Let me tell you a true story about a social primate I will call John B.:
Six months ago, John was reading the “Million Dollar Resource & Sample Book.” This is a 270-page document that Dan Kennedy prepared for his Titans of Direct Response talk.
Toward the end of this doc, John saw the mention of a seminar of Dan’s, called Opportunity Concepts. Opportunity Concepts is all about using ideas from bizopp marketers more broadly, in other kinds of businesses.
“Sounds valuable,” John muttered into his cereal, which he was eating at the time.
So John googled Opportunity Concepts and found the sales page.
“Interesting… interesting…” John said as he scrolled down the page. But suddenly, he bared his teeth and grimaced.
“Ouch!” he said, mouth full of cereal. “$2,000!…”
Now let me tell you with confidence, because I happen to know this social primate intimately, that John has been training himself to look at things in terms of their value… rather than in terms of their price.
Even so, after a few moments of grimacing and weighing access to Opportunity Concepts on the one hand… versus the pain of giving up $2,000 on the other… John found himself closing down the sales page and browsing away to happier, less stressful webpages.
Now fast-forward a few months.
John was watching a livestream put on by marketer Rich Schefren. Rich paused his scheduled programming to answer questions. And one of the questions that came in was this:
“Which products from Dan Kennedy do you think are the most valuable?”
Rich thought for a second and said, “I think Opportunity Concepts is number one.” And by the time Rich named his second favorite Dan Kennedy program, John was already gone. He was in a deep trance, credit card out, filling out the order form for Opportunity Concepts.
So that’s the true story for today. I hope you liked it. And now let me tell you why this story is meaningful to me, aside from my close relationship to the primate in question.
It’s not just that this story illustrates the power of social proof.
Or the value of an endorsement from a respected authority.
No, it’s about something broader.
Because one thing I’ve learned by working in direct marketing is how much our brain loves to avoid the hard tasks of thinking and making decisions.
That’s why we are constantly looking for shortcuts and excuses. Shortcuts to conclusions. And excuses to make a decision or to not make a decision.
If you’re new to direct marketing, you might think this only applies to those gullible people out there. The ones who buy magic pill weight loss supplements… at $47/month… based on obviously fake testimonials.
Well, I’d like to suggest it’s not just them.
Even people with greater advertising literacy make decisions in the same way. Even for much bigger purchases.
And if you’re selling something, including yourself and your services… it’s a good idea to give your prospects helpful shortcuts and excuses to make sure their decisions are the right ones.
And by the way, this same stuff applies to business owners looking to hire copywriters. You might think they will make a detailed, reasonable decision about who to hire. You might think they will evaluate all the data, and weigh all the pros and cons of each application.
Nope.
Business owners, like everybody else, are just looking for excuses to dismiss an applicant straight out the gate. And they are praying they will come across an applicant who will signal in some clear way that he is THE ONE… so they can hire him and get on to happier, less stressful tasks.
Even more by the way, are you yourself looking to get hired as a copywriter?
Then I have something that could be valuable. It’s a system for giving business owners those helpful shortcuts and excuses to make sure their decisions are the right ones — i.e. hiring you.
This system is inside my “Win Your First Copywriting Job” workshop, which kicks off this Friday.
For more info: