Robert Cialdini

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

Not even Cialdini could coax, talk, or shame a solution to this problem

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Towards the end of chapter 4 of Bob Cialdini’s book Influence, Cialdini shares a personal story that I want to share with you today.

I want to share this story with you because it serves my purpose.

But you might want to read this story because it can help you achieve your purpose as well.

Here goes:

Robert Cialdini, a world-famous expert in influence, persuasion, and communication, wanted to get his 3yo son to learn to swim without wearing an inflatable inner tube.

Each year, a bunch of kids in Arizona, where Cialdini lived, drowned in unattended pools. Cialdini wanted to make sure it wouldn’t happen to his boy.

So he tried a direct appeal — “Let’s teach you how to swim, son.”

NO!!! was the response. ​​Cialdini’s kid liked water, but he was terrified of getting in without the inflatable inner tube.

No matter how Cialdini tried to “coax, talk, or shame” his 3yo son, the boy wouldn’t let go.

Fine. Cialdini hired a graduate student of his, who was also a lifeguard and swimming instructor, to get his son to learn to swim.

Nope. Once again, the kid refused.

Not even the lifeguard’s professional techniques could overcome the boy’s fear of swimming without the inflatable inner tube.

Fast forward a couple days. Cialdini’s kid was attending a day camp.

One day, as usual, Cialdini went to pick his son up. And he saw a shocking, never-before-seen sight:

His kid was running down the diving board at the pool. He reached the end of the diving board and jumped into the deep end. No inflatable inner tube.

Cialdini rushed over, ready to dive in the pool and to rescue his certainly drowning son.

Except the kid wasn’t drowning. He was swimming.

Cialdini was stunned. He helped his kid get out the pool. And he asked the boy how come he could finally swim without his inflatable plastic ring.

Response:

“Well, I’m 3 years old, and Tommy is 3 years old. And Tommy can swim without a ring, so that means I can, too.”

You can probably imagine a bright-red handprint on Cialdini’s forehead as he slapped himself upon hearing that.

Point being:

We’re all looking for some kind of confirmation that what we’re trying to do is actually possible.

Examples from others can help there. But in order for it to actually help, those others must have the same limitations we have.

If you’re 3 years old, it doesn’t help much to see a 26-year-old lifeguard swimming without an inflatable plastic ring. But when you see 3-year-old Tommy do it, then that means something.

And now to my purpose:

If you are not yet writing daily emails for your personal brand, or if you are not yet successful with it, then next Thursday I’m putting on a workshop called Daily Email Fastlane.

A key part of this workshop will be the common elements I’ve seen among three daily emailers I have coached over the past 18 months.

​​These three coaching students have stood out to me in terms of the money they make, the stability of their income, and simply in how much they seem to enjoy their business and their life.

My claim is that seeing inside these guys’ businesses can help you overcome your own self-imposed or real limitations.

​​Because among these these three daily emailers, you can find at least one who has faced the kinds of problems that you might be facing now:

– a small list
– an unpromising niche
– leads without money
– imposter syndrome
– a genuine lack of credibility

And yet, these three guys turned out successful. Maybe seeing their examples can make you successful also, and quickly so.

If you’d like to join me for this workshop to try it for yourself, here’s where to dive in:

https://bejakovic.com/daily-email-fastlane

I just remembered Cialdini’s best way to teach anybody anything

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I’ve just awakened from a hypnotic trance.

I spent the last 16 minutes watching a video of a fridge repairman from Alabama disassembling a failed fridge compressor.

As my hypnotic trance cleared, I began to marvel at this mystery.

After all, I don’t have a fridge compressor to fix. And I’m not looking for DIY advice.

In fact, I have zero interest in fridges or handymanism. I wasn’t familiar with 95% of the technical terms the fridge guy was using. I really could gain nothing practical or pleasurable from his 16-minute video.

So why did I watch it, with rapt attention, from beginning to end?

Perhaps, you say, I was just looking to waste time instead of writing this email.

I certainly do like to waste time instead of working. But why not waste time doing something I like, like reading the New Yorker, or watching some Bill Burr on YouTube?

No, it wasn’t that.

But perhaps, you say again, I just enjoy feeling smug and right.

After all, the dead fridge compressor was from 2009. And the fridge repair guy specializes in maintaining long-running, old fridges that go back to the 1940s. So maybe I was just looking for confirmation of my belief that old is good and new is worthless.

Maybe. But if that’s the case, why did I have to watch the video, and all 16 minutes of it? I mean, the video’s title gave me all I really needed to feel smug:

“Declining quality of consumer-grade products – 2009 fridge compressor autopsy…”

So no, it can’t be that.

But perhaps I just wanted to share something cool with a friend.

Even though I have no interest in handymanism, I do have a friend who is into it. I wanted to forward him this video, and maybe, you say, I just wanted to make sure it was worthwhile.

But that doesn’t hold water either. After all, this video popped up on a news aggregator I frequent, where it got 2-3x the usual number of upvotes. That’s a lot of tacit endorsement of quality. And I could tell within just the first minute or two that my friend might find this video interesting, and that I should send him the link.

So why did I myself watch the entire thing?

In trying to figure out the answer to this puzzle, I jumped back to a critical point in the video at minute 5:54.

The fridge guy has just tested whether the compressor failed because of electrical failure. No, it turns out, it wasn’t electrical.

So he decides to cut open the locked-up compressor and see what’s going on inside. As soon as he cuts the compressor open, the motor moves freely, and is no longer locked up.

The fridge guy is in wonder.

“I don’t understand at all,” he says. He decides to try to power the compressor up again. “My guess is it still won’t start.”

“Aha!” I said. “I get it now!”

Because I realized what was going on. I realized why I had been sucked into this video so hypnotically.

It was the structure of the way the fridge guy was doing his compressor autopsy.

He was using the exact same structure I read about once. A very smart and influential professor of persuasion spelled out this structure in a book, and he said it’s the best way to present any new information and teach anyone anything.

I don’t know if the fridge repair guy had been secretly reading the work of this professor of persuasion.

But I do know that if you’re trying to teach anybody anything, whether in person, in your courses, or just in your marketing, then this structure is super valuable.

It makes it so people actually want to consume your material. They will even want to consume it all the way to the end (just look at me and that 16-minute fridge video).

This structure also makes it so the info you are teaching sticks in people’s heads. That way, they are more likely to use it, profit from it, and become grateful students and customers for life.

And this structure even makes it so people experience an “Aha moment,” just like I did. When that happens, people feel compelled to share their enthusiasm with others, just like I am doing now with you right now.

You might be curious about this structure and who this professor of persuasion is.

Well, I will tell you the guy’s name is Robert Cialdini. He is famous for writing the book Influence. But the structure I’m talking about is not described in Influence.

Instead, it’s described in another of Cialdini’s books, Pre-Suasion.

Now, if you read Daniel Throssell’s emails, you might know that Daniel advises people to skip Pre-Suasion. He even calls it the worst copywriting book he has ever read.

I don’t agree.

Because in Chapter 6 of Pre-Suasion, Cialdini spells out the exact structure I’ve been telling you about. Plus he gives you an example from his own teaching.

This is some hard-core how-to. ​And if you ever want to get information into people’s heads, and make it stick there, for their benefit as well as your own, you might find this how-to information very valuable.

In case you want it:

https://bejakovic.com/presuasion

The plagiarism trick of James the Baptist

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James Altucher is a kind of modern day John the Baptist. He rails against college, owning a house, or paying your dues in any industry.

I first heard about him from entrepreneur and copywriter Mark Ford. Mark cares about good writing and interesting ideas. I guess that’s why he’s friends with James.

James has a colorful life history. He has a talent for making and then losing millions of dollars… he’s neurotic and nerdy… at one point, he lived for a year straight in Airbnbs, and owned only 15 things.

But people follow him. Online. Huge audiences.

James also has a podcast. The world’s elite comes to him to promote their causes. He’s interviewed Tony Robbins… Richard Branson… Robert Cialdini… and hundreds of others among the rich and influential.

James interrupts his guests while they’re speaking. He asks out-of-left-field questions. He makes his guests pause. And then relax. And then answer honestly with real insights.

A while back, James published a brilliant idea. It allows you to avoid agonizing over your writing, and create content that’s guaranteed to light up your readers’ minds.

James’s post gives an example of how he got crazy spikes of online traffic using this idea. He spells out exactly how you can use it too. You can use it to write your own popular online content, winning sales copy, or even a bestselling book.

In short, James just shared a way to stop trotting along on a lame copywriting mule… and to start galloping on a copywriting thoroughbred.

I even used this technique to write this email. It’s been a revelation. And I want to share it with you now:

https://jamesaltucher.com/blog/i-plagiarized

The future of break-em-down selling?

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Imagine tomorrow you see an ad for a magical job opportunity:

“$6k a month, only requiring 3-4 hours of work every week.”

The job is with a new video game company. The work is easy. You can do it successfully as long as you have the digital skills of somebody born after 1980.

Plus you can work whenever you like, wherever you like, as much or as little as you like. All you need is your phone. And if you want to work more and make as much as $10k or $15k a month, that’s fine too.

There will be a presentation, the ad tells you, at the local Cheesecake Factory this Friday. Anybody interested can get all the info there.

So on Friday, you show up to the Cheesecake Factory, both hopeful and cautious.

“What’s the worst that can happen,” you tell yourself. “If it’s some sort of scam, I’ll just up and leave. But if it’s for real, it could be life-changing.”

A dozen other people are there with you. Soon enough the presenter arrives. He chats to everyone for a few minutes. Funny enough, it turns out his sister went to the same college you went to.

“But it’s too noisy here,” the guy announces. “We’ll actually go to go to a different location where the presentation will be held.”

So you all load onto a bus. And that’s when the ride really gets going.

If you’re wondering why I’m painting this picture, it’s because situations like this happen for real. Bob Cialdini once told his own personal experience of it.

He got on the bus. And he and the others interested in the opportunity got taken from one town… to another… and back. It took many hours, and they never got a chance to up and leave until it was over.

To help them make the right decision, the bus was covered with inspirational posters. Eye of the Tiger kept playing over and over. Meanwhile, the presenter pitched the amazingness of his pyramid scheme, while the bus bounced and rumbled along the highway at 55 mph.

Result:

Except for Cialdini, who had a little bit of self-defense thanks to his knowledge of persuasion techniques, everybody else signed on for the pyramid scheme.

My point is that a controlled, live selling environment, particularly one that lasts for hours or days, and one where you can’t leave… well… it can sell anything.

So if you are looking to get rich in the pyramid scheme business, it’s time to invest in a bus.

But what if you’re not selling pyramid schemes? And what if you do your business online?

It might seem hopeless. How can you control people’s environment… how can you keep them from leaving… how can you break them down… unless you can physically isolate them?

It might seem hopeless. But social factors are working in your favor. And I’m not even talking about the corona lockdowns, though those certainly help.

The real thing is we all carry our own Eye-Of-The-Tiger bus in our pockets these days. We allow it to create a completely controlled and engrossing environment for us. We take it with us wherever we go, even to small, isolated spaces like the toilet.

And in case you think I’m trying to make a joke, I’m not.

For the past year or so, I’ve been watching Ben Settle promote his build-your-own-mobile-marketing-app business.

I thought it’s stupid. Because I myself refuse to install anything on my phone except Google Maps and this thing that helps you identify trees. And even those have all the notifications turned off.

But I will eventually break down. That’s how the world is moving.

So if you are looking to get rich in any business, it might be time to invest in a mobile app. One with lots of notifications and an inspirational poster background. If I’m right, this is the future of break-em-down selling… and it can help you sell anything.

