Reactance

The BYAF compliance method

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“Can I move? I’m better when I move.”

There’s a sexy scene in the 1969 classic Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid:

Butch and Sundance are American outlaws who have run away to Bolivia. They’re trying to get work at a Bolivian silver mine.

The boss at the mine wants to see if either Butch or Sundance can shoot a gun. What a joke. Sundance is the fastest and deadliest gun in the West.

So the boss throws a rock 30 feet away. “Hit that,” he says.

Sundance straightens his arm… takes aim… fires and misses.
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The boss spits on the ground. He turns around and starts to walk away.

“Can I move?” Sundance asks.

“Move?” the boss says. “What the hell you mean move?”

In a split second, Sundance squats down, pulls out his gun, shoots the rock and then shoots it again while it’s midair, splitting it in two.

In other words:​​

It’s not common sense… but sometimes you get better results if you give people some space to move.

A while back, I read an academic paper about something called the BYAF compliance method.

​​BYAF = but you are free.

​​You make a request, and you tell people they are free to say no. It’s supposed to double the number of yeses you get.

It also goes against all copywriting dogma.

​​Copywriters will tell you that you should close off all doors… conclusively answer all objections… and PUSH PUSH PUSH for the sale.

So who’s right?

The BYAF crowd has 42 scientific studies on its side.

​​The “slam all the doors shut” copywriters have hundreds of millions or billions of dollars worth of sales behind them.

You might think the conclusion is clear. But I think it really depends on who you’re dealing with.

For example, Jim Camp was a negotiation expert who worked with Fortune 500 execs while they negotiated multi-billion-dollar deals.

One of the big tenets of his negotiation system was allowing people to say no.

​​It didn’t mean ending the negotiation… in fact, no was just the beginning.

Because Camp said that in the kinds of negotiations he was involved in, “slamming all the doors shut” so your prospect feels caged in and only has the option you want him to take… well, that was a recipe for an abrupt end to the negotiation, without ever being welcome back for round two.

Does this apply in copywriting?

I definitely think so.

Sure, there are markets where people need you to be a German Shepherd, barking at them so they make their way into the fold in an orderly fashion.

​​But there are other markets, equally as profitable or more so, where it’s better to allow people to move before you ask them to shoot.

And now, if you’d like to sign up for my newsletter:

Click here and fill out the form that appears. But of course, you’re are free to do whatever you choose.

The denial theory of the fake female orgasm

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Over the past few years, it’s become trendy to say, “Stop reading the news, it’s like junk food, bad for your health.”

Maybe so. But without The Daily McMail, where would I find tasty morsels like this headline today:

“Women who make more money than their partner are TWICE as likely to fake orgasms, study reveals”

The revealing study, which came out earlier this year, was pretty straightforward.

Researchers at the University of South Florida surveyed 157 women in sexual relationships with a man. And the researchers asked these women embarrassing personal questions.

Result:

It turns out women who earn more than their male partner (29.6% of the sample) were twice as likely to fake orgasm.

Like I said, that part of the science is pretty straightforward.

Where it gets more murky is the moral interpretation of this sensitive issue. According to Professor Jessica Jordan, the lead researcher behind the study, the interpretation is this:

“Women are prioritising what they think their partners need over their own sexual needs and satisfaction. When society creates an impossible standard of masculinity to maintain, nobody wins.”

In other words, society says that men should earn more than women… but some men fail at this and their egos crumble… and then their women are forced to coddle them as a result.

Perhaps. But perhaps there are other interpretations?

For example, here’s a personal confession:

Some 20 years ago, my mind was warped by reading a pop-science book called Sperm Wars. And ever since, I’ve been a bit of a science Columbo on all things female orgasm.

That’s why I remember a second study, one that came out in 2009, in the pre-gender-dismantling era.

This study was also based on a survey, in this case, of 1,534 couples. The results were summarized in the headline of a Business Insider article:

“Study: Rich Men Give Women More Orgasms”​

The author of the underlying​​ study, a certain Dr Thomas Pollet of Newcastle University, gave his interpretation of the statistics. From the Business Insider article:

“He believes the phenomenon is an ‘evolutionary adaptation’ that is hard-wired into women, driving them to select men on the basis of their perceived quality.”

Perhaps this could also explain all those extra fake orgasms in 2022?

Perhaps those faking women just find themselves horribly unattracted to their lower-earning partners. And that’s a problem — both personally and in the relationship.

So what to do?

The best thing really is to watch a little When Harry Met Sally… take notes on the restaurant scene… and put on a similar show the next time it’s time.

Because like I wrote yesterday, denial might just be a fundamental human activity. It might just be something we all do, all the time, in order to make life acceptable in our minds and bearable in practice.

And the fact is, denial manifests itself in different ways.

There’s flat-out denial, which I wrote about yesterday:

“No, of course not. I’m not bothered that you earn less than me. It’s certainly not any kind of turn-off.”

But another type of denial is what psychologists call reaction formation. That’s when you don’t just deny… but you claim or do the exact opposite:

“Yes, yes, take me, you low-earning animal!”

Of course, if my theory is true, it begs the question why these women would deny their lack of attraction in the bedroom… but break down and confess it when questioned by Professor Jessica Jordan.

My only answer to that is that there are different levels of denial.

Some denial is complete — we can’t face up to the fact at all, and we have to change our inner movie to fit what we want to believe.

But other denial is partial — we act as if, we claim as if, but on some conscious level, we are aware it’s not really as if.

Anyways, perhaps you say I’m completely off with my denial-of-unattraction theory.

But perhaps you feel there might be something to my idea. In that case, I’ve got two takeaways for you.

First, if you’re a guy, and the thought of your woman faking orgasm makes you shudder with feelings of shame and inadequacy… then the best thing to do might be to get better at sales and marketing, and start earning more money.

My second takeaway can be summed up by the following headline.

It comes from the tabloid The Daily Bejakovic. And it’s about a study performed at the University of Bejakovic, by a certain Dr. Johann Bejakovic. The headline reads:

“Study: Men and women who emphatically claim anything are TWICE as likely to secretly believe the exact opposite”

Anyways, if you want more ideas on denial, which you can use for your own research into your own mind or the mind of your market, then sign up for my email newsletter here.

No meddle! Only help

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I thought the cartoon above was funny when I first saw it, years ago.

But it’s been popping up in my mind in many situations ever since.

I realized this cartoon is profound. Because these three simple panels show real fundamental truth, not just about dogs, but about people, too.

A truth about so many situations in life.

When you have one thing…

And you also want the other thing. But you can’t get the other thing without letting go of the thing you already have.

And if somebody offers you the thing you want…. at the cost of the thing you have… you react.

“No meddle! Only help”

For example, this is my explanation for what I talked about in my post yesterday, of why so many people reflexively hate advertising.

People might want the thing you’re advertising. Six-pack abs. A million-dollar paycheck. Total self-acceptance.

But they’re not willing to let go of the ball they are gripping between their teeth. The ball that holds their self-image… their feeling of control… their sense of meaning and consistency in their lives.

I’m not sure how to end this post, except to tell you to keep the cartoon above in mind, the way I’ve done for years.

And when you see people retreating from you, even though you have something they really do want…

Realize that, like dogs, human beings are conflicted. So take the attitude of the adult who can give them what they want… without making them feel they are losing something else as they get it.

And if you want regular other ideas to help you influence people, at no cost to your self-image, feeling of control, or your sense of consistency in life… then you might like my regular email newsletter.

“Raping of our night skies”: A growing problem for marketers

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“Fuck this guy and fuck his raping of our night skies. Fire him into the fucking sun. Billionaires are a planetary cancer.”

That was a tweet written by one Alan Baxter a few weeks ago. Thousands of other people wrote equally outraged Tweets, while a few had deep Tweet-thoughts like this:

“can you just ask him to do something abt climate change @Grimezsz”

@Grimezsz is the Twitter handle of Grimes, the Canadian singer and musician.

And the “him” in the Tweet above is Grimes’s boyfriend and well-known planetary cancer, Elon Musk. How quickly things change:

For many years and until what seems like yesterday, Musk was loved and celebrated by the mass mind.

His Tesla electric cars made it sexy to take smoke-billowing gas guzzlers off streets.

His Hyperloop concept promised a cool way to travel far without the environmental costs of airplanes and airports.

And his SolarCity company brought clean energy to hundreds of thousands of homes across America.

So what changed? Why the sudden outrage towards Musk?

What did he do to make his personal brand plummet… and to make people forget all about his solar energy company… and his electric cars… and his minimal-impact human gerbil tubes?

As you can imagine, it took something big.

It took a cardinal sin.

It took for Elon Musk to get into advertising.

Because the tweets above, and thousands like them, came after Musk announced his plans to put a “billboard satellite” in space.

In reality, Musk’s space billboard will be something like a 4-inch-by-4-inch TV, floating among all the other tin cans miles away from the surface of the Earth. It will be invisible from the ground. It certainly won’t rape anybody’s night sky.

And yet, people hate the idea of a billboard satellite. And they hate Musk for working on it.

Because, as you may have noticed, many people have an allergic reaction to advertising. And the numbers of the afflicted are growing.

You can see it in the blowback to Musk’s space billboard plan.

You can see it in the bubbling anger over online tracking and targeted ads. (Which, if anything, people should welcome, because it makes advertising more relevant to their needs, habits, and interests.)

And you can see it in the reports of big-name direct marketers, who say skepticism and indifference are rising, while conversion rates are dropping year after year.

So I’d like to suggest to you that this is a big problem.

And one way or another… if you are doing any kind of marketing, advertising, or proactive selling… and unless you want get out of business and go work for the federal government… then I’d like to suggest you have to face up to this problem and find ways to deal with it.

You can back away… and make your sales softer and more indirect.

Or you can get confrontational… and turn up your sales pitches while mocking those who object to your trying to run a business.

Or you can use subtle psychology to strike some sort of middle ground. That’s my preferred approach.

But whatever your preferred approach, you have to start thinking about it. And you have to start acting on it. Because if there is one thing that the growing numbers of people who hate advertising react to… it’s new advertising, which is just like the old stuff, only done a little bit better.

So that’s all. Except:

Would you like to know more about subtle psychology and how to use it in your marketing? You can get it in regular drips if you sign up to my email newsletter here.

Most people are too busy digging an escape tunnel to notice the cell door is unlocked

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I used to prepare to escape. Away from the office job. Away from the 40-hour workweeks.

But I didn’t experience real freedom until I started preparing less — a lot less.

For example, yesterday I crafted a new offer, with no preparation, in just about two hours from start to finish. With a little luck, it should earn me enough money to cover all my expenses for the next month, maybe longer.

What’s more, I’m going to ask you to send me $197 dollars for this offer, even though it won’t cost me more than a few minutes of my time to fulfill it. And I’ll try to make it so irresistible that you’d be a darned fool not to do it.

After all, why should you care if i make a $197 profit for a few minutes’ work if I can show you how to make a lot more — in just the next week, and in every week after that?

I’ll tell you about the offer in a second. But first, let me address the strange sense of deja vu you might be feeling right now.

Because what you’ve just read is the reworded lead to Joe Karbo’s Lazy Man’s Way to Riches ad.

It’s a famous ad. There is a lot in there. A lot I didn’t see when I first read it. And even a lot I didn’t see for many years after.

For example, here’s one thing always gets me:

In the fifth sentence, Joe admits he’s selling something. Even though he’s formatted his ad to look like a neutral newspaper article.

And then in the seventh sentence, he reveals the price of his offer — and that the price is entirely unrelated to his cost of fulfillment.

It’s a great pattern interrupt.

Because most marketers try to lull you into buying. They think if they hold off long enough, they can hypnotize you so deeply that you won’t mind when the pitch comes.

The trouble with that is, all of us are becoming increasingly sophisticated.

It’s very hard to fool modern consumers into thinking they are not reading an ad when they in fact are.

And people’s reactance to ads — leading to perfectly good sales messages getting tossed out on sight, marked as spam, or simply browsed away from — has never been higher. In fact, it’s increasing.

Which is why it can make sense to disarm your prospect’s skepticism right away — by admitting you are selling something, and maybe even revealing the price.

Which brings me to that $197 offer I mentioned up front.

It’s for my “Win Your First Copywriting Job” workshop, which kicks off this Friday.

Like I said at the start, I used to have an office job. I’d sit there each day, lusting after the kind of freedom I have now. To work when I want… where I want… and as much or as little as I want.

And still, to have as much money as I need.

Fortunately, I was tossed out of my office job and into my first copywriting gig without too much time to prepare, doubt myself, or try to line up everything perfectly.

But perhaps you’ve had the curse of too much time. Perhaps you’ve been studying maps of the terrain… digging your escape tunnel… and waiting for the perfect moment to make your break.

And waiting.

In that case, my workshop might be what you need to escape for real.

