is still different enough where it counts.

Maybe ​you can’t picture what I mean. So I’ll let Andy Kaufman illustrate.

Below, you can find his most bizarre, moving, and provocative appearance on television. Try to decide where reality ends and the character begins.

But before you go watch that, I want to say something serious. I have an email newsletter. I put so much work into it. But almost nobody is signing up. It breaks my heart. I know this sounds cliche… but would you sign up to it, please?

Excuses for the perfect murder

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“Come on Bobby, get in the car! We’ll give you a ride!”

“No, Dickie. It’s just a couple blocks. I’ll walk.”

“Get in Bobby! Quit being such a wet blanket! I want to show you my new tennis racket!”

On May 21 1924, two Chicago teenagers, Nathan Leopold and Richard “Dickie” Loeb, rented a car. It was the first step of their plan for the afternoon’s perfect crime.

Leopold, a former child prodigy, was 19. He had just graduated from the University of Chicago and was preparing to enter Harvard Law School.

Loeb was 18. A year earlier, he had graduated from the University of Michigan as the youngest graduate ever.
​
Leopoold and Loeb drove slowly down the street. They spotted their chosen victim. 14-year-old Bobby Franks, Loeb’s second cousin.

It was supposed to be the perfect murder. A demonstration that Leopold and Loeb were supermen. Because Leopold was a big reader of Friedrich Nietzsche. He was fascinated by Nietzsche’s idea of the superman — the rare, unusually gifted man who can rise above common morality.

Besides, Leopold thought, he and Loeb were too smart. They had planned everything. Nobody could ever catch them.

Leopold and Loeb cajoled Bobby into the car. A few moments later, they knocked him out with a chisel, dragged him to the back seat, and strangled him.

​​They then disposed of the body in a pre-planned location, 25 miles south of Chicago. They washed the upholstery of the car and went on with their lives.

“Err… fascinating stuff, Bejako,” I hear you say. “But why are you creeping me out? Where is this story going?

All right, let me get to it.

Yesterday, I talked abut a squeaky-clean guru who seemed to blatantly lie about his backstory to please the audience. I promised to wrap that email up today.

So the first half of what I want to tell you is:

Sell a transfer of responsibility.

Because Leopold and Loeb did not succeed in carrying off the perfect murder. An act of Providence interfered.

Loeb’s horn-rimmed glasses slipped out next to the body of Bobby Franks. The glasses had a custom hinge that could be traced back to only three people in Chicago, Loeb among them.

At the subsequent trial, Leopold and Loeb’s lawyer focused all his efforts on avoiding the death penalty. He gave a 12-hour-long closing statement, which has become a classic of American law. He supposedly brought tears to the judge’s eyes.

The lawyer managed to keep Leopold and Loeb from the gallows. He persuaded the judge to spare them in spite of the gruesome and senseless crime… in spite of the innocence of the victim… and in spite of the public outcry for the two young supermen to be hanged.

So how did the lawyer do it?

First, he admitted that Leopold and Loeb had done the deed.

And then, over those 12 hours, he explained the real blame lay at the feet of Loeb’s domineering governess… of nature and evolution… of bloodthirsty newspapers… of callous university professors who exposed the two teenagers to ideas they were not ready for… of the Macmillan publishing company and its reckless spreading of inflammatory books… and of course, of Friedrich Nietzsche.

In other words, the deed might have been Leopold and Loeb’s. But the fault was everybody else’s. And the judge bought it.

Just imagine:

If an appeal like this can sway an impartial, third-party, external judge… what can it do for a partial, first-party, internal judge?

That’s what I’m talking about. Transfer of responsibility.

That’s why smart marketers find ways to take that internal judge in the prospect’s mind.. and show him how all those bad outcomes in the past are everybody else’s fault. And not only that.

Smart marketers also make the prospect believe any possible bad outcomes in the future won’t be his fault either.

But perhaps you’re worried about the bad future outcome of this email never finishing. So let me really wrap it up.

My conclusion is that a transfer of responsibility is something you want to sell to people…

But it’s not something you want to buy yourself. Or at least I don’t.

Because I’ve learned from direct marketing how powerful this drive to escape responsibility can be. And I’ve since noticed it in myself as well.

I’ve also learned that trustworthiness and authority can be easily bought online.

That’s why I’ve made it a personal policy not to get attached to online personalities. Even the ones I like and feel I can trust.

Of course, I consider their ideas. But I take on the responsibility of deciding whether these ideas are something I should believe in and act upon… or not.

Perhaps that’s a policy that makes sense for you to adopt as well. And you know. Not because I say so.

Last thing:

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