Archive | February, 2023

Weird but true… In the early part of the 20th century there was a massive campaign in the U.S. to abolish alcohol. Weirder still, this campaign actually won the day, and Prohibition became the 18th amendment. This made the U.S. a dry country in 1920 until the amendment was rightfully abolished in 1933.

So how does a movement influence people to take away one of their own rights?

With smart marketing.

First, in their campaign rhetoric the Anti-Saloon League made the issue an either/or choice.

Either you’re for children or you’re for alcohol.

Either you’re for our brave boys fighting the war, or you’re for alcohol.

As one advertisement featuring a picture of Whistler’s Mother read: “Which Gets Your Vote: Mother or The Saloon? Vote Dry.”

That’s right – either you’re for mothers or you’re for alcohol.

No middle ground. You don’t want to abolish alcohol? Then you hate your children, your boys overseas and your own mother.

A campaign like that wouldn’t fly today, would it?

Today you either use the advertiser’s product or you’re not sexy, not worthy, not relevant, not important, etc.

If you don’t believe me, watch a few TV commercials and see for yourself.

Of course, you’ll want to be much more subtle when using this tactic in your own campaigns, but the tactic itself works as well as ever.

Second thing they did in their campaign was to eradicate the competition.

You’re a member of a state congress and you don’t want to abolish alcohol? Then we’ll run a smear campaign on you and get someone else elected who will vote our way.

No competition means easy victory.

Translate that to today’s marketing, and we don’t mean you should photoshop pictures of your competition doing evil deeds and post them on the front page.

Instead, you eliminate all competition by inventing your own class.

For example, instead of being one of a 100,000 weight loss coaches, you become the only sexy shape expert.

Third, they enlisted their competition in their crusade, working side-by-side with politicians who drank booze as long as those same politicians would vote against drinking.

In the world of online marketing, this translates into working with your nearest competitors as long as it increases sales.

This might be in the form of joint ventures, interviews, affiliate sales and so forth. No marketer is an island, and even those who appear to be in direct competition to your interests can often help you in your quest.

Fourth, they didn’t try to convince the masses, because they didn’t need to. All they had to do was switch just enough voters to their side to gain their 51% and win the day.

In online marketing, you don’t need to win every customer, nor should you try. Some customers will buy from you no matter what, and you should reward them but you don’t need to convince them. Some will never buy from you, and there’s no need to waste any time on those folks.

It’s the ones in the middle that you want to focus your efforts on to get them converted over to customers.

Fifth, they employed a new device that showed, not told, of the ‘horrors’ of alcohol. For a nickel viewers could see something new in the world – a motion picture version of the play, “Ten Nights in a Bar Room.” In this movie a drunken husband squanders his pay on drink, his daughter is injured while trying to bring him home, the man dies of drinking and the wife despairs of her lost family.

What a great piece of propaganda for the anti-booze movement, which helped to reinforce the belief that even one drop of alcohol could destroy not just individuals, but entire families.

Pretty crazy, right? But again there’s a lesson to be learned here: Show, don’t tell. In just a few minutes of showing how ‘evil’ alcohol was, the movement gained tremendous ground in convincing and converting voters to their side.

YouTube, anyone? 

Bottom Line: The techniques that influence people don’t change, they just get more sophisticated with time. What influenced people a hundred years ago can still be translated into today’s terms to increase your own conversions.

If you want true financial security, it’s not enough anymore to be a millionaire – you’ve got to be a multimillionaire. So how do you join the ranks of the 1%?

Make a firm decision to be a multimillionaire. Your first step is making that firm decision and then reaffirming that decision several times a day. See yourself rich, feel yourself rich, be rich in your heart and mind. This is where it starts and this is the first step to realizing your dream.

You must lose the poverty thinking. No matter what you were taught about money being evil or scarce, you’ve got to let go of those beliefs once and for all. Abundance is all around you when you open yourself to it. Like attracts like, so if you’re thinking poverty, you’ll just get more poverty.

Continuously think of your multimillionaire status as real. Since you can’t hold two opposing thoughts at the same time, if you’re thinking about how little money you have then you’re not thinking about getting rich. You’ve got to feel abundance throughout your entire body, and meditation combined with visualization is a great way to achieve this state.

Stepping stones are okay. In fact, they’re great. One of the biggest obstacles new marketers face is that $10,000 a month wall. They think they should be making this amount of money from day one, but the fact is you have to start somewhere. If that means getting your first $10 day and working up, so be it. Most self-made millionaires began with one small step on their journey and then simply never stopped growing and moving ahead.

It’s not just money, it’s also something else. This might be making a difference, proving yourself, living up to your potential, making the world a better place or leaving a legacy. If your sole focus is the money, you’ll find that all the money in the world won’t make you happy. But if you have other goals beyond the money, being rich can make you happy indeed.

Get yourself some millionaires. They say you are the average of the people you hang out with, and that includes your income. So find wealthy people, whether you know them personally or read their blogs and books.

