Persuasion

Midnight Run pattern interrupt

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“Did you ever have sex with an animal, Jack?”

I’ve been running a fever for the past 48 hours. So I decided to download a movie to make the time pass.

The movie is called Midnight Run, and it’s a 1980s comedy starring Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin. De Niro plays Jack Walsh, a bounty hunter who’s in charge of bringing in John “Duke” Mardukas, an accountant (played by Grodin) who stole $15 million from the mob.

At one point, Jack and the Duke are on a train. Jack decides he won’t talk to the Duke any more because it’s all business and because the Duke is annoying him.

It’s an awkward situation. Just silence in the air. And then, the Duke starts talking. But he’s not getting a response out of Jack. So he says:

“Did you ever have sex with an animal, Jack? Remember those chickens around the Indian reservation? There were some good-looking chickens there, Jack, you know, between us.”

Jack smiles.

“Yeah there were a couple there that I might have taken a shot at.”

And the next thing you know, the Duke and Jack are laughing and talking again.

That is an example of a pattern interrupt. In copywriting circles, this term is often used to describe a surprising first sentence to suck readers into the rest of your copy. But a pattern interrupt is something broader and more powerful.

It comes from NLP, or at least I think so, based on some Tony Robbins tapes I’m listening to. Says Tony, it’s easy to completely change how you think and feel, even about things that have been bothering you for years. All it takes are three steps:

First, you have to get leverage — in other words, you have to have a strong reason to want to change.

Second, you interrupt your current, negative pattern of thought or behavior by doing something unexpected.

Third, you create a new, more useful pattern for yourself.

It’s a simple process and useful if you’re trying to make yourself into a happier, more productive person. But it works just as well on other people as on yourself. So if somebody around you starts getting sucked into a negative pattern you don’t like, try asking them, for example, if they’ve ever had sex with an animal.

Master this 2-bit magic trick for a conversion boost

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I got a marketing email today with the subject line:

“Add THIS To Your Coffee For A Memory Boost”

The email explains: “It’s not sugar or cream, and it’s not anything that will affect the taste… But it’s clinically shown to improve your memory starting in just 1 hour.”

​​Hmmm… interesting.

Almost as interesting as a Penn and Teller magic trick I watched involving a disappearing chicken. Penn announces he will make the chicken disappear from its cage through the use of misdirection. “That’s a magical term,” Penn informs you, “a term of art. It’s a curating of attention… giving the audience a story they can tell themselves that lets them not really know they were distracted.”

Penn keeps explaining how he’s going to fool you as he lowers a velvet cloth over the soon-to-be-disappeared chicken. And then suddenly, a man in a gorilla suit jumps out from backstage, banging some cymbals. Meanwhile, Teller, the quiet half of the duo, sneaks behind the cage, takes the chicken out, and walks off.

Eventually, the commotion settles down. ​​

“How many of you saw the gorilla?” Penn asks the audience. Everybody raises their hand.

“And how many of you saw Teller take the chicken out?” Almost all hands go up again.

“Now, how many of you saw him sneak the gorilla into the cage?” Penn asks. And he strips away the velvet cloth to show the gorilla struggling in the cage, right where the chicken was only a few seconds ago.

Pretty impressive. But getting back to marketing… What is this non-sugar, non-cream coffee additive that will boost your memory in just one hour?

Well, if you click on the link, and have the patience to watch the VSL, you’ll find out it’s a run-of-the-mill supplement, specifically, a capsule containing some standard herbs that are supposed to make an old and tired mind sharper. It’s not in any way connected to coffee, though I guess you can plop it into your coffee, much like you could plop a pair of keys into your coffee so you don’t forget them.

Maybe you see my point.

​​Misdirection is a clever magic trick to use in copy. It works well to get attention, and probably, to increase sales as well. But be careful.

​​Unlike with a magic show, people won’t be pleased to be fooled like with the coffee/supplement example. Your misdirection should be subtle and, unlike in the marketing email I got, at least a little plausible. Nobody likes to feel like a gullible ass, and they probably won’t give you a second chance.

Persuasion bleach

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About a week ago, I decided to make some changes to these posts and as the first step, I made a list of possible topics to cover in the future. The list starts with…

a the basics of persuasion
b marketing
c comedy
d magic

… then it keeps going with 20-odd topics and finally concludes with…

w political systems
x physical violence
y cults
z competitive debate

All that is good and wohl. But honestly, I find it exhausting to constantly harp on about influence and persuasion and manipulation of one form or another. It needs a break on occasion, at least once or twice per woman’s cycle.

After all, the world is a big place, filled with sociologists and ballet dancers and urban planners and radiologists. Many of these are smart and good people, even though they’ve never heard of Gary Halbert. What are they all doing?

I don’t know. But I can tell you what a group of volunteers is doing in Kuterevo, Croatia. Kuterevo is in the Lika region of Croatia, which is the wooded, hilly, and deserted center of the country. And you know what you get in wooded, hilly, deserted areas? That’s right, bears.

So if you can find your way to Kuterevo, you can visit the Kuterevo bear sanctuary. This is apparently not a zoo, but a large enclosure, consisting of rescued or orphaned bears, living in pretty much their native habitat, except their basic needs, such as honey pots and picnic baskets, are taken care of. And according to Lonely Planet:

“From spring to late autumn, volunteers will happily take you around the large enclosures, explaining the history of each bear and touching on the wider issues of bear conservation. Your best chance of seeing the bears in an active state is in the couple of hours before sunset.”

So there you go. A bi-weekly dose of completely different content to bleach out the deep stains that persuasion and influence can leave over time. Maybe your brain needed it. Mine certainly did.

How to win an argument by not really trying

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About 20 years ago, when I first read Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, I came across a clever aphorism.

“You cannot win an argument,” wrote Carnegie.

That’s stuck with me ever since, even though it goes against my argumentative nature. The fact is, I like to debate and argue and show people how I’m right and how they aren’t. Except, like Carnegie says, you cannot really win. You cannot argue people over to your way of thinking. And even if you do get them to admit that you’re right and they’re wrong, you’ve gained nothing except their hatred.

So most of the time, when I find I’m about to let the debating crow out of its cage, I bite my tongue and I stuff the ugly black bird back where it belongs. I smile. I nod. And I think to myself, “Boy, how wrong you are. But you won’t hear it from me.”

This is an improvement over losing friends and alienating people. But it’s hardly a creative and productive way to deal with new ideas.

There’s gotta be something better, right? Of course. It’s just that I wasn’t clever enough to think of it myself. But I came across this better way to win arguments a couple of days ago, in an interview with billionaire investor Howard Marks.

Marks was asked what early advice helped him become so successful. He said there wasn’t any investing advice that did it. Instead, it was just an attitude, and he’s not sure where he picked it up. He illustrated it by describing how he deals with his longtime business partner:

“Each of us is open to the other’s ideas. When we have an intellectual discussion, neither of us puts a great emphasis on winning. We want to get to the right answer. We have enormous respect for each other, which I think is the key. When he says something, a position different from mine, my first reaction is not, ‘How can I diffuse that? How can I beat that? How can I prove he’s wrong?’ My first reaction is to say, ‘Hey, what can I get from that? What can I take away? Is he right? Maybe he’s right and I was wrong.’ […] I’m a big believer in intellectual humility, which means saying 1) I could be wrong, 2) he could be right.”

I don’t know, Howard. Is this really winning? Of course, I’m all for intellectual humility. But I don’t think it requires saying I could be wrong. And now let me show you some reasons why.

How to make magic more fascinating

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I just watched an impressive magic show that appeared on Britain’s Got Talent.

The magician, a guy named Marc Spelmann, walked up to the judges. He asked one to choose a crayon for a box. He asked another to pick a card from a deck of 52 different animal cards. He asked the third to mix up a Rubik’s cube. And he asked the fourth to circle a random word in a book.

By the way, this might be off topic, but did you know that Siamese cats have an incredible property not seen since the days of 1980s Matchbox cars? It’s true. Here’s what I mean:

Siamese cats actually have heat-sensitive fur. That’s why cooler parts of the cat, like the tail and the ears, are darker that the warmer cat bits, like the belly and the back. It has something to do with a mutated enzyme involved in melanin production. Maybe this means you could color-correct a Siamese using nothing more than a hair dryer and an ice cube.

Anyways, getting back to the magic show. Once each judge had made some kind of random choice, the magician went back on stage and showed a video. The video was recorded two years earlier, and showed the magician’s kid.

In the video, the kid was drawing with the exact color of crayon the first judge chose. She was sleeping with the animal shown on the card chosen by the second judge. She was playing with a Rubik’s cube that had the exact pattern the third judge had just mixed up.

​​And when asked what message she would like to give to the world if her daddy ever made it to BGT, the kid said, “hat,” which was the random word the fourth judge had circled in the book.

Now, I heard about this whole performance by listening to Mike Mandel’s hypnosis podcast. Mike and his business partner Chris discussed the video because they thought it was a great example of using hypnosis-like principles. But where’s the hypnosis?

Well, right after the magician had asked each judge to make a random choice, and right before turning on the video showing his daughter who predicted all those choices, he told a quick story. It turns out his wife couldn’t conceive for 5 years of IVF.

​​Finally, when she did conceive, she was diagnosed with cancer. So while she was pregnant, she had to go through chemotherapy. There wasn’t much hope. “But this is real magic,” the magician says. Both his wife and his baby survived.

And so ends the story. And then the video comes on and you see the kid playing with the crayon etc.

Hypnotists Mike and Chris said that this is a great example of how you can stir up an emotion and link it to a suggestion. The magic show would have been good without this story. But injecting emotion and drama in the middle, even though it had nothing to do with the actual performance, made it over-the-top better.

So maybe keep this in mind. ​​A little bit of gratuitous emotion and drama might be something you too can use to make your message, or offer, or even magic show, more fascinating and more impactful.

Roast me

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Every few days, a “Roast me” post appears on the front page of Reddit, and it never ceases to amaze me.

If you don’t know the “Roast me” concept, let me explain. A person takes a selfie, posts it on the r/RoastMe subreddit, and then hundreds or thousands of internet strangers compete to come up with the most creative and hurtful ways to insult this person, based on the selfie alone.

I’ve stopped looking at these posts. I’m so insecure personally that I get vicariously uncomfortable even while reading about other people being humiliated.

It boggles my mind. Why would anybody want to get roasted? According to my calculations, you can’t win anything except for a nervous tick. But you can certainly lose any self-acceptance you managed to scrape together over the past half-dozen years.

And yet, day after day, people keep going on r/RoastMe and voluntarily getting their old wounds reopened, and new ones slashed in. And this brings up a very important point about human nature, and ties into something I wrote about yesterday:

The fact is, people only ever do things for a reason.

Of course that’s true for everyday “normal” behavior. But it’s equally true for every stupid or self-defeating or incongruous thing that people do.

Unless somebody is schizophrenic or completely psychotic, they will have a reason deep down for what they are doing. And that reason is not just that they are dumb or weak-willed or forgetful. No. They actually have a goal. And their seemingly nonsensical behavior is getting them there.

For example, one of the most fundamental human drives is the need for consistency. We have a mental model of how the world works, and we don’t want to see that mental model rocked or undermined.

So if somebody secretly believes that they are unattractive (and except for a few lucky narcissists, this includes all of us), what better way to get that confirmation than by having random Internet strangers mock your teeth, eyebrows, or breasts?

Similarly, another fundamental human drive is the need to be significant. To be noticed, relevant, unique. And if you’re not getting that need fulfilled in real life, if people are simply passing you by and not taking notice of you, well, there’s a home for you on r/RoastMe. For the low price of your self-respect, you can get the momentary attention of hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of people.

If you’re looking to persuade people, you’ll have to start looking out for stuff like this. Because it’s not intuitive. ​​Like I said, even though I know people only do things for a reason, I’m still amazed each time I see a new trending r/Roast me post.

​​I would never do that. And so please don’t write to roast me. But if you want to say something flattering, then definitely send me an email.

10 steps to becoming a magnetic listener

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About 15 years ago, I read a biography of former World Bank president James Wolfensohn. It’s the first time I’d heard the term “magnetic listener.”

“Magnetic listener?” I thought. “What could be magnetic about it? You just sit there.”

Well, in the years since, I’ve done a fair bit of listening and I’ve worked on honing my skills. I’ve picked up some tactics from various sources, and I’ve noticed a few of my own natural tricks.

So for your enlightenment as well as for my own, let me write down 10 steps to becoming a magnetic listener (in no particular order):

#1. Challenge the speaker

Don’t just passively accept everything you hear. Do this after you’ve been listening for a while. “Hold on. How does this square with what you told me just a moment ago?”

#2. Continue the speaker’s train of thought

Think features vs. benefits, and get the speaker to explain the difference in their own words. “And why was that important?” “And what did that mean to you?”

#4. Keep eye contact

There’s no better way to show you’re giving the speaker your full attention. If they don’t break off the eye contact periodically while they are speaking (and most people will) then you should break it off for just a moment every so often. Otherwise, the situation might become sexual or confrontational.

#3. Call out any break in rapport

If you’re gonna take notes (not a bad idea), call it out. And still look up periodically to maintain eye contact and reassure the speaker that you’re fully engaged.

#5. Encourage the speaker to continue

“I see.” Nod. “Ok…” Nod. Only do this once they pause and they are looking for reassurance you want them to continue.

​​Don’t try to encourage while they are speaking because even a peep out of you (“Wow!”) can interrupt people and keep them from delivering useful info.

#6. Make anodyne comments to give the speaker permission to keep talking

Do this once they properly stop speaking, and you’ve used up your “Wow” and “I see” trump cards.

“So that’s how you [do what I just asked you about]…” Or you can repeat the last thing you said like you’re mulling it over like a fine wine. Or rephrase what they said — but do it superficially, and don’t try to show off your cleverness or insight.

The underlying psychology here is that people will often stop speaking out of politeness or wariness. They need your indirect permission to keep sharing more.

#7. Ask your questions as they come up

You’ll have to make a judgment call here. Sometimes it’s ok to interrupt people as they’re speaking because a) you will get better info by directing them than by allowing them to run on a tangent and b) it shows you’re really listening to them.

At the same time, don’t clutch to your questions so tightly that you stop listening to what the speaker is saying. You might miss valuable information. Be willing to let go of a question.

#8. Get to the real reason

This is the Frank Bettger technique. You listen as they explain. “I see. Is there any OTHER reason?” “What ELSE could you do?” This and the anodyne comments above are different ways of doing Jim Camp’s 3+ (asking the speaker in at least three different ways to explain or confirm the same point).

#9. Introduce a bit of your own input

Once people get to talking, they will fight for the right to keep talking. So give them something to fight against. “Oh, that’s interesting. It’s just like this one time that I was walking down the street, minding my own business…” The key here is to do it once they are already warmed up, and to be willing to drop your story as soon as they want to start talking again.

#10. Ask the speaker to repeat stuff

Do this to make sure you got everything right. Both for the information itself, and so you can focus on what they are saying instead of worrying that you missed something.

Plus, you can even do it as a psycho tactic — when you heard everything perfectly. “Wait, can you repeat that last bit?” It makes you look interested as well as unokay, which makes them okay by contrast.

And there you go. I’ve used these techniques while interviewing, while negotiating, and while seducing (or trying to).

Speaking of which (negotiating, I mean), I’m now working on a little guide that summarizes what I’ve learned about negotiating, specifically for freelancers, and even more specifically for freelance copywriters.

I’ll be giving this negotiation guide as a free bonus with my revamped book on succeeding as a freelancer on Upwork. In case you want to get notified when I make all this available, you can sign up here:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book

Ben Settle’s monkey business

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I saw a photo today and the caption read “Anti-Poachers Protecting Gorillas.”

The photo showed a black dude taking a selfie.

Behind him was a guy dressed in a very convincing gorilla outfit, but standing in a very ungorilla-like pose.

Specifically, he was standing completely erect, with his arms straight by his sides, a big beer belly jutting out.

“How is this gonna work?” I wondered. “Will this guy pretend to be a gorilla so the poachers come and try to shoot him? And then what?”

I got curious so I researched this story in more depth.

SHOCKER!

Turns out I was completely wrong.

That’s not a man in a convincing gorilla suit.

Instead, it’s a real gorilla standing in a very human-like pose.

It seems these anti-poachers in the Congo raised a couple of orphaned gorillas. And now that the gorillas are grown up, they completely imitate (ape?) their human parents.

So they stand up straight, walk around on two feet, and even pose for selfies.

Which got me thinking about the instinct for mimicking those around us, whether human or ape.

