Emotional State Conditioning Session Instructions

Reference Manual
Contents
Disc 1 3
Disc 2 34
Disc 3 60
Disc 4 94
Disc 5 131
Disc 6 154
Disc 1
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GURU MasterClass Conversion Summit Disc 1
Eben Pagan: Welcome to the guru master class conversion summit. In this program, we’re going to talk
about that very special and important moment in your business, where you ask one of your prospects to buy,
to give you their hard-earned money, in exchange for what it is that you are selling – for your product and your
service. This is a very special moment, in business. It’s a moment that very little attention is paid, by most
business owners, and it’s a moment where prospects really need the most help, the most encouragement, the
most support, the most pushing, the most lighting a fire under their butt to get them to take action. That’s what
we are going to focus on for this entire program, is that conversion moment.
In this hand, I’m holding a couple of books and a DVD. This book is called, Sexual Secrets. Here’s a DVD called,
The Tantric Guide to Better Sex. Here’s a book called, The Erotic Mind. In this hand, I’m holding a fine bar of
chocolate. Who already feels like they’re in the right program? Yeah? Okay. Who likes where this is going?
What do sex and sexuality and eating – enjoying eating fine chocolate – what do these have in common with
conversion?
Male Speaker: Pleasure.
Male Speaker: Emotion.
Eben Pagan: Pleasure, emotion, experience.
Female Speaker: Instant gratification.
Eben Pagan: Instant gratification.
Female Speaker: Stimulation.
Eben Pagan: Stimulation.
Male Speaker: Imagination.
Eben Pagan: That’s an interesting word. I’m actually gonna read from this book, The Erotic Mind; and no,
this isn’t a little bedtime story. “Part of being human is the ability to picture, in your mind, something or
someone you desire, but don’t have, or isn’t there in the way you want or as often as you wish. This capacity
develops shortly after birth, and stays with you for the rest of your life.” Let me say that again. “Part of being
human is the ability to picture, in your mind, something or someone you desire, but don’t have, or isn’t there in
the way you want or as often as you wish.” Think about what a miracle that is, that we can picture, in our minds,
something we desire, but we don’t have.
Here’s another interesting quote: “Longing always directs its attention toward what’s missing or in short
supply.” Longing – you might want to write this down, okay? This is very important. “Longing always directs
its attention toward what’s missing or in short supply. Longing always directs its attention toward what’s
missing or in short supply.” You get it? People don’t long for things that aren’t missing. They don’t long for
things that aren’t in short supply. And one final thought, very interesting, from this book: “Longing has a
unique relationship with fantasy. Whether the object of longing is real or imaginary, I believe that longing is
fantasy, for both children and adults.
When you long intensely, you not only form a mental picture of the one you desire, you can actually feel what
it was or might be like to be close to that person. Without the ability to fantasize, longing simply cannot
occur.” Fantasy and longing are intertwined. They’re woven together. What I’m gonna suggest to you is that
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these two processes that we’re talking about, sex and eating, are what you might consider to be hard-wired
into our systems. We come from the factory with very complex and interesting and dynamic systems inside of
ourselves, and between each other, that create the drives for these things.
Another area that’s related to conversion, that I like to bring up, is the area of story. In this hand, I’m holding
a book called, Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. Who’s read this book? Okay. Who would say this book changed
your life? Raise your hand if this book changed your life. Look around the room. There are probably 20 people
in this room who would say this book changed their life. Here’s a book called The Baghavad Gita. Who’s read
this book? Who would say this book was a game changer for you – changed your life? Okay. There’s probably
20 hands raised, here.
There aren’t many books that I could hold up and say, “Did this change your life?” and we’d get that many people
in a room. These are stories. That’s what these are; these are stories. We might be able to argue whether or
not any of these things really happened, or they’re based on true events, but they’re stories. What’s interesting
about story is that it has a structure. Powerful stories have a common, underlying structure, and I don’t think
it’s accidental. I think that the structure that makes a story powerful has something to do with the structure of
our brains and our minds.
It’s as if the story is a lock, and the brain is the key, or the other way around. The brain is the lock and the story
is the key, and they fit together. They were made for each other. So all of these processes - sexuality, where
we feel anticipation; where obstacles make us have even more desire; where we have to overcome resistance
inside of ourselves, outside of ourselves; where we take action, and there’s a culmination, and we experience
the pleasure of taking action – that’s a universal process in sex. With food – with eating – who’s been thinking
about this since I held it up? Raise your hand; come out of the closet.
Okay; good. Who’s been looking at it up there and thinking, “I wonder if he’s gonna give that to someone?”
Anyone have that thought? Was anyone ready, if I said, “All right, who wants it?” Yeah, right in the back.
Interesting, huh? Triggered some kind of mechanism in the brain, and it’s just been working in the background.
So how does eating work? What happens? Well, we go through a cycle, just like with sexuality, just like buying
things, where we notice that we’re a little bit hungry. We notice a little feeling inside of ourselves, and then
what happens? The imagination comes into play.
We start imagining the things that we could eat. And then, if we start getting really hungry, what happens?
Female Speaker: Our mood changes.
Eben Pagan: Our mood changes; different emotions start coming up. We start getting edgy. We start getting
a little bit more intense, maybe. Does that make sense? And what happens when the mood changes? The
thoughts change. It’s interesting that we often desire different types of foods, depending on our emotional
state. Is this all something that we learned? Did we learn to do these things? Maybe there’s some little element
of it, but I don’t know; these seem like they may have come from the factory that way. What about an amazing
story? What is it that the most powerful stories have in common?
Male Speaker: Three acts.
Eben Pagan: Three acts; okay, good. If you’ve studied Joseph Campbell, he’s got a whole model, called the
hero’s journey, that’s kind of the bedrock of most powerful stories. Usually, in a great story, there’s some type of
initial conflict that is set up. Great stories usually start with some kind of juxtaposition of things against each
other, and there’s tension, and whoever the hero or the heroine is, is called to the adventure, like, “Okay, I’ve
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got to go. I’ve got to go do something about this.” And what do they usually do first?
Male Speaker: Refuse.
Eben Pagan: Refuse; they don’t go. They have inner resistance and ambivalence that they have to overcome.
Does this remind you of anything? Sex, eating, life? Then, as they finally do answer the call, and they go into
the adventure, they face trials and obstacles. Things come up that push back against them; test their mettle.
And then, friends and mentors show up; they build self-confidence; and then, there’s the moment of destiny,
where they have to make that choice: are they going to take what it is that they’ve worked so hard to get?
Because if they do, it’s gonna mean something different than what they always thought it would.
Then, there’s that final moment where they take some type of action. They either take the prize, or they don’t,
and in either case, they learn something about themselves that they can bring back to others. If you notice,
these three realms of life – sexuality, eating, story – this is, maybe, 80 percent or 90 percent of what humans pay
attention to, talk about, what’s on their mind, related to everything that’s going on with them. They have these
elements that seem to be in common. Now, I think we can learn a lot from these areas of human experience.
I think that if we study these a little bit more, and pay attention to what’s happening inside of ourselves as we
get into situations where we’re hungry, or we’re watching a great movie, or reading a great story, or sexuality –
that we can get great insight into what it takes to help one of our prospects, or customers, get to the point where
they can convert; where they can take action; where they can buy what it is that they’re selling. One thing that’s
interesting – you might just kind of think about – is that humans love sex. We seem to be very interested in it,
from what I can tell. Anybody here love sex? Raise your hand. Okay, good.
Half the people here? Everybody feeling all right? Let me try that again. Who loves sex? Raise your hand.
Okay, good. Who loves to have sex pushed on them when they’re not interested in it? This guy, over here.
Okay. All of you folks that have a gimp mask in your trunk see this dude over here because he’d like to talk to
you at the break. Who here loves food – just really enjoys eating food; enjoys good food? Raise your hand.
Okay, good. Who loves to have food forced on you when you’re really full? Okay. Make sure the gimp mask has
an eating – mouth hole, there. What about story? Who loves a great story; loves a great movie?
Okay. Who likes to be forced to watch a movie, when you’re just not into it? So there’s this paradox that these
things that we’re so drawn to – think about this for a second. This DVD, this book, this chocolate bar, do these
really give us something, in the long run? Do we really get a lot out of these? Maybe; because these are maybe
a little bit more healthy versions of what’s available out there in the world, but how much more will your
products and services help someone, than this stuff? How much more will what it is that you’re trying to sell,
help a person, than this chocolate bar?
Yes, I realize that chocolate is now a super food, and if you eat this bar, instantly, your cholesterol will drop 50
points, and you’ll be able to run a marathon, but really. People go out and buy movies and books and food,
not because it enriches their lives, or because it helps them solve problems, they just kind of do it. They’re
compelled to do it. Your prospects – your customers – they don’t want to have what you’re selling pushed upon
them, but they would love to have it. They would love to have what it is that you’re offering, but just like food,
sex and stories, the timing, the format, the way it’s presented is critical.
I’d like to talk, for a moment, why it’s so important to focus on conversion. Why this one little area of your
business, and why we’re gonna spend many hours together working on this one area of your business. If you
develop your conversion powers; if you focus on conversion in your business; if you become an expert – a master
of the area of marketing called conversion; you will accomplish your goals, in your business. You will get the
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results that you want. You will make the kind of money that you want to make. You’ll attract the people into
your life that you want to attract.
You’ll attract the customers that you want to attract, who will give you the money to run your business. And
ultimately, you will have the kind of power that you want in the world; if you learn this area; if you focus on this
area. If you don’t learn conversion; if you just kind of say, “Oh, yeah, okay. It’s just another thing, like setting
up my books, or being in compliance with some rule.” If you relegate it to a C list, you’re not going to achieve
the kind of results that you want in your business. I can almost guarantee you that. You will not make the kind
of money you want to make. You’ll not have the kind of growth you want to have.
You won’t reach your goals. Further, you won’t attract the kind of people that you want to attract into your life.
You won’t attract the mentors, the partners or the customers that will give you the money to grow your business.
Finally, if you don’t focus on conversion, and really learn this as a skill and as an art, you won’t wind up with the
power and influence that you want in your life. It is not going to happen. It is very important that you focus on
conversion. It’s very important that you learn about this area. Okay, so what is conversion, anyway? Let’s get
our definitions straight before we dive into this. Conversion is a marketing term.
It’s the term that direct marketers use to describe when your prospect takes action; when they convert from a
prospect to a customer. That’s typically when it’s used, although nowadays, we use it if someone visiting your
landing page converts to a subscriber. But it’s when we get a prospect to take some type of an action, typically
buying, that takes the business relationship to the next level. Now, what’s interesting is that, in the guru master
class customer summit, we focused on getting traffic and leads; getting the customers to come to us in the first
place.
In the conversion summit, we’re talking about what to do once they show up because once you attract them,
once they arrive and they’re standing around saying, “Okay, now what?” or they’re kicking the tires, then they
need to be closed. Some people don’t really like that term, but it’s the one that’s used in sales and marketing.
They need to be closed. They need to be convinced to take action. Conversion is, really, the psychology and
practice of getting prospects to take action and buy, and there’s a lot of science and a lot of art and a lot of
psychology to this. I think of conversion in business, by the way, as, maybe, the ultimate, real world, practical,
ethical dilemma.
You remember when you were in school, and you did the ethical dilemma exercises, where you’ve got a lifeboat
that holds eight people, and you’ve got nine, and you’ve got to choose whether to throw out the kid, or the old
lady, or the Nobel laureate or whatever? Remember those? See, everyone’s getting nervous right now. Uh-oh,
ethical dilemmas. It’s just the morning. I don’t know if I’m ready for this right now. Where’s the headlines?
But conversion’s really the ultimate ethical dilemma because you are forced to deal with all your demons, when
it comes to conversion time.
It’s this interesting gray area in business, where you can really be over on the dark side, and really just be telling
people whatever you can to get them to give you money, or, on the other side of the coin, conversion can be a
very highly caring and compassionate and ethical conversation, communication, behavior, activity. You can be
pushing just as hard, as long as all of your persuasiveness is focused on helping the prospect get what’s in their
own best interest; helping them get what’s best for them.
Now, we’re gonna talk, over this training, about how to deal with some of your inner challenges; some of
the things that you need to overcome, some of the blocks that you need to push through to get yourself to
confidently tell people that it’s in their best interest to trade their hard-earned money for what it is that you’re
selling. We’re going to confront some of the blocks that we face of just not knowing how to say it, or what to
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say. But I just want to plant a seed, right now, that this is more than just a technique.
During this event, you’re going to see some of the submissions that came in from our members, and you’ll be
able to see pretty clearly, right up front, where someone just doesn’t have that inner power, that inner strength.
They haven’t broken through their own blocks to say to one of their prospects, “You need to buy this thing right
now. This is the best thing for you,” and to say it in a way that’s compassionate and supportive, and that is,
ultimately, in the prospect’s best interest.
If you become really successful – highly successful – conversion – in this area, this part of marketing, is where
you will face some of the biggest temptation in life because when you can make a little tweak, and make an extra
$1,000.00 a day, and you start making the tweak, and you see where it’s going, and you realize, “Wow! If I said
that this way, I could even make some more money, and it wouldn’t be that bad for my prospects. It wouldn’t
be – just this little fib.” So skating that fine line, and keeping yourself honest and ethical, this is where a lot of
challenges come up because they say power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Well, money has a very similar effect, so I want you to be vigilant with yourself as we march into this stuff. So
we’re gonna learn a lot of very powerful psychological techniques. A lot of the things that you’re going to hear
from me, here, you’ve heard before, but I’m gonna show them to you, I think, in a new way, so that you’re going
to understand how to harness them and use them. Many of the most powerful conversion techniques, they
really have nothing to do with saying to a person, “Give me your money, and I will give you this thing, here,”
although, we do do that.
They have to do with triggering latent or unconscious psychological processes and mechanisms inside of people,
and getting them to take action that’s in their own best interest. That’s a touchy topic. So I really want to talk to
the ethical aspects because this one just feels weird if you don’t. Now also, I want to mention that I think that
conversion – this particular point in the process – is where most gurus or information product experts – this is
where they drop the ball. They do all the other stuff to get their business ready, and pick the ball up and run it
all the way down to the one-yard line, and then they kinda drop it right here because it’s too hard to overcome
their own internal blocks.
One thing that successful people seem to have – one quality they have – that unsuccessful people don’t, is the
willingness to do whatever it takes to figure it out, the willingness to do whatever it takes to get through their
own internal issues, the willingness to do whatever it takes to learn, whether it takes a day, a year or the rest of
their life, that willingness to do whatever it takes. Who’s willing to do whatever it takes to figure this piece out?
Good. By the way, what most information product gurus do, is they make their products, and they even may do
some partnerships, or start doing some Google ad words, or get an affiliate program together.
They start getting some traffic, people are showing up, and then, right there, they drop the ball and they
kinda lose their cool, and they won’t push the prospect over the edge. They won’t, actually, proactively take
a leadership position. Remember, people are silently begging to be led. They want to be led. They need you
to be their leader, at that critical moment. As a part of this, something that might help you along the way –
because we have to nest and deal with competing priorities, let’s say, in business – is that for your business to
survive and thrive and grow, it must make a profit. It must profit.
It must create and make more value than it spends or gives away. Sometimes, we use the word money to describe
value and profit. It’s a convenient term. But really, we’re thinking about value, here. So No. 1, whatever you
do, it’s got to make money; it’s got to make profit; it’s got to grow. So that needs to be your leading value in
business. Now, we don’t want to fall in love with money. We don’t want to sell our souls, or do anything that
would be dishonest or unethical, to make money, but there’s a lot of stuff you’d be willing to do, that you don’t
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know you’re willing to do, to get some air.
All it would take would be about 15 or 30 seconds. You would do a lot of things, that you can’t imagine that you
would be capable of doing. Now, I don’t think that most of us, in here, would say, “You know, I’m gonna take
the lives of a bunch of other people, if I could get some air.” I think, if it really came down to it, many of us
would make the choice that it’s better for a large group of people to live, and for us to not survive, than to take
all their air and just me live through it. We don’t take advantage of other people. I don’t think that that’s what
most people do. I think there are a few, on the fringes.
There are a few “bad seeds” out there, but for the most part, I think that most of us are, essentially, good. So,
when we make making profit and value and money our highest value, we’re not saying that we don’t treat
people well, and we don’t ever want to imply that. At the same time, we’ve got to be bold, and we have to be
courageous, and we have to be strong, and we have to be willing to step out and take risks and put our necks out
and put ourselves on the line. So don’t carry the ball all the way down to the one-yard line, and then put it down
and say to the prospect, “Okay, well, if you really want it, you can give me some money for it,” and aw shucks.
At that point, that’s when you need to be your boldest. That’s when you need to be standing there, saying, “This
is exactly what you need, and you need to take action right now because you’re right here, and you know that
if you don’t, you’re probably not going to. I’ll reassure you. I’ll rebuild the value. I’ll restate the offer, but it’s
time for you to take action.” And you need to say that confidently. You need to get to the point where you’re
confident in yourself, and in your products, so that you can make that statement.
Then, using the power of the Internet, you need to automate that and replicate it and set it up so that tens,
hundreds, thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of people can go through that same experience. Is
this making sense to you? Do you see where I’m going with this? Now, a reminder, which you might remember
from other experiences with me, is that my job, here – the most important part of my job – is to get you outside
of your comfort zone. That’s my job: to get you outside of your comfort zone. Why is that my main job,
here?
Male Speaker: Because that’s where you learn.
Eben Pagan: Because that’s where you learn. You can’t learn anything inside your comfort zone. You can’t
really learn until you’re outside your comfort zone. Once you’re outside of yours – once we can get you outside
of your comfort zone, and get you to seek that place regularly, you can learn how to get others outside of their
comfort zones because you’ll know what it feels like. You follow? So my job here, really, is to get you – push
you – outside of your comfort zone. Conversion is the place, in business, where it’s most important that you
get another person outside their comfort zone. It’s so critical that you learn the skill of getting people outside
their comfort zone.
So make a commitment to yourself: I will get outside my comfort zone here, so that I can learn how to get my
prospects outside of their comfort zone out there. Who here has studied systems thinking – knows what I’m
talking about? Okay. So in systems thinking – the way systems thinkers think, is they think of everything as
part of a much bigger picture. Nothing is isolated, so everything’s connected to everything. If a systems thinker
were to look at an ailment in your body, instead of saying, “Oh, you’ve got a problem with your liver. Let’s work
on that.” They’d say, “Well, how does it affect the system?
What other part of the system is affecting that part?” Does that make sense? Right? My very good friend and
mentor, Jerry Ballinger – who’s no longer alive – he taught me that we, humans, have what you might think of as
an emotional comfort zone, and an emotional thermostat. You know how the thermostat on your wall works?
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This is a – basically a governor. It’s something that adjusts automatically. I don’t know if you have ever seen –
maybe stayed in an old hotel, and you take the cover off the thermostat, and there’ll be a coil of metal, and the
little temperature indicator is on the end of that coil of metal, and you’re like, “What’s going on there?”
Well, it was just an old-school thermostat. The way that works is, that coil of metal is a certain length, and as it
heats up, it expands, and as it cools down, it contracts. So when you set it at a certain point, as it gets warmer in
the room, it heats up, and it triggers the air conditioning unit to come on, and as it cools down, it contracts, and
it triggers the heater to come on. Does that make sense? A little self-governing system. Well, that’s the way
humans are with our emotional comfort zone. When we’re in our emotional comfort zone, and it’s 72 degrees,
everything is fine. You might just think of this as your emotional comfort zone.
Maybe this is 74 degrees, maybe this is 70 degrees, and this is 72 degrees, and as long as we’re inside of our
emotional comfort zone, no problem. Just like any experience, we’ll be moving up and down in it, but what
happens when we get outside of our emotional comfort zone? What happens when we hit this point? People
start acting very weird when they get outside their comfort zone. Humans start behaving like addicts, when
they get outside of their emotional comfort zone. They start behaving completely irrationally. We already
behave completely irrationally. When we get outside of our emotional comfort zone, we flip out.
We don’t want anyone to know that we’re outside of our emotional comfort zone. We don’t want anyone to
know that we have an emotional comfort zone. We don’t want to face that reality. When we start acting weird,
we rationalize it; we justify it; we tell stories about why we’re there; we make it sound okay because we just
can’t deal with it. When a person is outside their emotional comfort zone, they will do anything to get back in.
Write that down. When a person is outside their emotional comfort zone, they will do anything to get back in.
The further outside they get, the more desperate they become to get back into their emotional comfort zone.
In some of the other trainings that we do, where I talk about things like look for prospects that are looking for
you, and selecting a niche of people who has an emotional need – is proactively looking for solutions, has fewer
no perceived options – I know that if I can get you to meet those criteria with your product or your service or
your niche, that most of this is just taken care of. If I can just get you to give me three yeses to the three questions
on choosing a niche, that it’s gonna be much harder to screw that market up than it is many others because I’ve
kind of already made sure that you’ve got prospects that are outside their emotional comfort zone.
When you get to the point where you want to lose weight, and you’re just so desperate about it that you’re like,
“Okay, I’m gonna just go figure this out. I’m gonna do whatever it takes,” or you have a problem, and you start
feeling a pain in a part of your body, and you’re like, “Uh-oh, what is that?” You’re ashamed, and you don’t want
to tell anyone, so you go to the Internet to start hunting for solutions. You’ve got a problem in your relationship,
and one partner or the other is starting to act really weird, and you don’t know what it means. You don’t have
a relationship, and you just get to the point where you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired, and you’re like,
“I’m gonna do whatever it takes.”
All those are is a human just getting outside their emotional comfort zone, and finally getting motivated to
take action, so that they can get back in. With conversion, one of the things that we do is we take advantage of
this moment, in an ethical way, and what we realize is that the prospect, ideally, they’re already outside their
comfort zone. We’re only looking for people who are already there, ideally, and then, we’re going to what?
Anyone?
[Audience Response]
Eben Pagan: Get them further outside their comfort zone, okay? So maybe they’ve – maybe they’re just here.
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What we really need to do, to make sure that they take action for their own best interest, is we need to push this
up to the next level. We need to help them get here, so that the tension, the drive to get back in, is so strong
that they would beat you up to get past you, to buy what it is that you’re selling. Why do we do that? Anyone?
Just yell it out; why do we do that?
Male Speaker: Because they’ve already gotten comfortable.
Eben Pagan: Because they’ve already gotten comfortable, maybe; maybe. People are very apathetic. Humans
are very, very, very ambivalent; very apathetic. We’ll talk more about this in later sessions, here. But if a person
can just a take a little skip, and just kind of go, “Oh, okay, I’m just back inside my comfort zone. It’s enough.”
Is it really good for a person? Think about what it is that you sell. Think about the service that you offer, or the
products that you offer. If someone’s gotten outside their comfort zone, is it good enough for them to do what
it takes to get just over the line? No, it’s not.
Because if they do what it takes to get just back in, they’re still, probably, neglecting all the underlying causes,
and when it comes back, it’s probably gonna bite them in the ass. It’s probably really gonna hurt them, at that
point. So we want to take advantage of that moment when someone is open and seeking solutions, and we
want to show them what the problem, really, is all about. Most of the time, our prospects haven’t really thought
through all the implications of what’s going on. We usually think about one or two small aspects, but we don’t
think about the bigger picture.
We don’t think about how it fits into the rest of our lives; the implications that not doing something is going to
have on the next 10 or 20 or 50 years, or the implications of taking action – the other bigger picture things that
that’s going to help. So we ethically get people outside of their comfort zones any further by showing them the
bigger picture; by saying, “Hey, you’ve got this problem. This is the solution you’re looking for.” Well, there are
actually a bunch of other problems you may not even be aware of, and when you use this solution, it’s gonna
create all of these other positive advantages that maybe you didn’t pay attention to.
It will change the way you communicate, when you remember that your prospects are outside their comfort
zone, and it will change the way you communicate, when you realize that it’s time for you to get them further
outside their comfort zone, before you let them back in. One of the formulas that Dan Kennedy – who’s a
brilliant direct marketer, albeit a little gruff – teaches, is the formula: problem, agitate, solve – problem, agitate,
solve. Someone shows up with a problem, don’t solve it. Agitate the problem, so that they feel the magnitude
of it. Because remember, we humans are great at self-deception. We’re fantastic.
Remember the Tony Schwartz quote? “Humans have an infinite capacity for self-deception.” Infinite capacity.
So when we’re looking at this little angle of our problem, and we’re looking for a solution, we want the quick
fix. We’re idealistic. We think, “Ah, I’m gonna be able to do a couple of quick things.” No. Agitate. You’ve
got to show the whole picture, and then solve. By the way, what is the solution? What is the action step, in
this context? What does the person need to do, in order to get back into their emotional comfort zone? Buy.
Good.
So what are some of the common blocks that we gurus – we information product marketers – come up against,
inside of ourselves, that prevent us from doing the best job of persuading others to take action? Anyone?
Male Speaker: [Inaudible]
Eben Pagan: Confidence. Rejection. What else?
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Eben Pagan: Conflict. Fear.
Female Speaker: [Inaudible]
Eben Pagan: People have problems with receiving money. That’s interesting; may not have thought of that
one. That’s a lesson I’ve been learning in the last couple of years. Not about receiving money, particularly, but
just receiving, in general; fully receiving, without having to think about what I’m gonna do next, or how I’m
gonna repay the other person. Receiving, it’s a big one. One that I’ve observed a lot is that experts – brilliant
experts that have spent their life learning about a topic – they really have this mindset of, “I’ve done my beautiful
work. I’ve created my masterpiece. If other people can’t figure out how wonderful it is, that’s their problem.
Idiots.”
That transition, from expert to marketer, involves putting all that stuff down and realizing that by creating
your masterpiece, you’re just getting started. That was the easy part because that’s what you already know how
to do. That’s what you’re good at. Getting someone to buy the thing, now that’s a little bit bigger challenge.
What about self image; that kind of belief complex that makes up how you see yourself? We don’t really act
on the world. We act on a model of the world that we have in our head – a map that we have. It’s not really us,
anymore, it’s our self-image; it’s our persona; it’s all these layers of stuff, acting on a map.
We’ve gotten very out of touch with more direct real experience. So maybe, letting go of that old image as, I’m
a really smart expert, and getting into a new self-image of, I’m a leader; I’m a persuader; I’m a marketer. I’m
someone that helps other people make choices that are in their own best interest. That’s what I’m good at, and
that’s what I’m going to become better at. Who here likes making other people feel uncomfortable? Okay. A
few people here like making other people feel uncomfortable. Who here likes making people feel comfortable
– likes making people feel good and comfortable – really likes it when others feel comfortable?
Can you see how that would be a little bit of a challenge? Most – almost everyone raised their hand for I like
making people comfortable. Only a handful raised their hand for I like making people uncomfortable. I
happen to enjoy making people uncomfortable, within a certain context. It is so painful, to me, when I see a
person who’s in an uncomfortable situation, and they could have avoided it by just opening their eyes a little
bit. They’re torturing themselves. I hate that, especially when they’re not learning a lesson from it; they’re not
getting it. They’re just banging their head up against the wall.
I want to just reach in there and rescue them, and say, “Look, stop that. It doesn’t have to be that hard.” But
on the other hand, if I know that pushing a person outside their comfort zone – pushing them into that weird
place where they’re disoriented and nervous and fearful. If I honestly believe that that’s gonna help them break
through a block, and it’s gonna save them feeling that feeling 100 times or a 1,000 times, or 20 times a day for
the rest of their life, I love making people feel uncomfortable. Love that, but it’s within that context – within
the context of helping them become the greatest them that they can be.
Who here likes being rude to others – really enjoys the process of rudeness? Nobody. Who here, when someone
is rude to you – maybe they cut in front of you on the freeway, or they cut you off, or they take your parking spot,
or they interrupt you, rudely and arrogantly – who here has ever had a delicious guilty fantasy of running them
off the road, or stabbing them with a giant sword, or going to martial arts class and learning, over ten years,
and then going to their house and beating them up? Who’s ever had one of those fantasies? Yeah? Just a few
people, okay. Rudeness is not something that we want to do.
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It’s not something we want to be. It’s not something we want to be associated with. We, typically, really avoid
any appearance of that. We don’t like it. When it happens – have you ever been rude to someone because they
deserved it, and they were kind of being a bitch or a bastard, and you’re like, “Nah.” Even though they deserved
it, you thought about it for hours or days afterwards, and you felt bad about it. Who’s ever felt bad, even though
they deserved it? We just don’t like doing that stuff. Well, I found that a lot of times, when information
product marketers – experts – when they stumble across very intense, kind of hardcore direct marketing, they
look at it, and their read is, oh, I couldn’t do that.
I don’t want to be rude or pushy. That doesn’t make any sense to me. I’ve just written the Bible of what it is that
I do, and when people see it, they’re just going to have the thing that – the old pictures of Jesus, the glowing
thing – their head’s gonna light up, and my product is gonna light up, and they’re just gonna know it’s meant
for them. If I was one of those rude, evil, weird salesman types – oh, that just would feel wrong, and it would
be – everything, for the rest of my life, would be bad. They get that feeling. Who can relate to what I’m saying?
At some point in your progression, you’ve seen direct marketing and went, ohhh?
Only a few people? Raise your hand if you can relate, in any way, to what I’m saying, here? Okay, good. So
here’s what I’d like you to do; I’d like you to make a couple of commitments; No. 1, the personal commitment to
only offer the highest quality and the highest value to your customers, period. That’s it. I only offer the highest
quality and the highest value. A commitment that I have, is that my minimum – if I’m selling something –
is that I will look at it, and in my gut, I will say this is worth three times the money that someone is paying,
minimum; 10x is kind of my main level.
I want to be able to look at something and say, easily, what I’ve put together, here is worth ten times the money
that you’re paying for it. I haven’t done a lot of closing from stage, so to speak – selling stuff from on stage.
When it gets to the end, and I say, “Okay, here’s my offer, and here’s what I’ve got; good stuff. Anybody have
any questions?” Someone will, sometimes, ask a question, and I’ll look at them and I’ll think about it and I’ll
go, “You know what? Listen to me. Take this. This is a really good deal. Trust me. You’re not gonna find
this information anywhere. It’s a better deal than anything you’re gonna get, and you’ve got a money-back
guarantee.
Just take the thing. This is really good stuff.” I’ve never seen anyone actually teach that as a technique – say,
“Shut up and buy this.” But it really seems to work. I think it works because I honestly mean it. I would run
down there and – you have a problem right now. You need this. Don’t screw it up with blocking yourself with
this thing. I can tell that that’s what you’re trying to do. When you have gotten to the point where you’ve made
a commitment, you will only offer products and services that are of the highest quality, and the highest value,
it’s very freeing. Does it take a little more work, a little more time, a little more effort, a little more commitment,
yeah, of course.
So that’s the first commitment: I will only offer services of the highest quality, and the highest value. And
then, Commitment No. 2 that I’d like you to take: I will use every persuasion tool available, to get my prospect
to take action that’s in their own best interest. I will use every persuasion tool at my disposal, short of torture,
to get my prospect to take action that’s in their own best interest. I’ll use every persuasion tool. So do those
two things make sense? Okay, who’s willing to make those two commitments to themselves, and to the group,
here? Okay, good. Here’s what I’d like you to do.
I’d like you to turn to someone you don’t know, and I’d like you to say to them, “I commit to only creating
products and services that are of the highest quality, and the highest value, and I commit that I will use every
persuasion tool available to get my prospect to take an action that’s in their own best interest.” Find someone
you don’t know; make those two commitments. To cement this, what I’d like to do is a quick exercise. So turn
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to a blank page and what I’d like you to do is see if you can identify your biggest inner block to pulling out the
big stick of persuasion. Where’s your block, right now, to really persuading people to take action?
Did, maybe, your mom tell you that it was rude to be push, when you were young, and that got drilled into your
head? Maybe like me, were you socially awkward, and felt like when another person was looking at you, that
they were disapproving of you? You must be funny looking, and so I couldn’t even say anything, not even hi,
never mind you need to buy this thing, right now. What’s your own inner issue? What prevents you – what
holds you back from really pushing on other people to take action? Something weird might come up for you,
like in a dream, where just a strange image comes up. Something might be trigged for you, right now.
Go ahead and write it down, whatever it is. This is your own private limitation. This isn’t – we’re not talking
about the whole group, here. It’s just for you. Remember, inner blocks and inner limitations, they don’t make
any sense. We’re not talking about things that are rational. You’re not gonna stand up here, and then try to
explain it, and explain the science behind why you have it. We’re not gonna write a textbook on it. We’re
actually gonna try to eliminate it. So this is your moment to be really honest with yourself. Who wants to be a
little more honest with themselves, during this program, than they ever have before – a little bit more honest
with themselves?