Buy time. Rich people buy time while poor people sell time. Nothing is more valuable than time, and this includes money. So anything you can outsource to someone else, whether it’s work related or home related, should be outsourced the moment you can afford it.

Forget spending – invest instead. You know that new car you want to buy? What would happen if you took that $30,000 and instead of buying a car, you invested it for 20 years at 7% interest compounded monthly? You’d have $121,162. If you bought the car, in 20 years you would have nothing of that money.

Millionaires-in-the-making invests when they can, whether it’s in their business, their education, or in their portfolio. Instead of buying a house, they purchase an apartment building that produces cash flow and tax write-offs. Instead of buying a car outright, they buy cars for their company and then deduct them because they’re used during work, and so forth.

Create multiple sources of income. The more revenue streams you have, the more money you can potentially make and the more secure you are should one of your streams dry up. This is why marketers go into more than one niche, create more than one product and look to earn money in multiple ways. Remember when Google made junk Adsense sites obsolete? Those with many different streams of income were the least affected, while those who depended solely on Adsense were devastated.

Take advantage of trends. Right now one of the hot trends is finding inexpensive products and selling them at huge mark-ups on Amazon. Eventually the competition will be severe and something else will be hot. That’s okay. If you stay flexible and keep a close eye on the marketplace, you’re ready to take advantage of trends as they happen while also building a solid, reliable business you can count on.

One last note: Self-made multimillionaires are confused by people who aren’t rich. They don’t understand why you can’t do the very same things they do – and they’re right – you can.

Perhaps the biggest obstacle to creating great wealth is the mindset. If you believe that money is limited, or evil, or that rich people are bad, then you’ll never get rich yourself.

But if you can focus on abundance, if you can create a clear picture of where you’re going, and if you can feel satisfied with what you have right here and right now, then you can achieve wealth.

Lack leads to lack. Worrying and stressing about your lack is only going to produce more lack. By all means get fired up and excited about what’s coming, but while you’re making it happen, let abundance flood your very being.

People are nothing if not predictable. Let me give you an example: If you say to someone, “You’ve got a great job.” They will invariably tell you why it’s NOT great. But if you say to them, “You’ve got a lousy job.” They’ll tell you why it’s actually a very good job.

Knowing the triggers you can use to activate certain behaviors in prospects can help tremendously to increase your conversions and your bottom line.

That’s why I’ve compiled 10 slightly sneaky methods to get your audience to do your bidding – or stated another way, here are 10 methods to get the public to buy your product and share your message with the world.

People crave entertainment like they crave air, and they always need more of it. A good analogy is caffeine – in the beginning, the smallest amount of caffeine can give you a nice little buzz. But the more caffeine you use, the more you need to achieve that same buzz level.

Entertainment is no different. The movies of the 40’s weren’t fast paced enough for people of the 60’s. The music of the seventies can’t compete with the music of the 80’s. The comedy of the 90’s seems tame compared to the comedy of now. Why is that? Because entertainment is constantly having to turn up the intensity to get the same reactions from the audience. People want more and more exciting stuff, and if you can build excitement and entertainment right into your product, you’ve got a hit.

Speaking of entertainment, people LOVE controversy. Build a controversial website, blog, forum, product line, podcast, YouTube channel, etc. and watch people flock to it. You’ll get free publicity everywhere as people either promote you or flog you in social media, forums and other blogs across the net.

And as a marketer, you could capitalize on both sides at the same time if you wanted to be sneaky about it. For example, you might build two websites – one on each far, far end of the political spectrum – and let them slug it out online. Anything that has what is perceived to be a polar opposite could work, such as God-fearing vs Atheist, protecting wildlife from loggers and miners, etc.

Or build controversy into your product from the start. “How To Use Tax Loopholes So You Don’t Pay Your Fair Share Of Taxes.” Is it legal? Yes. Is it fair? No. Or how about toy guns for children? Some parents love them, many hate them, and all will have something to say about it which drives more traffic to you.

This one’s really sneaky – carry on a conversation between two people about how great a product is. This could be in a forum, posts on a blog, or even if it were to “come up” during an interview about something else. The point of course is to not appear as though it’s a promotion. Yeah, I know; pretty sneaky.

People like to follow, as in “follow the leader.” What happens when one cow walks away from the herd? If the other cows suspect this cow knows something they don’t, they’ll follow. It doesn’t matter WHAT this cow might know, only that they have information that might be of use. Is the grass greener over there? Is there a secret stash of alfalfa or a salt lick over there? Let’s follow her and see!

It might seem callous to compare people to cows, but the herd mentality applies to many species including people. If someone is seen as a leader and that leader uses ABC product, then it’s going to be easy to get the followers to use ABC product as well.

As a marketer, you can use this in one of two ways – either become a leader yourself, or get your product into the hands of leaders and make sure people find out about it.