It’s such a fundamental part of the thought machine we know as the brain.

Resistance is futile.

And if you need proof, take for example email marketing guru Ben Settle.

Over the course of the past year, Ben has on several occasions warned his readers to disregard social proof when making a buying decision online.

Noble advice. Except…

Even though Ben is like the good friar going about the shire and sermonizing about the dangers of alcohol, he’s also back at the monastery brewing up some delicious ale that he sells at the Sunday market.

Specifically, at the end of July, Ben ran an aggressive campaign to promote his Email Players newsletter (I know because I was tracking and categorizing every email he sent out that month).

And so from Thursday the 25th to Monday the 29th, he sent out 10 emails. Each day followed the same pattern.

Morning: an interesting or intriguing email leading into a link to the Email Players sales page…

Afternoon: an email that was basically just a testimonial for Email Players. 5 testimonials over 5 days. Because they are too powerful not to use.

So in case you want to promote an offer aggressively over the span of a few days, maybe try mimicking this little sequence of Ben’s. I imagine he’s using it because he’s tested it and it works.

And if you don’t need emails, but you do need some advertorials, then fear not. The anti-poaching brigade is preparing a special report on the topic, which you can sign up for here:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

Email outreach that smells worse than a wet dog

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There’s a bitch who lives downstairs from me named Lisa.

Lisa is usually sitting in the yard when I go out of the house.

Each time I see her, I pet her and give her a dog treat (she’s some kind of GSD mix).

Today however, Lisa got wet.

I don’t know how, because there was no rain. ​​

But ​t​he poor thing smelled like sewage mixed with a kelpy ocean breeze.

I tried to pet her as usual. No go. Then I tried with just two fingers. But she was really too repulsive.

​​”I’m sorry baby,” I told her. “Maybe when you dry off.”

When I got back home, I sat down to write a cold email.

This is to a potential new copywriting client.

And the Lisa lesson stayed in my mind and in my nose.

Because when you’re writing cold emails, it’s easy to smell worse than a wet, puffy dog. All you have to do is to reek of need.

I can’t describe how need smells, but it’s a very unique, very recognizable, and very repulsive aroma.

Fortunately, it’s a pretty easy smell to eliminate.

Simply eliminate the need and the smell goes with it.

“Yea John,” you might complain, “easier said than done.”

No, no. It’s really not that hard to get rid of need. I’ll talk about how in my upcoming guide on negotiating for freelancers. This will be one of the free bonuses to my revamped Upwork book.

If you want to get notified when this book and the free bonuses become available, you can sign up with your email here:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book

Crying over spilled copywriting projects

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I recently started work on a project that was doomed from the start.

As soon as the client sent over the product, I realized it is, frankly, shit.

So I wrote the client to say I could see two ways to move forward:

1) He could find somebody else to write the sales letter, or

2) He could improve the product

He responded defending the product. And saying how it’s not the copywriter’s job to worry whether the product is any good or not.

I don’t agree. And if you like, I’ll tell you why.

Reason 1 is the time and effort I put in. If I’m working on this project, I will not be working on other, more promising projects. An hour or two promoting something hopeless might be ok. A week or a month is too much, at least in my book.

Reason 2 is the question of a success story in my portfolio vs. a burning barn filled with screaming cattle, which I think this project would have turned into.

Reason 3, if you need it, is simply the ethics of helping sell something that’s below a basic standard of quality.

But anyways, I’m not here to cry over spilled copywriting milk.

I just want to suggest that, as a copywriter, you have a stake in the outcome of a project, even if you’re not getting paid royalties or getting a share of the revenues.

That’s one thing.

The other thing is a bit about negotiation.

Because this client fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is, “Never get involved in a land war in Asia.”

But only slightly less well known is this, “Never double down when you’re trying to convince somebody who has serious doubts.”

So was there a better negotiation strategy that this client could have used?

I believe so.

In fact, I think he could have sucked me back into working on this project, without making many real changes to the product itself.

I’m gonna go over this strategy in my upcoming guide to negotiating for freelancers (yes, freelancers can also learn something from a client’s mistakes).

This guide will be one of the free bonuses to go with my  revamped book on succeeding on Upwork. If you want to get notified when I finish this up and publish it, you can sign up here:

https://bejakovic.com/upwork-book