Meanwhile, the best you can do is get people onto your email newsletter. I’ve got one here. It’s not the same as a bus… so I have to compensate by being entertaining and informative.

Constant scarcity loses to recent scarcity

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Yesterday, a copywriter who reads my email newsletter wrote me with a job offer.

The offer sounds great. I’m planning to get on a call with the copywriter and the COO of the company to talk about it, hopefully later today.

It took over two years of everyday mailing to get to this point.

For the longest time, nobody read my newsletter. But gradually, a few people found me, and then a few more.

And now, even though I still have a small list, opportunities are coming my way out of unexpected corners.

I’m telling you about this for two reasons:

First, if you’re getting started in any kind of service business, then writing daily emails is a great way to get in front of high-quality, high-paying clients, very slowly.

Maybe you can do it faster than I did, if you work hard on growing your list and if you push your services in your emails. Both things I never did much of.

Which brings me to the second reason I’m telling you about this, and the real point of today’s post.

Several copywriting influencers claim you should reach out to your email list whenever you’re looking for work. They advise saying something like:

“I just wrapped up a big project… I currently have an opening in my schedule… if you’re interested, reply and we can talk.”

I always had a bad feeling about this advice.

I’m sure it works, if you have a big enough reputation and a big enough list.

But if you have a small enough list or a small enough reputation… then the message above smells of need, at least to me.

​​I figured there must be a better way.

My suspicions were confirmed when I read Bob Cialdini’s book Pre-suasion. Cialdini cites laboratory research showing that constant scarcity is less motivating than recent scarcity. From the research:

If there are always a few cookies in a jar, you want them more than if there are a lot of cookies. But…

You don’t want them nearly as much as when there were always a lot of cookies… and now suddenly there are only a few.

“Pfff, lab persuasion!” you might say. “What does that have to do with the real world?”

I don’t know. Let’s find out.

As I mentioned at the start, I have a new job offer. That’s in addition to my ongoing clients in the ecommerce space… plus a real estate business I’ve recently joined… plus my own books and courses, which I’m building up and selling.

And like I said, new opportunities are popping up, more and more often, as my little newsletter picks up steam.

In other words, I’m really not looking for more work. But I am still open to it.

So if you would like to work with me in some form… before I get so entangled in other projects that it becomes impossible to say yes to anything new… then get on my newsletter, get in touch with me, and we can talk.

My Airbnb pre-suasion ticket

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I moved into a new Airbnb a few days ago. The host met me there to let me in. Fine. But then he wouldn’t leave.

He pointed out where the bedroom is. He showed me where he keeps the ironing board. He mimed how to press the button that turns on the hot water heater.

And then he walked to the front door and said apologetically, “Well… I guess there’s nothing else…”

But there was. Three more times he started to leave… and three more times he went off on another tour of the apartment.

He highlighted the lacquered kitchen counter.

He explained the quirks of the TV to me, even though I told him I don’t watch TV.

And when he was finally leaving for real, he said:

“People tell me there’s something about this apartment. A good vibe. I don’t really get it. But a few people who stayed here made me an offer to buy it outright. They say it just makes them feel good to be here.”

I told him I’d keep my antenna out for the special vibe.

And the craziest thing happened.

I think the guy was right.

I’m not sure what it is. Maybe it’s the quirky mix of decor. Maybe it’s the shady maple trees in front that reach right up to the windows. Maybe it’s because I’m sleeping like a bear in the cool and dark bedroom.

Anyways, I probably would have let all this slip into oblivion. Except I’ve been reading Robert Cialdini’s Pre-suasion over the past few days.

And that book got me thinking. Because the first few chapters are all about the power of attention.

Draw somebody’s attention to a fact, says Cialdini, and that fact gains in importance. (“Good vibe, huh? Well, we’ll see.”)

Not only does a highlighted fact gain in importance, but other facts lose in importance. (It took me days to notice the apartment is very dark. Must be the maple trees.)

And there’s more:

Attention can create causality. Even where there is none. (“The kitchen counter really is nice. Could that be why I like this place?”)

