A few days ago, I rewatched Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
It’s dark and dry comedy set during the Cold War. Much of it happens in the War Room at the Pentagon.
The President and all his advisors are there, trying to prevent an accidentally triggered nuclear disaster that will wipe all life off the surface of the planet.
Among the President’s advisors, there is Dr. Strangelove himself. He’s a wheelchair-bound former Nazi scientist who now works for the US government.
Dr. Strangelove is loyal to his new American overlords.
He tries to serve them well.
But there are things he cannot control.
Like his prosthetic right arm, which fights with him during the entire movie. And in the final climactic scene, while Strangelove is proposing a plan to preserve the United States, his mechanical arm springs up into a Nazi salute of its own will. It even tries to strangle the good doctor when he forces it to stop saluting.
Now, I’m sure this mechanical arm can be a metaphor for many things.
But the one that struck me was simply one of the main rules of positioning, straight out of the original book by Al Ries and Jack Trout. And that rule is:
“If you want to be successful in love or in business, you must appreciate the importance of getting into the mind first.”
In other words, the first cut is the deepest.
That’s true in political ideology…
In actual romance…
And, as Ries and Trout say, in business as well.
Once you successfully occupy a good position in your customers’ minds, you are probably in for life (unless you really get careless). Even if your customers try to defect…
They own arm will (figuratively) spring up and choke them back into place.
That’s an enviable place to be in.
So how do you get into your prospects’ minds first, so you can create this kind of loyalty?
Well, there are several, equally important ingredients.
And I’m afraid I can only help with one of them, and that’s good sales copy.
If that’s what you’re looking for, then here’s a good way to avoid a real crisis: