A holstered gun comes flying through the trailer door and crashes into the opposite window. A furious Rick Dalton follows.
He’s just been humiliated on set, or rather, he’s humiliated himself.
“You forget all your lines,” he screams. “You embarrass yourself in front of all these people. You been drinking all night. Eight goddamn whisky sours. You’re a fucking miserable drunk.”
Maybe you know this scene. It’s from Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
Dalton, played by Leonardo Di Caprio, is a fading Hollywood actor. Regardless of what he does, he can’t seem to turn things around.
After forgetting his lines on set (even though he practiced them), he’s disgusted. He proceeds to trash his trailer. And then he sets himself an ultimatum.
“You’re gonna show that fucking girl, you’re gonna show that goddamn Jim Stacey, you’re gonna show them all on that fucking set who Rick Dalton is.”
And if he doesn’t?
“Let me tell you something,” Rick says while looking at himself in the mirror. “You don’t get these lines right… I’m gonna blow your brains out.”
A while back, I wrote about psychological shortcuts our brains like to take. Specifically, the ones that relate to direct response copywriting.
Well, there’s one for you in that Tarantino scene above.
When things aren’t going well for your prospect, even though he’s tried and struggled to turn things around, his brain jumps to a conclusion.
The conclusion is that he is a fuckup, and everybody knows it. Or if you want it in quotes:
“It’s my fault because I’m worthless.”
Of course, your prospect probably won’t say it out loud like Leo above. He might not even admit it to himself consciously.
But it’s there, beneath the surface, roiling around in his brain. You’re gonna have to address it. You’re gonna have to fix your prospect’s self-esteem, if only for a few moments, if you will have any hope of selling him.
Perhaps you’d like to know how to do this. Well, I’ve just finished writing a book on A-list copywriter wisdom, and chapter 7 tells you one technique you can use.
This book isn’t out yet, but it will be soon. If you’d like to know when it’s available, you can sign up for my daily email newsletter.