Good. So be a little bit more honest than usual; a little more candid; a little bit more open. Go one level deeper
than you normally would. What’s holding you back from really pushing another person to do what’s in their
own best interest? Close your eyes for a second. Sit in a comfortable posture; comfortable position. Just close
your eyes. Everyone’s gonna close their eyes. Safe. I’d like you to think back, in the events of your life, where
that block has come up, and it’s prevented you from pushing, encouraging, helping other people do what was
in their own best interest.
Think about the different events that happened in your life, where this block came up, unconsciously, and
stopped you, and you rationalized it. You explained it to yourself. You avoided it, and you just didn’t go there,
and then you didn’t worry about it later. Think about all those times where it blocked you from taking action,
and really pushing someone to do what was in their own best interest. Now, what I’d like you to do is think
about the other people that were in those situations, who didn’t have someone to lead them to do what they
needed to do.
Think about all of the pain and suffering that took place because you weren’t able to be courageous and push
past your block, or you weren’t aware of your block, or the block was the context – the block owned the situation.
Think about all the different things that have probably happened, as a result – all of the wonderful experiences
that haven’t happened; all the pain and suffering that has happened; all of the missed opportunity and growth
that the humans on the other side of the equation, that you were in relationship with, didn’t get because you
weren’t willing to push past your block – get outside your comfort zone and push them – persuade them to take
an action that was in their own best interest.
Good. Now, what I’d like you to do, see if you can remember the phone number that you had when you were
a little kid, and say it backwards, in your head. Okay, stop. That’s close enough. Now, what I’d like you to do
is think about the future. Eyes closed, just think about the future. Think about how many more people you
are going to meet, in your future, that are going to have challenges and problems and opportunities. Think
about what it will mean if you can push past that internal limitation that you have. Think about the results, the
growth, the evolution, the success, the love, the contribution.
Think about what these people will be able to create, if you can get past that little limitation that you have
inside, that’s just imaginary, anyway. Think about the difference that those people will be able to make in the
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lives of other people. Think about it going out even further into the future, like a small wave that starts and just
becomes a tidal wave of success, of growth, of evolution, of love, of contribution, if you’re able to push through
this one little block. Excellent. As you’re visualizing that, what I’d like you to do now is begin to form a picture
of what the you that has pushed past and overcome and integrated and learned from that inner block looks
like.
Make an image of yourself after you’ve overcome it, after you become the confident leader, the persuader, the
supporter, the facilitator that you know that you can, what will you look like? What will be the look on your
face? How will you be holding your body? How will your posture be ever so slightly different? What will be
different about the way you make and keep eye contact? What will be different about your voice tone, and the
way you communicate with others? Make a picture of that future you in your mind, and now, see that picture
of you standing in front of you.
Now, make it get bigger and bolder and brighter, so you can see every detail of it. All of those subtle changes
magnify, and really stand out. Begin to connect up those changes with pushing through that block, and see how
pushing through the block directly leads to these positive changes. As that picture gets bigger and brighter, see
if you can get a little bit of a taste of the emotion that that future you is feeling. How do they feel inside? How
do they feel about themselves? When they’re faced with a situation where it’s time for them to take action, and
to push and persuade another person to do what’s in their own best interest, how do they hold themselves?
How do they feel about doing it? How do they look as they’re taking that action? Are they smiling? Are they
serious? What’s the look on that future you’s face? Now, just keep making that picture bigger and brighter and
bigger and brighter, and notice the details. See if you can get a taste of that feeling. Now, what I’d like you to
do is see that you that’s just getting bigger and brighter and bigger and brighter in front of you, see that you get
a big, big smile on their face.
Now, this is gonna be a little bit weird, but just reach out with your arms, reach up – physically do this with me,
eyes closed – grab that giant you, and pull them into your body; push them into your chest; push and pull them
in, gently, and just notice how your emotions shift as you integrate that slightly different self-image. You might
notice that with this weird exercise, you can actually begin holding yourself a little differently. Your posture
might change a little bit. The look on your face might change a little bit. You might have a slightly different
perspective when you think about persuasion and leadership.
You might be able to get a little bit of that feeling that you saw on that future you’s face. Good. And only as fast
as you completely enjoy and integrate the new learning that you just got, slowly and gently come back to the
moment, and slowly and gently open your eyes. Who learned something about themselves from that exercise?
Good. Write down what you just learned about yourself. This is a private moment. What did you just learn
about yourself from that exercise? Remember, this is a little note to yourself. This is an important moment
that you just went through, here.
You might even write, “Note to self: I just learned something very interesting about myself,” then write down
what it is. Just take a couple of minutes to write down what you learned about yourself. Okay, here’s what I’d
like you to do. Turn to someone you don’t know – you might have to cross the aisle – and share as much as you’re
willing to share – as much as you feel comfortable sharing – remember, you’re willing to be a little more honest.
You’re gonna a little more outside your comfort zone, so push your edge, here, a little bit. Share a little more
than you would normally share with someone that you don’t know.
Be honest and open, and remember, the other person’s doing the same. They’re right where you are, so help
them have permission by sharing. Share what you just learned about yourself. This is gonna be a three-minute
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exercise. You’re gonna 90 seconds, each, so three minutes. Find someone you don’t know, and share what you
just learned about yourself. Go. All right, who had a really good insight that there are probably one or two
other people in the room that could relate to their insight? Raise your hand. Okay, good. Who’d be willing
to share their “aha” that they had? Good. Could I get three people right here and three people from this side,
right here? Be brave; get outside your comfort zone.
Mustapha: My name is Mustapha, from Toronto. I realized that amongst my biggest blocks are people’s
impressions that pushing people is undignified or low or, also, irreligious. Then after that, I had a big “aha”
that, also, self-serving, especially if I’m taking money for it. So that’s an obstacle for me.
Eben Pagan: Interesting. Thank you very much, and thank you for being the first to share.
Mustapha: You’re welcome.
John Kruger: I’m John Kruger, from Atlanta. One of the things I saw for myself is that I give myself permission
to be successful, but I really draw the line because I’m not willing to be excessive in my success, or allow excessive
success, and throw the rest of my world out of balance. In talking with my partner, that I shared with, I got that
that was all about me, and the truth of the matter is, I really do have – I really care about the people that I sell
to. I really care about them, and if I can provide a product that really helps them out, and can save them a lot
of money compared to other options, that’s really what I’m up to.
So by shifting my focus off me, and really onto the bigger game, which is really other people, it really opens that
up for me to really allow myself to say, “Well, heck, if that’s what it’s about, heck, I’ll be as successful as I want
to be.”
Eben Pagan: Excellent. Thank you.
Marissa: Outside my comfort zone. Okay, I’m Marissa, and I had a few big “ahas,” but my biggest one – I
have a podcast, and so most of the times when I have a show, women email and say, “Hey, I want to be coached
by you,” and I’m not really a coach – certified or anything. So several times I said no; I wasn’t putting a monetary
value on my expertise. Finally, there was this woman who emailed several times and was really persistent,
and wasn’t gonna let go of it. So I said, “Okay, I’m gonna do it.” I ended up being really able to help her put a
monetary value on herself.
She’s a jewelry designer, and she was able to go out and get into a bunch of boutiques, and raise her prices; then,
I had an artist who did the same. So I was like, you know what, when I put a monetary value on my time and
expertise, even when I don’t feel like an expert, and I’m able to help people, I allow them to give themselves
permission to do the same thing; so that was big, and I’m not doing one-on-one anymore, thanks to you.
Bruce: Hi, I’m Bruce, from London. One of the big insights I had was my block to selling was I didn’t really my
clients will use my products. I know the products work, and about 5 percent of the people who buy my products
get massive results because those are the people who use them. So when I’m in a conversation with one of my
clients, in the back of my mind, I’m always thinking well, I could sell you my product, but you probably won’t
use, and it won’t work for you. The “aha” I had was how arrogant of me to judge the person in front of me for
assuming they’re not gonna use my product. Anybody could take it and use it.
I don’t know who the 5 percent are, and I’m not gonna let that stop me, in the future, from just going full on and
showing them the product works for them.
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Eben Pagan: I think you probably just helped a lot of folks identify one in this room that maybe we don’t
know we have. Thank you.
Bruce: Sure.
Caleb Jennings: My name is Caleb Jennings, and I’m from Phoenix, Arizona. I’ve started to realize,
through getting out of my comfort zone, that the true ultimate success of others truly lies within myself, and
the success of my life. In order for me to truly help the amount of people I’d like to, I have to embrace that
success, and truly take advantage of what I know is in front of me – directly in front of me. By embracing that,
and truly taking advantage of that success that lies there, I truly will be able to reach the people I’d like to, and
help people in the best manner I know how, and receive everything that comes with it, as well.
Eben Pagan: That’s such a good one, thank you. Thank you. The more I do things like what we’re doing
here, the more I run my business, etc., the more empathy and compassion I have for leaders in other roles, even
leaders that I disagree with. Even people who I just say, ah, I just don’t agree with the way that you’re doing that,
I still have a lot of compassion and empathy for them because they’ve got to stand in the fire and lead people to
do what they’re leading them to do, even though a lot of them don’t want to do it.
So breaking through some of these blocks, and getting to the point where you can confidently lead others –
even though, maybe, some people won’t take the leadership, or some people disagree because you’re going to
contribute in your way – I think it’s a part of maturity.
Charles Stockwell: Hi, Eben. I’m Charles Stockwell, from Boerne, Texas. That’s near San Antonio. I broke
my process down into three. No. 1 was selling to a person in person, selling to a person on the phone, and
selling to the person online. I found that it goes from hardest to easiest, for me. The fear of rejection, in person,
is something I feel like a lot of people have and feel, but online, you feel freer to express yourself because you
know that the person has to read that. You can hype it – and that’s a word that the person I spoke to has a lot
of problem with. He doesn’t want to over-hype his things.
That is a fear that we all do, but if you hype it in written word, they still have the chance to read it, see how it
applies to them, see if it can benefit them, and then take the action without you judging what they’re going to
get benefit out of, as another gentleman up here said. That was a big one for me, just seeing how it got from
hardest to easiest. You can promote your product, in a written way, so that they have the best knowledge to take
the best advantage for themselves.
Eben Pagan: Thank you. Thank you. That’s a big one. One of the reason why I recommend to everyone that
you do personal consultations for a good period of time is because it forces you to interact with people one-on-
one, and come up against this stuff. I’m looking you right in the eye, and I’m saying, “You should give me some
of your money, in exchange for some of this value because the value’s much greater than the money.” Then,
you have to take responsibility for helping someone get the results, and you have to stand in the fire when they
don’t. You’ve got to figure out what to do; very, very educational.
My good friend, John Carlton – and I’m very fortunate to be able to call him a friend – I hired him a couple
of years ago to do a consultation with me, on the telephone; so this probably a year and a half ago, now. John
charges $1,250.00 for an hour on the phone. In this – I got a lot out of it. I’ll tell you, if you ever hire him, it’s
kind of fun because it’s coming up to ten minutes to the hour or so, he’ll say, “You’ve got ten minutes left, so
make sure. We’re running out of time, here.”
One of the things that he taught me, in that consultation, is that the hardest thing to learn how to do – the
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hardest thing to do in the world is to get a human to take out their wallet, and open it up and give you some of
the money that’s inside. It’s the hardest thing to do is to get another person to open up their wallet and give
you the money that’s inside of it. So this might indicate that it might be one of the hardest skills to learn, as
well. It’s a skill that requires discipline, persistence and practice. It’s not something that you read a couple of
techniques in a book, and you go, “Okay, well, I’ve got that one handled.” This is a lifetime of study.
I’m always learning about it, continually. When I learn a really valuable lesson, and then I go try it in the world,
and then I go learn some new lessons, and I integrate them together, and then I come back, and I learn a lesson
that I learned five years ago, it’s a new level of profound because it means something completely different. So
if getting another person to open their wallet and take out their money and give it to you is the hardest thing to
get someone to do, and it’s, maybe, the hardest skill to learn, and it requires all of this discipline and skill and
persistence and all of that, why is it – why is that, that it’s the hardest thing?
What’s so difficult about getting someone to open their wallet and give you their money? What do you need to
overcome? Trust. Their emotions.
Male Speaker: Their own self-doubt.
Eben Pagan: Scarcity. Self-doubt.
Eben Pagan: There’s another thing that I learned – actually, partially from John Carlton, and partially from
other experiences in my life. Apathy. Apathy, ambivalence, a person not believing in themselves, indifference.
In many cases, what we actually have to do is get the person to overcome their own laziness. In the next session,
we’re going to delve a little bit deeper into some more mindsets and techniques, but for now, I’d like you to just
think about the fact – you know what, I’ll give you a third lesson that I’ve learned from John Carlton, which is
that most people are bored. Bored. They’re bored out of their minds.
The way John said it to me is they’ve got a boring job; they sit through bored all day; and they take a boring
lunch break, with, maybe, some boring people that they work with, and talk about boring topics. They go back
to their boring job, and their boring boss, and then they take their boring commute back to the boring place
that they live and watch boring television shows, and go to sleep bored. Then, they wake up bored. Not only
are they bored all the time, but they don’t even know anyone who’s interesting or exciting. Nobody they know
is not bored, most of the time. Are you following me? That’s just their reality.
It’s neither good or bad; it’s just kind of the way it is. You may have heard me talk about the average prospect,
before. The average person, in our society – we’re in America, here – in Western American society – is 30
pounds overweight, has an IQ of 100 – because it’s a quotient, so average – has low self-esteem, poor self-image,
is bored most of the time, has .75 best friends. That’s the new research, .75 best friends. That’s like having 2.3
children, kind of. On average, we have less than one close confidant. So imagine you’re that person, and you’ve
got a problem now, and you’re online looking for a solution.
You come across a website by somebody you don’t know – you don’t like them; you don’t trust them – and
they’re saying, “Just type your credit card into this unknown website, and I will open the doors to all solutions,
and you’ll have the life you want.” I don’t know. That sounds like a – just on its face, it sounds like a rough one.
So it’s the hardest thing in the world to do, to get someone to open up their wallet, take out the credit card and
buy. Remember we were talking about sex, earlier? No, you don’t remember? Who’s still been thinking about
the chocolate bar, wondering when I’m gonna give it out?
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It’s sitting right over there, by the way. Someone is going to get it, at some point, by the way, just so you know.
It could be you. In the book I was reading from you – the book I was reading to you, one of the things he talks
about is part of eroticism, part of the excitement of sexuality is overcoming ambivalence, and overcoming
this kind of, oh, should I or shouldn’t I? The most experiences that we have, in our life, are where there’s the
most tension in that area. Think back in your own experience. That’s a key piece of the puzzle; getting to that
moment where, I don’t know, should I or shouldn’t I?
Overcoming the ambivalence, overcoming the apathy, overcoming the resistance. I want to revisit a concept
from sales that’s an old saw, but it’s profound. It’s a great figure ground shift. It goes like this: people love to
buy, but they hate to be sold. People love to buy, but they hate to be sold. Is buying something you want fun,
or not fun? Is having someone sell you something, and pressure you into buying it, fun or not fun? Now, they
could be – if the salesperson or marketer was skillful, could they create an experience where you really had fun?
My friend, Joe Polish, talks about the joy and pride of consumption.
Now, I think it’s rampant, and I think it’s gotten out of hand. We’re gonna be paying big price – probably
starting about recently, and maybe for a long time, in our modern culture because we’ve got too much pride and
joy in consumption and in purchasing, but that aside, there’s a lot of inner self-esteem stuff that happens when
we buy and consume things. Any watch that costs more than $50.00 is not a timekeeping device; it’s jewelry.
Think about that for a sec. Any watch that costs more than $50.00 is not a timekeeping device, it’s jewelry. I
used to have a Rolex that was a gift from someone.
It was a $6,000.00 watch; kept horrible time, and it needed to be wound up all the time, and if you didn’t wear
it [inaudible]. I remember, I was talking to my cousin, and I think I – this was like ten years ago – and I was
saying, “Yeah, I got this,” or whatever, and he holds up his watch and he was like, “I got this one out of a box
of cereal ten years ago, and it’s still running.” It was one of these digital watches that looked big and dorky. It
kind of made an impression on me, like, “All right. Let me think this one through, for a sec.” His watch keeps
perfect digital time, and mine cost $6,000.00, okay. Buying is getting something.
When you buy, your perception is that you’re getting. Buyers tend to only focus on what they’re getting – the
value of what they’re getting. Warren Buffet talks about this, when buying and selling businesses. Typically,
people that buy businesses, they only look at what they’re getting. They don’t look at what they’re giving in
exchange, or what they could have gotten – the opportunity cost. So the essence of – when you feel like you’re
buying, you feel like you’re in control, and like you’re getting something. When you feel like you’re being sold,
what do you feel like? Something’s being taken from you.
Something’s being removed from your possession; appropriated. The message, here, is that you’re gonna do
this process of helping your prospect take advantage of what it is that you’re offering, either way, whether they
feel like they’re being sold, or whether they feel like they’re buying. What we’re going to learn how to do, here,
is to help the prospect feel like they’re buying something – like they’re investing in something. So help them
buy; don’t sell. There’s always a way to put something so that it’s in the words, the language, the best interest
of the prospect, so that they can feel like they’re being supported, and helped to buy, and there’s always a way
to make someone feel like they’re being sold.
I’ll show you, in a moment, how to just change a little perspective shift inside of your mind, so that you’re always
communicating and helping them buy, instead of selling. Now, this process that we’re talking about, called
persuasion – it’s key to remember that persuasion is mostly an unconscious process. It’s below the surface.
Persuasion is mostly an unconscious process. Modern research – we’ll talk about this in a moment. Modern
research has shown that decisions are made unconsciously, and then our conscious mind figures out that we
made a decision, and then we say, “I’m gonna choose this.”
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I read a piece of research, recently, where these brain scientists hooked a bunch of electrodes up to a person’s
brain and put them in the laboratory, and they showed how the decision was actually made something like
seven seconds before the person consciously realized that they had made a decision. The scientists, by looking
at the brain scan, could say, “Oh, you’ve decided, and here’s what you’re gonna do.” And then, the person would
say, “I’ve decided. Here’s what I’m going to do.”
I think that an accurate way of – a more accurate way of representing, in our minds, what actually happens with
emotions and thoughts and behaviors is that they are triggered – most emotions and thoughts and behaviors
are triggered. They’re not conscious. I don’t know if you’re ready for this this early in the program, but that goes
for you and me, as well. The first thing that we do, when we hear things like this, by the way, is we look around,
and we say, “Yeah, other people really are like that.”
If you’ve been reading some of the new books that have been coming out about irrationality – which, if you’ve
heard me talk, you know that I believe that most fantasies, most desires, all irrational stuff, but these triggers,
these things that we have come up, these things that we have happen, when we learn about them, another
irrational process that we have happen is we never – almost – turn inside and say, “Let me see where that is true
for me?” We turn out, and look at where it’s true for everyone else. Here’s the funny part: even after being told
that that’s what we do, and learning about it, and getting it, the first thing we do is we go, “Yeah, that’s true.
“Other people really can’t see their own shit.” Does that make sense? We even take that thing, and we go, “Yeah,
wow, people really are stupid. I can see where my spouse – they just won’t see, and I told them.” So for yourself,
a very enlightening experience, the mystics or the teachers or the great gurus of the past, they walk around
and they say, “You’re asleep. You’re sleeping right now.” Our eyes open, and we think we’re awake, but you’re
as asleep as you are when your eyes are closed and you’re in bed and it’s the middle of the night. We’re making
decisions without realizing it, and then we’re telling ourselves stories about it, which we’ll get to in a moment.
The point is, most of our thoughts, emotions, behaviors, are much more accurately described as being triggered,
and that goes for you, too; all of it. It’s much more valuable to start noticing how everything you do was
somehow triggered by something, so that you can get it, and then you can start waking up and taking more
control of them, than to project it out into the world. So where is something that you do in your life, right now,
that maybe isn’t serving you, in some way; some habit? Maybe it’s a habit pattern of thought, of emotion, of
behavior, interacting with another person, getting triggered with another person, and it just keeps happening
over and over and over.
You’ve been unwilling to look at yourself and say, “Hm, I am a robot, here. I am just totally a robot.” Just look
at it right now. Maybe you want to write that one down, for a sec. Where I’m being triggered in my life is –
here’s where I’m triggered – just to start getting a little bit of awareness; noticing it. Again, just write a couple
of words down. You’ll know what it means later. We’re just trying to open the door. It’s time to get out of the
mindset that we’re playing a rational game, with ourselves or with our prospects. You’ve just got to get out of
that mindset because we are not playing a rational game.
The more rational you can act, the less rational you probably are. When I meet people that are totally together,
and they have that whole super-organized – I try to poke them a little bit, or say, “Hey, is there a person in
there?” They’re like, “Of course, there’s a person in here.” I know that they’ve probably got the most robotic
– most persona, most shell there. The irrational is where all the power is, when it comes to persuasion and
conversion. The irrational is where all of the power is. I’ll teach you how to use the rational to support the
irrational, but you’ve got to start with the foundation. The irrational is where all of the power is.
The term that the scientists use for this process of making a decision unconsciously, and then acting on it,
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and then going, “Hm, here’s the reason why I did that,” and making up the story, it’s called confabulation.
Confabulation. C-O-N-F-A-B-U-L-A-T-I-O-N. Confabulation. I find it so fascinating that the first part of this
word is “con.” Confabulation. There have been a lot of fascinating studies, and you read about them in the
psychology books, where someone will have their corpus callosum severed, and they’ll show different things to
different sides of the brain.
They’ll show someone’s right brain the words, “You’re thirsty,” but not the left brain. Then, the person will
stand up and go and get a Coke from the Coke machine, and come back and sit back down and be drinking it.
The scientists will say, “Why did you get that Coke?” and the person will say, “Oh, you know, I just started to
feel thirsty, so I went and got it.” Because it was only showed to their right brain, and it didn’t register in their
left brain because their brain was severed, they completely believe it, so it’s more obvious. One of the reasons
why it’s not – why it doesn’t register for us day-to-day and moment-to-moment, this confabulation, is because
our minds are so fast.
Our minds are like a steel trap. As soon as someone calls us on our BS, and says, “Are you BSing me? Come
on.” The mind is so quick at reframing the whole thing, and going no, no, no, I really get it. No, I really meant
that. No, my story is really true. This isn’t perfectly to the point, here, but I want to share something that’s
been – I’ve been really getting in my experience, lately, is I think that all of us humans have a mechanism that,
for now, I’m calling the “I get it” mechanism. The “I get it” mechanism. We want to get it. We want to feel like
we understand how a system is working, and why things are happening, and what’s triggering what.
In fact, it almost seems to me now, working with a lot of business people and a lot of professionals, a lot of
teachers, that there’s a drive, there’s some kind of archetypal thing inside of us that is pushing us to get it, to
understand. It’s like the objective of curiosity or something, of research, of trying to figure things out, is to
have that feeling – that emotional feeling of security, of okay, I get it. I get it. Yeah, I get it. The problem with
the “I get it” mechanism is that once you get that feeling of I get it, all right, I get it, all the curiosity and all the
open-mindedness all shut down, and we put that “I get it” over here.
Then we say, “Well, I get that right now, so I don’t need to understand that anymore.” We kind of become close-
minded about it. So the “I get it” mechanism, on the one hand, it drives us to figure things out, which is very
powerful and very important, that we stay curious, but then, once we get the feeling that we figured it out, we
say, “Okay, I get that. Now, I can go on to the next thing.” When you feel like you get something, but you don’t,
that’s when you’re the most in danger. When you have that emotional “Oh, I get it,” but you don’t, that’s when
you’re the most in danger.
Wyatt and I were talking, the other day, about these obscure, weird teachers, but there’s a book called The
Psychology of Man’s Possible Evolution. It’s a little book. I highly recommend that you get it; it’s this thick.
You could read it over and over forever, and get something new out of it every time. The Psychology of Man’s
Possible Evolution, by Peter Ouspensky, and I won’t even try to spell that, but if you write down The Psychology
of Man’s Possible Evolution, there aren’t any other books called that. Right in the beginning of the book, he
basically says, “My biggest challenge here is going to be convincing you that what you’re about to learn is new.”
I tend to listen to what people say, and I take words literally, when I think it’s appropriate to. This is a guy who’s
very careful with his communication. When I read that, I thought – that’s weird. To say that’s the biggest
challenge, is convincing me that it’s new – why is that? So I thought about it a lot. I talked to Wyatt about it a
lot. I realized that it’s this mechanism. If you don’t think something is new when you hear it, if you are using
the “I get it” mechanism, what you’re doing, the whole time, is – I’m saying this, and you’re saying, “Oh, yeah,
I’ve heard of something like that. I get it.” Oh yeah, I’ve heard of something like that.
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I get it. Oh yeah, I’ve heard of that before. Oh yeah, I read that in a book once. Then, we get to the end of
the presentation or the training, and you’ve said I get it, I get it, I get it, yeah, that matches my experience, I
get it, I get it, I get it. Then, I say okay, now write an ad that’ll get someone to buy your stuff, and you go, “Oh,
well, that’s what you were supposed to teach me.” So be careful with the “I get it” mechanism. Something I’m
working on myself, right now, is trying to let go of that. Just let go of I get it, and never let myself get more than
about a 50 percent I get it. My I get it meter – I try to stop it right about here, so that I always remain open to
much bigger possibility.
So the point that I’m trying to make here, with confabulation and this “I get it” mechanism and so forth, is
you’re facing some interesting obstacles when you’re talking to your prospects. If you tell them a bunch of stuff
that they’ve probably heard before, they’re not gonna hear it, at all. In fact, they’re gonna think that you’re kind
of a lame jackass because you’re just saying stuff they already know. Follow? But, you also have to talk about
their experience and talk about things they can relate to directly, and include enough of what they know so that
you build rapport with them.
Are you starting to understand this is a little bigger challenge than it may have seemed like it was? Remember
that your prospect, the person that you really want to help, that you want to powerfully, ethically persuade
and support, has confabulated, in their mind, and has made up this whole story. They think they get it, and
they think they know what’s going on, and they think they know what the solution is, and they think they
know what they need. You’ve got to work with all that stuff. So don’t lean on logic, too much. Don’t lean on it
because it really isn’t your best tool in this realm that we’re talking about, here, of getting people to take action
that’s in their own best interest, again, in a very ethical way.
I was actually – I’ll stylize this story so it’s completely removed, but I was basically talking to a friend who works
with educators – very academic types. He sells information, and he has academic types that create some of the
information. He was talking about how the academic types, who come from a college background – academic
background – who have never seen marketing, they would look at the marketing that he does, and they’re like,
“There’s no way that anyone would ever respond to that because it’s just not logical.” They couldn’t see it.
He was talking about how academic, highly logical types, they don’t understand motivation and sales and
conversion and hope and fear and all of that. So I’m gonna give you an equation right now. It’s gonna take me
a little while to explain it, and then it’s gonna become very simple. But here’s how it works: action is based on
emotion. Action is based on emotion. Emotion. Action. Emotion first, then action. Whether you consciously
realize it or not, whenever you’re going to take an action, especially an action to do something new, outside your
comfort zone, fix something, there’s a big emotion that primes you, that prepares you, to take that action.
Without the emotion, there is no action. We only act after we’ve felt. We only act after we’ve felt. This process
is as close to being 100 percent unconscious as a process can be, almost by definition because this realm – you’ve
heard me talk about the three brains, and we’ll talk more about them, but this is the mammal brain, and this is
the reptile brain. These are not logical parts of the mind, and they’re not very well wired into the logical parts
of our mind. So when this is all happening, the brain’s over here doing something totally different. It’s on its
own trip, confabulating and making up stories to rationalize why we did it. What comes before the feeling,
typically?
Male Speaker: A trigger.
Male Speaker: A thought.
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Eben Pagan: A thought. Some kind of thought, usually, precedes the feeling, typically – or complex of
thoughts. These, often, are thoughts where we are interpreting things and making meaning. So a particular
type of thought; a meaning making set of thoughts, where we’ve combined two thoughts or a group of them
– we’ve made some meaning, in our head, and then that triggers an emotion. Now, the thoughts could be
logical thoughts, where we’re saying this equals that and here’s how the system works, but more often, they’re
imaginary pictures, where we make pictures in our mind, or imaginary sounds, where we’re talking to ourselves
or hearing other people talk.
Then, we’re making meaning out of that, and then it triggers a feeling. So as an example, if I’m thinking about a
movie that I saw that is one of my favorite movies, and I’ve seen it a bunch of times, and I’m thinking it through,
and imagining the scenes because I want to remember the line, so I can say it to a friend. I might not be making
a lot of meaning out of that. I might just be in a daydream or whatever.
On the other hand, if I’m making a picture in my mind of when I saw my boss yesterday, and my boss said, “I
think we’re gonna have some layoffs soon, and I’m a little concerned about some of our team members,” and
my boss wasn’t making eye contact with me while they said it, and they were shifting around nervously, that
picture and that sound are gonna have a different trigger effect on my emotions. We’re gonna have read the
body language. We’re gonna be playing those things over and over, and they’re gonna be triggering feelings.
What are some of the feelings that that might trigger?
Male Speaker: Fear.
Eben Pagan: Fear. Any others?
Eben Pagan: Anxiety.
Male Speaker: Doubt.
Male Speaker: Insecurity.
Eben Pagan: Doubt. Insecurity.
Eben Pagan: Where have I heard it before?
Eben Pagan: First time. I don’t know what you’re talking about, but –
Eben Pagan: Oh, okay. So in other words, what he’s saying is triggering the first time that something like that
ever happened to you. Now, that’s actually very profound because that’s where a lot of this stuff comes from. So
you don’t even realize it, but the first time that you had a strong traumatic feeling of fear, doubt, insecurity – of
maybe being abandoned by another person, that comes up. Then what happens? What happens after those
emotions are triggered? Well, it gets into a loop, where more thoughts are triggered, and all these complexes
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of negativity and pessimism start to get triggered, and they trigger more feelings and it’s this whole loop.
So we’re gonna summarize this by saying – a specific type of thought, but thought triggers emotion. So first, we
have a thought, then we have an emotion, and then, the emotion triggers the action. Then, we use our powerful
minds to confabulate the story about why it all happened – rationalize it to ourselves so that it makes sense,
so we don’t feel crazy. Then, we are the perfect robot – covered its own tracks. Daniel Goleman wrote a great
book called Vital Lies, Simple Truths. Daniel Goleman is the guy that wrote Emotional Intelligence. You may
have heard me talk about this.
I think Emotional Intelligence was a profound book, but you want to read something that’ll blow your mind,
read Vital Lies, Simple Truths, by Daniel Goleman – the book before Emotional Intelligence – which is about
the psychology of self-deception. One of the things that he says in Vital Lies, Simple Truths that I found
particularly profound, was that self-deception covers its own tracks. So we can deceive ourselves without
having any clue that we’re doing it. So you can see why this can be, maybe, a little dangerous, sometimes, in
life. Another quick thing I want to mention here is a lesson I learned from Roy Williams, who wrote the Wizard
of Ads books – brilliant guy.
He says your prospect will only do something that they first imagined themselves doing in their mind. So a
person will only do something that they’ve first seen themselves doing in their mind. We were getting edgy a
little earlier, and talking about the psychology of sexuality, and of eating. When you – think about the last time
you ate something that wasn’t good for you; the last time you ate junk food; the last time you were driving and
you were just like, “Those McDonald’s fries sound really good.” By the way, just a little informal poll – who here
eats McDonald’s fries as a guilty pleasure, on occasion? Raise your hand.
All right, good. Thanks for being honest – half of you. I do not, but I used to. They just perfected the fry, didn’t
they? But can you think of a time when you ate a guilty pleasure food – where you ate something you knew
was bad for you because you had a craving? Can you think of a time where you didn’t imagine yourself doing
it first? No. You made pictures of yourself doing it, in your mind, and those pictures triggered the feelings of
what it might be like to enjoy it. Then, those feelings made more pictures, and it became a loop, and that’s it.
Once the loop starts, you’re done – the drive-thru is in your future. Game over.
Can you think of a time – think about a time when – maybe when you were younger; maybe one of your first
sexual experiences, where it was really exciting – just so you get a clearer picture of what this is all about. It still
happens today, but was there a time where it happened, and you enjoyed it, and you weren’t thinking about
it and making pictures in your mind? No, that’s not how it works. So write this down: how can I make my
prospect imagine buying and using my products and services? What steps do I need to take, to get my prospect
to make vivid pictures in their mind of themselves purchasing and enjoying and getting the benefit from and
avoiding pain – my products and services?
So remember the commitments we made to ourselves, earlier? We are only going to offer products and services
that are of the highest quality and the highest value. That’s No. 1. And we’re going to use every tool that we can
to persuade all of them because we’re doing it on an ethical foundation. Go back one, there, for me. So let’s do
a quick exercise, here. What I’d like you to do is imagine your prospect enjoying – imagine them purchasing
and enjoying using the product and service that you might sell – product and/or service that you might sell.
Picture them purchasing and then enjoying the benefits of – also enjoying avoiding the pain that they have
right now.
