There’s a lot you can learn from chick flicks.
Take for example, the evergreen romantic comedy Bridget Jones’s Diary. It’s about a 30-something single woman, a bit fat, a bit messy, not too successful.
Throughout the movie, Bridget is searching for a nice, sensible boyfriend to go out with. She eventually succeeds — by not becoming bitter, by putting herself out there, by picking herself up when she’s down. At least that’s the surface script.
But there’s an underlying script as well.
After all, the guy that Bridget winds up with — Mark Darcy — starts off by cruelly and unironically insulting her:
“I do not need a blind date, particularly not with some verbally incontinent spinster who smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish, and dresses like her mother.”
Ouch.
Mark keeps this up for much of the movie.
Of course, it turns out he’s not such a bad guy after all. This makes it ok that Bridget winds up with him before the credits roll.
It gets better — we hope
And that’s the underlying script.
It seems to say, even when somebody verbally or emotionally abuses you, there’s hope that they might actually like you.
I think many people subconsciously hope for this in real life as well. And that’s why abuse can help you make sales — as long as you keep it subtle and ethical.
As an example of this, take Joe Karbo’s famous ad, The Lazy Man’s Way to Riches.
I’ve been talking about it for the past few days.
In one part of this ad, Joe says something like, “I will ask you to send me ten dollars for something that won’t cost me 50 cents.”
That’s borderline insulting.
And then he twists it further by calling you a “darned fool” if you don’t take him up on his offer.
At this point, you might be ready to boil over with indignation.
So Joe stops the abuse. He tells you how his offer is so valuable that you shouldn’t care if he is making a profit, because you’ll make a lot more.
This abuse-then-soothe pattern is something you can use on different levels.
At the sales argument level, like Joe did. Or to structure an entire sales letter. Or even across different sales messages — for example, within email campaigns.
Speaking of which, if you want info on how to structure email campaigns, you’ll want to read my upcoming book on email marketing for the health space.
You’d be a darned fool not to do it.
After all, I’ve written successful sales emails for some very big businesses, and I’ll be sharing my insights within this book — which you can get for free, if you sign up now. More info here: