Dan Heath

How to charge more by selling treats

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Long-time readers know I am a fan of the podcast What It’s Like To Be. I only know about this podcast because it’s hosted by Dan Heath, author of the book Made to Stick, which I believe is one of the best texts about crafting persuasive messages.

In the What It’s Like To Be podcast, Dan Heath interviews people who make their living doing different jobs.

Sometimes it’s inherently interesting — a speech writer, a baseball player.

This week though, it was… a baker. I had to force myself to listen to it. I’m glad I did.

It turned out that this interview about what it’s like to be a baker is very relevant for folks who have or want to have a small online biz, maybe writing or teaching or coaching or having an audience.

There are lots of parallels and business insights from the baker, someone who works in a surprisingly similar to what I do, but in a different sphere.

I’ll include the link to the whole podcast at the end here if you wanna check it out. For now though, lemme share one specific and interesting thing I heard.

Dan Heath asked the baker, how do you price your bread?

This led the baker into a discussion of what would be reasonable in theory:

Figure out her cost of ingredients… put in margin on top of that to cover fixed expenses like rent and employees… and add an extra margin on top of that for profit.

In reality, the baker said, what she does is she looks at what other bakeries are charging, and charges something similar. When margins get too tight, she raises prices.

And then came the really interesting and insightful part wanted to share with you:

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And and then if like our overall margins are starting to feel too tight, then I try to put more of our price increases on our pastry because I feel like pastry is a luxury good, and bread is like a staple food and should be as affordable as possible.

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Dan Heath asked if this a commie-like desire to make sure everyone can afford the staples of life? Well, yes. But it’s also a capitalist calculation about what people are willing to pay. The baker explained:

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It also lines up with how people spend money. Like, people are going to balk at spending $12 or $15 on a loaf of bread in a way that they won’t at spending, like, $7 on a slice of cake or, like, $3 on a cup of coffee. People’s mental calculation is so different for things that feel like treats, whether it’s like sugar or alcohol or snacks than it is for something that feels like grocery, that feels like a staple good.

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My point today is exactly what the baker says in this second block.

There’s one mental calculus for things that feel like necessities and staples. There’s a different mental calculus for things that feel like treats or splurges.

You can apply this insight the way the baker did, by simply offering two lines of products, one staple-y and one treat-y, and using the treats to be able to charge more, and to support the other parts of your business.

You can also benefit from this insight without launching a new line of products, simply by repackaging your dutiful and reasonable products in a new gift box that suggests indulgence, enjoyment, or fun to your prospects.

I’ll have more to say about that “fun” element tomorrow.

For now, if you wanna hear what other business insights the baker had to share, you can find the link below. Highly recommended, even if you have no interest in baking, and only want to run an online four-hour-workweek-style business:

https://www.whatitsliketobe.com/2246914/episodes/18563714-a-baker

12 sticky disciples to get your message out into the world

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If I ever launch my AIDA University, a 4-year, overpriced curriculum teaching people how to persuade, the mandatory reading for the first semester will include the book Made To Stick.

In that book, authors Chip and Dan Heath tell you how to create a message that sticks.

Basically, they say that you should turn your message into a simple, unusual, concrete, and emotional story.

Which is all good and fine but— are simple, dramatic stories really the only kinds of sticky messages?

Clearly no. I imagine that, in the interest of making their own message sticky, that is, simple and concrete, the Heath brothers decided to stick to teaching just one sticky format.

But I’ve been keeping track of different kinds of sticky messages. Today, I’d like to share them with you.

If you have an idea you want to go out into the world, then here are 12 ways, 12 little disciples, that can preach your message from the housetops:

1. Story, particularly drama

Well ok, yes, this is familiar enough, and it’s what Chip and Dan Heath talk about as well. (Bear with me. I have different ones after this one.)

2. High stakes

Classic example: Stansberry’s “The End of America” video sales letter, which was one of the two or three biggest direct response campaigns of all time, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars through a single VSL.

3. Visuals

Here’s one that made Rich Schefren’s Internet Business Manifesto stick:

Rich Schefren's Internet Manifesto | Tyrone Shum | Flickr

4. Exercises

The first thing that comes to my mind is the following old chestnut, used as a sticky message to illustrate lateral thinking or the absence of it:

Say we have a pen and a piece of paper with 9 evenly spaced dots (as shown). How do we draw 4 straight lines through the 9 dots, without ever lifting our

5. Quizzes

Is your “fat loss type” an I, G, C, or T? What’s your Myers-Briggs? Are you a Pisces or a killer whale? Take our quiz to find out what this says about you as a marketer.

6. Metonyms

A metonym, as I learned once but keep forgetting, is “a figure of speech in which one word or phrase is substituted for another with which it is closely associated, as in the use of Washington for the United States government.”

A great pop culture example of using a metonym to get the point across and to persuade the other side comes from the movie Ford v. Ferrari.

In that movie, Matt Damon, playing car designer Carroll Shelby, is explaining to Henry Ford III why Ford’s sports driving team sucks.

Damon points to a little red folder that one of Ford’s underlings is currently thumbing through (the folder is the metonym, albeit nonverbal) and says:

“As I sat out there in your lovely waiting room, I watched that little red folder, right there, go through four pairs of hands before it got to you. Course that doesn’t include the 22 or so other Ford employees who probably poked at it before it made its way up to the 19th floor. All due respect, sir, you can’t win a race by committee.”

7. Parallel case studies

… which are a subset of dramatic stories, but which occur often enough and are successful often enough compared to regular stories, that they warrant including.

A famous example is the Wall Street Journal “Two Young Men” sales letter, though wise marketers (eg. Andre Chaperon) have been using the same format online as well.

8. Authority (scientific research)

Scientists from MIT report that this kind of message is very sticky, in fact 38% stickier than the average.

9. Demonstration

“It slices, it dices, it makes julienne fries.” Good if you get to see the demonstration on TV… better yet if you see it live… best if you can actually experience it directly on yourself.

10. Outrage/saying the “wrong” thing/playing against type

This is what a huge chunk of classic direct response headline complexes are about. Think “Lies Lies Lies” by Gary Bencivenga… “What THEY Don’t Want You To Know” by Eric Betuel… or “Why Haven’t TV Owners Been Told These Facts” by Gene Schwartz.

11. Rhyme, alliteration, or co-opting phrases that already exist in the mind

This is a broad category but it all comes down to wordplay of one sort or another that our brains seem to enjoy:

– “If the glove don’t fit, you must acquit”

– The “Big Black Book” series of big Boardroom blockbusters

– “The Plague of the Black Debt,” which along with the End of America above, is another of the two or three biggest direct response campaigns of all time

12. Metaphor or analogy

An analogy is like a listicle, in that it organizes under one umbrella a number of related points, some of which are strong, and others, which can be disguised and hidden among the stronger ones.

If you have other good categories of sticky messages, write in and let me know. I am putting together a new book in which this kind of stuff will feature. I will appreciate your help, and maybe what you send me will wind up in the book.

Meanwhile, if you haven’t done so yet, you might enjoy my most recent book,

“10 Commandments of Con Men, Pickup Artists, Magicians, Door-to-Door Salesmen, Hypnotists, Copywriters, Professional Negotiators, Political Propagandists, Stand Up Comedians, and Oscar-Winning Screenwriters”

In that book, you can find lots of simple, unusual, concrete, and emotional stories.

But you can also find demonstrations (check out the very first sentence of the intro)… outrage (that’s the whole point of featuring con men and pickup artists in the title)… co-opting phrases that already exist in the mind (“10 Commandments”)… authority… quizzes… high stakes… and even visuals, at least such as can be done with words (specifically, the opening of Commandment V).

For all that, and more:
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https://bejakovic.com/new10commandments

What it’s like to finally sell Guinness

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My friend Biff recently texted me to say he had been listening to the What It’s Like To Be podcast, which I’ve written about often in these emails.

That podcast features interviews with people in different professions, with the goal of finding out what it’s like to do their job.

(As is often true of these kinds of podcasts, the host is somebody famous or influential, who has decided to do a pet project. In this case the influential person is Dan Heath, author of the book Made To Stick, which I’ve also written about many times in this newsletter.)

Anyways, I had not been listening to the What It’s Like To Be podcast for a while – there’s too much damn stuff to listen to.

I felt guilty after Biff wrote me to say he had heard some good episodes lately.

So at the gym two days ago, I put on the latest episode, to find out what it’s like to be… a barman.

A barman is apparently what in Ireland they call a bar tender. Except not really, because a barman also acts as a kind of standup comedian as well as a therapist or self-esteem coach, which U.S. bar tenders are typically not certified for.

But let me get to the point of today’s email, the valuable message that can maybe make you millions of cents or even dollars:

The barman — name, Brian Wynne – said that his pub has been around for 30 years. But in spite of it being an Irish pub, in Dublin, they didn’t sell Guinness until three weeks ago. He explained:

“We’ve been open since ’96 and we put our first Guinness tap in three weeks ago. We make an equivalent porter. When I say equivalent, I mean it’s vastly superior, of course, but I can’t say that. I’m sure your lawyers will have a go at you for allowing me to say that kinda thing.”

Dan Heath then asked Wynne how Guinness is doing after the first three weeks. Wynne replied:

“Oh, it’s outselling everything else we have. You spend 20 years explaining to people why we don’t sell Guinness ’cause our products are superior and more Irish. You make jokes about it. I have so many anecdotes and lines all built up about the sale of Guinness, which we don’t have, and then we do have it in…”

… and it outsells everything else, without even trying.

I wanted to share this with you because it’s a truth that goes far beyond the Irish pub.

I thought to myself, as I listened to Wynne while doing my fire hydrant exercises, how many online business owners find themselves in same position?

They work to create a “vastly superior” product… they turn themselves into the equivalent of a barman who educates and jokes and soft-sells… they show up day after day in front of their prospects… and yet, sales still a fraction of what they could be, if they only sold what people already really wanted, ie. a Guinness instead of their no-name vastly superior equivalent.

Do with that what seems meet.

As for me, I’ll take me to do some market research. I’ll even offer you a trade:

Hit reply to this email and tell me the last digital info purchase you made. It could be a course… some live training or coaching… a new newsletter or membership you subscribed to… or an ebook (except Amazon kindle ebooks, that’s too broad for my purposes).

I’m curious to find out what you’ve already spent money on, and maybe I will start selling the same.

And in return?

I’ll reply to you and tell you my own latest digital info purchase. (It’s not Travis Sago’s Royalty Ronin, I promise that.) I will tell you that it’s an ebook, that I paid $209 for it (yes, there are no missing decimal points in there), and that I have so far taken 9 pages of notes from it.

I’m not sure it will be as useful for you as it has been to me, but if you’re curious to find out what it is, you know what to do.

My top 7 marketing books

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I heard once that reading lists make for great lead magnets.

Is that true? I don’t know.

But it got me to put together a recommended reading list of my own.

I started with a goal of 10 books — but though I’ve read many more than 10, I couldn’t honestly recommend 10. That’s a good thing for you — less reading to do.

So here are my top 7 marketing books, for you to enjoy, learn, and profit from:

1. The Robert Collier Letter Book, by Robert Collier

This book has it all — wagons of coal, silk stockings, genies in the lamp, free pens, rattlesnakes, dinosaurs. If you only ever read one book about direct marketing, this is my number-one recommendation.

2. Positioning, by Al Ries and Jack Trout

Tons of other good marketing advice beyond, “Get yourself into a niche of one.”

3. My Life In Advertising, by Claude C. Hopkins

All the wisdom in Hopkins’s vaunted Scientific Advertising, but presented with stories and detail that make it go down more easy.

4. The Adweek Copywriting Book, by Joe Sugarman

Very accessible, usable, and current, even if you never write a full-page magazine ad selling a calculator or UV-blocking sunglasses.

5. Influence, by Robert Cialdini

I wish I had written this book. What more can I say?

6. Start With No, by Jim Camp

You may have seen this negotiation book recommended before by online marketers. It happens a lot. What is it about Camp’s negotiation strategies that could be useful to sales and marketing online?

7. Made To Stick, by Chip and Dan Heath

I read this book only once but it’s stuck. That’s because the authors know what they’re talking about, and because they apply it to their own writing.

Like I said, I’ve heard that reading lists make for great lead magnets.

Do they also make for effective email copy? I don’t know.

But I’m willing to test it out.

If you haven’t already clicked away to Amazon to get one of the books above, maybe you will click below to the sales page for my Daily Email Habit service. It sometimes forces even me to write emails I would never write otherwise. Here’s the link if you’d like to find out more about it:

https://bejakovic.com/deh

The most famous copywriter, real or fictional

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On Dan Heath’s new podcast, “What It’s Like To Be,” I heard Dan asking a TV meteorologist, a criminal defense lawyer, a forensic accountant, all the same question:

“Who’s the most famous meteorologist/criminal defense lawyer/forensic accountant, real or fictional?”

This got me wondering who the most famous copywriter might be, real or fictional.

I had a gut feeling. I double-checked via simple Google search, by looking at the total number of results.

As far as real copywriters go, there’s really only one possible option for a copywriter that a rando off the street might know.

​​That’s David Ogilvy.

There’s something about the pipe, the smart suits, the English disdain, the French castle.

Sure enough, Ogilvy was the only real copywriter who has more than 1M indexed Google results about him.

As for fictional copywriters, it depends on who you consider a copywriter.

Don Draper, the creative art director from the TV show Mad Men, clocks in at over 2M Google results.

But was he really a copywriter or more of an idea man? I’ll let you decide.

Meanwhile, the most famous, fictional, 100% copywriter that I’ve been able to find is Peggy Olson, also a character on Mad Men, who only gets around 220k Google results.

Should we stop there? Oh no.

It turns out several celebs out there have a copywriting background… but are not today known as copywriters.

One of these is novelist James Patterson. Before Patterson set out to write 200 books (and counting), he was a copywriter and later the CEO of J. Walter Thompson, one of the biggest and oldest ad agencies in the world.

Patterson has 6M+ Google results to attest to his fame.

And if we’re already going with celebrities who have copywriting in their history, and maybe their blood, then we get to the most famous copywriter of all time, real or fictional, live or dead, even though nobody nowhere would identify him as a copywriter.

I’m talking about F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald worked for a time as a copywriter before becoming the author of the quintessential great American novel, The Great Gatsby, and later a topic of almost 13M Google results.

So there. Now you know. And now you might ask yourself, “What did I just read? Did I really need this in my life? How did I wind up at the bottom of this email?”

If any of those questions is flitting through your head, let me point out that interest in famous people seems to be hardwired into our brains.

Tabloid writers and sales copywriters know this fact well, and they use it over and over and over. Because it works to draw attention and get people reading, day after day.

That’s a free lesson in copywriting.

For more such lessons, including ones that you might not be able to shrug off by saying, “I guess I knew that,” you will have to buy my Copy Riddles course.

The whole big idea behind Copy Riddles is the appeal of famous people — at least famous in the small niche of direct response copywriting.

I mean, on the sales page, in place of a subheadline, what I have is a picture featuring Gary Halbert, Gary Bencivenga, Stefan Georgi, and Ben Settle, all of them celebrities in the micro world of direct response, all of them paid off on that page as being integral to the course.

If you’d like to buy Copy Riddles, or if you simply want to read some gossip about famous copywriters, then head here and get ready to be amazed and shocked:

https://bejakovic.com/cr

What it’s like to be… faced with AI eating your job

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Question:

What’s the worst thing you can ever say to a TV weather woman?

Answer:

“That’s not what my app says…”

I’ll tell you in a second how I found out that riveting bit of information. But first:

At a recent gathering of copywriters in London, I saw several attendees hang their heads and say, “As we all know, it’s been a rough year for many copywriters.”

I kept quiet because I didn’t want to expose my ignorance and absence of rough year.

​​I don’t work with clients any more. And my year has been fine.

What exactly has been rough on copywriters who do work with clients?

Is it the economic climate? AI taking copywriting jobs? Too much competition from the glut of would-be copywriters who entered the field over the past few years?

I felt it would be tactless to ask. So I kept quiet.

But back to the weather woman. I found out that the best way to piss off such a one is to say, “That’s not what my app says.”

I found that out because I’m dipping my toes into a new podcast, called What It’s Like To Be.

The podcast features interviews with people in different professions, so you can find out what it’s like to do their job. The last episode was TV weather woman Lacey Swope, who works for News 9 in Oklahoma City, the world epicenter of extreme weather.

I had no particular interest in hearing what it’s like to be a TV weather woman. But I’m glad I listened.

Because in many ways, weather womaning turns out to be a profession very similar to copywriting.

For example:​​

The job of being a TV meteorologist requires two separate skills — the technical skill of divining the weather, and the presentation skill, you might even say sales skill, of being friendly and cute on TV.

But wait, there’s more.

Weather meteorologists have for years been under threat by apps and websites that give the masses by-the-minute weather info. And the TV weather people who are surviving and thriving in spite of it are all—

… well for that, I will point you to the podcast itself.

You can find the podcast episode at the link below.

It’s worthwhile listening if you’re working as copywriter, and wondering what the future might bring, and how you can best prepare for it.

TV weather men and weather women been there, maybe a decade earlier. You can lean surprisingly practical stuff by listening to Lacey Swope and thinking how to apply her experiences and attitudes to your career.

And if that’s not enough to get you to click through and listen, then I will tell you the reason I started listening to What It’s Like To Be in the first place.

It’s because it’s the new podcast of Dan Heath, who is one half of the Heath brothers team that wrote the book Made to Stick.

​​So if you want to hear how somebody who literally wrote the book on effective, viral, long-lasting communication organizes and structures his content, then here ya go:

https://www.whatitsliketobe.com/2246914/13858315-a-tv-meteorologist

PS. Thanks to everyone who joined me and Kieran for the the storytelling presentation earlier today. I feel it went well. But I honestly never know when I’m presenting. If you were there live, I’d love to know what you thought of it. Write in and let me know.

Murdered billionaire pedophile secrets

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You can’t beat a royal flush.

That’s not the case with other hands in poker.

Full house… Straight… Four of a kind…

Given the right combination of cards, each of those hands is beatable.

Just as beatable as certain ideas are beatable.

So for example, I once read (in Chip and Dan Heath’s Made to Stick) that during WWII in the US, there were widespread race-baiting rumors that were hurting the war effort.

Some of these rumors said American Jews were profiteering from the national war effort.

Other rumors claimed that black soldiers were stockpiling weapons in advance of massive race riots.

Still other rumors claimed that Japanese Americans being held in internment camps were living high and consuming meat, sugar, and other restricted items.

Trouble is, these kinds of rumors were eating away at the national effort to actually go to Europe and fight in the war.

So how would you combat those rumors?

Well, here’s how you don’t do it:

You don’t try to argue…

You don’t present the facts…

And you don’t harp on about “reality” and “truth” back of it all.

Instead, you come up with a better rumor, and you start spreading that yourself.

So, during WWII, the government agencies in charge of rumor control started publishing posters which depicted Nazi agents going around the country and spreading misinformation about racial minorities.

The campaign was successful. America got united enough to fight in the war. And we now remember that time as a unique moment of righteousness in world history.

Anyways, point being, if you want to fight sticky ideas, come up with more sticky ideas.

Of course, sometimes that’s not possible.

Sometimes you come across a royal flush.

As you’ve probably heard, billionaire pedo Jeffrey Epstein was successfully suicided in his prison cell yesterday.

Epstein was supposed to have info on the sexual perversions of all the powerful people in the world, including Trump, Clinton, the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, and maybe even Jonah Hill.

This information was too explosive…

The people involved too influential…

And now, Epstein is dead.

How predictable. We will never know the truth. At least that’s the current feeling, even in the mainstream, in spite of the best efforts of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal to dismiss this as “rampant conspiracy theories.”

Whatever you think actually happened to Epstein, I think you will have to agree with me:

“Billionaire pedophile murdered because of his secrets” is the kind of story that is an absolute royal flush in terms of stickiness.

No other rumor, including that Jeffrey Epstein was actually a female lizard alien funded by the Illuminati so they can make America a new Islamic state, can dislodge this in the public mind right now.

And that’s why the development of this story is worth watching.

Assuming, of course, that idea spreading is the kind of thing that gets you turned on.

Which it certainly does for me.

And so, if you need help spreading some ideas, which I hope are more positive and less explosive than the whole Epstein drama, then consider the following, non-mainstream guide:

https://bejakovic.com/advertorials/

Mother Theresa’s emotional manipulation advice

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“If I look at the mass, I will never act. If I look at the one, I will.”
— Mother Theresa

One of the most valuable lessons I learned in the early years of my copywriting education came from Andre Chaperon’s Autoresponder Madness.

It didn’t have to do with autoresponders. It didn’t have to do with email. In fact, it was (and is) completely applicable to any kind of sales copywriting, and more broadly, to any kind of mass persuasion.

So what was the lesson?

It was how to understand your prospects on a deep level, and how develop empathy for the people you’re writing to.

I won’t give away Andre’s exact tactics for doing this, but his general approach is simply a ton of research. All of which culminates in a customer avatar.

This is not a demographic description. Instead, it’s a detailed story about a specific person who is facing the problems that you’re looking to solve.

I’ve found that creating such an avatar isn’t just a matter of getting better insight into the audience. There seems to be some kind of chemical switch in the brain that gets flipped when I’m writing to a specific person with a name and a face — versus to a vague, shapeless, and nameless mass.

It’s something I’ve also heard A-list copywriter David Deutsch describe as the “Hey Mitch” method. In other words, when David is writing copy, he (either literally or in his mind) says “Hey Mitch, here’s how to…” and then he goes into his sales pitch.

This process of calling out a specific name has the effect of exposing fine sounding but unconvincing phrases, which seemed fine just a minute ago. And it replaces them with natural words and ideas which are relevant to your audience.

Anyways, this name/face/avatar concreteness isn’t just for hypnotizing yourself into writing better copy.

In Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath tell a story of hospital staff who were subtly manipulated into caring about improving workflow. This is normally not a topic that staff would be enthusiastic about, but in this case they were shown a video from the perspective of a patient — coming into the hospital, being laid down on a gurney, waiting around, etc.

This concrete illustration got the hospital staff much more responsive and committed to helping improve the situation than if they had been barraged by statistics or facts about nameless patients.

This idea is summed up nicely in the quote by Mother Theresa up top (which I also first read in Made to Stick).

To wrap up: Concreteness, and looking at the individual, is powerful persuasion stuff on multiple levels. It helps you empathize with your audience, and therefore makes you more persuasive. At the same time, the same principle of being specific and concrete makes your audience more receptive to your ideas — again making you more persuasive.

The “Rule of One” applied to email copywriting

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In the 2006 version of Casino Royale, there’s a classic James Bond pickup scene.

Bond is talking to the beautiful wife of one of the bad guys. After a bit of flirty banter, Bond looks her straight in the eye and says, “What about a drink at my place?”

He stares at her. She stares at him. The tension builds.

“Your place,” she says breathlessly, “is it close?”

“Very,” says Bond.

Now imagine if Bond couldn’t play so cool. Instead of throwing out that one proposal, imagine if he threw out three:

“What about a drink at my place? Or maybe some nachos? How about breakfast tomorrow in case you’re busy now?”

