Principles Of Psychology

My “chicken sexer” argument for why you should pay me

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If you teach anything worthwhile, here’s my 4-part “chicken sexer” argument to persuade people to pay you for what you teach:

#1. In the poultry industry, there is a profession known as a “chicken sexer.”

A chicken sexer’s job it is to classify newly hatched chicks as either male or female. A chicken sexer will typically classify 1,000 chicks per hour, in only half a second per chick.

#2. An expert chicken sexer is accurate 98% of the time.

#3. A naive chicken sexer is no better than random.

4. There is a “critical cloacal structure” on a newly hatched chick that is slightly different in males and female (“convex vs. concave or flat”).

This structure is tiny (the whole chick is tiny), and odds are that most people would never notice the difference even after repeat viewings of male and female chicks.

But after having just this one distinction pointed out, a novice chicken sexer’s accuracy will rise from “no better than random” to a level comparable to that of experts.

I’ve been reading William James’s Principles of Psychology. Says James:

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Men have no eyes but for those aspects of things which they have already been taught to discern. Any one of us can notice a phenomenon after it has once been pointed out, which not one in ten thousand could ever have discovered for himself. The only things we commonly see are those which we expect to see and the only things which we expect to see are those which have been labelled for us, and the labels stamped into our mind.

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So if you teach people anything worthwhile, that is your argument to get people to pay you for what you teach.

The fact is, people might go out and try to do what you teach on their own.

The fact is, they will most probably fail to see the “convex or concave critical cloacal structure” that spells the difference between success and failure.

They might spot it with repeated tries, or they might not. Because like James says, “not one in ten thousand could ever have discovered it for himself.” But you have discovered it — however that happened — and you’re willing to share it, for a modest investment, of say, $97.

Which brings me to my Most Valuable Offer training, happening live this Wednesday, just two days from now.

The basic idea of a Most Valuable Offer is:

1. Pick a topic for a live paid training, and announce a date to your list when you will hold the training

2. Promote this offer to your list over the course of a few days and a few emails

3. Hold the live training when the date comes

Simple enough. But several “critical cloacal structures” about which topic to choose, about how to sell, about what to deliver and what not to deliver, can make the difference between a successful Most Valuable Offer and a Most Valuable Offer that lays an egg.

I’ve discovered these “critical cloacal structures” because of an enormous amount of Most Valuable sexing education and experience. I’ve paid for and attended live trainings by other course sellers… I’ve bought and studies courses on teaching and info product design… I’ve studied influence, copywriting, and email marketing… I’ve run a dozen or more Most Valuable Offers myself… plus I’ve coached a bunch of coaching clients to run their own successful Most Valuable Offers.

If you want to learn the most important distinctions when it comes to running a successful Most Valuable Offer, I will cover those on Wednesday’s training.

The Most Valuable training happens at 8pm CET/2pm EST/11am PST, this Wednesday, September 2.

Yes, there will be a recording if you cannot make it live. But you’re sure to get more out of it if you can join me on the actual call.

Your investment, should you choose to join me, is $97 today and $2/month ongoing, because, as moons pass, I will be continuously updating the Most Valuable Offer SOP and sharing my Most Valuable Offer results and the results of clients I am helping on this.

If you’d like to sign up and learn how I run Most Valuable Offers that won’t lay an egg, and how you can too:

https://checkout.bejakovic.com/most-valuable-offer

Summation of stimuli

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Here’s a personal defect on the scale of Derek Zoolander’s “I can’t turn left”:

I am particularly bad at coming up with “hot takes.”

The way I’ve gotten through life in spite of this defect has been to skip the news and consume things nobody else is consuming, because then even the most lukewarm take still tingles.

That’s how I’m currently making my way through a 574-page behemoth titled Principles of Psychology, from the year 1890, by a man named William James.

It’s slow going. I imagine it will take me till the end of this year to finish at the pace I’m reading.

But it’s been worth it already. On page 39 I came across the following idea, which James call “summation of stimuli.” Even though it’s extremely lukewarm on the surface, it still made me tingle. Says James:

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The law is this, that a stimulus which would be inadequate by itself to excite a nerve-centre to effective discharge may, by acting with one or more other stimuli (equally ineffectual by themselves alone) bring the discharge about.

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No? That doesn’t make it clear? I told you the book is slow going. James goes on to explain in slightly clearer language:

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The natural way to consider this is as a summation of tensions which at last overcome a resistance. The first of them produce a latent excitement or a heightened irritability; the last is the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

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Maybe that doesn’t help either. James fortunately gives a concrete example:

Take a dog (19th century scientists loved doing experiments with dogs).

Apply a weak electrical current to a nerve in the dog’s leg.

The current is too weak to set the dog’s leg to twitching.

But repeat the same weak current enough time, at a close enough interval, and somehow, even though none of the currents was enough to set the dog’s leg a-twitching, a-twitching is what you get.

“Ok,” you might say, “thank you for that lukewarm take on dog leg twitching. I gotta g-”

Wait! There’s more.

Because this isn’t just about dogs getting stimulated and starting to twitch. This is the basic neurology that underlies… pretty much everything, or at least a lot of human psychology and mental life.

I mean, I don’t have proof for what I’m about to say, because I’m only 15% through James’s psychology book.

But my guess is that this “summation of stimuli” is why one of the most fundamental techniques of persuasion, repetition, actually works.

If I say “I’m the best,” that doesn’t make it so.

But if i say “I’m the best,” every day, for years and years, and you’re forced to listen to me, then somehow, even though each individual claim is as hollow as every other one, the summation of them all turns into something with substance.

Maybe I start to genuinely believe I’m the best. Maybe you start to believe it too. And if we both believe it, then it does make it so.

Now let me make this practical to you:

In my Daily Email House community, a discussion sprang up today (ok, I sprang it up) about whether email marketing is dying.

I sprang that discussion up because I’ve seen “RIP Email Marketing” a surprising number of times in the past week alone.

The conclusion among House members was that email marketing is doing fine, but in any case, it was never about email marketing, not really, but about having a great relationship with your audience.

And the first step, and the most fundamental step, of building a great relationship with your audience is… summation of stimuli.

Showing up regularly, ideally every day, and ideally in different formats. Such as daily emails… and a community.

Speaking of, if you’d like to have your say in the conversation about email marketing and whether it’s dying or not, my Daily Email House is now accepting new members. If you’d like to spring up and join us:

https://bejakovic.com/house