Paddy Chayefsky

Silent stories run deep

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Yesterday, I walked into an unfamiliar room and got naked.

I took a warm shower, tiptoed over to a large, clam-like apparatus, and climbed in.

I closed the clam shell behind myself.

All around me was warm, salty water and complete darkness and silence.

I was in an isolation (or sensory deprivation) tank.

For the next hour or so, I lay there in the darkness, waiting for the visions to start.

At least, that’s what I’d read would happen. I got this idea from Paddy Chayefsky’s novel Altered States, in which a scientist starts experimenting with sensory deprivation and psychedelic drugs, and winds up transforming into an ape-like creature who runs amok in Central Park.

The story in the book is less kooky than this quick summary makes it sound.

And kooky or not, this story was enough to make “sensory deprivation” something I very much wanted to try.

Which is a lesson to keep in mind if you are trying to convince people of anything — particularly anything unusual, or something they might not know they want.

Just consider:

Had I read a sales letter, an advertorial, or a blog post with a headline like, “How to induce safe, drug-free hallucinations,” odds are the message would have just bounced off me.

In the best case, it might have gotten me interested, but it would have caused all sorts of objections and doubts to pop up as well.

But a story, in an obscure novel from 40 years ago, was enough to get me to seek out a “float” halfway around the world, without inquiring about the price, safety, or effectiveness of this experience.

And this all happened without even a call to action. Speaking of which:

If you are selling something to an “unaware” audience, and you want to try a story-based approach in your sales emails, then you might find some valuable pointers here:

https://bejakovic.com/profitable-health-emails/

A clever persuasion tactic from a 1970s racist lackey

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Here’s a bit of movie trivia:

Woody Allen has won the Academy Award for best original screenplay three times. Twice, he did it alone. Once, in collaboration with Marshall Brickman.

Francis Ford Coppola has also won the same award three times, as have Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett. Each of them has shared at least one of those awards.

Only one guy has ever won the Academy Award for the best screenplay three times, working entirely by himself.

That guy is Paddy Chayefsky.

Right now, I’m rewatching my favorite Paddy Chayefsky Academy-Award-winning movie. It’s called Network, and it deals with the network TV business in the 1970s.

Halfway through the movie, Diana Christiansen, a heartless new breed of TV exec, meets with a representative of the Communist Party of the United States, Laureen Hobbs, in order to discuss making a program based on live recordings of acts of political terrorism. This is how the introduction goes:

Diana Christensen: Hi. I’m Diana Christensen, a racist lackey of the imperialist ruling circles.

Laureen Hobbs: I’m Laureen Hobbs, a badass commie nigger.

Diana Christensen: Sounds like the basis of a firm friendship.

Clever, right?

“Allow me to disarm you with my honesty”

This introduction does a few things well. For one thing, Diana agrees with what Laureen already believes (the Marxist idea of “class for itself”). At the same time, the introduction is entirely and brutally honest, almost self-dismissing. It’s also very different from what is expected, immediately stirring curiosity and buying a bit of time.

This kind of strategy is what negotiation coach Jim Camp called a “negative stripline.” A negative stripline is when you go fully negative on some sensitive point, to the extent that the other side feels a bit bad and wants to reel you back in towards more middle ground.

So how can you use negative striplining in marketing?

Well, if you’re sending out cold emails to prospect for new customers, you could try opening with something like:

“Hello, my name is John Bejakovic and all I really want is some of your money. However, since I don’t have the skills to rob you, I have to offer you something you’d value in exchange. In my case, the only thing I know well is sales copywriting.”

If you’re selling an ebook about aromatherapy (as I plan to do soon), you could start off the sales letter by saying:

“There’s been a lot of hype about essential oils, and most of it has zero basis in reality. In fact, essential oils have on occasion hurt people who tried using them. And yet, there are cases when essential oils are not completely worthless, and can even be used safely.”

If you’re selling a probiotic:

“The human gut is enormously complex. Scientists know only a little about the myriad interactions between gut bacteria, other species of gut bacteria, and our own bodies. Odds are, they won’t have a good idea about it for another 100 years, and there’s no way to make any firm recommendations right now. However, if you want to self-experiment as a way of fixing your digestive issues, then this probiotic might be worth a look. Here’s why.”

I’ve never written anything this extreme for any of my clients. I don’t know if it would work. But if you want me to write something brutally honest (and possibly disarming) for your business, here’s where to go.