Speaking of following, people follow the confident person. They’re attracted to confidence like bees to honey. If you don’t have confidence, get it. Depending on your niche, arrogance might work as well.

Take it away. Whatever your product is, find a way to take it away from the potential buyer. Maybe they have to qualify and not everyone can. Or there’s a limited number. Or the offer is ending soon. Or maybe they’re just plain NOT supposed to have it, so you tell them NOT to buy the book but you drop hints of just how powerful it is.

People do not like to be left out. This works well in the Internet Marketing niche and it works even better in any non-marketing savvy niche.

People work harder to get something for nothing. Weird but true. What else explains someone who masters a gambling system or studies race horses just to bet? If your product promises huge returns for small effort, it will sell. Unfortunately, most products like this can’t deliver. But you can use the something-for-nothing technique in a way that is totally ethical – referrals. That is, get people to promote you through social media in exchange for something free.

Another way to ethically use something-for-nothing is to make it appear as though the very act of purchasing your product is a giant leap towards attaining their goal. You’re being honest that there is work involved, but you make the first step seem so enticing they feel they’ve practically achieved their dream simply by buying the product.

People get seduced by stories. BIG TIME. Think of the man sitting cross-legged, playing a flute while a cobra sways hypnotically to the music. This can be you hypnotizing your audience through storytelling, both written and verbal.

Entire courses have been written about using storytelling in marketing. A good story creates thoughts and images in your prospect’s head that seem to originate from the prospect, not from you. And a really great story causes the audience to feel emotions and desires that come from these thoughts and images. Bottom line, get good at storytelling and then use your skill to weave mesmerizing stories throughout your marketing.

People buy dreams, not just once, but over and over again. Why is it a camper will buy every camping gadget out there? Why will a golfer purchase every golfing book written in the past 20 years? Why do Internet marketers buy online marketing products sometimes at the rate of 3 and 4 a day?

This is why a list of actual buyers is so hot – if these people bought once, they will very likely buy again and again. You can continue to create products and promote products to this list and as long as their dream remains alive, they will continue to buy. Perhaps it’s the act of purchasing that makes them feel they are one step closer to realizing their dream. Thus 5 purchases puts them 5 steps closer, and 10 purchases put them…

You can get sneaky with this one as well. Create several somewhat similar products and then let them compete with each other. It can be surprising how many customers purchase two or more.

People actually WANT to believe. So make it real. Make it believable. Help them along. Show some negative with the positive. Did you know that testimonials are far more effective if they mention something NEGATIVE? For example: “I wasn’t crazy about the title of this course and thought it was going to be just a rehash, but it turns out it was exactly what I needed. Using this information I’ve been able to ___ and ___ and achieve ___.” Make it believable.

And remember, please use these methods only for good and never for evil.

First of all, let me clarify that introverts aren’t necessarily shy. They are, however, quieter than extroverts. Introverts talk plenty when they have something important to say, but they tend to stay quiet when the topic is small talk. Why? Because small talk isn’t important to them. Now, let’s say you have 2 salespeople – an extrovert and an introvert.

The extrovert is likely to talk – and talk – and talk – which is exactly what you expect from a sales person. And in the midst of all this talking, the extrovert will make sales.

But the introvert will do something the extrovert commonly fails to do – the introvert will ask questions and LISTEN to the answers.

I don’t mean they wait for the prospect to stop talking so they can begin extolling all the many benefits of the product. I mean they LISTEN. They want to know what’s keeping the prospect awake at night in relation to the problem the product solves. They want to know the prospect’s fears, desires, dreams, etc. They want to know what’s worked for the prospect, what’s failed for the prospect, and what that prospect really, truly wants so they can help this prospect get it.

And this same sales person will continue to use questions as they present their product or service, questions that direct the prospect to the desired conclusion – that this product is what they want and need.

Everything else being equal, 9 times out of 10 the introvert salesperson will outsell the extrovert – all because they asked questions and listened closely to the answers.

Introverted marketers have the same advantage as introverted sales people. They dig to discover what it is their prospects truly want. They ask questions, be it in person, over Skype, in forums, via email, etc. And they pay close attention to the answers.

These same marketers spend time researching what successful marketers are doing. They don’t assume they already have the answers – instead, they look to those who’ve succeeded and they ask how it was done and how it can be duplicated.

Now mind you, extroverts can master the skills of asking questions and listening to the answers as well as any introvert, if they try. It doesn’t come as naturally for them, but it will come with practice.

And if you look at the most successful people in the world, what you will find is they stand on the shoulders of those who came before. They asked questions, got the answers and used this knowledge to carve their place in the world.

Try it. Next time someone asks you for advice, ask them questions first. Next time someone asks about your product, ask them about their needs first. Next time someone is on a forum looking for help, ask them for more information. And then pay close attention to what they say before you make your reply.

It’s an almost unknown fact that asking the right questions and listening to the answers can be one of the highest paying skills in the world.