The workshop is not a “Lazy Man’s Way to Copywriting Riches.”

​​But if you’re willing to do some work… and if you have a couple basic requirements satisfied… then I can help you open the cell door and take that first step through it. All within the next week.

​​For more info:

https://bejakovic.com/win-your-first-copywriting-job/

Obvious one-time product placement inside

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“Mona, I am drinking my milk right now.”

He pours out a full glass of milk with an ice cube in it. He tops it off with vodka from a Smirnoff bottle. And he drinks it down.

I saw this scene from Mad Men once, probably 15 years ago.

I thought it was great. It still sticks in my mind. But I never did buy a bottle of Smirnoff. And if I were to ever buy vodka, Smirnoff wouldn’t be my first choice.

So product placements — do they work?

Professors in business schools trip over each other to answer this question.

They take real TV shows. They splice in different kinds of product placements. They show them to students. And then they ask, “By the way… what do you happen to think of Smirnoff?”

As a result, these marketing professors come up with conclusions like:

1. If a product placement is subtle, then repeated exposure actually improves attitude towards a brand.

2. If a product placement is obvious, then repeated exposure hurts attitude towards a brand.

Interesting, right? Except you can’t really tell what it means in the real world.

After all, like my Smirnoff story from above shows, a product placement can “work” great. And yet still no sale.

But here’s a surprising bit from the same research, which might be more useful. These marketing professors also asked students, “Oh, and even more by the way… what did you think of the show?”

Same show of course, just different types of product placements spliced in. Result:

1. People liked the TV show the most if it had a SINGLE OBVIOUS product placement…

2. Next came the show with MULTIPLE SUBTLE product placements…

3. Next, the show with a SINGLE SUBTLE product placement…

4. And finally, far down in last place, MULTIPLE OBVIOUS product placements. People really didn’t like the show in this case.

Which fits my beliefs about how we all go through life.

We like buying stuff. We also like shortcuts that cut down our work of making buying decisions. But we want to feel we are in control of those decisions… even when we are not.

Whatever. I thought this might be useful to you, in case you have your own TV show, whether that’s an email newsletter, or a YouTube channel, or your own Facebook group.

It’s not clear that an occasional clear plug will be optimal for your sales. But if your biz is built on relationship first… and sales numbers only second… then the above academic result is something to consider.

And in that spirit, let me say I found out the above while doing research for my upcoming book. It’s called The Gospel of Insight Marketing. And it’s all about the most powerful way to persuade people to buy… even in markets where people are jaded, hostile, or frankly indifferent to your pitch.

The book isn’t out yet. I’m working on it now. But I won’t bring it up again, at least not obviously, until it’s ready for reading. After all, I care my relationship with you… and science says this is the way to go.

Finally:

If you’d like to find out when my Gospel book is ready for reading… sign up for my email newsletter.

The strange story of three girls who became one

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“We can’t go anywhere without each other!” said the first girl.

“It drives us crazy! But we can’t split up no matter what we do!” said the second.

“Can you help us, doctor?” asked the third. “We still want to be friends, but this is too much!”

In 1972, three college girls showed up to a therapist’s office. They were suffering from what psychologists call fused identity. It’s the personality equivalent of leaving a bag of gummy bears in the sun until they all melt together.

The girls were aware of what had happened. They wanted to change. But they couldn’t. So they were seeking help.

“I understand,” said the therapist. “There’s an important first step I want you to take. After that, I can recommend a course of action.”

“Tell us!” said girl one.

“We’ll do anything!” said girls two and three in unison.

“First, I want you to make a list of your planned activities for tomorrow,” the therapist said. “The ones you expect you will do together.”

The girls nodded and did as he asked.

“And then tomorrow,” the therapist said, “it’s extremely important that you do each of these things together, as you just told me you would. Don’t deviate from this plan one bit. You have to be at all of these activities, together. All three of you. Then the day after, come see me again.”

This case was reported in a paper titled, “Dissolution of fused identity in one therapeutic session.” Because one session was all it took. The girls lost interest in spending all their time together… after they were told they HAD to do it.

This is a core part of human existence. Your prospects have it inside them also. They have a problem… they might even want help… but they are repulsed by being told what to do.

So here’s an important first step:

Forget what you just read. And it’s extremely important that the next time you craft a persuasive message, you do NOT think of clever ways to deal with your prospects’ stubborn resistance to outside influence. Particularly if you sell in a really skeptical, jaded market. Then the day after you do that, come and see me again.