Even with his ice-cold stare, odds are he wouldn’t get the same response.

“Bond. James Bond. You can call me Jim. Or James. Whichever is easier.”

A while ago, I was reading “Made to Stick” by Chip and Dan Heath. This is the best book I’ve come across  on how to present ideas clearly and in a way that people will remember. One of the things the Heaths say is, “Say one thing. If you say three things, you end up saying nothing at all.”

Michael Masterson and John Forde’s “Great Leads” emphasizes the same concept, which they call “The Rule of One – One Big Idea.”

In fact, the book opens up with the story of two speeches that were given by two Agora copywriters. One speech focused on one idea, the importance of clarity in writing. The other was something like “12 rules I follow when writing copy.”

The audience thought both speeches were terrific. But at the end of the night, people were only talking about the single idea in the first speech.

I’ve recently been working on some emails for a cool product. The product helps people make their own fermented food. And the emails I’m writing are specifically for people who’ve stated that they want to ferment for health reasons.

I’ve been going around in circles writing these emails. I need to get across a few ideas. One is that fermented foods are important for your health. The second is that fermenting can be a hassle. A third is that store-bought fermented foods aren’t a great choice compared to fermenting food yourself.

The problem is I’ve been trying to do this in the same email. This breaks the “Rule of One.” No wonder I’ve been re-reading the emails and thinking they are somehow weak and unconvincing.

The fix is simple. Pick one idea. Develop it in detail. Present it clearly. And then do the same for the other ideas, but in separate emails.

Prematurely moving out of Maslow’s basement

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Just coz it’s science don’t mean it’s true.

I’m currently reading Chip and Dan Heath’s Made to Stick. This brotherly tome teaches you how to present your ideas in a way that sticks in people’s minds — long after you’ve made your pitch.

Overall, I am digging this book.

But there’s one section that irked me when I read it. Somewhere along chapter 4 or so, the Heaths talk about how to make people really “hear” your message. How to get them emotionally invested. How to get them to care.

Of course, you can appeal to their self-interest, which is what direct response copywriters like myself love to do.

But no, say the Heaths.

That’s short sighted, and there’s science to prove it. So they cite research where people are asked to explain what would motivate them to take a new job:

Option 1: more security because the new position is so important

Option 2: more visibility because the new position is so important

Option 3: the great learning opportunity this important new position would provide

Apparently, most people choose 3 when explaining why they themselves would choose a new job. But when asked what they think other people would be motivated by, they choose options 1 or 2. (Short-sighted buggers, those other people.)

So the Heath brothers draw this conclusion, referring to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:

In other words, a lot of us think everyone else is living in Maslow’s basement — we may have a penthouse apartment, but everyone else is living below. The result of spending too much time in Maslow’s basement is that we may overlook lots of opportunities to motivate people.

To which I’d say, “Interesting… But do you prefer going to the movies or to the theater?” It’s a question the grandpapa of modern-day direct marketing, Gary Halbert, asked once:

Once I asked at class at USC how many of them preferred to go to plays more than movies.

Lots of people raised their hands.

“Bull!” I said to them. “You are all fooling yourselves and I’m going to prove it.” I then asked for a show of hands of those people who had seen a play in the last week or so.

No hands.

I then asked to see the hands of people who had seen a movie in the last week or so.

Many hands.

Does this mean you always have to appeal to brute self-interest when trying to convince people? Not necessarily. This ad certainly doesn’t seem to:

MEN WANTED
for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful, honor and recognition in case of success.

This was an ad put out by Sir Ernest Shackleton, a polar explorer, and it supposedly drew an enormous response of men interested in accompanying Shackleton into the penguin-infested waters of Antarctica.

The point of all this?

Maslow’s basement can work.

So can Maslow’s penthouse.

But talk is cheap, and what people say is not necessarily what they will do. Even if they themselves wholeheartedly believe it.

So when choosing which appeal to go with in an advertisement, look at what people actually do, rather than what they say they want.