Then, what I’d like you do is, from their perspective, I’d like you to write a quick little story. It’s almost like a
little mini ultimate scenario, like from last time. Write a quick little story about – in their words, about how
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they found your stuff. As they were watching your videos, listening to your audios, reading your sales letter,
how they had the “aha” that this might really work. How they started imagining themselves using it, and how,
as they were imagining it, and they were hearing from you, they realized this could actually really work, and
they started to get hope. Then, how easy it was for them to purchase and use, and then the great benefits that
they got and the pain that they got out of.
You follow me, here? So from their perspective, what was it like to find you and what was their experience that
they started to make pictures in their mind of what the outcome would be? The benefits, the avoidance of
pain, and then, how the more they got into your marketing copy, the more they watched your videos, the more
vivid the pictures became, the more they became emotionally motivated. The thoughts started to trigger the
feelings, and how that just pushed them into action. Actually, let’s just stop there.
So it’s just reading your marketing, looking at your videos, checking out your website, coming to one of your
programs, and how, as they listened to you, they started to be able to make clearer and clearer pictures. What
was it that you were doing that helped them do that, and how would they describe it? How did they start
feeling? Which specific emotions came up for them? Then, as they kept consuming your marketing, your
communications, what other emotions came up, and what was it that just pushed them over the edge? We’re
just playing right now. We’re trying to get into the mindset of a prospect.
We’re gonna take, maybe, four or five minutes, here, to just write a little scenario from their perspective. How
they found your stuff. How, as they were learning about it, as they were going through your process, they
were able to make a clearer picture of themselves using your product or service, getting the benefit from it,
having positive outcomes, avoiding the negative. Which emotions came up for them, and how that, eventually,
motivated them to take action – just four or five minutes. Let’s have silence for this one.
Who had a realization that they may have been doing something other than getting their prospects to imagine
themselves enjoying the benefits of using their product or service in their marketing? Four – six people. Okay,
good. Who realized that they haven’t been doing everything that they can to get their prospect to make pictures
of themselves enjoying using their product and service? Good. Excellent. We’re gonna do something a little
impromptu, here. Everyone knows my good friend, Wyatt Woodsmall, who’s been teaching some excellent
stuff, here, in the guru mastermind.
I just asked him, “Would you be willing to talk a little bit about psychology and motivation, and why people do
things?” and all this other stuff. So Wyatt’s gonna come share for a couple of minutes. So please give Wyatt a
warm welcome. How are you, Wyatt?
Wyatt Woodsmall: Thank you. Thank you.
Eben Pagan: So, what the heck is going on with us humans, Wyatt? Why are we such a freak show?
Wyatt Woodsmall: Well, that’s a good question that people have been asking for thousands of years, and it
seems like we’re still trying to get it straightened out, but it all starts –
Eben Pagan: I want to mention something. I’ve read a lot of interesting books, and I’ve met a lot of smart
people. Wyatt’s the No. 1 expert that I know, in the world, that’s ever lived, in my opinion, on psychology,
behavior, motivation and just how we humans work. So get ready to take a couple of notes, and write this down,
whatever this is he’s about to share.
Wyatt Woodsmall: Okay, you’ve covered a lot of the bases; so basically, motivation is the science of carrots
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and sticks. We do things for only two reasons: to get things we want, or to avoid things we don’t want. Now,
my experience, from having modeled a lot of salesmen, is salesmen are so focused on the benefits of what they
offer that, frequently, they miss the other half of the equation. What happens is, when we’re kids we go to the
toy store, and we go, “Mama, mama, daddy, daddy, give me candy; give me toys,” and our parents tell them no,
that you can’t have them, and furthermore, they may even tell us if we did get them, they’d be bad for us.
So we begin to get into this idea that what we want, we can’t have, and that what we really want may even be bad
for us. We learn to do without. So most of us have basically been conditioned, from childhood, to sacrifice;
to do without the things we really want. This becomes a challenge. So there’s two parts to the process, and
Eben’s covered both of them. So first is, then, we’ve got to give ourselves permission to have the things we really
want to be able to do the things we really want to do to give ourselves pleasure because we’ve had a lifetime of
conditioning to avoid that. The second thing is that the thing that frequently is the most powerful motivation
is the move away from.
So in sales, if you can find out what people’s worst nightmare is, and camp out inside their nightmare, and
amplify the nightmare, then that’s, frequently, gonna be much more powerful because what happens is, we
learn to do without, but where suicides, where despair, where stress happens is when we’re forced to live with
something we don’t want. So if we don’t want it bad enough, then we’ll do anything we can to avoid it; to get out
of that situation. But in order to do that, then we’ve got to get people to experience it. As Eben said – Eben’s
an excellent – gave us excellent – Eben is an excellent analyst of information, and does a phenomenal job of
synthesizing it.
[Inaudible] equation, thought equals – leads to emotion, leads to action, and he said what are thoughts? So if
I ask you what is a thought, frequently, it’s a psychological term that’s not well defined. So we think in terms
of pictures. We think in terms of sounds. We think in terms of words. We have feelings. If we really want to,
then, convey to people what I’ll call either the terror of the situation, or the great joy and benefits, then we’ve
got to get them – as Eben said – to make pictures in their mind. We’ve got to talk to them in a tone of voice –
which is why you’ve got to sell yourself, first.
You’ve got to be passionate about what you really care about, and it’s got to communicate through your voice;
it’s got to communicate through your words; and it’s got to communicate through the pictures. Now, as Eben’s
already said also, one of the most important things is credibility; is trust. So how do we build trust? We build
trust with people when they say – when we can communicate to them that we’ve been there; that we’ve felt
that; that we know where they’re at; that we know what it was like because we’ve done it ourselves, or perhaps
because we know somebody else that’s been through it.
So when you can state their pain better than they can state it themselves, then you’ve got credibility and they’re
willing to listen to you. So therefore, you’ve got to be able to have a background of experiences that you can
draw on.
Eben Pagan: Yeah, I was running around asking people, “Where did I get this phrase: If you can explain a
person’s problem better than they can, they unconsciously credit you with knowing the solution?” It turned
out, you told me it ten years ago, and I didn’t realize it came from you. Whoops. So think about, for a second,
what Wyatt just said. No. 1, often times people don’t give themselves permission to have the positive outcome
that they want to have. They won’t get themselves permission to do it. So a great question is how can you
help your prospect give themselves permission? Not how can you give them permission, although that can be
helpful, as well, but how can you help them give themselves permission?
How can you help them realize, you deserve this? This is something that you need to do for yourself. Overcome
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your resistance, this time. Be good to yourself, this time. Then, Wyatt talked to something that is not always
the easiest thing to talk to because we all want to help people have good feelings and get to a good point in
their life; have good experiences, positive experiences. But humans tend to be more motivated by the negative
– by the away from – than they are by the positive, or the toward. So Wyatt had a great uplifting and inspiring
phrase: camp out in their nightmares.
It’s very beautiful, but it’s accurate because oftentimes, humans won’t take action – humans won’t take action
until they’re really forced to confront the negative consequences of what they’re doing or not doing.
Wyatt Woodsmall: And those negative consequences are things that, usually, they’re pushing away; that
they’re not facing; that they’re avoiding; so why it’s so important that you’re able, then, to bring it out to them,
and to get it into their minds, so that they’re able to begin to focus on it. As Eben knows, I teach a high-end
sales seminar called the rainmaker seminar, which is based on modeling a guy who was the top salesman in the
history of his industry, in the world. He sold $165 million worth of printing sales in one year. In working with
him, he was a master of this move away from; find out what they lose sleep about at night.
Find out about what they’re concerned about. Whatever your product is, there’s a couple of differentials or
characteristics that people buying that product are focused on, and if they go wrong, then all sorts of problems
occur. So you need to know what they are, and you need to know how to get in there, and you need to know
how to tell the story so it really hurts. You can do that, once again, in several ways. You can talk about your
own experience. I remember when I was younger, I was similar to you. I was a buyer. I went through this
experience, and it left me this way. Or else, talk about my friend Joe.
I’ve got a good friend named Joe, and this is what happened to him, and I don’t want that to happen to you. But
you’ve got to lay it on thick, as Eben said earlier. How many of you want to be rude? How many of you want to
hurt other people? But it’s not that you’re hurting other people; you’re doing it so that, in the long run, they’re
gonna be better off. So you’ve got to sell yourself, first. That’s the first rule of all sales. If you haven’t convinced
yourself that what you have to sell is of so much value that if the prospect doesn’t buy it, that you’ve done them
an incredible disservice and that you have failed them.
Then, it’s all about how you can communicate that value, either toward or away from – to them, in such a
way, then, that they’re gonna realize, okay, they need to take action. So as Eben says, you’re focused on the
emotions. Emotions don’t come out of nowhere. Emotions come out of somewhere. They basically come out
of three places: they come out of pictures outside of our conscious awareness; they come out of the tonality of
our voice; and they may come from other sensations in our body. So you’ve got to create those, both positive
and negative, and that’s where you need to be focused.
So the great thing about what Eben has just laid out for us is there’s thousands of books on sales. There’s
thousands of hours on the Internet on conversion; but Eben is going exactly to the heart of what needs to be
done, and then leading from this is what you need to do to take action; where you need to focus your effort; the
hard questions you need to be able to do. So for your prospect – for your goods or services, and your prospect,
you need to have a story that’s gonna bring tears to their eyes, and that’s going to wake them up, and is gonna
move them to action, or you need to talk to them in such a way that they think, “Yes, I’ve earned this.
“I deserve it. I want it, and this is something – a pleasure that I need to have, and that I’m willing to do that.”
Sales is the art of making people feel good about giving you money. So in order to do that, then, you’ve got to
earn, by giving them the feeling, and the feelings have got to come from you, and that’s what this seminar is all
about.
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Eben Pagan: Just because I like the weirdness a little bit and Wyatt’s great at talking about weirdness, just five
minutes on – ten minutes on the waking dream, and maybe some of the philosophies toward it.
Wyatt Woodsmall: On the waking dream?
Eben Pagan: You know, we’re all asleep.
Wyatt Woodsmall: Okay, yes.
Eben Pagan: Robots.
Wyatt Woodsmall: Okay. So this is – one of the people that Eben mentioned a minute ago was Ouspensky.
Ouspensky’s guru was a guy named Gurdjieff, who was a very remarkable guy who, when he was young, went
all over the world seeking for knowledge, and asking the basic questions that we all ask, and that Eben and I
certainly ask and discuss, which is why is it that people are not more open to change? Why is that people are
not more out there, seeking things? What Gurdjieff discovered is something that Eben’s talked about. What
he discovered is that the greatest enemy of learning is the belief we already know.
The greatest enemy of change is the belief we’ve already made that change. So we exist under the illusion
that we’re awake; that we’re alert; that we’re rational; that we’re conscious decision makers. As Eben has said,
that’s a total illusion. If we really go in and look, we’ll see that we’re very mechanical; that we’re creatures of
habit. We’ve got intellectual habits; we’ve got emotional habits; we’ve got physiological habits, and we just
keep repeating these habits again and again and again. The greatest power of persuasion comes from having
the greatest ally you can ever have.
The greatest ally you can ever have on your side is simply human nature. Human beings are creatures of habit.
Once you understand those habits, and you mechanically trigger the habits, then people will mechanically do
things. So if we want to – the first thing we’ve got to do to wake up ourselves is realize we’re asleep. The real
challenge then, and the challenge Gurdjieff had, and the challenge most spiritual teachers have is they’re trying
to get you to realize that something you think you’ve already got, therefore you don’t need it, therefore there’s
no reason to invest in it, and that you don’t have it, and want you to realize that.
So Gurdjieff had a lot of ways of point out to people how mechanical we are. So we’ve only got a small, limited
number of postures. Our life is moving from one set of these postures to another, and that we’re habitual
in these postures. We’ve also got emotional postures, and intellectual postures. So the key to persuasion is
figuring out, for an individual, what those emotional and intellectual postures are, and then feeding things
back to them, in terms of that. Once you do that, it’s automatic. People are just automatically gonna go there.
So there’s two sides to the story.
One is how you use this human nature, in order to be able to persuade; to sell other people, as Eben says – to do
it for a win-win, and for their own benefit. But the second thing is how do you wake up yourself? How do you
being to realize that you’re mechanical, and that, therefore, you are simply [inaudible]. Castaneda had a great
metaphor. Don Juan is talking to Carlos, and basically, Don Juan is teaching Carlos the art of hunting. In one
of his great stories – so what he does is he takes Carlos, and first he has him study the habits of the prey.
So they observe. They’re trying to catch some water rat-type things, and they spend a couple days observing
them. So at every moment of time, they can tell exactly where they are: they know where they get up in the
morning; they know where they go to drink; they know when they eat; they know where they lie in the heat of
the sun; they know when they run, when they’re scared. You study the habits of your prey, that’s the first thing.
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The second thing was to make traps. So you make traps then – and Don Juan showed Carlos how to get the
reeds, how to bend them, how to tie them in such a way to make traps, so that you could catch the prey.
Then, once you’ve got your traps, and once you’ve studied the routines of the prey, you set the traps against the
routines, so that at any time of the day, you know where to have your traps. You can set them in the middle of
the day, and you simply frighten the animals, and they all run away into the traps. So Carlos goes through this.
He becomes a very good hunter. He’s very adept at studying the routines of his prey. He’s very adept at setting
the traps, and he’s very good at setting the traps against the routines. But then, Don Juan comes to him, at the
end, and says, “Now, I’ve got to teach you the last, and perhaps the most important, lesson of hunting.”
And he says, “The first thing you need to understand is that everything is hunted, and what allows it to be
hunted is its routines. A hunter, knowing this, then begins to reflect on what are its routines, and what allows
it to be hunted.” Then, he goes on to say – Don Juan says, “There’s some animals in the desert, certain deer, you
may come across once in a lifetime, by accident, and what makes them different from all other animals?” and
Carlos says, “I don’t know.” Don Juan says, “They have no routines. That’s what makes them magical.” So each
of us has routines; our routines allow us to be hunted by something else, and allow us to hunt something.
Once we know this, then we need to become aware of our routines, and we need to, then, be able to begin to
break our routines. Only once we do that, do we begin to get freedom. But our routines are unconscious, so
it takes a lot to bring them into awareness. It takes a lot to transcend them, but once we can transcend them,
then we can learn the greatest lesson of hunting, which is to let go of our own routines. Once we can let go of
our own routines, then we can become magical.
Eben Pagan: Yeah, that was kind of okay. By the way, I’ll just mention this now. In December, Wyatt is doing
a training that I’m going to help him with, on learning and teaching. One of my observations is that one of
the things that most Internet marketers and most information marketers just don’t know how to do is teach
and learn – that basic thing. We’re operating – who feels like they’re probably operating at 10 percent of their
efficiency as a learner and a teacher? So we’re doing that in December. Would you, maybe, like me to take a
few minutes, maybe tomorrow or before a break or after a break, and just tell you about that – just tell you five
minutes about it?
Okay. Because we’re gonna kind of market it to the real world, but I guess, maybe, we should tell these guys
about it, as well. Okay. So I’ll make a little announcement, and maybe I’ll do it before a break, and whoever’s
interested can kind of stay for a minute, and we’ll just tell you about what we’re gonna do. It’s gonna be intense.
It’s gonna be a five-day intensive training on learning and teaching. I think it’s gonna be more powerful than
anything that I’ve ever seen because I think this is the guy, right here, and I think we all need to learn and teach
better. So thank you, Wyatt. Good stuff. Write down the biggest “aha” that you just got from that. What’d
you learn?
Male Speaker: To write faster.
Eben Pagan: To write faster; good. Who’s had a big paradigm shift – a big “aha” in this first couple of sessions?
Raise your hand. Okay, good. Can we get maybe four or so – five people over here that have had a big insight
about conversion, so far today, and then, maybe, four or five over here. What’s been your big insight about
conversion? What’s the big “aha”? And remember, we’re still up at the 40,000-foot view. We’re still at the
theoretical level, right now. We’re gonna start coming down into a little bit more practical level, and then
tomorrow – later today and tomorrow – we’re gonna get into a lot more techniques, and exactly how to lock all
the pieces together.
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So again, right up to the mic, say your name and where you’re from, and then, what’s the big the “aha” that you
got?
Linda Feinholtz: Hi, I’m Linda Feinholtz, from Los Angeles. Recently asked to host a brand-new Internet
radio show, that’s gonna be called the Spark Effect, and I realized that I have spent years trying to avoid my own
terrors, so there’s no way I want to stir terror up in anyone else. It’s how to create the Bambi picture, and try to
stimulate people to walk in there, but that’s not the starting point. Thank you.
Eben Pagan: Anyone else spent years avoiding your own terror, but just never wanting to get in there? Good,
thank you.
Linda Feinholtz: Thank you.
Eben Pagan: Thank you.
Scott Jordan: Hi, I’m Scott Jordan, and I have a website, commercialfundingsolutions.net, that we’ve just
recently launched. Being a very left brain-oriented person, it’s very difficult for me to integrate the stirring up
the emotions. What happened for me, actually, was last night, we were redoing our website, as you very nicely
critiqued it the last time. The story that I’ve come up with, on the left side of my brain, was you need to have
experts on your dream team, and I brought the parallel of the O.J. Simpson trial – of he was able to get away
with murder, basically, by having the best representatives available.
When I woke up this morning, I was uncomfortable with that, but in listening and getting reinforced by what
you’ve said – is I really need to have a very emotionally riveting story that makes people uncomfortable, one
way or the other. I thank you very much for getting me to the point where I’m gonna feel more confident in
displaying that, rather than just the logic.
Eben Pagan: Excellent.
Male Speaker: One of the biggest problems that I have when I work with businesses is that most of them think
that they already are doing SEO, or that their websites are already seeing traffic, or that they’re ranked for some
keywords. It’s so difficult to explain to them that the keywords they’re ranked for are not competitive, or that
they’re not important. Then, they think that just because they’re No. 1 on some [inaudible] keywords, that
they’re doing fantastic. My realization was that I have to not only explain the benefits to them, but what will
happen if they keep going at the same rate.
That even though they’re ranked for some non-competitive keywords, they’re really never gonna get conversions
or sales, unless they start targeting more important keywords, and to appeal to the pain to them, that – what
will happen down the line versus just explaining to them the benefits of what to look at – so appeal more to
pain, and less to the pleasure.
Eben Pagan: Good. Thank you.
Male Speaker: Thank you.
Eben Pagan: A question that sometimes comes up for people, when we’re having this discussion, is, “But hey,
wait a minute. In all the self-help books, and in The Secret, they say to only think about the positive, and if I
think about the positive, my head explodes and the new car’s in my garage when I get home.” I actually buy into
a lot of that stuff, that learning to talk to ourselves in a positive tone of voice; learning to say positive things;
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learning to love ourselves; to speak – to have gratitude for ourselves; very, very important.
Focusing on a positive outcome that we want, and making a picture of how we want things to be, these are very
important to do on an ongoing, habitual – as a ritual for ourselves – as part of the way that we communicate
with ourselves, and, actually, with others, as well. But in this situation, where someone – especially in the
beginning, where they don’t know you; they’re just building a relationship with you and so forth – this is a
special case. This is a special situation. This isn’t like everything else. When they show up, most likely, they’re
already in fear. Most people are already, secretly, in fear; already having anxiety.
In this case, it’s okay to focus on that. It’s okay to focus on the negative to help a person make a good decision.
Then, as you build a relationship with them, of course, start talking to them in a positive and trusting tone of
voice, and to focus on the positive outcomes, but realize that it’s okay to step out of that model, and step into a
model where everything’s game to get someone to break through the apathy, and get off their butt; to stop being
lazy, and to do something. Sometimes you have to pull out the stick, with love, of course – as in, this is gonna
hurt me more than it’s gonna hurt you, style.
Brian Behr: What I’ve realized so far – my name is Brian Behr, from San Francisco. What I’ve noticed is
there’s so many points – there’s so many great points that have been made about conversion that I just wanted
to offer something that I’ve found to be useful. As an Internet marketer, I’m looking at what are the pieces
that my writing is missing, and just making a series of filters that I’m gonna run all my material through, like
is it really hitting – have I addressed camping them out in their worst nightmare? Have I addressed being so
passionate that I feel that I’ve failed my job if they haven’t purchased from me and running all my marketing so
that I’m coming from that place throughout everything that I do?
I’ve just made a long list of those, so far. There’s just been a lot of golden nuggets, so I’m just running all of my
material through that.
Eben Pagan: Excellent. It’s a great tip. Yeah, thank you very much. If you read Dan Kennedy’s book, The
Ultimate Sales Letter – that’s a must-read book – Dan Kennedy’s book, The Ultimate Sales Letter – not that
thick. It’s a big checklist of conditions that you need to meet; things you need to include – and create your own
checklist from what we’re talking about, here, and make sure and review it on a regular basis.
Scott Robinson: Scott Robinson, scottrobinsoninc.com – I [inaudible]
Eben Pagan: scottrobinsoninc.com?
Scott Robinson: Yeah.
Eben Pagan: Is there a dot after the inc, and then dot com?
Scott Robinson: scottrobinsoninc.com.
Eben Pagan: I’m just messing with you. Okay, go ahead.
Scott Robinson: Thanks.
Eben Pagan: You’re welcome.
Scott Robinson: Confession: this was an incredible moment, thank you. That was awesome. I’m gonna
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be real open, here. This was a moment for me, today.
Eben Pagan: Let’s give him some encouragement. We’re about to go to the next level.
Scott Robinson: I’ve always been an entrepreneur – 1991 started one of the most successful wireless
companies in Orlando – that’s my whole history, before. Anyways, the real crux of the matter – in 2002, it
all came tumbling down. I never told this to anyone; I’m saying it in front of a 1,000 people – I had to file my
bankruptcy; had my truck towed out in front of my house. Not a very pleasant experience. I went through hell.
I lost my father – did all these horrible experiences, all at one time. Then, I got off my you-know-what and I
said –
Eben Pagan: Ass?
Scott Robinson: “Time to move on,” – I don’t know if it’s being recorded, so –
Eben Pagan: Oh, it is.
Scott Robinson: Yeah. I got off my ass, and moved on with life, and I said, “You know, I’m gonna create
a business that I love and that will help people – that will create passive income, where I’ll never have to rely
on a retail,” – I was in retail, and I want passive income, so the Internet is where I went. It’s been a learning
experience – but to create passive income – having my money create money – that’s what I do. I do a newsletter
for that. I got off my butt and did that, and literally, have just – to tell that story, I think I need to redo my entire
sales page, and to tell my story, and to let people resonate with that because do you know how many people file
bankruptcy, and go through hell?
I think that will connect with more people than anyone else.
Eben Pagan: Don’t go anywhere. All right. So I have special goodies, as you know, behind – and you just
stepped outside of your comfort zone way more than anyone has. So here’s one of those fancy, new, slim, cool
little iPod Nanos for you. Here’s a little Nano video for you. So we reward stepping outside our comfort zones,
and speed of implantation here, okay? So do it. Go for it. Does that ring true? That if he were to reveal more
of who he is, and what he’s been through – did you see the emotion coming up for him? – that that might land
a little better with his prospects, and help them?
Rob Weeks: Hi, Eben, nice to see you again. Rob Weeks, from Los Angeles. Big take-away I’ve gotten already
was just, really, the importance of looking within; not being so arrogant to think that we fully understand
ourselves, and our hang-ups, when it comes to selling, and really being bold and courageous to offer the best
possible motivation to get our prospects to buy and help themselves change their lives.
So just, really, understanding the importance of going through a detailed process, to realize where we are in that
sense of understanding – just how important it is to overcome all of our mental blocks, and really set ourselves
free to explore more learning, and just be more courageous, be more bold, when it comes to selling.
Eben Pagan: Awesome. Thank you.
Rob Weeks: Thank you.
Eben Pagan: That’s a good one.
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Dan Granstaff: I’m Dan Granstaff. I’m developing a group coaching program called “Sell More Services.” What
I realize is that I have been addressing their pain at a very safe level because of – so that I stayed safe, in terms
of losing business, not having enough customers, that sort of thing. Instead, when we did the comfort-zone
exercise, I realized that the reason I stay in my comfort zone is I don’t want to be humiliated by somebody really
pushing at me, or getting angry or upset with me. So I realize, now, I can start talking to my prospects about
their fear of humiliation, their fear of anger, their fear of rejection, and connect with them in a whole different
way.
Eben Pagan: That’s a good one. Thank you. Okay, good. Good insights.
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Disc 2
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Eben Pagan: I’d like to give you a picture, a way of thinking about conversion and communicating with your
prospects about conversion. What I’d like you to do is imagine that you have a stage – you’re going to see my
powerful, artistic abilities. It might be closer to autistic abilities, but moderately artistic abilities – so imagine
that you have a stage where you get to feature something; you get to put something on the stage and you have
a spotlight here that you can shine on one of the things that you have on your stage. The first thing that you
can put on the stage is you. The next thing that you can put on stage is your product. The next thing that you
can put on stage is your business. And what do you think the fourth thing that you can put on stage would
be?
Male Speaker: Prospects.
Eben Pagan: Your prospect or your customer and their needs. Now most business owners that I know,
most information marketers, they like to shine the spotlight on themselves and they feature themselves and
they take fancy pictures of themselves and they say, “Here’s how great I am and here’s how great I look and
here’s how wonderful my stuff is and here’s my degree and here are all my qualifications. I realize that we’ve
talked about me for a while, but what do you think of me?” Right? It’s that kind of thing and even if it’s, “I’m
going to talk about my product and I don’t know if you realize this, but my product was created by me. This
is a great business too and great people, but yeah, it’s over here, pretty much.”
If you shine the light on your prospect more and on their needs, their desires, their fears, their frustrations,
their irrational fantasies and that’s where you keep it, and if you do bring these things up: you, your product,
and your business to build credibility or build trust or to create a safe environment for them to take action in,
it’s always done in the context of their needs. It’s always related to something that they would be concerned
about. You’re going to find that as you’re talking about these things, you’re going to speak in a little bit of a
different voice. You’re going to have a different way of approaching it; it’s not going to be the same.
And what’s profound is your customer will be able to tell on an unconscious level. When you’re talking to
someone and you’re having a conversation and you realize that the other person really isn’t listening to you?
They’re kind of just listening to what you’re saying so they can figure out what to say next so they can figure
out how to turn the conversation back to themselves? So they can relate it back to, “If you think that’s good,
have I got a story for you. If you think that’s bad, you should hear what happened to me.” So we humans can
only really perceive things that are us, right?
Perception is projection. So we can only really see and perceive things that somehow are part of our
experience and often times, we’re more insecure and we need more attention and approval than we know
and these are patterns that come from childhood. So that leaks over and seeps over into our marketing and
communications with our customers and we talk about ourselves, we talk about our products and we talk
about our business and we talk about how great they are rather than linking everything back to the customer
and their needs.
So let’s do a quick little exercise right now. Write down the one biggest need your customer or your prospect
has. If you don’t know, just come up with what you think it might be. And it’s probably something that’s
irrational. What’s your prospect’s big need right now? What it is? It might be to lose 20 lbs. It might not be
to just lose 20 lbs. It might be to lose 20 lbs. so I can attract the mate that I think that if I lose the 20 lbs. that
I’ll finally be able to attract. That might be it. What is it that you think that your prospect really needs? And
if you can get to the irrational need, you’re making even more progress. If you believe the irrational need, the
deepest irrational need of your prospect is.
Now what I’d like you to do is I would like you to pretend that maybe I’m your prospect, or you’re talking to
35
your prospect, and you’re going to tell them something about you, but instead of telling them something
about you, tell them something about you that relates to them getting their need met. So there’s a direct
connect between what it is you’re saying about you and them getting their need met, straight line. Then tell
me something about your product. But don’t just shine the light on it and say, “Wow, my product’s really
wonderful.” Tell me something about your product that relates to me and helps me see that that’s what’s
going to get my need met.
And then tell me something about your business. But instead of just bragging about your business, tell me
something that somehow connects back to me as a prospect getting my need met because that’s the only lens
I’m looking at it through. I don’t care how great it is, I only care how that information relates to me getting
my need met. So go ahead and write down, tell me one thing about you, one thing about your product and
one thing about your business but as it relates to that one specific need, that irrational need. Five minutes
silence.
Raise your hand if you had a little aha there as you were writing out your messages. Good. Who would like to
do a little work with me around this? We’re fine-tuning. Just get maybe two people right here and two people
right over here.
James Fairfield: James Fairfield, Philadelphia.
Eben Pagan: So what is their biggest problem, their biggest irrational issue?
James Fairfield: Drilled down, it’s actually self-esteem. The issue they presented with was fat after
having children. They couldn’t shake with that or exercise.
Eben Pagan: And so you’ve got to self-esteem? So what we’re going to do here is we’re going to fine tune a
little bit and we’re going to find that optimal place that’s the most motivating. So you’re saying that a man
has had a couple of kids and now he needs to lose some weight because his self-esteem is low? I’m sorry. So a
woman has had some children and she has fat that’s unwanted and is lowering her self-esteem?
James Fairfield: That’s really the reason she’s in that we’ve determined. I’ve been working on the
Avatar since the last meeting and in fact, that’s what’s behind all of this because she refuses to go to the pool
with the kids because she has to wear a bathing suit and it’s embarrassing. Her husband –
Eben Pagan: What’s her biggest fear?
James Fairfield: That is won’t go away and that her husband will find somebody else.
Eben Pagan: All right. Now we’re getting closer there. The husband will find somebody else. Now is that a
rational fear or mostly irrational? Mostly irrational. Which one of these: you, your product or your business,
which one of them is the one that you would normally talk about?
James Fairfield: The clients.
Eben Pagan: You would normally in your –
James Fairfield: Oh yeah, absolutely.
Eben Pagan: You would put it on them? So someone who’s coming in to get some of this work done, they’re
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going to want to know that you, your product and/or your service and your business are the right one. So
which one would you normally hold up?
James Fairfield: The first one would be me.
Eben Pagan: You?
James Fairfield: Yeah.
Eben Pagan: So what could you say about yourself that would imply to your prospect that you understand
your situation and you understand what it’s going to take to help her achieve the result that she wants and
avoid the pain that she doesn’t want.
James Fairfield: “Nancy, I know how you feel because I had the exact same problem with the exception
of having children myself. My wife had the children, but I got the fat. She got the mind, but I got the shaft.”
Eben Pagan: Philadelphia is a rough town, isn’t it?
James Fairfield: And then the next step is to say, “We recently acquired the SmartLipo laser liposuction
and of course before trying anything in our cosmetic office –”
Eben Pagan: All right, time out. We’re going to stick with you here. Good, but maybe we could get a little
bit closer to the situation.
James Fairfield: Or, I’d do this. I’d say, “And in order to solve my fat –
Eben Pagan: You’d take your clothes off?
James Fairfield: – I did myself and I went from a 35 to a 33 waist and had an eight hour work day the
next day.” Introducing both the product and me and the proof in one package.
Eben Pagan: Excellent. I still think that you might be missing all of the possible help you could be offering
because my intuition tells me that the leap from man to woman is kind of a far one. Do you know any
women, who have been close to you in your life, who had children, let themselves go, so to speak and a really
great man left?
James Fairfield: Yes.
Eben Pagan: You do?
James Fairfield: Yes, I do.
Eben Pagan: No is a fine answer here but could you talk about them just a little bit?
James Fairfield: Basically, they didn’t leave because of the fat. They left for other reasons.
Eben Pagan: Say that again.
James Fairfield: They didn’t leave because of how the woman looked.
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Eben Pagan: I’m not asking, “Do you know anyone who – the man did leave because of how the woman
looked?”
James Fairfield: Well, no.
Eben Pagan: You don’t know any of those?
James Fairfield: I knew of men who left and the woman had this and that’s what she blamed. She’s
blaming herself. But women live in chronic paranoia that their men are going to leave anyway.
Eben Pagan: Let’s just leave that alone. We’re going to step back and just say that he didn’t say that because
we don’t want to go down that road right now. I think a couple of women just left to get the tar and feather
truck. Did you say that you recently became single?
Eben Pagan: That’s a shocker. That’s a logic puzzle that we’re going to have to work out another day.
James Fairfield: And she wanted to kill me too.
Eben Pagan: Did you ever get the feeling that you were psychic, but you weren’t, but you were really close
to it maybe? I’ll bet you do know someone if you just really thought about it – my gut tells me you like your
ideas a lot.
James Fairfield: Well, this one happens to work. It’s a dead kill, I mean it’s a proven technique in this
particular procedure to sell it and then we also –
Eben Pagan: Hang on a sec. Does this man sound attached? Does he think he gets it? Do you think you
get it?
James Fairfield: I think I get that part. I don’t know that I get it all.
Eben Pagan: Just that part. That’s really the challenge that we all face is, “Well, I get that part. I just don’t
get it all.”
James Fairfield: I’m just grateful that I did it to myself because now I can sell it with very much
believability.
Eben Pagan: Are you happy that you did it?
Eben Pagan: You feel like it’s a good selling point for you?
James Fairfield: Absolutely. Same with the other lasers I’ve used on me for that purpose.
Eben Pagan: I’m convinced that you think it’s a good idea, and that you’re happy you did it, and you think
it’s a good selling point.
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James Fairfield: The bevy of clients that are happy who have had it for the same reasons who are
available to these clients to speak to them personally out of my earshot at their convenience, is also a pitch
point we use very early on in the consultation.
Eben Pagan: Excellent. As far as I understand it, you don’t want to be the one standing in front of them
anymore individually saying, “I lost the weight so –”
James Fairfield: No, it’s part of our strategy – our aesthetician does our initial intake of the
consultation and at the right moment, I’m queued to come in from whatever I’m doing for the kill.
Eben Pagan: I’m still wondering why you have trouble with relationships, but it’s shocking. Maybe I can be
more direct with you here. You really think you’ve got this one nailed. I mean, you really think you’ve got this
all locked down.
James Fairfield: If they can afford it, they buy it.
Eben Pagan: Say again.
James Fairfield: 100 percent. If they can afford it, they buy it. I mean the result metric score –
Eben Pagan: Are you trying to say, “Yes, I really do think I’ve got this one locked down?”
James Fairfield: Well this particular metric, yes.
Eben Pagan: Just this one.
James Fairfield: Yes.
Eben Pagan: Fantastic. Well you know what? I don’t think I can help you. Because if you think you get it
100 percent –
James Fairfield: Is there an alternative?
Eben Pagan: Well, I was trying. I tried about seven times. I’m not kidding, I really did. If you think you
got this 100 percent, I think you should –
James Fairfield: I’m open to suggestions.
Eben Pagan: Well, how about this? Are you willing to be brutally honest?
James Fairfield: Absolutely.
Eben Pagan: Okay. Women, just the women in the room: raise your hand if you feel that this man might be
just a little less than open to suggestion. Raise you hands, ladies. Huh, I don’t know if that’s every woman in
here, but it looked like most of them. Women have good intuition. I’m going to let you think about that for
a minute; maybe come up and do another exercise with me, but just monitor where you’re really at because I
don’t think you’re being open right now.
James Fairfield: Sure.
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Eben Pagan: I think you are as closed as a person gets.
James Fairfield: Gotcha.
Eben Pagan: And I appreciate you coming up, by the way. And thanks for being bold and letting me mess
with you. So he just did a lot of work for all of us because that’s where we are. That’s where we’re all at; that’s
where I’m at, that’s where you’re at, that’s where we’re all at. But we can’t see ourselves there and I guarantee
you that 99.9 percent of the people in this room said, “Oh yeah, yeah, he’s closed; he doesn’t get it.” Instead
of saying, “Wow, I wonder if I’m like that too.” Does that make sense? And we are; we all are. And thank you
again for letting me kind of keep hammering because it’s good to see it.
Kevin: I’m Kevin from Kingston, Washington.
Eben Pagan: How’s it going, Kevin?
Kevin; Good, thanks.
Eben Pagan: So tell me about your prospects and their real irrational fear.
Kevin: Well, I don’t know if I can get to irrational. So that’s where I’ll admit you’ll have to help me.
Eben Pagan: Okay.
Kevin: This is a nutritional product that can help people with lots of different kinds of issues and I’m
choosing blood sugar issues as one possible one. So my original customer’s need was simply to stop taking
insulin, and then I got to that they get free of having to see their doctor and being at the mercy of their health
being having to have the medical profession keep them going. And then, it was simply to let go of the fear of
a debilitating condition that could just continue on a downward slide. So that’s about as deep as I could go. I
couldn’t really get to irrational because that’s pretty real for these people.
Eben Pagan: It can be real but still be an irrational fantasy, if that makes sense. So in other words, there’s
a pretty good probability that I’m going to die someday from the statistics that I’ve studied. And I can have
fear of death and you can say, “Well, that’s rational. You have a rational fear of death because all indicators
point to the fact that you’re going to die.” But I can walk around with agoraphobia, like I can’t leave my house,
like I can’t look at anyone because it just triggers my fear of death and every time I think of it, I get incredible
anxiety. Do you understand the distinction?
Kevin: Right.
Eben Pagan: So that would be maybe an irrational level where we would say, “Oh, maybe it’s kind of
irrational.”
Kevin: So some people with this condition sometimes have to have limbs amputated but that’s – I don’t
know what the percentages are but getting specific about something like that, would that be taking it to that
level of where it’s bordering on more irrational? Because that doesn’t happen to all the people who have this
condition, probably –
Eben Pagan: What percentage of people who have this condition worry that someday they might have a
limb amputated?
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Kevin: Right. I would say that’s pretty high.
Eben Pagan: Give me a number. What percentage do you think?
Kevin: To take a guess, I don’t know, 60 percent to 70 percent. It’s just a guess.
Eben Pagan: So six or seven out of ten people who have this condition are concerned they may have a limb
amputated someday. So you don’t want to say, “I’m an expert at amputation,” by the way. That’s not where
we’re going here. So let’s say you, your product or your business and for now, I’m going to actually limit this to
make it easier: you and your product. Because in a lot of cases, you really are your business. But you and your
product: which is the one that you normally would talk about the most?
Kevin: Before this weekend, I would have always talked about – and before I started doing your seminar, I
would have always talked about the product, not about the customer.
Eben Pagan: Okay, so what is the product?
Kevin: Do you want me to just read this or do it conversationally?
Eben Pagan: Just tell me what the product is.
Kevin: It’s a plant material that causes your body to release adult stem cells out of your bone marrow – 25
percent - 30 percent increase. And then those adult stem cells can become any cell in the body. So if your
pancreas needs work, then they go there and literally repair from the inside out. So they can do that with any
tissue, muscle, cell, any organ in the body can be affected by this profoundly.
Eben Pagan: Okay, excellent. So I’m not a doctor and I’m not advising this as marketing. Anytime we get
into ingestibles and consumables, you might have to. Just as an exercise here, could I as a prospect have this
framed as: here’s the path that I’m on, here’s this fear (limb amputation) and this plant material that you’re
talking about could be the thing that veers me off so that I avoid limb amputation?
Kevin: Absolutely.
Eben Pagan: How did you sell it before?
Kevin: I would just start describing – just go into the science of adult stem cells and talk about all the
controversy with embryonic stem cells but adult stem cells have been proven and you can go to Mexico and
spend thousands of dollars to take your blood, have it cultured and then reinject those adult stem cells. So
that’s what I would do in the past.
Eben Pagan: Let me ask you this. If you’ve got this problem and you’re doing some research online and
you’re looking around and worrying about maybe having to have your leg amputated someday and you come
across a website that says, “Our product is wonderful. It creates adult stem cells. You don’t have to travel to
Mexico.” And you’re going, “Okay, I got a biology lessen here.” Or you come to another website and it says,
“You’re afraid of getting your limb amputated. Take this pill, no amputation.” Which one’s going to be more
motivating? So do you see how talking about the product as it relates directly, straight line could be a little bit
more powerful? Good, that’s it. Just that far.
Kevin: Thanks.
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Ramon Gonzales: My name is Ramon Gonzales and I’m from Miami, Florida.
Eben Pagan: Tell me about your prospect’s big irrational fear.
Ramon Gonzales: I believe that my prospect’s big irrational fear is losing money. It’s getting started in
real estate investing and losing money. It’s one of their biggest fears.
Eben Pagan: Losing money –
Ramon Gonzales: Or making a bad deal or embarrassment from family, “I told you you shouldn’t have
done this. It was a bad idea.”
Eben Pagan: Okay, now we’re talking. Disapproval by family. Family thinks you look like an idiot. How
different is it to think about the disapproval of another person versus losing some money. Right? Which
person in your prospect’s life would be the worst person to have disapprove of them?
Ramon Gonzales: Mom.
Eben Pagan: Their mother?
Ramon Gonzales: Yeah. Or their wife.
Eben Pagan: Wife.
Ramon Gonzales: Family. Those that are dependent upon that person for income.
Eben Pagan: What happens if – so we’re assuming that this person is a man, I assume. You get a lot of male
customers?
Ramon Gonzales: Predominantly.
Eben Pagan: Okay. What happens if wife disapproves? They lose money; wife disapproves.
Ramon Gonzales: Divorce. No sex too.
Eben Pagan: Divorce plus no sex. So would you normally talk about you in your marketing or would you
talk about your product, if you were to talk about one of the two?
Ramon Gonzales: I would talk about how the product has a certain checklist or items in place that limit –
Eben Pagan: But you would talk about the product, not yourself.
Ramon Gonzales: I’d talk about the product and how it relates to their concern of not losing money or
making a mistake.
Eben Pagan: I understand. We’re just going to focus on the product though, right? What is it that your
product does that – what’s the one big thing that it does that prevents them from losing money? What is the
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product, anyway, just out of curiosity?
Ramon Gonzales: It’s a product for real estate investors. It’s information on how to do what I do, in my
business.
Eben Pagan: Which is?
Ramon Gonzales: I buy houses and I just take control over the house and then I look to sell it and if I can
find a buyer before I end up selling it, I do it that way. But I don’t put up much money; a couple of thousand
dollars tops.
Eben Pagan: Okay, so did you notice here that we didn’t know what he did. We didn’t know what he
did. He actually sells a course on how to invest and make money in real estate. It’s how to invest and make
money, but there wasn’t any mention of that as we were digging in to where the big leverage points were. The
big leverage point was to avoid losing money so that you avoid disapproval and losing of wife. You follow?
Counter-intuitive. Not something that would normally come up if you were not thinking this way. So what
is the one biggest thing about your product that it teaches or offers that safeguards the person against losing
money?
Ramon Gonzales: Don’t buy the house. Don’t put up any money.
Eben Pagan: But what is it about the product?
Ramon Gonzales: That’s what it is about the product. The product teaches people how to put these
houses under contract and not necessarily close on the house until they have a buyer in place that’s going to
close it for them. So there’s no chance of them losing money. They just don’t close.
Eben Pagan: Okay, so you could say, “Chapter seven of my program is called, ‘The Guaranteed No Losing
Money System’.” You follow? We’d tweak that wording a little bit. Why would I call it the Guaranteed No
Lose Money System? Because the biggest fear is of losing money and looking like an idiot. So there’s some
part of your product that maybe this is just opening a little window that actually safeguards your customer
against the big fear that they have. In fact, there might be some part of your product that safeguards your
customer, protects them from screwing up with your product. Or if not, you might put one in there. Because
a lot of times, a prospect’s biggest fear is making a mistake and looking stupid. Does that make sense? Good.
That’s it. We’re just going to go that far.
Ramon Gonzales: Cool.
Eben Pagan: The thing to remember is that from your customer’s perspective, you, your business, your
product, none of it maters. They don’t care. They really don’t care about you and they don’t care about your
product and they don’t care about how great you are. They don’t care about your experience. They don’t care.
They only care that they can relate to what you’re saying and it’s a direct line to the result that they want.
There’s a direct connection between where they are and what they want to achieve.
What I’d like to do now is delve deeper into the psychology of conversion and I’d like to integrate a few pieces
that I, personally, outside of some of the things that I’ve taught, I’ve never really seen all combined together.
But I think that you’re going to like this and I think that you’re going to learn a lot from it. So who here has
heard me talk about the three brains? The triune brain? We’re going to do a quick review here. The idea is
that we have three brains. Three brains in one. This is a concept that was created by Dr. Paul MacLean. It’s
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called the Triune Brain Theory.
Dr. MacLean figured out that we all have the top of our spinal cord, kind of the brain stem, this ancient
reptilian brain that’s the physical brain. It’s where the fight or flight lives. It’s where the power and control,
sex, all that kind of stuff is. It’s the primal brain on top of that grew the mammalian brain, the emotional
brain, where the limbic system comes in is the part of our brain that’s responsible for love, affection, and
social bonding. Then, around that, and especially in humans, grew the cortex, especially the frontal lobes
and the dense network of nerves on the outside and in humans. This is what gives us the reflexive ability,
reflexive consciousness where we ca think about ourselves and we can observe ourselves and we can make
pictures of the future and of the past and we can use symbolic reasoning, logic.
Wow, three perfect circles. Change my last name to Picasso. So we’ve got the physical brain, we’ve
got the emotional brain and we’ve got the logical brain. And at the intersections here – as you notice
perfectly proportioned to each other – we have the three main pursuits of the human species. The logical
interpretation of the physical is science, the emotional interpretation of the physical is art, and the logical
interpretation of the emotional is psychology. Psychology, science and art. Just about everything that we do
fits into one of these three categories.
These versions of these are found throughout most systems of thought. Things like truth, beauty and
morals, from Plato all the way to modern times. So when marketing and, especially when that very important
moment of conversion, is involved when you’re talking to your prospect one to one, when you’re on stage
and you’re selling something, when you’ve got a website where the moment of truth arrives and you need to
actually sell something, I think it’s very important to take all three of these into consideration. So we want
to hit the physical, the emotional and the logical, but if we incorporate psychology, science and art into our
conversion, I think we can multiply the power and effectiveness.
So how can we use science? How can we use science to support what it is that we’re doing when we’re trying
to convert? Well, here are a couple of ideas. No. 1, remember science is what most logical people want to
stick to. So we only want to use science to help a person rationalize, we only want to use science to help them
logically make a decision that they’ve already made emotionally or help them see how the story fits. Because
once we’ve made an emotional decision, once we’ve made and unconscious decision, what we want to do
as fast as possible is rationalize it. Once we’ve figured out what we really want to do, then we look for every
possible rationale to stack on top so that we can say, “Oh, yes that was a good decision.”
A very powerful form of science that you can introduce to your conversion conversation is research. If you
can explain how – let’s say you’re selling luxury watches that cost $50,000.00. If you’ve got a piece of research
that says that the average person that buys a $50,000.00 watch makes more than $1 million a year, therefore, if
you buy a $50,000.00 watch, you’re going to make $1 million a year, the person who wants that watch is going
to take that information and say, “Wow, I never really thought of increasing my income in that way. It never
struck me before.” That’s the power of the human mind.
Now, we don’t want to be the dark side here, but the question is: how can you use research to support the
irrational, emotional decision that the prospect already made or wants to make but hasn’t given themselves
permission because they don’t have the research to support it? Again, what we’re not doing is just saying,
“Well, the research says that X, Y and Z so you should too.” We’re thinking about the decision that they
have already made or that they want to make and then we’re giving them a rationale to help them make that
decision with a clear conscience, so to speak.
Data is another great tool that you can use. Percentages, distribution curves. There’s a term that I read about
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in this great book that I read recently called Opening Skinner’s Box where it talks about the ten greatest
experiments of the twentieth century; greatest psychological experiments. If you, like me, like reading about
scientists that torture humans and animals for the higher good, this book will blow your mind. It’ll scare you
a little because there’s a lot of scary stuff in there, but it’s fascinating what is figured out in there. This one
woman who they featured in there; she had a term called ‘anecdata’, like anecdote, but it’s anecdata.
Anecdata is when someone gives you an anecdote and tells you a story when you want data. I was in a
business meeting recently, a very high-level business meeting, and I was watching some executives interact
with each other and one of them is a very powerful guy. And he said, “Well, what’s the data over here?” And
the other person in the room said, “Well, the data is that everybody loves it. In fact, we just had someone call
the other day and they went on and on and on and they talked about how great it was.” And he said, “I don’t
need anecdotes, I need data. What percentage of people love it, how and what’s going on?” So the difference
between an anecdote and data is that there’s some statistical validity to data. So that’s very powerful.
Now in marketing, ironically, anecdotes work incredibly well. And the reason why individual stories and
anecdotes work incredibly well is because we can relate to an experience of an individual better than we can
relate to the experience of a group. If I tell you in the holocaust, six million Jews and six million Christians
were killed, you’re going to just be like, “I don’t even know what that means. What is a million?” On the
other hand, if I tell you the story of someone, if I give you Victor Frankel’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning,
and I say read this and it takes you through one human’s experience where you watch a movie, like the
Pianist, and you get one perspective of one human, the irony is that makes ten or a hundred times the impact
on you than to hear 12 million people were killed.
So in marketing, your data can be anecdotes and they can become very powerful. So just in this particular
case, in marketing, use anecdotal stories as your data because they connect better. Another piece of science
or logic that works well is history. History is an amazing thing in human persuasion. There’s something
about history that even though you’re talking about things that happened and you can talk about them
in kind of a detached modern way, historical events can pull and pull up all kinds of psychological and
emotional responses.
One story that I’ve shared before, but I’ll just say it again. A friend of mine several years ago was selling
art and I won’t go into the whole deal, but they had these Rembrandt plates and they had made some new
impressions out of them; they were modern impression and this is the first time this had been done in
hundreds of years or something. And I went over to the store to look at them and I’m not an art collector, I
don’t buy paintings or impressions or any of that kind of thing, so I was just interested and I was just looking
around; I’m always curious about new things and I’ll check it out.
Then, the guys who ran the shop came in and started his rap, and he started talking about Rembrandt and his
life and what he had to go through and his inspiration for these different things. And he started telling me
the “facts,” and the history was so enrapturing, that all of a sudden, it went from me looking at this thing in
a detached way to. “Wow, I can be part of Rembrandt’s life in some way. I could branch out and lead to his
thing in my house on the wall.” And then I got pulled right into it. So history can be very powerful.
In one of our previous inner-circle meetings which is our high-end networking group where we get together
and work in small groups on these things, a couple of gentlemen came up and their expertise is training
pets. I said, “What’s the history of these training methods that you use? Who started them? How did they
develop?” And they said, “I don’t know.” And I said, “Well, how could you not know? How do you not know
the history of your own whole thing?” Just by talking about the history, you immediately position yourself as
an expert; just speaking about the history.
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If right now I was standing here talking about the Roman Empire and I was saying, “I think in America right
now we’re kind of in an empire situation and it looks like Rome in about 300 or something and blah, blah,
blah.” And you were listening going, “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” And then I said, “In the decline and fall of the
Roman civilization – on page 322, he says this and that and the other.” That little citation changes the whole
game; I all of a sudden become positioned as an expert because I know the history and I know the reference.
So citing history and references is huge in terms of the “logical” that supports and triggers these other things.
And then finally, my favorite technique of using science and the logical side of science to really support
conversion is what I talked about in the Marketing Voodoo Report, which is translating the value of what your
product or service does in real dollar and cents terms. Breaking down exactly what it’s worth or putting it into
terms that the prospect can understand: amount of time saved, weight lost, spouse attracted, divorce averted,
you follow? Translating into concrete terms.
So I’m going to ask you right now to reflect on how you might use a piece of science that you’re aware of – not
to just tell the person, “Well, the science supports my thing here.” But how can you use science to help the
person make a decision they’ve already made. How can you use science to trigger more of those emotions
where the person already wants to buy? How can you use science and logic as a rationale? Not as, “I’m trying
to talk you into it.” Are you following what I’m saying? Good. So right now, pick one piece of science that
you’re aware of that maybe you haven’t used; maybe it just came up for you while I was talking here. How can
you use one piece of science?
Maybe it’s research, data, history, maybe it’s translating the value to help seal the deal after the person has
already made an emotional decision. How would you say it to help cement that decision? You’re not trying
to talk them into it with this; you’re trying to help them rationalize. How would you state it? Just take maybe
two or three minutes. Go ahead and write that down. How would you say it? What I’d like to do now is
I’d like to dig into a little bit more of the psychology side and I’d like to address Robert Cialdini’s Weapons
of Influence. Hopefully, you were on the preparation call that I did the week before last, on the factors of
influence and you’ve been working on this a little bit.
But I think of the Robert Cialdini’s influence weapons as being advanced think, feel, do. There are higher-
level ways of influencing people and these methods, these Weapons of Influence that Robert Cialdini teaches,
are so interesting because they literally bypass all of the filters. They bypass all of the awareness that most
people have of being influenced. The thing that gives the influence factors their power is that they’re kind
of a push button, respond set of tools. Now, I want to caution you; be very careful with these things. Do not
use these for evil; very, very bad. We do not want to do that. We only want to use these things when we’re
committed to offering the highest value and we’re only going to do this if we’re definitely helping people make
decisions and take action that’s in their own best interest.
So I’m going to teach you the six major Weapons of Influence that Robert Cialdini teaches, and I’m going
to teach you one minor weapon, which I think is very important and, in fact, might be the context for all of
these. But here they are. No. 1 is reciprocation; reciprocity. I’ve read several psychology books, evolutionary
psychology books where, through very clever experiments, with humans and other animals, especially
primates, it seems that there’s a wiring system in many mammal brains, especially, that remembers what
others did and didn’t do for us. So as an example, there’s a species of bat and this species of bat must have a
blood meal everyday or it will die. If it goes one day without a blood meal, it dies.
So everyday all the bats fly out of the cave, they fly out, the land on cows and whatever else they suck blood
from, hopefully not us, and then they fly back to their cave. And some bats don’t get a meal; they don’t find
one. So they go to other bats that did get a meal and they beg and they have a process of begging for meals.
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Well, the interesting part about this is that if a bat begs for a meal from another bat, and that bat doesn’t give
it some of its meal, bat No. 1 remembers. It remembers, “You didn’t give me anything when I was hungry.” So
later on, if it gets a meal and the other bat comes back and says, “I’m hungry, I didn’t get a meal.” It will refuse
that bat a meal. And if that bat gives it a meal, it will remember that bat’s face or smell or pheromones or
breath or whatever they remember and it will share.
Reciprocity is very powerful. This is one that seems to be hardwired. Robert Cialdini calls it the old give and
take. If I walk into a room – I’m going to generalize several experiments that have been done – if I walk into
a room with you and I sit down and I don’t know you; maybe we’re in a waiting room together and I say, “Hey,
how’s it going?” And you say, “Hi.” And I say, “You know, I’m selling these lottery tickets. Would you like to
buy some? They’re $1.00 each.” On average, you might buy two lottery tickets.
On the other hand, if I walk into the room and sit down with you and say, “Hey, how’s it going?” And you
say, “Hey, how’s it going?” And I say, “You know what? I’m going to go get a Coke. Do you want one?” Even
if you say, “No, I don’t want one” when I come back in and sit down and start drinking my Coke and then say,
“Hey, I’m selling lottery tickets, would you like one?” You’ll buy like three times more lottery tickets from me,
interestingly enough. The little tweak on reciprocity that’s so fascinating is that if I do a tiny favor for you,
but then I come back and ask you for a huge favor, you’re very likely to do it for me because you feel like you
owe me something. Outside conscious awareness.
This is not one that’s logical. You have got to get that when someone does something nice for you, and then
you feel like, “Oh, I should do something nice in return” that that’s not your higher developed nature that you
figured out. That’s something that’s way down in the deeper brains. So we feel compelled. So how can we
use this in conversion? One thing I’ve noticed when I read a lot of websites and sales letters and watch videos
that people release, I notice that I don’t feel better off after I’ve gone through it. When it gets to the point,
“Buy this thing from me” I don’t feel at that point like they’ve left me better off.
So a simple thing that you can do is, in your conversion process, make sure that your prospect is already
better off. Make sure you’ve already taken one step further toward the result that they want. And if you
can, translate how valuable that is. If you have a process that will help someone make $100,000.00 through
an investment strategy and you give them the first 10 percent and you say, “I’m going to give you $10,000.00
worth of value right now.” Make sure and tell them, “Here, I’m giving you $10,000.00 right now. There’s
$10,000.00 worth of value and I want you to have this to experience my product. You can feel what it feels like
to learn this stuff.” That engages a very powerful unconscious mechanism.
The next weapon of influence is commitment and consistency. The example that I gave in the preview call is
probably my favorite, so I’ll share that one again because I think it’s so powerful. Bone marrow transplants
are very painful. It’s not very easy to find bone marrow donors because they have to take like a six-inch needle
and plunge it into the center of the largest bones in your body. From what I’ve heard, there aren’t many
things that are less comfortable than that to experience. And if they walk up to people in the streets and they
say, “Would you be willing to donate some bone marrow?” It’s like 100 percent no.
On the other hand, if they walk up to people on the street and they say, “Would you be willing to spend an
hour with a child who just had a bone marrow transplant?” A good percentage of people would say, “I would
do that.” And then the person comes in and spends and hour with the child who just had the bone marrow
transplant, and then they say, “Would you be willing to spend a half day with a child who just came out of
surgery?” “Yes.” “Interesting. Okay, great. Would you be willing to do some counseling with a child before
they go into surgery and then spend a day with them after they go? Would you be willing to spend a half day
with a child before, spend some time afterward, and then go in and see them once a week?”
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And by the time the process is finished, the person has changed their identity. Their self-image has changed;
they’ve taken small steps toward a particular outcome. Once I’ve wrapped myself up in this, my self-image
has started to change and I want to behave consistent with the new image that I have of myself. Do you
follow? So now, I identify myself as someone who helps bone marrow transplantees; someone that’s part of
that whole bigger picture; that’s part of that whole bigger process. And then when they come back and say,
“Would you be willing to donate bone marrow to a child who needs it?” I say, “Yes.” It’s not about the pain
anymore. So that one is commitment and consistency.
Social proof: where look around and we decide what to do when we’re in doubt – we have a shortcut that
we do. We look around and see what everyone else is doing. Have you ever seen someone play with people
where they stand on the street and start pointing and then everyone stops and looks up and then next thing
you know, everyone is stopping and looking up? This is where crowd behavior comes in; this is where real
interesting group psychology and group dynamics come in. Social proof is used in marketing through the use
of testimonials and case studies, mostly.
A really interesting example of social proof that Robert Cialdini uses in Influence, is the Jim Jones scenario
that happened where basically 1000 people followed a coockie guy to South America and then all committed
suicide right in front of each other. And if you haven’t sent the movie, Jonestown, I highly recommend that
you watch it because it’s very informative. What they did is they tracked down the people that survived
Jonestown including one of Jim Jones’ adopted sons, Jim Jones Jr. And just a little handful of people – some of
them were off site that day; I don’t remember what they were doing, but they just weren’t at the camp that day
when everyone committed suicide – and a few of them watched what was happening and said, “This is crazy”
and ran and lived.
And listening to them describe what happened is really interesting. There’s a scene in there where they’ve
got video footage where Jim Jones is taking you on a tour of the camp in South America and they’re showing
you the pantry they have set up and you see the Kool-Aid. Spooky! If social proof plus commitment and
consistency and a bunch of other things like authority – we’re going to talk about here – but if it can be
powerful enough to get 1,000 people to commit suicide, to just leave the planet because that’s the only
alternative, is it powerful enough to help you help someone do what’s in their own best interest anyway? I
think so.
So the question I have for you is: how can you show your prospect how others are using your solution to
get what they want? Remember the straight-line concept? Your prospect is here and where they want to
go is here. Their irrational fear or fantasy is here. Other people have gotten that result. Other people who
have used your stuff have gotten there. What you want to do to kick the social proof in and to really make
it powerful is to zoom in on that one specific quality or that one result or that one technique inside of that
program that helps lead directly to that outcome. And then when you’re getting a testimonial or a case study,
focus on that element.
Because remember that your prospects are watching this; they don’t really know you and your customer’s
way more credible than you because they’re just an average Joe off the street. My friend Dean Graziosi took
an idea from – uh-oh, phone. Who’s got it? Where is it? Is it ringing still? Hold the phone up when it
rings. Come on, let me answer it. I promise the joy that everyone will get from it is worth your pain. Some
of the folks here have seen my altitude program – Joe Polish came up on stage and he whipped up that little
flip video camera and he started to do a little video testimonial on YouTube and on my blog. He took the
video, I made a little clip out of it and put it on YouTube, and it got 30,000 or 40,000 views, which was very
interesting.
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Well, Dean Graziosi, who was also there who is a very famous marketer, took the idea, and he went and
mailed out a bunch of flip videos to his customers. And he just said, “Take a video and tell me the results
that you’ve have with my stuff, and you can keep the camera, or send me the camera, and I’ll take the video
and send you the camera back.” And he got all these home shot video clips of people sitting around talking
about how much money they made. Now that’s social proof; that’s credibility. Because when it switches from
Dean and his beautiful studio to an obviously home shot video clip of someone talking about the result that
everyone else wants to get, it’s very powerful. That’s social proof.
So just to go back to the distinction again – because I really screwed that up in the beginning – commitment
and consistency is the idea that we want to remain consistent with our self-image. And if you can get
someone to start changing their self-image, they’ll do anything to maintain that self-image, even if it means
donating bone marrow. And the concept of social proof is when we’re in doubt about what to do, we look
around and see what everyone else if doing and if we don’t know how to make a decision, we look and we see,
“Oh, there’s someone like me and that’s the decision that they made, that’s what we do.”
Raise your hand if one of the first things you do when you pick up a new book and you want to know
investigate it is to read the back to see who made a quote about the book. Why? Because the social proof
mechanism is hard wired in. That’s it. We want to know is there social proof already. And you notice when
someone gets a quote from someone really famous, it’s on the cover of the book; above the headline in many
cases. That’s social proof talking.
The next weapon of influence is authority. Authority and status are very connected. Do you remember when
I was doing the little exercise with Rose here and we were talking about the gain or loss of status and how
that can impact people? In my own investigations, in my own non-scientific research with just observing
and being almost a theoretical attraction specialist, I noticed that in interactions between men and women,
women really can’t feel strong gut level attraction for men that they perceive to be of lower status than them.
And that when men show up and say, “Oh, you’re so wonderful. I would do anything to be able to take you on
a date.” Women get the heebs in a way.
I thought that was very interesting because that’s what most men do. As they show up, they say, “I’d do
anything, beautiful goddess, if you’d just let me take you on a date.” And the woman says, “I want to like you.”
And they talk to their friends, “I like him, but I don’t like like him like him. But I should. Well, maybe I’ll
give him another try.” And he’s like, “Oh, yes! Wonderful!” And the whole thing – you’ve seen this story once
or twice. So authority is an interesting influence weapon because if we perceive someone to be an authority
in an area where I would say of higher status than us, we’re much more likely to comply with one of their
requests.
So how can you appear to be an authority and to have higher status? You notice all the supplement ads have
the picture of the attractive 40ish professional looking with the white lab coat and the stethoscope on around
their neck? Why? Because it works. Because there’s an authority that is now talking about this. So how do
you position yourself as an authority as it relates back to your prospects biggest desire? As a gross example,
someone that’s having a problem with their kidney, they don’t really care if you’re an authority on collectible
statues. They want to know that you’re an authority on the kidney issue that they have.
So to get even more specific, let’s say that you are helping someone with a health issue and you maybe are an
authority in the field, is a person has a kidney issue and you’re kind of a general health authority, that’s not
going to be anywhere near as powerful as if you are an authority on kidney issues. And if they’re seeking a
natural solution, if you’re the authority on natural kidney cures for kidney issues, that’s going to make you
even more powerful. So this creates a little bit of a tension because what most experts want to do is they want
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to be the expert of everything or if they have a supplement, they want to supplement to fix everything, or if
they have a self-help program, they have a self-help program that can cure everything.
But something that cures everything isn’t as relevant to the individual, so narrowing in and saying, “How can
I get just specific enough so that anyone that hears about me and hears about my product and hears about
the solutions that I offer, is going to say instantly, “That’s what I’ve been looking for.” It’s like a lay down,
“Well, if they’re the expert on this thing, then that’s what I need because I can’t find this anywhere.” And it’s
broad enough that you can make a market out if. There are enough customers there. That’s the ideal in the
marketing game. Two more.
Weapon No. 5 is liking. We’re much more likely to be influenced by someone that we like. And liking is
the driver behind a lot of the rapport techniques that salesmen and marketers use; if that makes any sense.
Something that I learned from Robert Cialdini is that we tend to be more influenced by someone that we
perceive to be more like us. So the more like me I perceive you to be, the more influenced I will be by you and
the more I’ll like you. Who’s bought a book on Amazon and was reading the about book and then scrolled
down and immediately started reading the reviews.
Read a review by someone that they said, “That person is just like me and they liked the book and I’m buying
it.” Who’s ever done that? Interesting. There’s an element of this liking. “Wow, I like that person; they’re
like me and if they liked it, I’m probably going to like it.” So remember that key: the more like you that I
perceive myself to be, the more I’m going to be influenced by you. When you combine this with authority
– the way I like to think of it is, speak to your prospect of an idealized version of themselves. Speak to them
in the voice of them actualized. The tone, the vocabulary, the rhythm of them at the next level and that will
make perfect sense to them. They will really like you.
A lot of experts make the mistake of taking an academic tone rather than listening to the way prospects
communicate and saying, “Let me talk like that.” I want to warn you by the way about that. I’ve spent a lot
of years trying to get into the mindset of my customers and get into their shoes and I’ve de-conditioned
myself, I’ve deprogrammed myself from using larger, more abstract, and complex words and terms because in
marketing the more one and two syllable words you use, the better your message gets across. It’s just clearer.
You know that the lowest common denominator is going to communicate better.
And I found that in the last few years, as I become interested in more complex and abstract and evolved
things, I find myself lacking the vocabulary to explain them sometimes. I have to go through these circuitous,
abstract ways of saying it that are – I don’t know if you get what I’m trying to say here. So dumbing yourself
down has a bright side and a little bit of a negative side and I experience it myself. But I think it’s worth the
trade-off.
The final weapon of influence is scarcity. And this is the one in marketing that can be the real game changer
especially if you’re doing product launches; modern Jeff Walker style, Frank Kern style product launches.
Scarcity is the concept that there’s nothing as motivating as a rapidly diminishing supply of something you
want. There’s nothing as motivating as a rapidly diminishing supply of something you want and scarce
information is even considered to be incredible valuable.
As an example, if I call you up and I say, “Hey, I’ve a tock tip. Buy this stock.” You’re going to say, “Okay,
whatever.” If I call you up and I say, “Hey, a friend of mine who has inside information – a good friend of mine
just called me up and he’s not telling anyone this. And I’m not going to tell anyone because I’m not really
interested in investing right now and I know that you’re into this stuff and I know that no one else knows but
they’re going to announce their numbers tomorrow and they’re going to be way off.” How different is that
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from, “Hey, I’ve got a stock tip.” You have scarce information; you’re the only one that knows.
Scarce information compels a person to do something with it. When I have information that I feel like no
one else has, I feel like I have to do something with it. Scarcity. You’re actually going to hear from Frank
Kern; he’s going to come up here and talk to me tomorrow and we’ll talk more about how to use some of these
tools and integrate them. But there’s nothing more motivating as a rapidly diminishing supply of something
that you want. I mentioned that there were six major weapons and I was going to share one of the minor
weapons and talk to you about it.
The minor weapon of influence that I think is maybe bigger than the major weapons, personally, is
comparison and contrast or framing is the way I think of it. What’s fascinating about human perception is
that it’s always relative to something else. And in neuro-linguistic programming, they have these exercises
to help people who have gotten stuck in mental feedback loops and so forth so if someone says, “Well, when
I come home from work everyday, my husband always criticizes me.” And you say, “Always?” “Yes, always.”
“Well, has there ever been a time when he didn’t criticize you?” “I guess there was one.” All of a sudden, it
breaks that pattern.
So our ideas of the way things always are or never are and so forth, these are just generalizations that our
mind does. The point that I’m getting to here is that we can only understand a new piece of information
relative to something else that we understand. And you, being a marketer and a communicator and a teacher
can control the comparison and contrast and control these frameworks that are around the perceptions of
your customer.
If you go out one day to look at new cars and you decide, “Okay, I’m going to get myself a car. I’m going to
start by looking at used cars and then I’ll go and take a look at the new cars.” If you look at used cars, and
you get accustomed to a $20,000.00 price tag for the kind of car you want, and then you drive over to the new
car lot and the new version of that car is $35,000.00 – basically for the same car. It might be a couple of years
newer with a few less miles, but you’re essentially going to be driving the same car – a part of you is going to
say, “Why would I spend $35,000.00 for the thing that I can get for $20,000.00?” Does that make sense?
If, on the other hand, you go to the new car lot, maybe – let’s say that one of your preferences is the smell of
the new car and the tight feeling of the wheel and all that kind of thing; you really prefer the new car so you
start there. You say, “I’m going to go look at the new cars first and then I’ll go take a look at the used cars after
to see.” You go take a look at the new car; you get all the anchors pushed that you love: the feel of the wheel
and the new car smell and you know that no one’s ever driven the car; it’s got like one mile on it.
And then you say, “Okay, well, I’m going to go check out the used cars.” And you get into the used car and
what do you first start looking at? The signs where it was used. Right? You open up the ashtray. “Has anyone
ever smoked in there” and you’re looking around the edges like, “Have they cleaned this thing out?” Seeing if
there’s any weird lint in the seats and trying to figure out if there’s any evidence that another human has been
in here. It doesn’t have the smell you like. And if you really prefer the new car and maybe you’ve got a biased
toward the new car, that’s where we can rationalize things like, “Well, it’s only an extra $137.00 a month for
this car so I’ll just get the new one. I’d rather have the new one anyway.”
So all of our perceptions are relative to what we’ve had before. An example that Robert Cialdini uses inside
of Influence interestingly is someone goes in to buy a suit and some ties and some shoes. If the clothing
salesman says, “Well, let’s take a look at the suits first” and they show him a $1,000.00 suit, they’re going to
have a very different experience than if they say, “Well, let’s look at some $50.00 ties first and then we’ll look
at shoes and then we’ll look at suits.” And the rule of thumb is to sell the higher item first because it frames
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the value of all the lower priced items.
So if I want to sell you a suit and some shoes and some ties, I want to start with the suit because if I sell you
a $1,000.00 suit, a $300.00 pair of shoes is going to seem, “Well, that’s not that expensive. I just bought a suit
for $1,000.00.” Whereas if I sell you a $49.00 tie first, and then I show you a $1,000.00 suit, the gap is very big.
So whatever you communicate first is going to frame everything else that you communicate. How you set
up the framework is going to determine how your prospect perceives what you’re trying to say. So be careful
what you present first. Be careful what the first information is because that’s going to set up the framework
for everything else. And you’ll see how all of these things fit together as we start doing some more work.
One of your highest leverage components of your conversion mix, if not the highest leverage, is your
conversion story. And in the Guru Mastermind, we’ve done a couple of exercises around creating your story.
What I’d like to do now is have you create the latest version of your story using the formula that we use in the
Guru Mastermind and then I’m going to work with a few folks helping them really locate those high leverage
elements of story.
So remember – just a quick review – story is how the human mind works. That’s how we work. We fit
everything into a story that means something. So if it doesn’t fit into a story, we put it into one. We make
stories out of everything. If a person looks at us funny, we tell ourselves this whole story about what that
means and what they’re probably thinking and we make up this whole drama around it. Information that a
human gets, that’s divorced of a story; that’s not fit inside of a story, doesn’t really land, it doesn’t stick, and it
doesn’t get through. They can’t really apply it very well.
It has taught me that most people have very poor generalization and contextualization skills. In other words,
they’re very poor at taking general information and then figuring out where they can use it in their lives. So
if I give you a rule of thumb and I say, “Use the 80/20 rule.” So 80 percent of the results usually come from
20 percent of the work. Most people go, “Oh, that’s very interesting.” But they won’t have an epiphany and
say, “That means that I’m wasting four fifths of everything that I do and I should stop doing it, or I should use
those four fifths to do whatever I’m doing with the 20 percent and I’ll multiply my output by a few hundred
percent. Wow!”
Very few people make those leaps and then immediately go start figuring out how to use it – very, very few.
They need a story about how it works. So, in the case of the 80/20, if instead of saying, “Eighty percent of
the results come from 20 percent of the inputs,” what I would do is I would tell you a story about how in my
business, I went into a department, and I did some research, and I figured out what was going on. And I
realized that one of the five people there was actually creating 80 percent of the results that were coming out
of the department. So I got rid of these four and I got four more people just like him and I multiplied my
results by 300 to 400 percent.
And then you’ll say, “Oh, I see how that works” and you’ll be able to make the leap because you’ll have an
analogy; you’ll have a story that fits it all together. Is this making sense? So the story is the key. The story
is the delivery vehicle through which people can understand things. Also, when you tell a story, remember
that the mind goes into relaxation mode. It just kind of says, “Oh, story time. I don’t need to have my critical
defenses up.” When you’re not telling a story, your prospect is being very critical. When you are telling a
story, your prospect has their defenses down and they’re reading with interest.
It’s a very simple rule of thumb, but very important. When you’re not telling a story, your prospect is being
critical, has their defenses up and is having a hard time understanding it. And realize that story is really
universal from the most famous children’s books to the most famous movies to our great spiritual and
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religious texts; they’re all full of stories. That’s how the information is delivered and it’s not a coincidence.
Leonardo da Vinci, if you’ve ever read his notebooks, was profound. Every sentence is unbelievable. It’s like
some way that he noticed that light and shadows work and you can just sit there and think about one of them
for days. But nobody has ever read his notebooks and nobody cares because it’s not written in story format.
Whereas Dr. Seuss has sold 100,000,000 books about these weird little stories and you can’t even figure
out what they mean, but kids get it. Kids know perfectly what’s going on in a Dr. Seuss book. So they’re
universal.
Also, story is used often in modern hypnosis and what they call brief therapy. After studying NLP and
hypnosis and some of these other topics for a few years, I remember reading in one of the books about Milton
Erickson and about his teaching tales that – and this was what this book said. I don’t know if it’s true or not
but it made sense – is that Milton Erickson, who was the greatest hypno-therapist who ever lived, actually
used hypnosis less than half the time when people would come to see him. So less than half the time he
would actually put them in a formal trance and do hypnosis, and more than half the time, he would just tell
stories.
And the story would allow them to take what was already in their mind and reorganize it in a new way. It has
been teaching me this that the most powerful breakthroughs that you can get people to have is not teaching
them something new because it’s very hard to learn things that are new. It’s actually taking things that
people have already learned and helping them combine it in a new way so they see it in a new way. I’ll give
you an example here. If I say to you, “Come into the present moment as often as possible and take advantage
of it to get the maximum results you possibly can.” You’ll go, “Okay, sounds good. I’ll take that under
advisement. I’ll try that once in a while.”
On the other hand, if I say to you, “Have you ever noticed that the human life is just like the seasons in a year?
That we start out in spring, and then we grow up in the spring of our life, and then we come into adulthood
and we start becoming productive and independent; we start contributing, we start a family and we come into
the summer of our life. And then we become grandparents and we start winding down; we start mentoring
others; we come into the autumn of our life. Then in the later years, on the decline we move toward winter.
And if you’re in the summer of your life, it’s very important to do the things that you do when it’s summer
time; make hay while the sun shines.”
Well now, I’ve woven life into a story but I’ve used an analogy and I’ve allowed you to relate two things to
each other that maybe you never related to each other or maybe you have: your life and the seasons. And,
somehow, the meaning that comes from the relating of those two things, of analogizing and over-laying them
over each other is much more profound. Who had some insight that came up like, “Wow, I need to get busy”
from that one analogy? So that’s an example of helping someone take two things that already exist inside of
their mind and over-laying them and kind of – I mean I could have woven that into a much more interesting
story than that.
Then the final concept here that I want to share about story, before we get into it, is that the more that your
prospect can relate to and connect with your story, the more impact it’s going to have on them. The more
they can relate to it. I thought a lot about the word relationship and what it means and where did it come
from. Relationship. If you break it down, the starting point of that word is the word ‘relate’. And what does
the word relate mean? Relate implies a connection; we can see things the same way. I relate to you be seeing
how see things and you relate to me by seeing how I see things; feeling how I feel, acting how I act.
If I’m doing a dance move, and you look at me, and you say, “Well, that’s very fascinating.” We’re not really
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going to be relating whereas if I do a dance move and you say, “Hey, let me try that’ and we do it together and
I show it to you; at some point when we’re doing it together, we’re relating and we feel a certain connection.
If you say to me, “I’m feeling sad” and I say, “Oh, don’t feel sad. Come here and let me give you a hug,” am I
relating to you? No, I’m saying, “Don’t feel sad.” I’m not on that page. On the other hand, if I say, “Oh, you’re
feeling sad. What’s going on for you?” and you say, “My cat just died” and I say, “Hmm, I haven’t had a cat
before, but I remember when my dog died and I remember how hard it was. How are you feeling about it?”
Well, I’m sad and –”
Now, I’m starting to relate to you because we have a shared experience. I’m meeting you as close as I can get
in your life. If we relate enough and if I continue the process of relating over and over and over; really seeing
where you’re at, helping you understand where I’m at, eventually, we will establish the feeling of relation.
We will feel related. Someone that’s close to a family that has just had a new baby and if that person is really
close to the family and really close to the baby, the parents will usually start referring to the other person –
let’s say they’re not related to the baby – they’ll usually start referring to the other person as aunt or uncle.
Two of my close friends had a baby and asked me to be the godfather and now they refer to me as Uncle E.
We feel some level of relation.
And relationship, when you go all the way back out to the word, is the process of continuing to relate to the
point where you feel related, over and over and over. That’s what a relationship is; it’s continuing to relate
over and over and over. You notice that when a relationship breaks down, that in almost every case, it’s
because the two people or more are not relating to each other anymore. They’ve stopped relating; they’ve
stopped feeling that feeling of relation and now it’s broken down to where the relationship isn’t working any
more. So the more that your prospect can relate to you and your story, the more impact it’s going to have.
So the question I have for you is, how can you help them relate to you and how can you relate to them? How
can you create those bridges of commonality so that your prospect is feeling like they’re talking to idealized
version of themselves? Let’s go back over the conversion story formula. Let’s create a new version of your
conversion story using some of the tools and techniques that we’ve learned today. So the first element of your
conversion story is your starting situation. So element No. 1 is your Starting Situation. And ideally, this is
where you were when you first started before you knew anything about what it is that you’re an expert in right
now. This is particularly relevant if you’ve figured out that the area that you’re teaching in for yourself.
So your starting situation. This is important because your starting situation probably has a lot of overlap with
your prospect’s current situation. Let’s say that you help people invest in real estate and become financially
independent. If most of your prospects earn $50,000.00 a year in average income, and now you earn $5
million a year, and you say, “I earn $5 million a year and I’m going to teach you how to earn $5 million a year.”
That’s one level of connect because this person might want to earn $5 million a year. But if I say, “When I first
started, I earned $47,326.00 a year. And now, I earn $5 million a year and I’d like to teach you how to go from
$47,326.00 to $5 million.” My credibility and my relating just went up dramatically.
The starting situation is a very important rapport builder. Element No. 2 is Tried and Failed. If you can
communicate vivid emotional stories of trying and failing, they will earn you a lot of credibility and they will
help your prospect relate to you. Most people who want to make a big change in their life, one of the excuses
that they’ve got for not doing it is. “I’m not like all those super successful people. I don’t have the talent that
they have. I would just screw it up.” And when you explain that you’ve tried and failed many times, they can
then say, “Oh, okay, so it’s not just me. This happens to everyone.”
Now, the next element of story is the Breakthrough: where you had your breakthrough. Where you learned
something that miraculously worked; you accidentally stumbled upon the magic formula; you met the guru
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who gave you the keys to the kingdom. Element No. 4 is you started achieving Consistent Results. And in
element no. 4, this is when you got it. You finally understood it, “Ah, I get it.” The results became consistent
and predictable. No. 5 – this is where you transcend – I Created a Method. Element No. 5 of your story is I
Created a Method based on trying and failing, having my breakthrough and then getting consistent results in
getting it.
I made a method and part of making a method is refining what you learned into a system. Refining. I really
like the word ‘refine’ because refine implies I took out all the junk and I left in all the good stuff and I just
made it all power. I refined this into a system; I made my own method. Element No. 6 is Other Did It Too. “I
taught some other folks and they got consistent results and now you can learn. I want to show you the system
that I created.” That’s Element No. 7: You Can Learn. So your starting situation, tried and failed, had a
breakthrough, started achieving consistent results, created a method, others did it too and now you can learn.
Can we put that formula up on the screen here? So here’s the formula that I just showed you. By the way,
my story in dating advice when I started out ten years ago, I was really socially very awkward. Honestly and
I mean this. If this attractive gentleman right here was an attractive young woman that I wanted to meet,
and she was sitting there smiling at me and waving and saying, “Come here,” I wouldn’t know how to start a
conversation. Really, that’s how bad it was. I felt like there was a one-foot thick plexi-glass window between
me and the opposite gender that I just couldn’t get through.
I didn’t know what to do and one night I was out with one of my two best friends, who’s in the back of the
room right now, and I just said, “You know, I’m frustrated with this and I’m going to do whatever it takes
to get this handled.” And I made a commitment to do it and I went and read a bunch of books, I went to
seminars, I mean I really did try everything. You know if you’ve even seen any of my dating products that I
tell the stories of trying things and having them not work out. In the dating world, when you try something
and it doesn’t work out, it usually makes for a funny story. I’ll just leave it at that.
This went on for a while until, almost accidentally, I started meeting guys who just naturally understood
the opposite sex. They just got it. One of them was my next door neighbor who was this young guy that I
just met and I started hanging out with him. Another guy I met through a seminar I went to and I started
hanging with these guys and watching what they did in the real world; watching how they interacted with
the opposite sex. At first, it didn’t make any sense to me because they were doing things that seemed like the
opposite of what would work.
Where I would do something to be nice, they would make fun of a woman they were talking to or where I
would normally give a compliment, they were actually kind of busting, and it made no sense. It actually took
me a couple of months of watching this dynamic before a part of me said, “Okay, wait a minute. What I think
should work doesn’t and what they’re doing does. So I have to throw out whatever it is that I’ve got.” And
then I started studying what they did and I realized that they were doing several things that were the opposite
of what should work. Often times, they would do it right out in public in front of a group of people and only
they and the woman would know what was going on. It was like they were speaking a different language.
Well, I started taking notes and taking detailed notes of what they were doing and asking them a lot of
questions. When I would ask them questions, I would say, “Hey, what were you thinking when you did this?’
They’d often say, “What are you talking about, man? You know this stuff. Come on this is easy.” I had to
really drill into their minds to pull out what was going on. Well, as I started to learn these things and getting
a new way of seeing the world, I started trying them myself and I was astonished.
I was honestly blown away. Little shifts, little tweaks took a situation where, normally, I would try to talk with
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someone for hours and get nowhere, and within 30 seconds, there’s this chemistry between us. Where is this
coming from and how could that be the thing that worked? I’d write an online personal ad using some of
these new things I learned, and all of a sudden, emails are coming in like crazy. It was like I stumbled across a
big treasure. Well, I finally got my own social life handled and I got confidence and I learned how to get dates
and attract the opposite sex. And then I said, “I wonder if this would help other guys.”
And so I started teaching some of my friends, started showing the stuff, wrote a few things and put it out on
the internet. I noticed that every time I would show someone something, it would work incredibly well. It
was almost like I had a gift for explaining, “Okay, here’s what you’re doing wrong; here’s where you don’t get it.
Try this and this will work better.” The more I showed other guys this stuff, the more it just worked for them
and I realized, “Oh, okay, I’ve got something here.” So I decided to formalize it, turn it into a method and I
wrote a book, I released it and the rest is history.
Now, I’ve got all these people that have used it, “Read these testimonials, I’d really like for you to have it to. In
fact, think about all the frustration and all the money you’ve wasted in your life trying to buy approval and
take women out on dates even though you didn’t want to. Buy my book for $19.97 and it comes with a money
back refund. If you don’t like it, you can get your money back and keep it.” So that story right there is roughly
a version of this formula that I just gave you. How much more compelling is that than a book called Double
Your Dating for $20.00? Would you like to buy it?
What are the most compelling elements of the story? These elements right here. These are the most
compelling elements of the story. Each one of them you could say is specifically designed to persuade or you
could say, “That’s just the way it went down. They were looking for the overlap for both of them.” You have
a story that’s very powerful and very compelling that your prospect can relate to. If you can weave in some
of the other elements that we’ve talked about here and help your prospect get that sense of discovery. When
you’re telling your story, they’re getting smarter; they’re figuring it out with you and you even get bonus
points.
Sometimes when I tell longer versions of my story or I’m really drawing this out – maybe I’ll zoom in on
something and I’ll say, “When I was watching these guys who are really good naturally, my first assumption
was they’re good looking or they’re rich or they’re charming and then I realized that they weren’t. They were
just guys; they just had something; they just knew how to do something that was different. And I realized the
thing that made it different wasn’t their looks or their money, it was the way they were communicating. And
it wasn’t even the words that they were using; it was the pattern of the words.
So instead of, as an example, giving a compliment that sounded like they wanted a woman’s approval, they
would give a compliment from a place of total confidence. And I would see that a man would walk over to
a woman and say, “Wow, you’re so attractive. Can I take you out?” And the woman would almost be like –
they’d have that look on their face looking around like, “How do I escape as fast as I possibly can?” Whereas
one of these other guys would walk over to a woman and give her an honest, heartfelt compliment but with
no approval seeking at all and you could see the woman coming in and just locking in and focusing.”
There’s like a two-minute chunk that I could have included in my story right there. It’s very powerful because
it allows the listener to discover the secret on their own. If you’re following me, in your mind you’re like,
“Oh, I figured it out. I’ve got it. I discovered this.” So anytime you can weave into your story the power of
discovery and help the person feel like they’re getting smarter; like they’re discovering something as they hear
your story, it’s very, very powerful.
So what I’d like you to do now is I’d like you to write your conversion story based on this seven-step outline.
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We’re going to take ten minutes to do this, maybe 12. We’re going to have silence in the room. I’d like you to
write your story for your prospect, knowing exactly who they are. Use all of the different things you learned
about your customer Avatar, your prospects fears and frustrations, wants and aspirations, everything you
learned in the customer summit and in the exercises you’ve done. Now you’re going to write a story you can
tell in five minutes that would help your prospects really relate to you; that would position them to be much
more influenced to purchase what it is that you’re selling.
So who had a good breakthrough writing your story and can see how that could really help you with your
conversion? Who would like to do a little work to take it to the next level? Let’s get a couple of people who
haven’t come up yet right over here and maybe a couple over here. First two over here and first two over here.
Male Speaker: So mine starts out I was practicing law and I had a good job that paid me a lot of money, but it
wasn’t satisfying in the sense that I was totally dependent on working every minute. If I didn’t work, I didn’t
get paid. So my kids didn’t get enough attention; my wife felt isolated and I didn’t like what I was doing. I
didn’t feel like it was all that I could be. I discovered information marketing. So I created a website, I read
books, I went to programs, but the sales just weren’t there. On top of that, I started finding out that I needed
things I just didn’t have, like privacy policies and disclaimers that I could get in trouble with the FTC. In fact,
I found out that people were, if I didn’t do things just right.
So I know everybody thinks lawyers can just make their own policies and contacts, but I practice as a trust
and estates lawyer and I didn’t know enough about all of this. So I was lucky, I had the ability to go and hire
lawyers and marketing gurus and experts in the field. I put a lot of investment into my business; into creating
the documents that I needed. I put this collection of interviews together – I interviewed copyright lawyers;
I interviewed lawyers on contracts and I interviewed lawyers on protecting my copyright and trademark and
having all the right policies.
I started sharing these documents with other information marketers that I’d gotten to know, and they
said, “Man, this is fantastic because I didn’t feel like I could afford a lawyer on my own at this point.” And,
eventually, everybody’s business is to grow to the point where they can afford that; to go and get the lawyers
to write the documents they need, specified to them. But in the meantime, this was allowing people to feel
better about what they were doing and feel like their business was protected and feel like their intellectual
property was protected and feel like they were doing the right thing under the law and so that made them
more comfortable and more confident, so their sales went up.
I discovered, for example, the one little thing that changed the way that I use my copyright notice. Most
copyright notices say, “I claim everything.” My copyright notice said, “Hey, if you want to use this in your
ezine or in your newsletter, just contact this number and you can use part of all of this information.” And
80 percent of the people that use this suddenly discovered that they were getting information and work and
jobs that they could track back right to the change in their copyright notice. So what I did was I put this
into a pretty foolproof kit that was easy to use. I put together a list of documents, a list of checklists, a list
of contracts, a list of things people needed for their websites and interviews with lawyers on each of these
topics. So that kit now is available to make your life a little bit easier and to make you feel better and make
your success more certain.
Eben Pagan: Excellent. Thank you. Good job. Now, what’s missing? What’s the word over here with the
‘tion’ in it?
Female Speaker: Emotion.
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Eben Pagan: Oh, emotion. Good.
Male Speaker: Tried and failed.
Eben Pagan: Tried and failed. What else?
Female Speaker: Irrational fear.
Eben Pagan: Okay. Do you consider yourself to be a logical, intelligent, rational person?
Male Speaker: Yes.
Eben Pagan: Me too. While you’ve gotten off to a great start there, what I would relay on its face that’s
missing for me is there isn’t that initial conflict set up where I feel like there was some kind of big problem or
pain. Your story starts with, “I was just a successful attorney making a lot of money.” And right from there,
it’s – now, how could we – I missed the joke. What was it?
Female Speaker: We said our heart goes out to him.
Eben Pagan: Your heart goes out to him, exactly. I can relate. I just got too much success and money
and happiness right now. Maybe I should start an internet business to fix that. So we may have those two
elements turned around a little bit. So how can we take who this guy is and what he was trying to do and have
a really compelling start right out of the gate? Michael Phil; same story. Perfect. He got charged $25,000.00
for a copyrighting disclaimer on one of his websites. That’s interesting. You might be able to weave that in.
But how can we use his situation? How can we frame it?
Male Speaker: I wanted to hear more about more of what he was losing by spending all of that time making
money.
Eben Pagan: Well, maybe, but – let’s go back for a second. Let’s zoom back out because I don’t know that
we’re framed. I don’t know if we’re framing this correctly. What is your prospect’s biggest irrational fear?
Male Speaker: Probably getting into legal trouble or not having the copyrights to the stuff they’re working
on.
Eben Pagan: Okay, getting into legal trouble. What kind of legal trouble?
Male Speaker: They may not realize it, but if they don’t have the right notices on their website, they could be
violating an FTC regulation. Or if they’re presenting a product in the wrong way, they could get –
Eben Pagan: And what can happen if they violate an FTC regulation?
Male Speaker: Fines, criminal charges, civil law suits.
Eben Pagan: Have their stuff taken from them and go to jail.
Male Speaker: Yeah, disapproval of people in their community.
Eben Pagan: Someone who’s looking for legal information, if they’re out looking, if they’re proactive, what’s
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their little secret fear? What’s your fear when you put stuff up online and you’ve written a big sales letter
that’s very persuasive? Breaking the law and having your money and your business taken and maybe being
put in a small little cell with an unfriendly cellmate there with you. So what does he know about that stuff?
Where is he incredibly credible about that stuff? What about him? He’s an attorney. He would know the
consequences of screwing that stuff up better than anyone. So what you might start out with is instead of
saying, “I’m a happy, upwardly mobile, rich attorney” as the beginning of your story –
Male Speaker: Though that might be true –
Eben Pagan: Though it might be true, we don’t want to in any way make that something bad about you.
But you might start out by saying, “I’m an attorney, and I recently started an internet business. And I started
to look at what kind of regulations there were on the internet and it scared the heck out of me because I
realized that this is one of the most dangerous areas of legal quicksand and traps that I had ever seen. And
as I started researching, I realized that this person went to jail and this person got a big fine and this person
made this huge mistake. I’ve got to tell you, as an attorney, I know what those things can do. I’ve seen people
go to jail; I’ve seen people lose their businesses.” Now, I’m an attorney – there’s a direct connect. You follow
what I’m saying?
Now, it’s totally relevant to what it is that we’re trying to do. Now, the next part, you’re an attorney and you
went and took the steps to put the proper legal notices on your website and so forth. And even as an attorney,
you couldn’t figure it out. That’s actually very compelling but it has to be said where it’s framed as, “Hey, I’m
an attorney – do you have an office full of attorneys that you work in?
Male Speaker: Uh huh.
Eben Pagan: “I’m an attorney and I got a whole office full of attorneys that I work in and walked around
my office and I said, ‘Hey guys, does anyone know what a privacy policy needs to say to keep me out of jail?’
And they all laughed and shook their heads and said, ‘No, you’re on your own.’” That’s compelling. If I’m just
starting my website and I’m reading from some guy who’s an attorney and he’s in an office full of attorneys
and he walked around and said, “Hey does anyone know how to put a privacy policy blah, blah, blah? No?”
That’s compelling.
Male Speaker: I probably had to go to ten different attorneys to get all the part I felt like I needed.
Eben Pagan: Exactly, but instead of focusing on that part, what are we focusing on? We’re focusing on the
fear of the prospect. Everything in that story has got to relate back to them and their experience. It’s much
more compelling when it’s emotional and it pushes that button of why they’re there in the first place. You
follow? So there’s two. We’ll stop there, but your homework now is to go and try to relate every part of that
story back to that fear so that as they’re reading it, we’re agitating even more and we’re really pulling them in
even more.
Eben Pagan: Yeah, thank you.
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Disc 3
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Eben Pagan: Something I really want to underscore is whenever you’re creating a marketing piece,
whenever you’re creating anything to help your prospect make a buying decision, it is critical that you
keep that big irrational fear or fantasy in mind, and let everything you’re saying tie back to it in some way.
Everything you’re saying, your prospect can relate to. Everything you’re saying to them is a revelation. It’s
huge. It’s very significant. There’s no fluff talk. It’s all stuff that’s highly relevant to them.
They don’t know you. Even if they’ve been reading your newsletter and watching your videos they still don’t
know you. They don’t have the relationship with you that you think.
If you have 10,000 people on your list and once a week someone writes in and says, “I love your stuff! I feel
like I know you. I feel like I can get inside your head,” that’s good. But there are 9,999 people that didn’t
write you that week saying that. The bulk of them check your stuff out once in a while. They open your email
once in a while. They watch your videos once in a while. They’re just not the fanatical follower that you think
they are.
We all suffer from that imaginary reality. We think our prospects are as interested in our stuff as we are. They
just aren’t. That’s why we have to keep them on the stage. We have to keep their need right in front of us at
all times. Everything has to connect back to it.
I know this sounds a little bit extreme, but I really mean it. Everything has to connect back to it. Once you
figure out what your prospects top three, four, or five irrational fears, and fantasies, and big desired outcomes
are, everything you say has to connect up to one of them. That’s it. Everything in some way has to connect up
to one of those big three, four, or five things. If they don’t, what you’re saying is being wasted.
I’m not saying you can say it in a general way or an abstract way either. “This will help you get the solution
you want in life.” You have to talk to the specific thing they want, to the exact outcome or the big fear. You
have to connect the dots over, and over, and over, and over.
You might say, “That sounds kinda boring.” To them, it’s not. If your prospect is like the gentleman up here
who has people that have tried multilevel marketing, or aren’t having success, they don’t like prospecting to
their friends, and doing the in-person meetings, and they’re in debt, and they’re afraid of going bankrupt,
and they would love the idea of having leads come to them, people contacting them to see if they can make
them more money. You have to keep saying that over and over.
Every few sentences, every paragraph, or two, it has to keep coming back to, “And I couldn’t believe that
people were contacting me to help me make money. It blew my mind that from that day forward, I never had
to do another in-person or in-home meeting. What feels great is that I’ve never had to call another one of
my family members. I got the check for $1,000.00. Then I got a check for $5,000.00. Then I got a check for
$10,000.00” These things have to be said over and over and everything you’re saying has to relate back to one
of those things.
Inside of your customer avatar, those are the big bullet points. That’s all that matters. That’s 98 percent of
the game. All the rest of it is fluff and wasted conversation.
Get really clear about your prospects big fears and frustrations and their big wants and aspirations. Get
really clear on who they are. Then figure out how to communicate specific benefits. Talk to those specific
challenges, and link everything you’re saying back to one of them. It all has to link back up.
Are you ready back there? If so, where are you, doctor? I love it.
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I want to introduce you to a very close friend of mine. He’s a gentleman on our team that we affectionately
refer to as “The Doctor.” He is the doctor of copy.
When I met him several years ago, he had never written any marketing copy in his life. He has gone on to
educate himself, make friends with many of the world’s top copy writers, study every word of every great
sales letter that has ever been written, and go on to write and help write some of our best marketing copy. I
consider him to be one of the best copy writers alive. When I’m writing copy and working on a project, he’s
who I work with. He’s actually developed techniques now that help me out and that I’ve started using.
What I’d like to do is I’d like to introduce you to Craig Clemens on our team. He will come up here and teach
you his magic formula for writing sales letters that convert like crazy. What I’d like you to do is give him a big,
warm welcome.
Craig Clemens: How’s everyone doing? Cool. Welcome, everybody. It’s great to be here. It’s great to
be sharing this with you. When I first started writing copy, sending it to Eben, and having him beret me at
how bad I was, I never thought I would be able to teach anyone else.
Frankly, I started out as a terrible writer in general. Through learning some techniques, it started to come
together. I hope that using this formula I show you guys today, no matter what your writing skill is, hopefully
by the time we’re done here today, you guys will not only be able to write a sales letter that sells your products
and services, but actually have it almost all the way done by the time this presentation is over. Let’s get right
into it.
What we’re going to talk about today is something I call the conversion code. It’s part system. The first part
is discovering the hot buttons that have the most influence on your prospect’s buying decisions. The second
part is organizing and assembling those buttons into a sales letter format that pushes them the right way, and
triggers that gut instinct, and makes them – as they used to say – “Sign on the dotted line.” These days, it’s
probably, “Push the ‘Buy it Now’ button.” Let’s get right into it.
I found in looking at other people’s writing that many writers make the mistake of speaking to what they
think motivates their prospects, come to find out that they’re totally wrong. If you’re not talking to your
prospect’s strongest and deepest wants, needs, and desires, you’re really doing them a disservice. You’re
leaving money on the table. You have to find out what they want to hear, as Eben so amazingly explained this
morning. Speak to those buttons.
We’re going to show you how to do the first part of this system. Fortunately, the information that will move
your prospects to buy is already inside of you. We’re going to get it out right now. Let’s do it.
Eben and I have written a lot of sales letters. What we started doing is a process to figure out what would
be the best way to sell each individual product? Our main niches are dating, but we have branched off into
ten different products for each thing. While they all have the same core needs – for men it’s to meet women,
for ladies it’s to meet men – they’re all focusing on different elements of that. We had to figure out ways to
distinguish everything. We came up with this system.
I would sit down and we would interview each other. It was mostly me interviewing him and picking his
brain trying to get all the good stuff out for each product and program. What we’re going to do is we’re going
to do that interview right now. I’d like to have all of you guys do it right now with yourselves and figure out
the good stuff that’s going to help you sell your stuff.
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Your mission is to get inside of your prospect’s head and figure out what motivates them to buy. Then we’re
going to get inside your head and pull out everything about your prospect that relates to your prospect’s
needs, wants, and desires. Then we’re going to put it all together in a sales letter in a way that pushes their
hot buttons most effectively.
The first exercise is an exercise that Eben taught me. I think this is probably the one your head and pull out
everything about your prospect that relates to your prospect’s needs, wants, and desires. Then we’re going to
put it all together in a sales letter in a way that pushes their hot buttons most effectively.
The first exercise is an exercise that Eben taught me. I think this is probably the one exercise that took my
personal copy writing skills from pretty good to – I don’t want to say great because I had a lot to learn after
this. If you do this one exercise, it will take you up a big notch. I bet if you wrote a sales letter before doing
this exercise and then one right after, you’d notice a 10 percent to 20 percent increase on conversions off the
bat. It’s such a powerful way to tap into your prospect’s mind and figure out their needs and wants.
I’d like you guys to write an autobiography as your prospect. I want you to get as detailed as possible. Step
into their shoes. How old is your prospect? What do you do for a living? Are you married? Do you have
kids? Do you have a girlfriend or boyfriend? How much money do you make? Where do you live? What
kind of place do you live in? What kind of neighborhood?
After you write down those basic details about how your life is going and what is going on in your life, think
about how you, as your prospect, feel about the area of your life that your product helps you improve. What
are your frustrations? What do you want to change? Most importantly, why do you want to get this area
of your life handled? What is motivating you to go on Google, and type in those words, and look for the
solution to this problem?
Think about that. Start off and get detailed. I want you to take some time to do it right now. This will pave
the way for everything else we’re going to share with you today. Let’s take 10 minutes to write it up. Get
detailed. Make it long. Make it involve everything you can think of about your prospect. Let’s do it.
Do you feel like you’ve gotten in the heads of your prospects a little bit more doing that exercise? Anyone
have a good one that you want to share? What industry are you in?
Male Speaker 1: Teaching internet marketers how to follow up better with their clients and prospects.
Craig Clemens: Awesome. Let’s hear the autobiography.
Male Speaker 1: The autobiography is: I am a 32-year-old internet marketer. I attend conferences and
workshops. I study internet marketing frequently as I am very passionate about it. I make a decent amount
in my business, and I have some systems in place, but I know I need more.
I perceive the world from a value perspective and not materially. One of my biggest challenges is
communicating consistently and effectively with my list, clients, prospects, or even at all. I don’t want to
scare my list or piss off any current clients. I don’t want to seem too pushy or sales-y.
I’m very busy juggling all the balls of my business, but I will devote time to implement a strategy and system
the first time around to better communicate with my list, build and deepen the relationships I have with my
clients, and automate that communication to save time.
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I have a feeling that I know if I were to do that, my sales would skyrocket, and when the process time comes
around to launch my new product or service, more of my followers will happily whip out their credit cards
and purchase what I have to offer as they truly see the value in it, and they can’t get enough of me.
I understand the power of systems and automation, but how do I implement them swiftly, get them going
quickly, and automated as soon as possible? How much will I have to hassle, be on the phone, or chat via
email with? How easy will it be to get everything transferred over and taken care of to see the profits rolling?
Craig Clemens: What kind of challenges are you facing as your prospect?
Male Speaker 1: It’s tough to communicate. I have a big list. They check my emails on occasion. I
send out updates here and there about things going on. I don’t want to be pushy on them. I don’t want to sell
them too much stuff, but of course I want to sell them something. I don’t really know if they’re going to be
accepting of it, and I don’t want to lose anybody off my list.
Craig Clemens: Let’s take it a little deeper. What kind of challenges are you having in your life? Are
you having financial challenges?
Male Speaker 1: No, finances are pretty darn good, but they could be a lot better.
Craig Clemens: As your prospect. You’re selling something to internet marketers. Most of your clients
have some money. They’re doing pretty well. You’re teaching them how to better communicate with their
list?
Male Speaker 1: Better communicate, follow up, and build relationships with people. It applies to joint
venture partners, meeting people at conferences.
Craig Clemens: What types of things would happen if they were able to solve those problems?
Male Speaker 1: A lot more business would be done. Partners would be made. You’ll have a lot more
good friends, stories to share at events, and things to share with, meeting gurus, and getting closer to the
people who may have more ideas that could benefit my business.
Craig Clemens: There is some good stuff I there, too, like the social proof aspects. You want to meet
other people, network, and climb the ladders. Would you say that your prospect’s biggest challenge would be
communication?
Male Speaker 1: Effective and consistent communication.
Craig Clemens: Like building a relationship?
Male Speaker 1: Yes.
Craig Clemens: That would be a core thing so he could make more money?
Male Speaker 1: Exactly.
Craig Clemens: Cool. That’s kind of a tough example.
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Male Speaker 1: It is.
Craig Clemens: It’s easier for this exercise if your Joe Blow is trying to quit smoking or something like
that.
Female Speaker: I’m a 37-year-old woman who is married with two children. I work outside the home
as a non-profit grant writer. I make $50,000.00 a year, and I love the company I work for. It really helps
people. I live in Arizona in a community in which my family is really involved in the school. I’m worried
about my kids’ future.
I’m at odds with my father, and my brother is an alcoholic. He fights with my dad all the time. I just avoid
my parents because they belittle me and criticize my choices and how I want to raise my kids.
I see myself acting like my dad sometimes with my kids, as much as I hate it. I know it’s harmful. Mostly, I
see and hear myself turning into my mother and doing stuff I hated that she did and still does now and when
I was a child.
I want to stop my daughter’s constant crying and my son’s destructive behavior. They don’t listen to me, and
I say things over and over again until I start yelling at them. I’m so frustrated with them, and I need to learn
how to effectively discipline them. I want them to listen to me and respect what I have to say, but I also want
them to grow up to be happy, successful kids and us be a close family.
I’m worried that if I don’t get this under control, that something really bad will happen to them, like they’ll
get into trouble at school, with the law, get into the wrong crowd, or get mixed up with drugs.
Craig Clemens: You’re teaching a parenting course.
Female Speaker: Yes.
Craig Clemens: I love the buttons you came up with, worrying about the kids getting into trouble with
drugs or school. That’s stuff you pull right out and put right into your letter. Those are concerns and fears
that all parents have. Awesome, thanks so much.
Be honest, how many people honestly got a lot out of that? How many people think, “Why the hell is he
making us do this right now? I’m wasting ten minutes of my time.”? No one? Good. If there are any of you
who were too shy to raise their hand, hopefully it will all come together now.
Now we’re going to get into taking that information and putting it together in a process that starts making
some conversions for you. We’re also going to get a little bit more by digging in and actually doing some
interview questions right now to go deeper in the story, and deeper in the story and deeper in the prospect’s
head than you actually are right now.
We’re going to down to the next level, and pinpoint on some specific things, and get some information down
on paper. Then we’re going to take that information that is on the paper, and plug it into the right spots and
make a sales letter for you guys. Let’s go.
Question 1 is to think about the product or service you’re selling. Think about the reasons why you created
it, money aside. Was it that you recognized a need in a market, and you sought to fill it? Was it that you
personally had a problem? You looked all over the place, and there weren’t any good solutions, and then you
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finally figured it out for yourself? Did you see some other products that took something to one level, like
you saw a lot of great golfing products, but nothing specialized on putting so you wanted to be the putting
master?
Make a big list. Try to come up with at least ten reasons about why you created your particular product. It’s
not why you’re in the industry. If you’re in the smoking industry, not because you want to help people quit
smoking. Why did you create your particular quit smoking product? Come up with a good list right now.
Take two minutes.
Question 2 to ask yourself is what are the main benefits your prospect will receive from your program? List
the benefits. What is this going to do for them specifically? List out as many as you can. Try to get deep on
this one. Don’t just come up with surface benefits.
If we’re talking about men’s dating advice, yes, it will help them get more women. It’s also going to help them
get women that they think are out of their league. It’s going to help them get a girlfriend. It’s going to help
them look better in front of their friends because more women are attracted to them, and they can brag to
their friends and raise their social status.
It’s going to make them more comfortable when they go out to a bar or nightclub when they see a woman they
want to meet. They’re not going to be kicking themselves after because they didn’t approach her. It’s going to
give them the ability to have more physical relations with women.
Go into your market and come up with some good benefits that your prospect will receive from your product.
Question 3 is what are your prospects three biggest buttons? What keeps them up at night? What’s the stuff
that really tears their soul? Think of the things they’re probably afraid to admit to their friends, even their
best friends – even things they’re afraid to themselves. Think about whether that button is a benefit or a fear.
I’ve found that most of them are more around fear.
For example, in the women’s dating market, one of the buttons we find ourselves hitting time and time again
is the fear that a woman will die alone. It’s something that’s always in the back of everyone’s mind. They try
to cover up. I guess men probably have the same fear as well. Think about things like that. Try to come up
with the three biggest buttons that your prospect will respond to.
Male Speaker 2: You said that fear for women, for example, is fear that they’ll die alone. How do you
discover something like that? You’re not guessing that, correct?
Craig Clemens: That’s why I had you guys do the autobiography exercise. It’s not going to click into
place after doing one thing, but that’s the process that I go through. I write that autobiography and think,
“What are my prospects thinking about when they’re in bed at night? What stuff comes out that they’re
trying to hide from themselves during the day with other activities? What are they masking?”
The reason I think it’s good to write these long lists is that you’ll write – let’s take women’s relationships since
we’re already talking about that. You could start off writing that the biggest button is that men don’t find
them attractive. A man will leave her for another woman. A man will get tired of having physical relations
with her. He won’t find her sexually attractive anymore.
Keep writing those down. Come up with your good list. Then go through and think, “How is this affecting
my prospect? Is this something she really thinks about or is this something more casual?”
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Let’s say your list said, “Fear that she’ll go on a date with a guy, and he won’t call her.” That’s a big fear, but
it’s not as deep and powerful as the fear that she will go on a date with a guy, he will call her, they’ll end up
having a good time, and then he’ll leave her for another woman. It’s bigger picture stuff that would be more
devastating if it happened. Does that make sense?
Male Speaker 2: It makes sense. I’m wondering how you would get to the ones, for example, if they
don’t even want to admit it to themselves. How do you discover that?
Craig Clemens: You’ll be better at discovering it than they will. Oftentimes, they have so much junk
all over stuff. Keep writing. Think of the ones that stand out. Think about each one. Think, “Is this a really
big issue, or is this just a problem?” I call the smaller things frustrations. The biggest ones are buttons. We’ll
get into that in a little bit. We’ll get there.
Question 4 is what are your prospects biggest fears around this area of life? In this aspect, it’s kinda like the
buttons. Now we’re going to list all the fears they have. With the women’s dating market, there’s the fear that
he thinks I look fat in these pants. There’s the fear that I’ll call him and he won’t call me back. There’s the
fear that I’m on a date with a man and his eyes start checking out the hostess a little too much. There’s the
fear that I’ll go on a date with this man, and he’ll end up stalking me and turn out to be a psychopath.
List all these fears that your prospect would have in your market. I think you’ll come up with some really
interesting stuff. Who has a really good one?
That’s a good question. He asked, “What is the difference between the fears and the buttons?” A button
would be like the biggest fears. When you’re listing the fears, you’re listing all kinds of random little stuff.
The fact that you asked that makes me think we should do the buttons question later in this interview and
flip-flop. It’s not a perfect process, but it will be. Thanks for the feedback.
Who has a really good fear that their prospect might have? Anyone want to share? No?
Male Speaker 3: Aging badly. Your health is deteriorating, and your body is not able to regenerate
itself. Aging badly for a lot of us baby boomers is – we know we’re all going to die, but we want to try to
maintain a certain health level as long as possible. Aging badly, I think will become an increasingly hot
button for my generation.
Craig Clemens: What are some of the fears around that? I can think of ten right now.
Male Speaker 3: Becoming incontinent, not being able to walk up the stairs without a walker or
assistant, not being able to live independently for as long as you could if your health were greater, and not
being able to drive yourself anymore. You talk about independent living. That can cut off a whole lot of
things.
Craig Clemens: You can even talk about the physical stuff, too, like getting more wrinkles and losing
your physical appearance.
Male Speaker 3: Or just being able to get out of bed.
Craig Clemens: That’s the button right there. That’s exactly what we’re looking for.
Question 5 is what are your prospects biggest frustrations? People ask, “What is the difference between fears
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and frustrations?” Frustrations are like the next level up. That’s like the day to day stuff.
We’re talking about women’s dating market. That’s one I always like to go back to because it’s one I’ve had a
lot of experience in.
A woman’s frustration might be that she goes out with her three friends. One of her friends is always getting
hit on, and it’s never her. Like the old ad says, “Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.” Maybe she’s out at the
market. She sees an attractive guy, but he doesn’t look her way. Maybe she gets a lot of dates, and all the guys
turn out to be duds. It’s the lighter level stuff.
It’s not things that necessarily scare her, like a man leaving for another woman, or a guy that loses physical
attraction in her. These are the frustrations that get at her in her day to day life. Think about some of that
lighter stuff, and make a little list of those, too.
Question 6 is what will they gain after going through this program? This is where you want to talk about
all of the benefits realized. Maybe you’re teaching someone how to play better golf. You’re teaching them a
putting stroke and they’re going to gain a few points off their score everything they go out. They’re going to
gain respect and credibility amongst their friends. They’re going to gain a thing of self-confidence when they
get off the course knowing that they beat their previous day’s record.
Think of all the feelings and things they will have as a result of going through your products and services.
Make a long list of these as well.
Question 7 is what is your proof? Why should they listen to you? This section is the part where you list
reasons why you are an expert. Why should they buy your product over someone else’s? Why should they
buy it in the first place?
When we were doing the women’s dating market, we had an interesting challenge in that our relationship
expert was a man. We had to come up with some reasons why they should listen to a man giving them advice
about dating.
The obvious hook is that he’s a man so he knows how men are thinking. That’s the big one. Other things
are that he is the type of man who never really had a struggle for dates. He had some options. He wasn’t
struggling, so he’s qualified as the type of guy that a lot of women want.
We thought of the fact that he had interviewed a lot of his male friends that had settled down, guys that were
playas for life. Then one girl came along and he settled down. He went and asked all those guys, “Why did
you settle down with this girl when you had your choice of women your whole life? What made you settled
down with this one? That’s a reason why a prospect should listen to his dating advice.
We also thought about that our expert has talked to tons of women who have been able to capture these guys
and ask them, “What are your secrets to capturing my friend? He’s been perpetually single his whole life, and
he decided to marry you. Have you had that experience with other guys?” “ Every guy I’ve dated has wanted
to marry me?” “ What are you doing differently? Tell us some of your strategies.”
Talk about your expertise. Talk about expertise you’ve gotten through interviewing people or doing case
studies and research. There are plenty of ways you can go with this. Just think of reasons why they should
listen to you.
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We’re halfway through the questions. Does anyone see a little of a sales letter forming? Are you starting to
see that? Is anyone getting some stuff you feel you could plug into some sections? How many of you have
written a sales letter before? Cool. Do you see anything develop yet? Not really? That’s totally fine because
we’re going to get there.
Question 8 is who is this program for? Who needs it? Who doesn’t need it? Make a list of who does and
who doesn’t. With these two lists, you probably will have a long list of who does need it. You’re going to list
out every possible person who would want to buy your product. For those who don’t need it, you’re going to
narrow it down, and do a big contrast.
Something we do in the men’s dating market is a good example for this one. Who needs it? Any guy who
is attracting women already, but wants to attract hotter, higher quality women, any guy who has trouble
approaching women when he’s out and sees a woman he wants to meet, any guy who has never had a
girlfriend, any guy who has a girlfriend now and she’s breaking up with him, any guy who is getting out of
divorce need it.
Who doesn’t need it? That’s where you put a big contrast. If you’re Brad Pitt or some other celebrity, and
women are constantly hitting on you every day, and you have your choice, honestly, you probably shouldn’t
buy my program. If you want to, that’s fine. You probably don’t need it. if you’ve always gotten the hottest
women in your life, even after high school, even after you got injured and weren’t on the football team
anymore you still went out with the prom queen, you probably don’t need this program. If you’re married to
the woman of your dream, why are you even reading this far? You don’t need this program.
Come up with a lot of reasons for people who do need it, and a couple of examples that are a little bit out
there that you can use as a contrast. The reason you do that is to remind your prospect how far off from the
mark that they are, and that they need to get your stuff immediately.
Question 9 is what tasty information can we give away? As you guys have heard Eben mention many times,
we found that it’s best to give away your best stuff. Give away some stuff that people can use instantly and
that they’ve never heard before. We’re going to talk about this a little more later on. We’re going to not
spend a lot of time on this one. Think about what you can give away to get them salivating.
Question 10 is why won’t people buy? What objections will they have? On this list, this is where you start
with things like they don’t have any money. Other objections are that you have nine competitors. They might
not buy from you because there are nine other choices.
I think the biggest objection that everyone has to conquer is that your program works, but it might not work
for that person in particular. That’s an objection someone has. You can imagine that if someone is a guy who
is looking to meet women, but has never had any success getting a woman in his life, and is still a virgin at 40
years old is going to be a bit skeptical that anything can help him. You have to conquer those objections as
well. Make a good list of every objection your prospect could have to buying your product.
Something we have to think about when we’re doing a seminar is that a lot of people don’t want to get on a
plane and come to the seminar. You have to conquer that objection.
If you’re selling a DVD course, some people don’t have time to sit down and watch ten hours of DVDs. If
you’re selling an eBook, some people are afraid to buy something you can buy on the internet. They want to
get something that’s hard in their hands.
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What used to be the most common objection of all ten years ago was that I don’t want to give up my credit
card number on the internet. I don’t know you. Think of all those objections. Make a huge list of them. The
more objections you conquer, the more you’ll sell.
Question 11 is what is the dream? When I say this, I want you to think about your prospect’s ideal life. What
is their life like if everything has gone perfectly for them, especially around the area your product solves?
If we’re talking about our friend’s internet marketing business, maybe their dream is that they’re doing $1
million a month in sales, and then Microsoft comes over and says, “We want to buy your company for $200
million. We don’t even want you to work for a year. We know how it’s run. Just take it, and go to a desert
island.” Think irrational.
Maybe if you’re talking about something like quitting smoking, maybe their dream is to quit smoking, but
then be in a smoky place, and not even think about it, and be grossed out by it.
Dating and relationships, the dreams are a little bit different. Some guys, their dream is to be Hugh Hefner
and have women coming to their house, and paying rent to live with him. It could be finding a great girl,
settling down, and having kids.
Think about what your prospect’s ideal dream is. Spell it out, kind of like you did with the autobiography in
the beginning.
Question 12 is what is the nightmare? What is the worst thing that could happen to your prospect if
they don’t buy your product or service? Again, you want to get deep. Let’s say you’re talking about a debt
consolidation program. What is a nightmare?
Part of the nightmare is that their credit is ruined. You want to spell it out all the way. The way you think
about that is what is the absolute worst thing that could happen to someone in debt? Someone sees that
you’ve taken all this debt out. They see you’re actually a criminal for taking out all this stuff that you couldn’t
pay off. The police come to your house, arrest you, and take you to jail. Your wife decides to leave you. She
takes your kids, leaves you and you’re stuck in jail with Big Bubba for not paying your bills.
Spell out that nightmare. Think about how bad it could actually get and write it down.
This is Part 2. I want to show you guys a proven system that we’ve developed to create a sales letter that
converts the very first time. I don’t care if you’ve never written a sales letter before. I don’t care if you’ve
written ten. This has a good chance of beating it.
I was very flattered at the last program. When I was sharing this, my friend, Alex, came up to the
microphone. He told me about a guy who was in a course on how to save your relationship if there are
jealously problems in the marriage.
He hired six professional writers, highly paid guys to write a sales letter. He had some capital going in so he
said, “I want the six best writers.” He gave them all big bucks and said, “Write a letter to sell my product.” He
put them all up. He split tested them. They had varying degrees of success, but it wasn’t what he was looking
for.
Then he decided, “I’m going to try this myself.” Somehow, he stumbled upon this sales letter formula that I’m
about to share with you guys right now. He filled in the blanks. He had never written a sales letter before.
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The sales letter he wrote by himself using this formula smoked all the letters the professional writers had
written. I think there’s some merit here. I hope it does the same thing for you guys. Let’s get right into it.
Cracking the code to huge conversions. I’m going to show you this code that we’ve come up with. Follow it
exactly. You will make sales. As you know, we’ve used this same formula, give or take, in almost every letter
we’ve written. We’ve used it to make millions of dollars consistently. I hope you can, too. Even if you follow
this formula and mess up, I think your letter will still convert better than many professional letters, and
definitely better than amateur letters. Give it a shot. That said, use this as a guide. Use it as a learning tool.
I want to read you something from a man who is highly regarded by most as the greatest copy writer of all the
time to set the stage for what we’re about to talk about. That man’s name is Eugene Schwartz. He has a book
called Breakthrough Advertising. I think it sells for $100.00 and is kind of hard to find. You probably have to
buy it on eBay. It is a must-buy if you’re serious about persuasion and copy writing. He is the man.
This quote that I’m about to read to you is not in that book. I think Matt Gallant is probably the only
other guy in the room who has heard this quote. Not necessarily. This came from a private lecture Eugene
Schwartz gave to a room full of copy writers. Matt and I went to a seminar put on by Gary Bencivenga,
another legend, a few years ago. We were fortunate to get a copy of this tape. I heard this quote and thought,
“This sums up one of the best explanations of persuasion and copy writing that I’ve ever heard.” I want to
read that to you to guys to set the tone for what we’re going to do right now.
“Copy is not written. If anyone tells you that you write copy, sneer at them. Copy is not written. Copy is
assembled. You do not write copy. You assemble it. You’re working with a series of building blocks. You’re
putting the building blocks together in certain structures. You’re building a little city of desire for your
person to come live in. You’re not writing. You’re assembling. You’re assembling claims. You’re assembling
images. You’re assembling desires that people will pay $33.00 to share with you and a 21-day guarantee.
“Forget about writing. Anyone in this room who writes copy, anyone who works with copy must realize that
the person or thing they are working with or the thing they are producing is not writing. Get that out of your
head because you won’t produce good copy.
“The one thing I hate most in this world and shows me absolute disaster –” Listen to this part. This part is
really good. “– is when someone comes up to me and says, ‘Wow! That headline is so beautiful. Where did
you get those words? They’re gorgeous.’ I say, ‘Oh, God! He’s seeing the words. He’s not seeing through the
words. He’s seeing the words themselves.’ That’s no good.
“If you want to write poetry, if you want to write prose, if you want to write novels, if you want to write
literature, go outside of advertising. Words in advertising are like windows in a store. You must be able to
look right through them and see the product. If you see the window, it’s dirty. You’re going to see yourself.
You’re going to see the smear. You’re not going to see the product. You’re going to lose.
“Copy should never call attention to itself. You should never know you are reading sentences. The words
should never pronounce themselves. What you want people to see is the visual, visceral image of what the
words are conveying. That’s how it works. You have to break that fascination with words. Of course, you
have to have the punch headline, but when the right words come, people don’t see them. They feel them.
“‘Sneaky little arthritis tricks.’ There are four words. None of them is an exceptional world. They’re all pretty
standard, mundane words. It’s their combination that makes them powerful. One of the words is a word
that should not be used in advertising – ‘sneaky.’ We don’t like to sneak around. A person sneaking around
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is not very appealing. We don’t want to be identified with those. But when a person who has the pain of
arthritis, and the humiliation, and the dependency of arthritis sees ‘sneaky little arthritis tricks,’ and they’ve
gone to doctors, and spent hundreds of hours trying to follow doctors, and have not been able to be helped by
doctors, they know exactly what you’re talking about.”
That’s powerful stuff. I like his example of sneaky little arthritis tricks. All those words by themselves mean
nothing. When you put them together in that order, it’s really powerful. That’s what we’re going to talk about
write now. It’s putting these building blocks together that you didn’t know you were just creating in that last
interview exercise. Here’s how to put them together.
The example I’m going to use is a letter that converted gangbusters for us. It’s to sell our Deep Inner Game
program for us. The URL is www.DoubleYourDating.com/deepinnergame. It’s in the men’s dating advice
market.
This is a product that’s a little bit harder to sell than say a collection of pickup lines. You’re actually selling
someone internal change and psychological stuff. You’re not just trying to sell the dream of them going up
to a woman and saying something. You’re trying to sell them the dream of actually changing themselves and
getting rid of all the negative stuff that’s in their head. That stuff has been in their heads their whole lives. I
think it’s a good example.
Here are the 18 basic pieces of the code that we’re going to go through and assemble today and the order we’re
going to do them in.
No. 1 is your headline.
No. 2 is the subhead.
No. 3 is questions that show you understand and push buttons.
No. 4 is a powerful analogy or story.
No. 5 is that it’s not your fault and there’s hope.
No. 6 is that we’re going to give away content.
No. 7 is proof.
No. 8 is what is it? What’s in it?
No. 9 is bullets.
No. 10 is who needs it? Who doesn’t?
No. 11 is what makes it different?
No. 12 is a wrap up.
No. 13 is a price.
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No. 14 is a guarantee.
No. 15 is a close.
No. 16 is a signature.
No. 17 is your P.S.
No. 18 is your testimonials.
Matt: Can you talk about the difference between proof and testimonials? Testimonials are proof, right?
Craig Clemens: They are a form proof.
Matt: I don’t think that’s what you’re talking about.
Craig Clemens: I wanted to have testimonials their own section so people know they have to have
those. Matt was asking why I separated proof in one section and testimonials in the other when testimonials
are actually a form of proof. They could fall under that. Under proof, I could list testimonials and
autobiography. I wanted to make sure that you know that you gotta have testimonials in there.
Some people ask me how you get testimonials on a new product. I don’t see any problem with taking your
product, and giving it out free to all your friends, and having them send it to their friends, and asking them
for an honest testimonial if they liked it. Ask them to tell you if it’s crap, too. You’ll get some good feedback.
We’re going to zoom through this letter. I’m going to point out some sections. We’re going to go kind of fast.
I want everybody to see all these 18 pieces in context to help.
We obviously have our headline on top. “New breakthrough discoveries in science and psychology help you
eliminate anxiety, nervousness, etc.” Subhead is, “If you’re ready to finally say goodbye to the ‘inner game
challenges’ like insecurity, fear, and anxiety that are holding you back from true success with women, this will
be the most important letter you ever read.
“Dear Friend, Have you ever screwed up an important situation with a woman? Be honest with me here. I
want you to know.” Then we have some specific questions. I’m going to read you the first one. “Have you ever
been talking to a woman you felt attracted to, and gotten so nervous and uptight that you fumbled over your
words…and she got bad vibrations from you and walked away? You’re asking questions that resonate with a
person. There are a lot of those questions here to start off.
“If you’re doing those things, it’s not her. It’s not the situation. It’s you. Why is this so hard for most men?”
This is the big aha. This is the conversion story that Eben was showing you earlier. This is the conversion
story right here, the story with the aha moment.
Here’s the realization. “Fix the important things and other things will fix themselves.”
We’re giving away some content here. We’re listing these things that men have problems with like
immaturity, unpredictable emotional turmoil, and other people controlling you in your life. We’re giving
away some tasty stuff that will open their eyes to some things and help them.
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This is a section that we’re saying, “The problem isn’t going to solve itself. You know it’s not easy. Some men
find it impossible. Most men go their entire lives without having the success with women that they deserve.
The good news is that you’re going to smash through the internet B.S. and get it handled forever. This is the
answer.” That’s the “there is hope” section.
Here we’re going into the proof section. Eben did this program with a psychiatrist. He was world-renowned.
We’re talking about facts here. “This guy has helped thousands of guys overcome their fears with women.
He’s an MD. He’s been on CNN and USA. He had this system that made me say, ‘This thing actually works.’
I couldn’t believe it. It was a revolutionary, breakthrough system. It was scientific. He had patented it. He
had already used it to help 4,000 people.”
We’re throwing out all these proof facts about this guy with a system that will be teaching with Eben. “Real
world experience, scientific expertise, did an interview with him for my dating gurus. It was huge. Everyone
loved it so we had to do more.” That’s a proof thing as well. “Guys love the feedback.”
Here’s the next section. This was the section I call “what it is.” “It’s ‘Deep Inner Game.’ How it came about,
we spent weeks preparing. We spent two days putting it together. This program is the first of its kind. It’s
going to reprogram your mind. The cameras were rolling. We got it all on DVD. It’s groundbreaking. You’re
going to learn how to get rid of this experience. You’re going to learn how to do this, this, and this.”
We’re listing what’s in the program. It’s a long list. I’m going to read you one of these paragraphs. Each one
lists something you’re going to learn in the program.
“If you’ve had difficulty with rejection or breaking up with a woman in the past, this program will show you
how to patch those holes with confidence and strength and take your self-esteem to a level you never thought
possible.” We’ll read one more.
“If you’re suffering from depression, or are just a little bummed out about how things have been going for
you lately, you’ll learn how to snap yourself into success mode and take on a contagious, optimistic attitude.
You’ll see each new day as an opportunity to try out your newfound skills, and meet more and more attractive
women.”
That’s what it is and what’s in it. Here are the bullets. We’re going to talk a lot about bullets later. These are
the teasers that tell them what’s in without actually telling them.
Eben Pagan: Will you scroll back through the bullets for a second?
Craig Clemens: “How to patch up the holes in your self-esteem for good and build a rock-solid
foundation of confidence that all women ‘feel’ when they’re around you.” “How to avoid letting the emotions
you feel when you meet a really special woman cause you to make stupid mistakes that scare her away. If
you’ve ever had a problem keeping around the ‘keepers,’ it’s probably because you didn’t do just this one
simple thing.”
Eben Pagan: What are you noticing about these bullets, by the way?
Craig Clemens: There are a lot of them?
Eben Pagan: It’s the same underlying fears, frustrations, problems being stated over and over and over and
over and over again. The point I’m making and want to point out is how many times can you say, “We’re going
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to help you get your inner game together so you quit screwing up unconsciously”? How many different ways
can you say it? We said it there – how many bullets were there? Any guesses? What I’m trying to say is that’s
just the bullets of the sales letter. Those are little condensed other pieces of the sales letter.
What the sales letter is saying over and over and over again is the same thing. That’s what I’m trying to get
you to see. We were working for the first part of this program on a little bit of a formula, on identifying these
high leverage points, and then on frameworks and ways to communicate them. it’s really about identifying
those top three, four, or five things, and then hitting them over and over and over again in a way that specific
and meaningful to the prospect. Go for it.
Craig Clemens: Those big buttons. How can you know if this program is for you? It’s that list we
talked about earlier. Why this program is different than anyone else out there? We list the reasons why it’s
different. We have an up-sell. Here’s the roundup section of what you’re going to get. You list what’s in it.
You get these DVDs. You get this binder. Here’s where you list the price. It is five easy payments. Here’s a
guarantee.
Here’s the close. We’re selling the dream right here, this magic moment when everything comes together.
There’s the order button, signature, P.S., and testimonials. Let’s slow that down and go through each one
individually.
The headline, I can’t do justice to headlines right now. It would take me a long time, and I still couldn’t do
justice. A foolproof strategy is to attach the three biggest benefits or buttons to a specific lead in. This is
an open letter to any man who wants to get more attractive women without having a Ferrari and making $1
million a year.
The next one is how a 60-year-old man who was smoking for 40 years was able to drop his cigarettes without
even thinking about it after seven days. How you can do the same guaranteed.
“Announcing the new, revolutionary golf putter that takes ten strokes off your game overnight, even if you’re
blind in your left eye and have your left foot forward when you’re golfing. That was a bad joke, but you get the
point.
I have some homework for you on the headlines. One of the best books I’ve seen for knowing how to write
great basic headlines is Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples. That is a wealth of knowledge. Everyone
should read that book whether you want to be a professional copywriter or make a ton of money.