They tried to bury this information… but I believe it

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Here’s a sneaky story about the things they don’t want you to know:

Back in 2013, the European Union wanted proof that online piracy hurts sales of movies, books, and computer games. So they had a big study done.

The 300-page study was complete in 2015. It was then used for a second academic paper by two European Commission members, which came out in 2016.

The conclusion of that second paper was that piracy hurts movie sales by about 4.4%. “Our findings have important implications for copyright policy,” said that second paper.

The thing is, nobody ever saw the original 2013 study. It was never published. Not nowhere. Not until 2017.

​​That’s when Julia Reda, the Pirate Party member of the EU Parliament, got her hands on the missing study. And she published the results on her blog.

“With the exception of recently released blockbusters,” the 2013 study said, “there is no evidence to support the idea that online copyright infringement displaces sales.”

Hold on a second…

So was the EU hiding this study… so they could cherry pick results that fit their desired “important implications for copyright policy?”

It sure sounds like it. Sneaky governmentses, right?

But here’s the bigger truth in all this:

I found out about this yesterday. An article about it was published in an online tech news site. It then went viral on a news aggregator.

But this story has been public since 2017… and yet we’re talking about it now, in the middle of 2021. There’s something there.

As you probably know, if a bit of information is scarce, we tend to value it more. “Long-lost study from 2013” piques our curiosity. But maybe not all that much, and not for all that long.

However, if that bit of information was suppressed, we tend to value it much more. “Long-lost study from 2013 that the government worked hard to bury.” That’s something worth discussing even years later.

“Fine,” you might say. “But I kind of knew that already. It sounds like the lead of every health VSL ever.”

All right. But let’s see if you knew this:

Bob Cialdini’s Influence lists a bunch of evidence that censorship doesn’t just increase desire for censored info…

But censorship also increases belief in that information. Even if you don’t actually see the information.

For example, I haven’t read the original EU study about piracy. Come on, it’s 300 pages. Who’s got time?

But I believe the conclusions. Why else would the EU try to censor it? I bet a bunch of people on that news aggregator thought the same, and that’s why this story went viral.

My takeaway for you is this:

Desire and belief are really two sides of the same coin.

Whether you’re using specificity… or a new mechanism… or even secrets… if you juice up one side of the coin, the other side gets bigger too.

And I’ve got evidence to prove it. Evidence nobody has seen before. I hope to publish it one day soon… if they don’t get to me first. If you want to read that secret report when it comes out, here’s our underground communication channel.

A simple way to deal with reactance on the sales page

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A few weeks ago, I was walking through a little park at exactly 11:21am.

I know it was exactly 11:21am because I saw an unusual scene, so I checked the time and wrote it down.

Three local drunks were sitting at a table in the shade. Two empty beer bottles and two empty brandy bottles were in front of each of them.

And now came the time to get the next round.

One of the drunks got up, started collecting the empty bottles, and grumbled, “I’m the oldest one here! And I have to go?” And he did. But he kept mumbling to himself about the injustice of it all.

So at 11:21am, these guys were already four drinks in, and getting a fifth and eighth.

That was the unusual part.

But the elder drunk’s reaction was very usual. “I don’t want to! Why should I?” That’s something we all say every day in some form.

Psychologists call this reactance. It’s as fundamental a human instinct as breathing or wanting to sit when we see a chair.

Reactance says that when we have barriers erected against us, when we lose a freedom, when we’re commanded or manipulated into doing something, we rebel. Fire rises up from our bellies.

If we have no other option, like when the stupid boss tells us to do something, we do what we’re told grudgingly.

But when we have a choice, like on the sales page, we cross our arms, dig our heels in, and say defiantly, “No! I don’t want to! What are you gonna do about it?”

The good news is that there are lots of things you can do to get around reactance in sales talk and sales copy.

I recently wrote about a pretty standard one, which is the reason why. Because people don’t really want control… they want the feeling of control. And sometimes, a reason why is all that’s needed to give them that feeling.

“You gotta get the next round today… because Jerry got it yesterday… and I will get it tomorrow.”

That can work.

But there are other, and much more powerful ways to deal with reactance. In fact, I’m writing a book about one of them now. And if you want to hear more about it, well, you will find it in future issues of my email newsletter.

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.