Well… I guess there’s nothing else I want to tell you today.

​​(1… 2… 3…)

​​Except let me just add one last thing:

You probably already knew how important it is to manage the attention of people you want to persuade.

You probably even knew that you want to draw attention to things that help your case… and to keep attention away from things that hurt your case.

Whatever. I thought it was still worth pointing all this out to you.

Because now that the power of attention has been pointed out, maybe you will start to see its importance in a way you hadn’t seen before.

​​Maybe you will see how it’s being used on you to guide your own decision making.

​​​​And when that happens, maybe you will become more effective at persuading others… with a creative light show, which highlights just what you want, at just the right moment.

I guess there’s really nothing else. Except just one more thing:

I write an email newsletter. I’ve had a few people who subscribe to it say it’s surprisingly fun and valuable. I don’t really get it. But if you want to try it out, here’s where to sign up.

What never to say when somebody’s angry, upset, or riled up at you

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In a small town bar, a drunk farmer pushed his way through the crowd and got in the face of a meek and proper-looking man.

“You sent that tornado that leveled my house,” the farmer roared as he grabbed the meek guy by the lapels. “Now you’re gonna pay for that!”

A flash of panic spread across the other guy’s face. He threw a glance to the door. No bouncer to help.

So in another flash, this meek man changed his panicked face into a convincing scowl. And he grabbed the farmer by the lapels in turn.

“Yeah, that’s right about the tornado!” yelled the previously meek man. “And I’ll tell you something else! I’ll send another one if you don’t back off!”

Which the farmer did. “Hey buddy… take it easy! I was just kidding…”

You might know this true-life anecdote because Robert Cialdini used it in his book Influence.

The meek guy at the bar was a local TV station weatherman. Cialdini used the story to illustrate the power of association, which hounds weathermen with threats, insults, and occasional beatings whenever the weather they announce turns bad.

Yeah, that’s right about association. And I’ll tell you something else:

This same anecdote is also a great illustration of another social phenomenon, the power of agree-and-amplify.

In many situations, when somebody’s angry, upset, or riled up, the worst thing you can do is to try to calm him. Instead, it often works much better to agree with what he’s saying, and to push him further into the negative.

It’s like pushing the rug out from under him. Yes, pushing. Because instead of having a firm piece of ground to stand and fight on, your adversary finds he’s moving away from you. And so his natural instinct becomes to give up his spot, and to take a few steps back towards you.

Which might be interesting if you’re meek by nature and you ever find people attacking you, expecting you to buckle.

But what about copywriting?

Would you ever want to use agree-and-amplify in your copy?

I would say no, not as I just described it above. But this agree-and-amplify stuff connects in my mind to a copywriting and marketing topic I wrote about recently. This other tactic allows you to take something negative, and use it in your favor, even in your copy. In case you’re curious:

https://bejakovic.com/a-transparent-but-effective-marketing-ploy-thanks-jay-abraham

Green Valley must fire its warehouse manager

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Last week, supplement company Green Valley, which was founded by A-list copywriter Lee Euler, sent out a panicked email that started with:

Dear John,

We discovered somewhat of a sticky situation last week…

So I’m hoping maybe we can help each other out…

You see, late last week our warehouse manager called to let me know that we have NO room for a large shipment that’s already on its way to our fulfillment facility here in Virginia…

That means I now have to get rid of a few pallets worth of one of our top sellers…

So, I’m knocking 70% off Gluco-Secure—a natural breakthrough shown to…

I don’t know who’s at fault here. But I find the warehouse manager’s “not my circus, not my monkeys” attitude contemptible. ​​Particularly since he allowed a similar situation to happen last September. That’s when Green Valley sent out an email that started:

Dear John,

I never do this.

But I have a small problem and I think maybe we can help each other out.

Yesterday afternoon the Green Valley warehouse manager let me know that they have NO room in the warehouse for a truckload shipment of product that’s scheduled for delivery next week.

Somehow wires got crossed but it turns out we have 4 pallets of our top-selling joint pain formula that we need to clear out FAST to make room quickly for new inventory.

So, I’m doing something I never do…

I’m knocking 70% off a powerful joint-healing discovery…

Somehow wires got crossed?

Twice in under one year?

I don’t know what this warehouse manager is doing all day long. He’s clearly not doing his job. That’s why I say Green Valley must fire him, and must do it now.

But one person they shouldn’t fire is their email copywriter. Because that guy obviously knows about the power of reason why marketing.

Reason why is the most widespread and effective click, whirr mechanism in advertising.

​​Click, whirr, by the way, is the useful but somewhat-dated analogy Robert Cialdini used in his book Influence. You press the tape player button click, and whirr goes the automated behavior tape.

The incredible thing is that, just as with canned laughter and obvious flattery, reason why is effective even when it’s blatantly untrue.

I’m not saying you should lie… but you might choose to stretch the truth, until it turns into a reason why.

Because reason why works on you too. So if you ever need to justify why stretching the truth is ok, you can always say, for your own peace of mind and your customer’s,

“I never do this. But I have a small problem and I think maybe we can help each other out…”

Speaking of sticky situations:

I recently had an influx of new subscribers to my email newsletter. And I’m getting really close to a big round number of subscribers that I’ve always coveted.

So I’m going to do something I never do, in the hopes of quickly filling up those extra few newsletter subscriber spots.

For today only, I’m opening up my email newsletter to anybody to subscribe, for free, right here on this page. This opportunity might not come again for a long time. If you’re the type to grab a great opportunity when you see it, click here to subscribe now.

Why gamification fails (and how to use this to create fanatically loyal customers)

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Here’s a riddle for you from the book review I shared yesterday:

You might remember the gamification craze from the beginning of this decade. App creators were convinced that adding badges, randomness, and leveling up to any activity would make it irresistible.

​​And yet, despite following a lot of the same strategies that gambling machine designers did, those app creators never did create an army of self-improvement addicts.

​​If designers optimized gambling machines for addictiveness, why can’t they do the same for these apps? If bad machines can be made addictive, then why can’t good machines?

The anonymous author of the book review gives a few possible answers. But he or she is not happy with any of them.

I don’t know the answer either. But I can tell you the answer to a related riddle, which goes like this:

Why do hazing rituals for college fraternities never involve anything useful or positive?

You know the rituals I’m talking about. A college freshman wants to get into a fraternity. So he’s given a beating by his future fraternity brothers… he’s told to spend the night outside in freezing weather wearing nothing but a loincloth… and he’s forced to eat a pound of raw beef liver.

If he survives all this, he gets into the fraternity.

But why exactly those nasty and humiliating tasks? Why not combine the humiliating with the useful?

Why don’t fraternities make new recruits wash some train station toilets… or change the adult diapers of incontinent senior citizens… or collect litter from the side of a highway on a sweltering August day?

The answer, according to slot machine designer Robert Cialdini, is this:

“They want to make the men own what they have done. No excuses, no ways out are allowed.”

Cialdini claims that the point of hazing rituals is to make new recruits fanatical about their new fraternity membership, once they achieve it.

Hazing rituals work brilliantly for this goal. But there’s a catch:

The ritual tasks HAVE to be pointless.

Otherwise a new member can convince himself that some other good came out of all that humiliation and pain… which takes away from the value of the fraternity.

In other words, whenever we do something because of added motives — whether positive or negative — we don’t end up owning that behavior fully. We don’t make it a part of our identity.

And that I think can be a good answer to why slot machines are so addicting… while your Duo Lingo app is not.

Of course, I also think this ties into running a business. Even though it’s at odds with much direct response wisdom.

I think you can use this insight to create fanatically loyal customers… as opposed to customers who abandon you and forget you at the first turn in the road. Which is exactly what happens to most direct response businesses.

To me, it seems the application is obvious… but if it’s not, sign up for my email newsletter. It’s a topic I might discuss more in the future… or I might not.