Read John Caples’s Tested Advertising Methods and study ads that you know are winners. Go on www.
ClickBank.com and look at the products that are listed at the top of each category as best-sellers. Read those
headlines. You can read all the headlines on the dating products, the Catch ‘Em and Keep ‘Em products.
There are a lot of people in this room who have some winners among them, too. Network and see what
everyone else is selling. Study each other’s material.
The purpose of the subhead is to connect the headline to the letter while adding even more benefits. A
foolproof formula is to use, “Read on to discover,” and then restate your headline. Spell it out. Another one
is, “If you want to do X, this is the most important letter you’ll ever read.” Remember when we were talking
about listing those benefits and those big buttons? Take that long list of all the gains your prospect will have,
take out the three that are the strongest. You can throw them right in there. Say, “Read on to discover how to
do this, this, and this.”
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The headline we have, let me show you how the transition worked on this letter. We used a fairly common
headline-subhead approach. It works well. I think you can use it on anything.
The headline is very benefit-driven. “New breakthrough discoveries in science and psychology help you
eliminate the anxiety, nervousness, self-doubt, and fear that are destroying your chances with women. It’s
time to finally overcome your fears, take control of your emotions, learn to approach women easily to start
conversations, and transform yourself into the powerful, confident, attractive man that every woman is
desperately looking for.”
Do you see how we hit all those different benefits and buttons in there? The subhead restates it, and shoots
you into the next part. “If you’re ready to finally say goodbye to the inner game challenges like insecurity, fear,
and anxiety that are holding you back from true success with women, this will be the most important letter
you will ever read.”
Then we go to the next section. We’re going to ask questions that show you sympathize with them and
understand what they’re going through.
“Dear Friend, have you ever screwed up an important situation with a woman? Be honest with me here. I
want to know.” Then we ask these questions that hit on those fears that we listed. Remember that list of fears
that you guys made? Think about this. I’m going to read a couple of these off to you.
“Have you ever been in a relationship with a wonderful woman, and became emotionally insecure or
dependent on her for your own feeling of well-being to the point where you literally drove her away?” Every
guy has gone through that.
“Have you ever seen a woman you wanted to start a conversation with, but your emotions started to go crazy
at even the thought of approaching her, and you thought it would be easier to walk away than overcome your
fear? The worst part of this is that you probably beat yourself up for it mentally later on, and felt even worse
for several hours or days.” How many men here can relate to that?
“Have you ever lost your cool around a woman that you really liked? Maybe it was in an argument that got
you upset, or something she did that made you feel emotional or angry, and you let your emotions take over,
which made her lost interest in you?”
We’re hitting them with things every guy can relate to. You can do this in any market and any industry. They
will see you as the all-knower. Just as important, you’re creating that bond with them at the beginning that
says you know exactly what they’re talking about. You are on the same page as they are. You’ve been in their
shoes, and you guys are in this tougher. That’s what you’re trying to accomplish here.
The next thing to insert is your powerful analogy, your story. This is that conversion story that Eben had you
guys all write earlier. Bam, after you ask those questions that let them know you’re right there with them,
that’s when you say, “I was in your shoes. This is where I was going. I was struggling with this, too.” You guys
got the formula for that now. This is where that goes. You can plug that conversion story right there.
“There is hope. It’s not your fault, well, not entirely.” I though Eben came up with a better name for this. He
said, as part of your conversion story, “Others did it and you can, too.” This is a segue from your conversion
story of how you went through the same thing, and finally discovered the solution. “There’s hope for you
because it worked for me.” Or, “It worked for thousands of other people I helped.”
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After you say, “It can work for you,” you’re going to go into the section where you give away content. “Fix the
important things, and other things will fix themselves.”
I’m going to share my list of inner game categories with you. Read through these, and see if that makes sense
to you. The things I like to give away are things like this, which I call tips or information, mistakes. “Three
mistakes women make when breastfeeding that could possibly damage their baby.” Who doesn’t want to read
that? For tips, you could always say, “Here are five things you can do to improve your game instantly with
women. You can start using them right away.” List them out.
As you’ve heard Eben say, I’ve found it’s best to give away your best material. I’ve also found that in this
section where you give away content, it’s best to give away things that are instantly applicable. “Here are three
things I discovered that changed my game almost overnight with women that you can start using. You’ll see
instant results.”
Another thing I like to do is demonstrations. I was talking to a guy who is selling a fitness product,
specifically on the abdominals. We came up with an exercise he could show them right there, that they could
actually do without getting out of their chair. It was an exercise that would make them feel a muscle in their
abs that they didn’t know existed. I said, “Type that up and stick it in there.”
The next step is your proof. This is that section we talked about before. I had you write the long list of
reasons why they should listen to you. Take all that, stick it in paragraph form, and put it right in the sales
letter in the proof section.
The next section is what it is and what’s in it. This is the part where you describe your product, and talk
about why you created it. Remember when I asked you to write down why you created this program? Say, “I
saw this need because,” and then revert back to your conversion story. “People are having this problem, and I
have the solution to fix it. I decided to do this.” Tell the story of how it came about.
“I showed it to a few friends who were having the same problem as me. It really worked out well for them.
They said, ‘Craig, you should write this up in a book.’ I said, ‘Really? Do you think it would help a lot of
people?’ ‘Yeah, it helped me. This stuff isn’t out there.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ I started writing. I wrote and I wrote.”
I’ve actually put this same thing in a sales letter. “I wrote and wrote this book. I got it finished. I thought it
was good. It worked for me and my friends. Would it work for everyone else?
“I put the book up and started selling it online. Frankly, I was nervous to be selling it online. I can’t tell you
the amount of pleasure I felt when I received my first letter like this.” Then I put a testimonial there. It was
like, “Dear So-and-So. Your book changed my life.” “ Since then, I’ve gotten hundreds more of those letters.”
Describe the process you take. Every one of these programs we do for Double Your Dating and Catch ‘Em and
Keep ‘Em, there’s a spot in the letter where I say, “I got a conference room in LA, and I filmed for two days in
front of a live studio audience in high definition. Then we edited it and packaged it into a DVD program.”
That gets them involved. It lets them know there’s a process going on. It lets them go through the process
with you.
One thing that’s very powerful in sales copy is if you can get someone to go through the experience with you,
they’ll feel like they’re having it themselves. Take them along the path of how the product came about. Even
if it’s something like an eBook, say, “I decided to take an hour a night, and every night I’d sit home for an hour
and crank out this book. Finally, I finished. I’m very excited to present it to you right now.”
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Section 9 is the bullets and perhaps the most important piece of the code. John Carlton has a letter for some
kind if sex product for men and women. The whole letter was all bullets. It was one of the most successful
letters of all time.
Let’s take a second to talk about how to write hard-hitting bullets that practically force your prospects to buy.
If you can learn to write bullets like this, you don’t really need the rest of the sales letter. That’s what I was
saying before. If you get parts of this right, you’ll still sell product. This is a part that gets people to buy.
We get letters into Double Your Dating all the time that say, “I bought your product and I’m still looking for
this. I couldn’t find it. I went through all the DVDs ten times.” They’ll have pasted the one bullet from the
sales letter. Some people buy just for one thing.
The same thing happens with Catch ‘Em and Keep ‘Em, our women’s dating line. It was happening so much
with our eBooks that I had to go back through the eBook and put page numbers next to all the bullets to show
people where they were in the book. We were getting people refunding because they couldn’t find the exact
same thing.
The simple secret to writing powerful bullets is something I learned from John Reese, who I think he learned
from John Carlton, who probably learned from Wyatt Woodsmall. I’m just guessing. That is to put the
benefit within the benefit. Here’s how it works.
“How to approach a woman in a way that makes her see you as an attractive sexy man.” It’s not just how to
approach a woman. That’s one benefit. You’re going to approach her in a way that makes her see you as
attractive and sexy. That’s putting the second benefit in there. You’re basically spelling out the result of what
you’re teaching.
The next one I want to ramp up by adding on another benefit. In this case, the benefit is attraction. We’re
going to say, “How to approach a woman in a way that makes her see you as an attractive sexy man that
she must get to know.” Now you’re not just approaching her. You’re not just approaching her and looking
attractive and sexy. Now she has to get to know you, too. Now you’re piquing that curiosity.
From there, you can supercharge your bullets by stacking more and more of these benefits, but different
types. A good example is to add on the benefits of simplicity and usability.
The next level is, “A simple, works every time way to approach a woman that makes her see you as an
attractive sexy man that she must get to know.” Now you’re not just learning to approach a woman. She’s not
just seeing you as sexy. She doesn’t just want to get to know you. It’s also simple, and it works every time. Do
you see how much more powerful it is than, “How to approach a woman”?
There’s really no limit. What I’ll do when I’m writing a sales letter is I’ll put in some smaller ones. I’ll say,
“How to approach a woman you see in an elevator.” That’ll be one.
The next bullet, just to mix it up a little bit, will be what I call a super bullet. It’ll be something like this, “A
simple, works every time way to approach a woman that makes her not only see you as an attractive sexy man
she must get to know, but actually gets her turned on as she’s talking to you. The best part about this is you
can learn it in 30 seconds, and it works especially well on those smoking hot, snooty women who usually
don’t give any man the time of day.” What guy wants to learn that?
You can do this with any market and any activity. Here we’re just talking about something as basic as
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approaching a woman. That’s what I think separates a lot of really good sales letters from just okay ones. I’ve
seen sales letters. That is the bullet. It’s how to approach a woman.
The way to do that, remember those benefits I had you guys list out? Remember when I said, “List out all
those benefits”? Take that list. As you’re writing the bullets, think of the ones you could stack together that
would sound good.
A few that go with men’s dating market, what do men want? They want women to be turned on by them.
They want women to feel comfortable around them. They want women to pick them over other men. They
want women to be interested in talking to them more. They want something that’s easy to learn. They want
tricks. They want things that work every time and on all women. They want the ability to get women who are
out of their league.
I haven’t done this before, but I bet I could do all eight of these in a bullet right now. “A way to turn a woman
on that actually makes her feel comfortable around you, pick you over other guys who are also trying to hit on
her, that’s easy to learn, works better than any trick that you learned with anyone else’s product, works every
time on all woman, and works especially well on women who are out of your league.” That didn’t make much
sense, but you see what I’m saying. You mash them together. I bet if I wrote that out, and crossed some
words off, pretty soon I’d have a tight, condensed bullet that hits hard.
That’s what you want to do. Do it as an experiment. Take three benefits, put them together, and think about
how you can write a bullet with three big benefits involved in your market.
Who needs it? Who doesn’t? How can you know if this program is for you? You can use that with any
program you’re doing.
“If you have the type of women who are ‘your type’ chasing you around and becoming addicted to you, you
might not need it. If you don’t have any anxiety, lack of self-esteem, or fear of women, and you’ve never hit
a dry spell, it might not be for you. If you don’t have any problems when you are in the moment, and you
always do the right thing when it counts, especially with the women you’re really interested in, you probably
don’t need this program.
“On the other hand, there are certain chronic problems that men have that don’t ever just go away. Read
through the list below. If you find that you’ve experienced any one of these problems, I highly recommend
you grab this program now.” This is the evil twist right here.
“However, if while you are reading through this list you realize that you’ve experienced more than one of these
chronic diseases that are almost impossible to shake, you need to get this program immediately.”
What do you think I did in these next ten things? I listed ten things that probably every guy is experiencing.
The guy’s going to be like, “I got that problem. Maybe I don’t need it because I only have that problem.” Then
he’s like, “I have that one, too. I have that one, too. I have that one, too. Oh, shoot.”
They’re things like, “If you feel like if you run out of lines and techniques, you’ll have no way to attract a
woman. If you thought being with a woman was the answer to your problem, but once you were with one,
you still had problems. If you’ve ever felt that if you found a great woman, all your problems would be solved,
but secretly worry that those very same problems are what’s preventing you from finding a woman in the first
place.
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“If you’ve ever learned an awesome line or technique, but for some reason it didn’t work for you. If you want
to turn your hit-and-miss success with women into massive, consistent success; if you feel like you’re almost
there, but you just can’t get it completely together; if you’ve learned ideas and known they would work, but
you couldn’t even try out what you learned because you were too afraid.”
You can see how we do that little twist there. First we talk about how if you’re Brad Pitt, you don’t need it. If
you’re not, you do need it. Even if you’re Josh Hartnett, you still need it because you’re not as cool as Brad
Pitt. He’s supposed to have a sex video coming out, by the way.
The next section, I’ll show you why this program is different from everything else out there. What makes your
program different? Straight up list the reasons. This one has a ton of reasons. This was difficult, too, because
there are so many other things out there. There’s nothing really specifically targeting men’s self-esteem
around women, but we’re also competing with Tony Robbins. We’re competing with Brian Tracy products.
We’re competing with any kind of self-esteem product and any kind of dating product. We had to spell out
all those things.
We said, “It’s the first time a program has ever been created specifically to help men improve their inner game
for dating success. This program was created by two men who both specialize in helping men overcome inner
game issues. This program is the best of the best when it comes to inner game. It’s a visual model, meaning
you’ll learn it faster and use it more. It’s interactive.”
Here’s a good one, “This program is focused on helping you solve your dating success issues at the core.” It’s
not just going to teach you about lines. You’re actually going to get this stuff solved.
How convenient. “This material connects perfectly with all the other Double Your Dating techniques
you’ve been learning.” Come up with some reasons why yours is different from anything else out there. You
especially have to do this if you’re jumping into a market where the money is. We all know that the market
is where the money is. Usually you have ten other competitors in there so you have to distinguish yourself.
Include this section in your letter.
We’re almost done. Wrap it up. This is easy. You’re going to put the price. You’re going to get ten CDs, a
binder. Make it look like they’re getting a lot of stuff. Give them a lot of stuff.
With the price, it’s good to do a comparison. Spell out the bargain. There are hundreds of ways to do this. I
recommend looking at winning sales letters and see how they do it. Some of my favorites are, “If you were
to get an hour consulting time with myself, it would be $500.00. If you were going to hire a psychologist, it
would cost this much. You can get this program for $29.95. It has a total guarantee.”
If you’re talking about how to make money on a stock market program, “If you bought all the books I bought
to read this and learn these secrets, you’d spend $10,000.00, but I have all the knowledge condensed from
everything in one for just $39.95.” Give several comparisons when you list the price.
For guarantee, I like to list the benefits. Again, the list of benefits we made. “I’m so confident you’ll have this,
this, and this, that I’m going to put my money where my mouth is and give you a guarantee.”
Test different types of guarantees. You might find that 30-day money back works better for you or seven-day
money back. We find that different ones work better on different products. I’ve seen some people do it with
double your money back.
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What’s the guarantee on this program? I don’t know. I know Eben did a program in the past where if you
weren’t satisfied with it, say something and you’ll get your money back plus $500.00. Who’s going to do that
that’s not standing behind their program?
Next is the close. Remember when we were talking about spelling out the nightmare and spelling out the
dream? This is the part where you give them the choice. “Do you want to have this, this, and this happen or
do you want this? The choice is yours. It’s up to you to take then next step. Click on the button below.” Spell
out that nightmare. Spell out the dream.
If you look at some of the Double Your Dating letters and the Catch ‘Em and Keep ‘Em letters, we have some
closes on there that do that really well. I don’t have any uploaded, and we’re getting low on time, but check
them out.
Then there’s the signature. There’s nothing to say there.
P.S. is where you sum up the whole offer. This is where you take those three biggest buttons, the three
biggest benefits again, and hit them again in this P.S. Your P.S. would say something like, “I’m so confident
that you’re going to experience this, this, and this like hundreds of other guys have that I’m putting my
money where my mouth is. Remember, there’s no risk to you. You can get your money back at any time, no
questions, or hassles. Go and order now. You’ll be glad you did.” You’re just condensing the offer. You’re
going to get these benefits, and I’m putting my money where my mouth is. Go order.
Testimonials, we both put our testimonials at the bottom. We get some video testimonials. We get some
written testimonials. I can’t really do testimonial selling justice right now in a short amount of time. I will
say test.
When we were launching these products, we were launching a product every month. It was rapid-fire. We
had this formula. It worked. We just kinda did it and stuck it up. We didn’t have time to go back and do a lot
of testing.
I haven’t seen too many other successful online marketers put their testimonials only on the bottom. Most
of them have some weaved in. This is one of the things that should be first on your testing block. Try testing
testimonials in the middle and at the bottom. It’s like we talked about before. We found this way works well,
this way of assembling all the pieces.
With all these pieces, feel free to mix them up and about. Maybe you’d find that the proof section needs to
be at the front because your market is so skeptical. Maybe you’re in a skeptical thing like weight loss where
they’ve probably tried ten diets before they stumbled on your website. Maybe you’d want to put it right away.
You see they do pictures of the person who has lost the weight right on top. They need the proof right there
because people are so skeptical.
You guys have all the pieces now. There are other pieces I haven’t listed or defined, but you guys have some
good ones. This formula works. This formula kicks butt. This formula, more or less, is in all of our sales
letters. Analyze them. You’ll see some where we differ from the formula and some we have some new stuff in
there. Learn. This one is a good one to start with. It’s made millions for us and a lot of other people. I hope
you guys take it, run with it, and make some high conversions. Thank you very much for coming out.
Eben Pagan: Now we’re going to get some of the more instant gratification step by step processes and
procedures. You’re going to hear from other people who are experts who use this material. You’re going to
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see how they put it together, and how they think about it. You’re going to see the puzzle a little bit more
complete.
If I were doing a solid three-day program, I’d do Day 1 the way we did it. Day 2 I’d give a bunch of techniques,
and maybe start with a couple of guest speakers. Day 3 is when I’d usually have more guest speakers, and do
more examples.
That’s a format that really works well as long as on the first day you get people to open up. You get your
audience to open up a little bit. You get them to put their stuff down. You get them to see how blocked they
are to new information and how much they think they get it.
One of the best techniques for doing that, by the way, is the concept of reframing. There’s a great book called
Mind-Lines by a guy named Michael Hall. He’s taken a bunch of conversational reframing patterns from
neurolinguistic programming, and he and his co-author have dumbed them down, and made them simple
and accessible, and easy for anyone to use.
I’ll give you a very simple example. A mind line might be if someone says, “When I come home from work,
my husband is always in a bad mood.” I know that’s not true because “always” and “never” are essentially
never true.
I can’t say, “You’re wrong. Your husband’s not always in a bad mood.” Now I’m combating. I’m going to bring
up that conflict energy, and the person’s going to say, “You don’t get me.” If, on the other hand, I say, “Let me
see if I understand you. Every time you come home from work, your husband is in a bad mood? Always?”
They say, “Yep, you got it.” I say, “Let me just ask you one question. Can you think of a time when you came
home from work and your husband wasn’t in a bad mood? Can you remember any time?”
As soon as you remember one, I have now loosened your model of the world up. I have now destabilized your
model a little bit. You’re not so sure you know everything anymore. You are a brave soul because you just
went through seven hours of that. You saw how difficult it is to accomplish this.
I recommend in the beginning of your products – not in the beginning of your marketing. You don’t want to
do this in the beginning of your marketing unless you’re very skillful at it. In the beginning of your products,
it’s a good idea to help people loosen up what they think they know. Use counterexamples, stories about how
very counterintuitive things happened, but the counterintuitive thing is the rule. It’s the way it usually works.
That’s very interesting. These things can really help you open the minds of your prospects.
I’d like to get a little temperature read on where we’re at here. Who had a burning question come up
yesterday? Something that was really “how does this work” about the material we covered? Not about
something we didn’t cover, but about the material we covered? Who had a question come up? Let’s do a few
right now. Let’s get two over here and two over here. The first two to the mike. If we can try to stay focused
on people who haven’t asked a question or communicated yet, that’s better, but we don’t have to. I just want
to give everyone a chance.
Male Speaker 4: The format you laid out for writing copy was kind of revolutionary for me.
Eben Pagan: Excellent. How are you going to use it?
Male Speaker 4: My coworkers have already been implementing it. This is the first time I saw it. I
think it’s really going to help our sales page.
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Eben Pagan: Excellent. What’s your question?
Male Speaker 4: I struggle with the ethics of copy. When we were looking at the Deep Inner Game page
yesterday, there were some things on there, like claims it seemed were exaggerated or untrue to me.
Eben Pagan: Have you seen the program?
Male Speaker 4: No, but saying that this particular line works every single time, that kind of thing, I’m
wondering ethically how that works for you.
Eben Pagan: Ethically, how it works for me is that there are a couple of pieces to this puzzle. I look at a
sales letter when I’m trying to sell something, I look at it as a unified whole. I try to think of it in terms of
that I have a person who probably doesn’t know me, doesn’t like me, and doesn’t trust me. They’re going
to have to go through this entire communication. When they’re finished, they’re going to have a feeling.
They’re going to be transformed in some way if they’re going to take action. They’re going to have to go from
apathy to making something happen.
Honestly, I didn’t write all the copy in there. Craig wrote some of the copy. I wrote some of the stories. These
sales letters are very much woven together. There are things straight up that sometimes I read in our sales
letters. I look at it and say, “That’s stronger than I would’ve said it.” But it was a professional copy writer that
put it together.
One of the reasons Craig and I work so well together is because I’m very conceptual, and Craig is very
concrete, specific, factual, result-oriented, and bottom line. If something we do, if I can look at it, think
about the technique, and say, “Essentially, if you do that, it’s going to work every time.” As an example, in my
original book, Double Your Dating, I wrote about pickup lines. I said, “Canned pickup lines like ‘What’s your
sign?’ and that kind of stuff maybe aren’t the best. They don’t have the greatest chance of working. But I’ll
teach you one that will start a conversation with a woman every time. You won’t get rejection from it if you
just do it causally. That’s just to walk over and her opinion on something.”
In the olden days – I would never try anything like this now – I tried this approach many times. I’ve seen
many other guys use it. I’ve never seen a guy get rejected by asking a woman’s opinion on something. I’ve
never seen a woman slap him or say, “You’re a jerk. Get away from me.”
Some things are close enough that I can confidently say, “This thing works every time,” knowing that a
person who’s in that position where they don’t have any leadership, they don’t have any direction in life, that’s
what they need to hear in order to have some confidence in this thing.
If I’m writing something myself, because I’m not a black/white kind of thinker, I’ll always try to say it in a way
that implies that if you do it right, it will work for you. I guarantee it. Not in a way that says, “This thing is a
universal law, and it absolutely works every single time.” That’s where I’m at now.
Five years ago in my life, I might have been slightly less concerned with all of these details, if that makes
sense. Like I said, sometimes I read our own copy and think, “That’s interesting. I wonder if I would say it
that way again.”
I just did a live seminar, a five day live dating program. I hadn’t done one in two and a half years. As I was
studying our material beforehand, I was looking at some of the stuff I had written in the past, and things I
had written ten years ago. I came across one piece. I looked at it, and thought, “I can’t believe I really said
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that. That’s not exactly the message I would want to communicate right now.”
I’m giving you a squishy answer, but the bottom line is that we all go through transitions in our life. We all
have different perspectives on things. Part of the overall mix is that I give a 100% money back guarantee. In
fact, we sell most of our stuff on approval. That’s where you get to try the whole thing out for free.
You have to find that little gray area that makes sense for you and works for you. It’s a tough one. It really
is. Communication, language, and taking responsibility for yourself and other people are ongoing daily
challenges.
Now, sometimes in our business, copy is written for products that I haven’t seen the product, and I wasn’t
involved in writing the copy. I read the copy, and I think to myself, “Wow, that sounds pretty good.” It’s like
you’re saying right there. “I wonder how that translates to reality.” That gray zone is something you have
to manage. It’s something you have to seek in yourself and decide, “How far do I push? What’s my value
proposition?”
Do you have something like that coming up for you?
Male Speaker 4: Yeah. I struggle with that when I’m editing our copy. I’ll come across a line where I
think, “Actually, I don’t think that’s really true. I don’t think we can honestly make this claim.” Recently, one
came up. I work for an inner game program for men. We had a line in there about, “You’ll never have to be
alone again.” I thought, “I don’t really feel comfortable saying that.”
I can see how I could say that, and it could work with certain logic. But it feels uncomfortable to me to put it
out there as a fact. It’s important to me that it matches my experience and is really honest.
Eben Pagan: Who really feels that it’s important to be in integrity with what you say to other people? Who
has also noticed that in this modern, apathetic, skeptical world that sometimes it can be a challenge to get
people to trust you? That’s where we’re at. We’re in the middle of that whole deal.
Not everything we do is ideal in my eyes, like I said. I try to look at in the bigger picture, see how it all fits
together, and make it make sense to me in some way. I know I’m deceiving myself just like everyone else is,
but hopefully I don’t deceive myself so much that I’m selling my soul. That’s what we hope for.
I wish there was an absolute answer on this one. I wish there was a simple, clear thing. The only one I know
is to be a monk. They have everything structured. You get in the room and the meal comes under the thing.
There’re not a lot of options. There’s no internet. Internet is a problem. Thanks, that was a good question.
Male Speaker 4: Thanks.
Eben Pagan: If you are going to help other people, if you plan to have a serious information product
business, one that helps a lot of people, one of the things you’re going to need to learn how to do is sell your
customers multiple products. That’s very important.
In order to sell a customer multiple products, it kind of goes without saying that they’re going to have to like
your first one in order to want to buy your second one. They’re going to have to like the second one in order
to want to buy the third one. The stuff has got to be good.
To me, no matter what information product topic you’re on or what you’re selling, it’s important to include
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a developmental piece to the puzzle so your customer has to go through your book, seminar, CD course, or
coaching program. Even if it’s on how to swing the golf club better, when they’re done, they come out and
say, “I’m a better person. I learned some very interesting things about myself.” There are fundamental,
underlying, common pieces that we all have.
In the next guru master class summit – which is the content summit – we will talk about content. That is
ironically, the thing I enjoy the most and am the best at, and it’s very profound. In this case, in terms of
building your business, it becomes super important. You can get all the leads in the world. You can get
people to buy, but if they don’t like your stuff, the internet is going to let everyone know quickly and your
business is probably not going to work.
Creating really high-quality products is important. Getting into these fundamental challenges that humans
have, we each have wounds and traumas from when we were little that we’re playing out these dramas into the
future of our lives in business, relationships, marketing, and every area. When you can pick a few of these,
and help a person go through a few transformational experiences in your products, I think that’s what really
turns on the lifetime value. It really helps it out. That’s why I’m constantly incorporating things into this.
If you pay attention to this, you’ll notice that the games you were playing since childhood, those are things
that are preventing you from getting to the next level now. If you want to push that away and just say, “No, I
have all my stuff handled. I went to therapy. I read a Fritz Perls book,” that’s fine. But in almost every case,
that’s what’s going on. The more you can open to that, look at it and face it, the more progress you can make.
Jim Eckert: My name is Jim Eckert. I’m a chiropractor from Maine. I guess my biggest aha yesterday was
similar. The copy is not written. It’s assembled. I’m new to the internet and trying to do all this stuff. To sit
there and look at how in the world I write this copy and get started, that was a big help to me.
Eben Pagan: Excellent. What’s your question?
Jim Eckert: We were talking about triggers yesterday. There’s no arguing. We all have triggers. Yet, I
wanted to hear your thoughts on how that fits in with the idea of free choice. To me, it almost sounded like
we don’t have free choice, which I don’t think you’re saying.
Eben Pagan: I think we’re going to have to do a day on philosophy.
Male Speaker 5: My currency is free time. My product will triple the amount of free time that people
will have during a given week. It’s a rate. I can’t take it down to the hour level.
Eben Pagan: You can’t?
Male Speaker 5: Like the Double Your Dating thing, I understand that –
Eben Pagan: How much is the average amount of free time that a human has during a week?
Male Speaker 5: I would say maybe four hours a day, three hours a day.
Eben Pagan: Make it up. What is it?
Male Speaker 5: Three hours a day.
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Eben Pagan: You’re going to help someone go from three to nine?
Male Speaker 5: Yeah.
Eben Pagan: I think we just did it.
Male Speaker 5: Awesome.
Eben Pagan: Right?
Male Speaker 5: Yeah.
Eben Pagan: How much does it cost?
Male Speaker 5: It costs $887.00.
Eben Pagan: It costs $887.00. I’m going to get three hours a day. We have to get more hours involved to sell
something for $900.00. So 21 hours a week – is that 80 hours a month? That’s 960 a year. If you can help me
get back 960 hours in a year, and it costs $900, would you pay $1.00 an hour to get your own time back?
Male Speaker 5: Awesome. Thank you.
Eben Pagan: Who here would like to buy free time at $1.00 an hour?
Male Speaker 6: We’re back to the stem cells and amputation thing. What I’m trying to do is compare
to what they would have to do to go to Mexico to get the same benefit.
Eben Pagan: What’s the outcome? What’s the currency?
Male Speaker 6: There’s avoiding amputation. The currency is, “If you take two of my capsules, you’re
going to have an increase of 34 million adult stem cells in your body. You can fly to Mexico, go into a clinic,
and spend $1,000.00 or $2,000.00 with one injection and get that same amount you get with two capsules.”
Eben Pagan: How often do I take this regimen?
Male Speaker 6: If you were fighting a really serious condition you would take two capsules every two
hours.
Eben Pagan: While you’re awake, or do you wake up in the middle of the night, too?
Male Speaker 6: No, that’s waking hours. Say you’re up 16 hours a day, that’d be like eight a day. Am
I doing my math right? It’d be 32. That’d be half a bottle. If you were buying it on auto ship, you’d be
buying it for $44.00 a bottle. Say it was $25.00 for half a bottle; you’re comparing that to $32,000.00 worth of
treatments in Mexico.
Eben Pagan: You’re saying $25.00 a day is what this costs?
Male Speaker 6: Right. To get the same amount of adult stem cells –
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Eben Pagan: Quit the Mexico thing.
Male Speaker 6: Okay.
Eben Pagan: So it’s $25.00 a day. Is it worth $25.00 a day to avoid having your leg cut off?
Male Speaker 6: Okay.
Eben Pagan: That’s all we’re trying to do right now.
Male Speaker 6: So I don’t need to do the comparison?
Eben Pagan: Not yet. If I’m thinking I might have to get my leg cut off, and you’re like, “You can get a
bargain on not getting your leg cut off over here, or you can fly to some weird Mexican non-leg cut off.” We’re
close enough. Would you pay $25.00 a day to avoid having your leg cut off?
Male Speaker: 7: My currency is losing 20 pounds. It’s a boot camp that’s $9.00 per workout. Our
clients come on an average of three times per week. I put, “Would you pay $3.97 per day to lose 20 pounds
and keep it off?”
Eben Pagan: Over how long? How long does it take? How long would you guarantee me if I do your
routine?
Male Speaker 7: Eight weeks.
Eben Pagan: That’s $27.00 a week for eight weeks to lose 20 pounds. How much is it a pound?
Male Speaker 7: For eight weeks it would be 117 times two.
Eben Pagan: So $240. This is 20 pounds.
Male Speaker 7: That’s ten pounds a month.
Eben Pagan: That’s $10.00 a pound. Get it down to $9.97. That sounds like a bargain. “I will help you lose
weight for $10.00 a pound. Is it worth $10.00 to lose a pound?” If you want to go where this guy’s going to
compare, how much does it cost to have a pound removed with modern surgery?
Male Speaker 7: I don’t know.
Eben Pagan: Does anyone know? Throw out a number. You want to have 20 pounds removed. So that’s
$200 a pound.
Male Speaker 7: Would you pay $9.97 a pound compared to $200 a pound with surgery?
Eben Pagan: Exactly. It’s less hassle. And of course, with yours, it’s a lifetime. If you go do that, you haven’t
learned a new skill like with yours. We’re just trying to get to the currency here.
Male Speaker 7: Thank you.
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Sean: I’m Sean from Minneapolis with networking marketing. I’m selling the training package for $397.00.
The first month is free after that I charge $147.00.
Eben Pagan: What’s the result I’m going to get?
Sean: Guarantee of making at least $10,000.00 a month of residual income in 90 days. The math I did was
$700.00 investment –
Eben Pagan: Whatever math you did sounds good to me. I’m buying. You got $12.00 on you? Give it to this
guy. What’s the measurable outcome they’re going to get? They’re really going to start making $10,000.00 a
month in residual income in 90 days?
Sean: That’s what I’m teaching.
Eben Pagan: How much do you charge for this?
Sean: I charge $395.00 initially and after that, $150.00 a month for training.
Eben Pagan: It’s a simple equation. “Give me $400.00 now and then $150.00 a month, and I’ll show you how
to make $10,000.00 of residual income per month in 90 days.” We want to get in on that plan. We want to do
that, whatever that is. Do you get it?
Sean: Yeah.
Eben Pagan: Good.
Chet Womach: This is Chet Womack from the Seattle, Washington area. I sell a parrot training product
that helps people stop their birds from biting. We assume that a bird severely bites their owner twice a week
where they’re bleeding. Maybe that would be 100 bites a year. My product is $50.00. So it’s $0.50 to stop a
bloody bite.
