Rabbits can pretend to be healthy even when sick. They can mask it so well that they go from looking perfectly normal in one second to dead on the floor the next.
In other words, rabbits can cover up their neediness.
Neediness is when you feel threatened, and you enter survival mode. All of God’s little creatures, including you and me, experience neediness now and again, whether real or imagined.
The next time you feel needy, I’d like to suggest that you “play rabbit.”
In other words, suck it up and cover it up. Because being seen as needy makes you also look weak, vulnerable, and desperate. That’s not the profile of someone that people want to shake hands with, in business or in private.
I was reviewing a Frank Kern VSL today. It was for a big launch he did a few years ago for his Inner Circle coaching program.
I don’t know whether Frank was desperate for this launch to succeed. The VSL certainly doesn’t make it seem so.
Except for some fake urgency (a timer above the VSL), there’s not much pressure to buy. No “You need this NOW.” No “You’re at a fork in the road.” Instead, there’s just a voluptuous, sleepy-eyed seductress of an offer, lazily smiling at you and showing off her many attractions.
I’ve written already about my 3-sentence method for applying for copywriting jobs. It involves no friendly banter, no big life story, and certainly no explaining or apologizing.
Back when I applied for copywriting jobs, this method worked great. And one big reason is that I didn’t look needy, regardless of how I felt. (By the way, if you want more on this, I wrote up this article about it.)
My point is that, in your copy and in your one-on-one dealings, don’t telegraph your neediness and vulnerability. If anything, do the opposite. Play rabbit. Don’t let anyone know what’s going on inside your beating little chest.
But perhaps the above examples didn’t convince you. So let me leave you with the words of the godfather and midwife of modern advertising, Claude Hopkins.
For his first advertising job, Hopkins had to sell 250,000 carpet sweepers. I don’t know what a carpet sweeper is, but apparently it was an important but unsexy household product.
So Hopkins wrote a straightforward letter to dealers. It outlined why his product is unique. It listed conditions in case the dealers wanted to sell it.
Take it or leave it.
So what was the result? From Hopkins himself:
“I offered a privilege, not an inducement. I appeared as a benefactor, not as a salesman. So dealers responded in a way that sold our stock of 250,000 sweepers in three weeks.”
One last point:
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