Here’s a thrilling and true historical anecdote:
When Christopher Columbus made his fourth and final voyage to the New World, his boats were eaten away by an attack of boat-eating shipworms. Columbus had to make an emergency landing, and he did, in what is today Jamaica.
The locals initially welcomed Columbus and his men, and supplied them with food for a while. But how long would this go on? After many months of warm hospitality, the locals said enough’s enough, get your own fish.
Columbus and his men grew hungry and desperate. Fortunately, Columbus had his almanac. Specifically, he had the Regiomontanus almanac, which had all kinds of useful info about the stars and planets.
By studying this almanac, Columbus spotted an upcoming lunar eclipse. Maybe he could use to his advantage.
“Our Christian god is very angry with you,” Columbus said to the local chief. “He’s angry you’re keeping us hungry. Where’s the fish? If the fish doesn’t start flowing again soon, our god will punish you heavily. To show his might and his ill will, he will make the moon appear inflamed with wrath, three days hence.”
Three days passed. The moon rose. And sure enough, just as Columbus had threatened, it soon turned to an eerie blood-red color.
The locals realized the Christian god wasn’t fooling. They hurried to Columbus with new supplies of fish, and begged him to intercede on their behalf.
Columbus checked his almanac again, and said he would mull over the locals’ request. And he mulled, for about 48 minutes. That’s how long his almanac said the eclipse would last.
“I’ve spoken to my god,” Columbus finally said, right before the moon turned white again. “He has decided to withdraw his punishment from you. But don’t make him angry again.”
You can bet the locals listened. They kept Columbus and his men full of fish until six months later, when relief came, in the form of a Spanish ship from Hispaniola.
So that’s my message for you for today. Make a big prediction, and if you guess right, you get a lot of influence.
Perhaps you find that a little underwhelming. So let me sketch out just how scary powerful this can really be:
First of all, prediction is a very loose word. You don’t have to predict the outcome of the next election of where the Dow will be in two months time. Prediction can include very manageable things, like we talked about yesterday and the day before.
For example, find out what symptoms your prospect has, but hasn’t articulated yet. Call that out, and give it a name.
Or:
Tell your prospect something new about himself that also sounds true and unique. It doesn’t matter if it’s not so true, or if it can apply to every other living creature in the world. All you have to do is make it sound true and unique.
Second, you can focus that influence and awe on an object, a process, or God forbid, a product.
Example: Bertram Forer’s case from yesterday. Students rated Forer’s personality questionnaire as highly valuable. Even though it had nothing to do with the actual personality sketches they were given.
And while Columbus wasn’t in the direct response business, can you imagine? I mean, imagine if Columbus had held up his almanac — “available for $49.99, call now” — and said it was the path to communicating with his powerful god?
When you put those two things together… well, perhaps you see where I’m going. In any case, I won’t spell it out further, because I feel like I’m on thin ice here in terms of ethics. But use this responsibly, and nobody gets hurt.
Finally, here’s a prediction:
You pride yourself on being an independent thinker. That’s why you don’t accept others’ statements without satisfactory proof.
Was I right? If yes, and you want to know the system I used to figure that out about you, then sign up for my email newsletter. It’s where all my secrets are revealed.