Tony Robbins once shared a stage with a knight’s suit of armor.
At one point during his talk, Tony got close to the knight. Terrible static appeared on his mic. When he walked away, the static stopped.
The next time Tony got close to the knight, terrible static shot up again. He stepped away. The static stopped.
The third time it was about to happen, people in the audience started shouting. “Don’t get close to the knight!”
It turned out later than an ambulance in the neighborhood was somehow messing with Tony’s sound equipment. Once the ambulance left, the sound problems disappeared. It wasn’t the knight at all.
The human brain needs causation like a hot dog needs mustard. “Terrible sound! What’s behind it? It must be the knight!”
This works really well much of the time.
Sometimes it goes wrong, like in the Tony Robbins story above.
And in rare cases of clever persuasion… it can be used to lead people by the nose. For example:
During a webinar last year, Parris Lampropoulos analyzed a sales letter. It was written by his most successful copy cub.
The lead starts off with a true story of a 104-year-old scientist who won the Nobel Prize for her discoveries related to brain stuff.
The gist was this old lady saying, “I feel sharper now than when I was 20!”
The sales letter goes on to talk about the woman’s discoveries… and how the supplement for sale ties into her amazing research.
Now rewind.
Did you catch that?
It’s the same trick as with the knight above, at least for my hypergullible brain.
Because when I read this sales letter, my brain concluded, “Oh, she feels sharper because of her brain stuff discoveries. And this supplement is a way for me to tap into that, and get back what little I had when I was 20.”
But the sales letter doesn’t say that anywhere. The quaint old lady could have been feeling great because of her genetics… or because of her daily regimen of drinking beet juice. We just don’t know.
What we do know is that, when you’re writing copy, it’s best to have a genuine breakthrough coupled with an exciting discovery story.
But if you don’t have that… you can cheat. Just roll your breakthrough onto the stage… and then bring out an exciting story that’s not really about this discovery. Put them next to each other. Your prospect’s brain will do the rest.
Now rewind.
Did you catch that?
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