Mental Shortcuts

Self-loathing in Hollywood and direct response copy

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A holstered gun comes flying through the trailer door and crashes into the opposite window. A furious Rick Dalton follows.

He’s just been humiliated on set, or rather, he’s humiliated himself.

“You forget all your lines,” he screams. “You embarrass yourself in front of all these people. You been drinking all night. Eight goddamn whisky sours. You’re a fucking miserable drunk.”

Maybe you know this scene. It’s from Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Dalton, played by Leonardo Di Caprio, is a fading Hollywood actor. Regardless of what he does, he can’t seem to turn things around.

After forgetting his lines on set (even though he practiced them), he’s disgusted. He proceeds to trash his trailer. And then he sets himself an ultimatum.

“You’re gonna show that fucking girl, you’re gonna show that goddamn Jim Stacey, you’re gonna show them all on that fucking set who Rick Dalton is.”

And if he doesn’t?

“Let me tell you something,” Rick says while looking at himself in the mirror. “You don’t get these lines right… I’m gonna blow your brains out.”

A while back, I wrote about psychological shortcuts our brains like to take. Specifically, the ones that relate to direct response copywriting.

Well, there’s one for you in that Tarantino scene above.

When things aren’t going well for your prospect, even though he’s tried and struggled to turn things around, his brain jumps to a conclusion.

The conclusion is that he is a fuckup, and everybody knows it. Or if you want it in quotes:

“It’s my fault because I’m worthless.”

Of course, your prospect probably won’t say it out loud like Leo above. He might not even admit it to himself consciously.

But it’s there, beneath the surface, roiling around in his brain. You’re gonna have to address it. You’re gonna have to fix your prospect’s self-esteem, if only for a few moments, if you will have any hope of selling him.

Perhaps you’d like to know how to do this. Well, I’ve just finished writing a book on A-list copywriter wisdom, and chapter 7 tells you one technique you can use.

This book isn’t out yet, but it will be soon. If you’d like to know when it’s available, you can sign up for my daily email newsletter.

Shortcuts in bear-and-wolf country

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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
|                        |
|                        |
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.

Social proof concentration and when not to use it

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It all happened within three or four days. Ben Settle, Brian Kurtz, Abbey Woodcock, Kevin Rogers, and David Deutsch all emailed about the same topic:

Reclusive A-list copywriter Parris Lampropoulos was finally offering a training. He would reveal his best-kept, most profitable secrets to raise funds for his cousin’s cancer treatment.

The first email I got on the topic, I thought, this is interesting — but I’ve already got plenty of copywriting trainings as is. Second email, I thought, another email about that same thing. Third email, maybe I should get this. Fourth email, I better get this now while I still can.

This experience was an illustration of a persuasion principle I read about in a book called The Catalyst. The principle is called concentration.

In a nutshell, all instances of social proof are not the same. If you can get a bunch of people to independently recommend your thing, and they do it in real quick succession, it’s much more powerful than having it all spread out. If it’s spread out, then your prospect can forget about each individual piece of social proof, or rationalize it away. If it’s concentrated, he cannot.

This idea might might or might not be useful if you’re writing a piece of direct response copy. (You’ll have to think about it and make up your own mind.)

But if you’re interested in persuasion more broadly, then the principle of concentration definitely has immediate application. If you’re marshaling an army of lieutenants who will all fight for your cause, it makes sense to focus their attack on one specific point, at one specific time.

But here’s a question to leave you thinking:

Concentration clearly worked on me and got me to pay Parris some $300 for his very valuable training.

But are there situations where concentrating your message might be a less efficient use of your resources?

​​I personally think so. If you agree with me, and you can name some specific situations, I’d love to hear from you. Write in and let me know.

General Patton and 4 top copywriters

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“The difficulty in understanding the Russian is that we do not take cognizance of the fact that he is not a European, but an Asiatic, and therefore thinks deviously. We can no more understand a Russian than a Chinaman or a Japanese, and from what I have seen of them, I have no particular desire to understand them, except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them. In addition to his other Asiatic characteristics, the Russian has no regard for human life and is an all out son of bitch, barbarian, and chronic drunk.”
— General George S. Patton, August 8 1945

Why is Patton the most famous American military man, at least among those who never became president?

You might say it’s his wartime performance. That might be so. I’m not a history buff so I can’t say. But my guess is there were lots of other great generals in American history who never became household names. Why Patton?

Maybe it’s the Oscar-winning movie that was made about him, which had the Francis Ford Coppola golden touch. But this raises the question, why make a movie about Patton? I’ll tell you my theory.

Patton became famous because people perceived him as a true leader, and they perceived him as a leader because he was (among a few other things) so unflinchingly opinionated.

Look at the quote above. It’s so stupid. Not just by 2020 standards, but by 1945 standards. But the content of what you say doesn’t matter much as long as you say it with enough fury, conviction, and disregard for what others think.

I have another theory: I believe most people (myself included) have this empty socket in their brain. We are constantly looking for an authority to plug into that empty socket, if only for a little while. The appeal of strongmen like Patton is one manifestation of this… but so is our obsession with celebrities… or even the popularity of concerts and clubs.

All of which has clear implications for persuasion. While doable, it might be hard to get to Patton-like levels of opinionatedness and charisma in real life. But if you’re writing, say a sales letter, then you can definitely whip yourself up into the right kind of certainty and frenzy, and channel that across the page.

Speaking of writing sales letters and authority, I listened to an interesting discussion today between four top copywriters. They were Stefan Georgi, Chris Haddad, Justin Goff, and Dan Ferrari.

Odds are, you’ve already watched this discussion. But if you haven’t yet, it’s worthwhile. There’s nothing tactical being discussed on this call, but there’s a lot of behind the scenes thinking that might interest you if you’re into copywriting or persuasion. Here’s the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThUusBt1dIM