Eben Pagan: Thank you. He gets it. Do you understand? Do you see that he gets this whole thing? He
understands the equation. You have one of those. You just need to discover it.
Look at your timekeeping device. It’s really important that you get this value translation. You need to get
this. This is where you translate the abstract thing you do into specific, measurable, and concrete terms that
the prospect can understand. Then you tell them, “Give me this much money, and I will give you this much
result.” They can see how the rubber meets the road. You’ve got to connect the dots. If you can’t connect
them in here, you’re not going to be able to connect them out there.
You can’t say to your prospect, “Here’s this big abstract thing I do,” and expect them to say, “Let me do the
math here. If I give you $1.00, you’re going to reduce my child’s chances of death by 1 percent. Okay, that
sounds like a good deal to me.” They are not going to do this. This is what you have to do.
In fact, my marketing friends, my buddies and I, when we talk about these things, these are the conversations
we’re having. How do you frame it? How do you put it into terms the prospect can understand? How do you
break it down? “Your parrot bites you twice a week and draws blood. Give me $0.49, and I will eliminate one
of those. Give me $50.00, and I’ll eliminate the next 100 in the next year, and all the rest for the rest of your
life. In fact, if you own your parrot for ten years that comes out to $0.09 a bite.”
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That’s where you have to get to. Who’s committed to figuring out their equation, their value translation?
Good.
We’re going to talk now about a concept that I call the action equation. We were actually spilling over into it
during the currency and the value translation conversation. The action equation is when you bring it home.
You take this value that you’re offering from $80.00 to reduce the probability of your child dying from SIDS by
80 percent, and you actually put it into an action equation where you say, “Give me $80.00, and I will help you
reduce the chances of your child dying of SIDS by 80 percent.”
For your action equation, I would like you to come up with your three main benefits. “Give me $80.00, and
I’ll help you do this by 80 percent,” is the most basic form of the action equation. It’s actually a little more
in-depth.
The first half of it is what they have to do in terms of consuming your product or service. The second half is
the three huge benefits they’re going to get when they do it.
We’ve been hammering a little bit on specific, tangible, and measurable. It’s very important that you get that.
Get the concrete outcome. Get the concrete benefits.
Chet Womach: Stopping biting. I kind of guessed a little bit here, but having the bird actually love their
owner.
Eben Pagan: How would the bird express that it loves the owner?
Chet Womach: It would be excited when the owner came near. When the cage opened it would –
Eben Pagan: What would it do that would express that it was excited?
Chet Womach: It would flap, flutter, and do whatever it took to come to you.
Eben Pagan: Once it came to you, where would it go?
Chet Womach: Shoulder.
Eben Pagan: Good. It would fly to your shoulder.
Chet Womach: Or it would nestle its head in and start to beg for pets.
Eben Pagan: I like the fly to your shoulder thing. That sounds kind of measurable. I think parrot owners
probably like that idea of, “I open the cage, and the bird excitedly flies to my shoulder.” What’s another one?
Chet Womach: It would cheerfully step up onto your hand versus you having to chase it.
Eben Pagan: Okay, cheerfully – so like a parrot smile?
Chet Womach: Yeah, they get all excited.
Eben Pagan: Do parrots have lips?
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Chet Womach: No.
Eben Pagan: I didn’t think so. We have our three benefits: stop biting, step up onto the hand willingly, and
fly to your shoulder as soon as you open the cage. Those are three big benefits. How long does it take for all
this to happen after they consume your product?
Chet Womach: For my average customer –
Eben Pagan: What’s your guarantee? How long do you guarantee they’ll be able to figure it out?
Chet Womach: For 90 percent of birds in two to three weeks you could get them to do this.
Eben Pagan: So 14 days?
Chet Womach: Sure.
Eben Pagan: How much does your product cost?
Chet Womach: The basic version is $50.00.
Eben Pagan: So $50.00. What is it?
Chet Womach: It is a DVD of me taking live, mean birds.
Eben Pagan: It’s a DVD. How long is it?
Chet Womach: It’s an hour. It has two audio CDs and an eBook with it as well.
Eben Pagan: How long are the audio CDs?
Chet Womach: An hour.
Eben Pagan: Each?
Chet Womach: Yeah.
Eben Pagan: So one hour of video, two hours of audio. How long is the book?
Chet Womach: Fifty pages.
Eben Pagan: How long does it take you to read the book?
Chet Womach: I have no idea how long it teaks to read.
Eben Pagan: Make it up.
Chet Womach: An hour.
Eben Pagan: Let’s say you get one DVD, two audios, and one book. You spend 14 days. At the end of 14
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days, the bird will stop biting, step up onto your hand, and fly to your shoulder when you open the cage.
Chet Womach: Um hm.
Eben Pagan: This right here is the equation. This is the action equation. This is how I bring it home. I say
to my prospect, “Give me $50.00. I give you one DVD, two CDs, and one book. It will take you three hours to
go through the audio and video material. It will take you one hour to go through the printed material. You
will do 15 minutes of exercises every day with your parrot. At the end of 14 days, your parrot will stop biting,
step up onto your hand, and will fly to your shoulder when you open the cage, guarantee.”
How long did it take me to say all of that? It was somewhere in the 20 to 30 second realm. That is a better
offer than 99.9 percent of all the offers that are out there. That’s it.
Chet Womach: Thank you.
Eben Pagan: That’s the bottom line. You’re welcome. Here’s the equation for you. This is how it works.
It’s what they’re going to consume, the product or service they’re going to consume. It’s the time and effort
they’re going to put in. It’s the three big benefit-oriented results that they’re going to get. That’s it. We’ll
keep the price out of it for now.
What they’re going to consume is a book, seminar, eBook, etc. The time and effort they’re going to put in,
how many hours, how often, if they have to do exercises. The three big benefits are what they’re going to get
out of it, what the result is going to be.
If you sell a set of three DVDs that’s going to teach a person to lose 20 pounds in 30 days, you’re going to say,
“Watch these three DVDs. It will take you four hours. You will do 30 minutes a day of exercises. At the end
of 30 days, you will have lost 20 pounds. You will be doing your daily exercise routine every single day like
clockwork. You will have twice as much physical energy.”
That’s the action equation. You’re going to take action. Here’s the action you’re going to take. The equation
is what you’re going to get out of it. It’s very simple. It’s how your product is formatted.
You want to make it sound simple. “You’re going to download my eBook, which you’ll be reading in five
minutes. You’re going to read in that book for 15 minutes a day for the next 20 days. At the end of 20 days,
you will have increased your income by $100.00 a day. You’ll be working one hour less per day. You will have a
plan to retire within five years.”
It’s the product; the time investment you have to do to consume it, what you’ll be doing, your time/effort/
energy input; and the three big benefits you’re going to get at the end.
Why do I call it the action equation? The action equation is the thing that gets the prospect over the hump.
It gets them past their resistance. It gets them to finally see how the whole thing fits together. They’re
kicking the tires and thinking about it. Finally, the plane lands. It’s, “I’m going to watch three DVDs. I’m
going to invest an hour a day. I’m going to wake up in 30 days, guaranteed, I’m going to weigh less, have more
energy, and be exercising every day. That’s the promise. That’s what I’m going to get.” It is super dumbed
down.
I’d like you to create your action equation right now. What is the product or service that your prospect is
going to consume? Make it sound easy, simple, and fun. “Download the eBook right now, and read it all the
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way through.”
Give me your action equation.
Female Speaker 2: Here it goes. It’s kind of like an ad right? This is my action equation.
Eben Pagan: It is kind of like an ad. You are starting to get it.
Female Speaker 2: Here we go. “Organic, homemade ice cream made from our family to yours. It’s
superior, raw, delicious tasting, non-guilty dessert for $3.00 a scoop.”
Eben Pagan: Wow! That doesn’t sound like an information product, but I’m stoked that there are ice cream
sellers in here. Good.
Female Speaker 2: It’s not the dating thing. I thought, “This is my product. This is something I’m
passionate about. Here I am.”
Eben Pagan: I love translating this stuff to the real world to real products because it always maps over.
What is the biggest benefit someone gets from your ice cream? Why would they buy your stuff?
Female Speaker 2: Because of the pure, natural, healthy good tasting –
Eben Pagan: What’s the other side of pure? Pure is the positive side of the coin. What’s the other side?
Female Speaker 2: Junk foods, trash, crap, I don’t know.
Eben Pagan: What’s something that’s not pure? What’s a word we don’t want? Chemicals. No artificial
chemicals. Do you follow? I guess everything is kind of pure, even if it’s bad. No artificial chemicals, that’s
what I’m after there. What’s another benefit? Why are they buying it? Why would they buy your stuff?
Female Speaker 2: Live longer, healthier, good tasting treat.
Eben Pagan: Eat my ice cream and live longer.
Female Speaker 2: For the kids – a healthy treat per kids.
Eben Pagan: Live an extra month per scoop.
Female Speaker 2: Yes, not lowering your blood sugar, something you provide for your kids.
Eben Pagan: What about blood sugar?
Female Speaker 2: Keeping your blood sugar balanced.
Eben Pagan: Ice cream that balances blood sugar?
Female Speaker 2: Yes, if it’s raw and organic.
Eben Pagan: Can I invest in your company?
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Female Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely.
Eben Pagan: Really? Ice cream that balances blood sugar?
Female Speaker 2: It’s raw cream.
Eben Pagan: We’re going to stop right there. Go to work on ice cream that balances your blood sugar right
now.
Female Speaker 2: Thank you.
Eben Pagan: Good.
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Disc 4
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Eben Pagan: I made you a couple of bullet points, so you can write these down. I actually wrote out a
couple of my favorites. I invented a couple for you, so you’ve got five formulas that you can start with and rif
on. How to dot, dot, dot, in a way that, dot, dot, dot. How to approach a woman in a way that automatically
triggers her to let down her defenses. Why dot, dot, dot, and what to do about it. Why women reject you
with one glance, and what to do about it. What to do when dot, dot, dot, so you avoid dot, dot, dot. What to
do when you start feeling hungry, so you avoid eating foods that make you fatter.
Three simple ways to dot, dot, dot when you dot, dot, dot. By the way, these are two parts because they’re
trying to find a benefit within a benefit. They’re trying to go further than you normally would, okay? So three
simple ways to get women to approach you when you go out to a nightclub. Here’s just kind of a random one,
and this is meant to be random – a trick learned from dot, dot, dot that you can use to – I don’t remember the
actual headline, but it could be summarized – John Carlton wrote a great headline about a one-legged golfer –
but a trick learned from a one-legged golfer that you can use to drive the ball 30 more yards every time you hit
it.
So the random element is sometimes interesting because people go, “What? How does that work?” It’s
important, though, to have some credibility there. As an example, in John Carlton’s one-legged golfer
headline and ad, if the one-legged golfer can do well, what’s the implication?
[Audience Response]
I’ve got to be able to do well, if the one-legged golfer can. I don’t want to say a trick learned from a guy who
was born a natural golfer and just never had to study at all, at any point in his life, and also doesn’t know how
to teach [inaudible]. It’s not as – although, you could say a trick that was learned from an unconsciously great
golfer, that he didn’t even know he was doing, that you can use to hit the ball further and faster. There’s a
little secret element in there, somewhere, something random, something that’s been discovered. So what I’d
like you to do right now is try your hand at creating a couple of fascinations.
Let me give you these formulas again, right here. Most of these are amazing. They’re just plug-and-play:
outrageous things chicks do in bed, like the crazy hot fire-starter technique. Outrageous things dot, dot,
dot, like the dot, dot, dot. What are outrageous things? There are outrageous things that parents do. There
are outrageous things that children do. There are outrageous things that different people do in different
situations. How to be just bitchy enough. Okay, the theme there is how to be just the right amount of
whatever it is, but it’s something edgy. How to be just enough of a pain in the ass to get exactly what you
want.
How to be just aggressive enough, when investing in the stock market, so that you make over a 20 percent
return. How long guys want sex to last. How could you port that over into your world, a little bit? Where’s
the controversial piece? Where’s the piece where there’s already some friction and you can point to it, and
then say I’ve got the exact answer. I can give you the magic bullet, here. Beauty news: scents that seduce any
man. So what kind of news do you have? Maybe not beauty news, but maybe it’s parrot news, or maybe it’s
breast-feeding news, and maybe it’s not scents that seduce any man, but maybe it’s techniques that work in
any of a particular type of situation.
Remember, it sounds specific, instant and there’s something new, different, better, unusual, dramatic –
something fascinating about it. Sarah Palin: what she’s hiding. Who’s the expert in your market? What are
they hiding? The best car for $25,000.00. The best whatever it is that your prospects want – whatever they
consume – for a seemingly low sounding amount of money. Try your hand at writing a couple of fascinations.
Try to keep them short, and remember you want them to imply a specific measurable outcome; a specific
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measurable benefit. They have to tease. There’s an art to this.
As you’re starting to write, I’ll tell you the story from method marketing, with Denny Hatch. There was
a great copywriter – who’s no longer alive – named Mel Martin, and he was weird and introverted, and
apparently the Boardroom’s secret copywriter. They didn’t let anyone know he was. He was their secret
weapon. He would show up to their office and he’d have sales letters written, and he’d say, “Here’s the
sales letter.” It would be perfect. He’d say, “Don’t touch it.” Don’t mess with any part of it -- no editing, no
proofing, none of that.
His method was he would take Boardroom’s newsletters on all types of topics – money, health, whatever –
and he would read the article, and then he would condense the whole article into one fascination, one bullet
point that summarized the whole thing, but left out a key piece, so that you’d want to know where it was. So
things like bills it’s okay to pay late, and where never to sit on an airplane, started out as a whole article about
something. Let’s say that we’ve got a technique here with the gentleman who’s teaching people how to get
their parrots to stop biting.
You’ve got a whole chapter in your book on how to get your parrot to stop biting; you can look through that
thing and find the part that’s fascinating. There might be a sound that you make with your mouth that’s the
key to the whole technique, or a particular type of whistle – a whistle you can make that will get your parrot
to immediately stop biting you. Fascinating. There it is, condensed; it’s the whole thing. Let’s say that you’re
the gentleman who was teaching people how to generate inbound leads for his network marketing business.
What’s the one thing – he might say a three-word headline to run on Google ad words that will get between 17
and 23 new prospects contacting you a day.
A three-word headline that I’m gonna run on Google ad words. It’s gonna get me 17 to 23 – what are those
three words? I got to know. I have to know. Take some of your biggest benefits that are delivered by your
best technique and put them together in a fascinating way, so that I have to know what that is. I’ve got to
know where it is; I’ve got to know what it is; I’ve got to know how it is. I’ve got to know those words. I have
to know that formula. I must know. I think it’s John Carlton that talks about how, sometimes, your prospect
will buy from one of your bullets.
You’ll have a big list of 100 bullets, and it’ll be Bullet 72, and they’ll wake up at 2:00 a.m. because they can’t go
to sleep, and they’ll be thinking about that damn bullet – the three-word headline. You know what? I’ve got
to know what that is. Then they buy, and then they can finally go to sleep. Curiosity is very powerful. What
you’re going to do later is you’re going to go through your entire product, and you’re going to create bullets
from it. In fact, just so you know, we have – when I do programs, I’ll have the folks on our team that write
copy come to the program, and sit in the program, listen to the content, and write bullets – summarize the
sections.
So that’s what you’re going to do to create your fascinations, which are really just bullets. So write a couple of
them now; just try your hand at it. Ultimately, you’re gonna want to write hundreds of them, and then choose
only the best ones; eliminate the weak ones. Remember, everything we’re talking about, here – you want to
get that whole story in the bullet. It’s got to imply the whole thing. I’m not trying to sell you; I’m trying to
tell you that you’re gonna get a huge benefit that’s connected directly to the outcome you want. It’s a result-
oriented benefit. It has to be implied in there – something specific, measurable and concrete.
If it’s not specific, measurable and concrete – if I don’t have the implication that I’m gonna get something
specific – you’re wasting my time, yours and your prospect’s. I’m gonna introduce you to a friend of mine.
His name is Frank Kern. After Frank, you’re gonna meet another good friend of mine – one of my two best
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friends in the world. These guys are what I like to think of as marketing sharpshooters. These guys have
ideas that work the first time, more than anyone else that I’ve ever met. Frank, in particular, is unusually
interesting to listen to because you’ll rarely get the feeling that you’re meeting someone being who they really
are than when you meet Frank.
It’s refreshing because you always know where you stand with him. Remember I said don’t mess with him?
You might want to avoid heckling him because it could cause comedic trauma to your soul that will last for
a long time. Frank is the guy behind the guy, so to speak. He’s been responsible for some of the Internet’s
largest product launches, in terms of strategy and copy. I think last time I was talking to him about it, he’s
been the strategist or copywriter or both for something like $30 million worth of product launches in the last
couple of years.
The thing that I like about Frank and the way that he thinks, and one of the reasons why I turn to him for
advice and both him on a regular basis is because he understands the formula that you have to just translate
what you’re saying into bottom-line results. What is it that you do, and what is the right now result that your
prospect is going to get? I regularly call Frank up and say, “Frank, so here’s what I’m working on. What is that
I need to say right here?” and he’ll say, “Well, in the first word here, on your page, it doesn’t say you’re gonna
make a lot more money right now.” I say, “Oh, okay. That.” He’s got X-ray vision for this stuff.
So he’s gonna come up and share some of his ideas around communication, and around just, generally,
marketing and getting your prospects to buy the stuff that you’re selling. After he shares for a bit, he and I are
gonna have a conversation, and then we might have time for a little bit of question and answer. So get ready
for something unlike anything you’ve seen before, and please welcome my friend, Frank Kern. More bounce
to the ounce.
Frank Kern: That’s what we’re gonna talk about today. Good morning, class.
[Audience Response]
My name is Dr. Frank Kern, attorney at law. I would like you to write a link down, please. The link is
masscontrolsite.com/mastermind.html. That is where, when you decide to buy mass control, today, you
can go to do so. I will take that link down tomorrow. Does that look – that was supposed to look more
impressiver. How do you fluff money? Just get your minds out of the gutter, all right? Look at all my money
[inaudible]. All right, there we go. That’s $1,000.00. I was hoping it would look like a pile. I guess it is; it’s
just not as big of a pile as I wanted.
Anyway, that’s the link you can go to today when you decide to buy mass control, but before you buy it, I
want to talk to you about some stuff that’s very important. Let’s talk about the economy. You guys watch
the news? No? Yeah? How many people here watch the – raise your hand if you watch the news. Not a lot
of you guys really watch it, huh? I don’t watch it. It freaks me out; really. Good God, more people got killed
today while killing each other. A man was killed while killing someone, today. It’s like, God, how did that
happen? Anyway, here’s some stuff, though, that I’ve been overhearing.
It’s come to my attention that the economy is in the toilet. Apparently, IndyMac – a bank or something
– went belly-up or whatever. The Lehman’s Brothers just shat the bed. I don’t know who these Lehman’s
Brothers are, but perhaps they should have taken some advice from the Lehman’s sisters. There’s a whole
lot of this business of the home foreclosures. They’re going on; that’s all you hear about in the news when
they’re not talking about people getting killed while killing each other. The real estate market is down. I’d
say we’re hosed. So let me ask you a question, in all seriousness.
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Is there a shortage of money, now that we have a recession – with the gas prices, and what not? Is there? Yes
or no.
[Audience Response]
Exactly, right? You would be led to believe that somewhere there’s some guys out there taking all of the
money and burning it, or burying it into some pit, and therefore, there’s no shortage – there is a shortage of
money, right? That’s the doom and gloom that we’re hearing constantly on the news. But, in reality, there’s
no shortage, at all. What we’re experiencing – I’m gonna get this little prop, here. I didn’t ask to have it on
stage, but I need it. Sorry camera people and video editors – making you work. Are there any markers?
Jesus; didn’t know I was gonna have to do all this. I knew that.
What we’re currently witnessing is not a recession. It is not an economic slow-down, at all. What’s really
happening is we’re seeing a very rapid transfer of money from people like them, to people like us. Got the
multi-colored pens and stuff, here; this is great. This is what you call a high-class operation. All right, let’s
see. Look at my advanced PowerPoint, here. There’s $1,000.00 on this table. Please raise your hand, and
hold it in the air, if you would like that money. You can have it.
Male Speaker: Thank you. It was good to see you.
Frank Kern: Nice to see you. All right. Well, I think we just demonstrated one quality that people like us
have in common. We take action, right? Abraham Lincoln said something like – maybe – let’s just say it was
him. It was me; I said this: that good things come to those who wait, but only the shit that’s left over by those
who hustle. He said it, probably, better than that. So what other qualities do people like us have? Well, we’re
always selling, aren’t we? That’s why I’m here. I want to sell you, and will sell many of you, mass control
today. We’re always selling. So we invest in – learn how to – cultivate the knowledge and ability to sell, and
we place that at the top of our little importance pyramid, there, right?
I’m just making it a given that we also provide value, of course. I think I’ll write that down anyway, just
because we’re on film, here – provide value. Okay. So what else do people like us do? One thing that you’ll
see with highly successful entrepreneurs is they create, rather than react. People like us create our own
reality. People like us seize opportunity. Where’s my red pen? Did it get lost in the melee? Here we go. So
what are some characteristics of people like them? Anyone?
[Audience Response]
They react; yes, they do. Okay, what else we got?
Male Speaker: They complain.
Frank Kern: They complain? Great. What else?
[Audience Response]
Worry and doubt is good. I had written, in my notes, mind poisoning. They believe the mind poison. How
many people do you know that sit around and say, oh, the gas prices? On the news – did you hear the news?
Another person single-handedly used the severed head of his opponent to cause the economy to go in the
toilet, again today. They wait, right? They wait. They wait for things to get better. They wait for change.
They wait for permission. They wait for someone to appoint them the expert, whatever it is. Speaking of
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that, in the event that anyone is waiting to be appointed the expert, I’m just going to go ahead and appoint
everyone experts, now.
I have a little expert appointment ceremony we’ll go through. Here we go. [Inaudible]. You’re all, now,
experts. So they wait, right? Possibly, one of the biggest ones is they create little or no value. I’m going to
assume that these business that are in the toilet are in the toilet because they did a bad job of selling stuff,
and when they did sell stuff, they sold crappy stuff. Well, duh. So it’s important to always focus on this;
to focus on and continually work on what makes us us because the transfer of money from them to us is
happening faster and faster every day, isn’t it? And you can engineer it at an even faster pace, if you so desire.
So let’s talk about, now, engineering some money. This is a little thing, I have here, called “How to Get Money
Tomorrow.” Sound good?
[Audience Response]
All right. But before I do, let me tell you a story. My friend Dean and I were out to dinner with Neil Strauss
the other night, at Katsuya – what was it called? – Katsuya. Have you ever been there, in L.A.? Man, I’ll tell
you; they’re onto something with that Katsuya. Anyway, we go, and we were hoping we would have dinner
with Rick Rubin, who’s a big fancy music producer guy. He just produced Metallica’s album. Dean and I
don’t know Rick, but Neil does. He’s fancy and all that kind of stuff, so we thought maybe we could be cool
by association, by having dinner with Rick Rubin. But our plans were foiled, and we were happy just to have
dinner with Neil because Neil’s awesome.
So we were saying, “What’s going on with Rick Rubin?” as if we’re friends with him. What’s happening
with Rick, these days? Old Rick – yeah, what’s old Rick up to? Man, I’ll you what, that crazy son-of-a gun,
man. Anyway, it turns out that Rick Rubin just produced Metallica’s new album. Any of you guys know who
Metallica are?
[Audience Response]
They play the heavy metal and stuff. Metallica and Rick Rubin are getting a little bit of heat in the media
because the record has been engineered too loud. It’s too loud. It doesn’t sound right because it’s too loud
and they’re all freaked out because – someone just put this on a blog or whatever. I did a Google search
two days ago to see what the big deal was and I finally found a blog posted about it. So they’re flipped out,
weirded out, stressed out and unhappy. They’re in this category, right here, and I was thinking well, you
know, they need to come over here and join us. So we were discussing how that could happen – where the
opportunity might lie in this situation.
I came up with a little promo that could turn the whole thing around and turn it into money. I believe
you can turn every situation into money. I’m thinking okay, well, who listens to Metallica? Young dudes,
probably – agro kind of guys [inaudible]. Right? Do you think these guys would have a problem with the fact
that the record is engineered loud? Do you think they’re sitting around going, “I’ll happily listen to some of
the Metallica, but let’s not listen to it loud, okay? I don’t want to be listening to any of the loud Metallica, for
God’s sake. Turn that crap down.”
Hell no. So rather than freak out, what could these guys do? What kind of a public statement announcement
could they make?
[Audience Response]
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Exactly. We’re loud and proud. You could put a fake news article out, buy remnant space, or – I don’t know.
I think Metallica’s been saving up a couple years. They could probably buy full-paged ads, if they wanted
to – in Rolling Stone, saying, “Metallica album deemed too loud by nerdy scientists.” Subheading could say
something like, “Inferior record players are” – I guess you don’t say record players, anymore – “Inferior sound
systems incapable of playing Metallica’s thunderously loud record” – album, whatever the new term is. You
see? Classic difference between us and them, right there; you find opportunity.
That’s opportunity handed to them on a silver platter. I conveyed that to Neil. I don’t know if he’s gonna tell
Rick and Metallica or not. I’d be surprised if I got a call, right? What if I did, right now, like, “Hello, Frank.
This is Metallica, calling. We’ve reviewed your proposition regarding the too loud advertisement, and we
think it’s a fabulous idea. When can we meet for lunch? I’ll be at the club at 1:30 p.m.” “Okay, James. Tell
Rick I said hey.” Okay. So that’s my Metallica story; I just thought that was funny. But do you see the point
I’m trying to make there? It’s kind of like, come on; there’s opportunities everywhere, right?
I can’t believe the loudest rock band in the world is having concern because some douche bag blogger,
who no one pays attention to anyway, is going, oh, the album’s engineered too loud, and the fucking treble
thing doesn’t sound quite right through my gold-plated headphones. We’re Metallica, you know what I
mean? We’re Metallica, bitches, come on. So please try to think like that as much as possible because it’s
helpful. I’m serious. So let’s see – and that was the last time Frank Kern was invited to speak at Eben Pagan’s
[inaudible]. I remember it well.
Gather around children; I’ll tell you the tale of the last time Frank Kern was ever invited to speak at Eben
Pagan’s – you know, I call him little buddy and he calls me skipper. Did you guys know that – at little buddy’s
event. Not kidding. Okay, so how to get money tomorrow. Well, the simple answer is to write an ad, right?
So here’s some fast-action ad writing steps. Step 1, create a reason for contacting them, which you will then
convey in your headline. Now, the reason why could be a big event – this happening just happened. For
example, if you’re in the insurance business – I don’t know if you guys know this. It just happened.
I was on this new thing called the Internet a little while ago. Travis Barker and DJ-AM were just in a plane
crash. They didn’t die, but they’re hurt really bad, so if you were in any kind of that business, you could use
that as your “reason I’m contacting you.” You never know when tragedy strikes. For example, young people
just got hurt in a plane – whatever. You know what I mean? So it can be big news, it could be a big event or
whatever, like the time Billy got everyone tickets to Jimmy Dean petting zoo. That was a big event. Then, you
could have – you could contact them because you found a new solution to a big problem, for example, or you
could be contacting them because you found a big problem.
If you’re completely at a loss for a reason why to contact them, just contact them about that pesky economy.
If I were selling business opportunity or marketing stuff – which I guess I do sell marketing stuff – I could
send an email with the subject line, “I can’t take it anymore,” and then the body would say, “I can’t take a
single more of this crap they’re talking about on the news, with the economy being so bad. I haven’t felt the
recession, and no one I know has felt the recession. Here’s how you can make more money in times of the
recession, and anyone else on the planet.” And I send them my stuff, right? You tracking?
So that’s Step 1: create a reason for contacting them, or make up some shit. It doesn’t matter, but you’ve got
to have a reason. Step 2: attach the reason to an irresistible offer. The key is irresistible offer. It’s not like,
“I’m contacting you today so you can give me some money and I can buy some shiny stuff.” That’s not that
irresistible of an offer. But in the same example I just gave you, I could then send that reader to a page that
says, “If you’re sick and tired of the recession and all this bullshit about the economy, and you want to make
more money than a rabid pack of neurosurgeons on methamphetamines, then this is the best offer you’re ever
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gonna see.
Here’s why. I’m gonna give you a free trial to my advanced fancy super money getting system, TM, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah, and click here.” You see? Irresistible offer. Did anyone see the mass control give-away
promotion I did a month ago or so? That was an irresistible offer, right? It’s a no-brainer. It was nine DVDs,
a couple of hours – not a couple hours – hell, like 12 hours of stuff; a couple books in there; you got your
reports; you have some yellow paper and white paper. It was really the whole gambit of stuff that you’d like to
receive in the mail for $17.00 – 2,000 of them sold out in minutes. I was actually surprised by that.
Irresistible offer; anyone can do it. Free trial is almost always irresistible, or double your money back
guarantee, which comes with the mass control. I think it’s, “I’ll pay you $500.00 extra dollars, on top of your
money, if you can’t get the stuff to work.” Now, I don’t mean that, but I do say it in the sales letter. Let’s just
be up front here, okay. So that’s Step 2, your irresistible offer, all right? Your Step 3 – I know, this is advanced
rocket science stuff, right? But it works like crazy, that’s why I’ve got money I can just throw around at
complete strangers for my own personal amusement. Step 3 – I got a kick out of that.
That was great. Step 3 is give them a compelling reason to order now. So I’m telling you guys, you need to go
that link I gave you and buy my stuff, and the reason you need to buy it right now – well, preferably after you
leave the room – is because I’m taking it down tomorrow. Last time it was available it sold out in – I forgot –
a total of eight hours or something – blah, blah, blah. Scarcity is one reason, right? Another reason, if you
don’t like the whole scarcity thing, is a time deadline. This special, irresistible offer is only available until
Tuesday at midnight. Of course, again, you could follow that announcement up with a great subject line to
your email, which says, “Deadline is blank.”
I get so many opens. I don’t know why. I guess people are like, “Deadline for what? Jesus.” The threat of a
price hike is another reason they should order now, but you have to have that reason to order now – a sense of
urgency. You want to create the sense of urgency. You’ve got to have that. So to review – and there was only
one more step, but just to really drive it in there – reason you’re contact them, plus irresistible offer, plus sense
of urgency, and the final one, so many people leave out, give very clear ordering instructions, such as, “Click
here and buy my stuff.” Don’t fall down on the close.
Always follow up with the, “Here’s what you need to do next.” What you need to do next is click on this order
form, fill in your credit card details, and I will rush you your fancy Methamphetamine 2000 kit, overnight. In
fact, I’ll personally run all the way to your house with it because I’m not only – not only am I the president of
Hair Club for Men, I’m also a member. You see? Not only do I publish the Methamphetamine Kit, I’m also
a methamphetamine user. Wouldn’t that be funny? If you order now, shit, I’ll deliver it. I’m gonna be up
anyway. Fuck it, let’s go. Where do you live, Nebraska? I’m on it, buddy.
I’ll just pick up a check. No, I’m not hungry. I’m good. I’m good. I’m cool. So anyway, that’s it. It’s four
magic steps, and then if you do that today, you will have money tomorrow. Easy. But the trick is, do stuff.
Take action. Be one of – I was gonna point to my diagram – be one of the blank people. Be one of us. So
that’s all I’ve got for my official presentation. I’d like to now introduce you to a man – he’s a good dancer. He’s
a very good masseuse. He’s a good hog juggler, I’ll tell you that. Eben Pagan.
Eben Pagan: So I remember when I was first getting to know Frank, oh, a couple of years ago.
Frank Kern: It was after that match.com ad.
Eben Pagan: After the match.com ad, exactly. That fateful piece of copy. Last year, especially, we were
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hanging out. I went over to his place and we were talking about product launches. I was saying, “Well,
people say you’re kind of the dude,” and after hanging out with him socially a couple of times, I couldn’t
imagine how that was possible. We – I went over to his office, and he said, “Well, here. Let me just give
you some of the files from some of the launches that I’ve done.” And he said, “No one’s ever seen these. I’m
actually putting them in the mass control program,” that you were getting ready to put together.
Frank Kern: Yes.
Eben Pagan: So I took them home and I thought I have the files from these tens of millions of dollars worth
of launches. I thought I was going to open these things up and discover the most spectacular –
Frank Kern: I had incredibly complex stuff.
Eben Pagan: Very complex –
Frank Kern: It was.
Eben Pagan: Is what I thought it was going to be. So I started opening up the emails, and they would say,
“Read this right now,” and you’d open up the email and it would say, “I’ve just put an important video for you
to watch. Click this link and watch it.”
Frank Kern: That’s hard to do, too, man, I’ll tell you because you have to type and stuff, and that’s –
Eben Pagan: I kept opening them up, and yes, there are other variations of “click this link” and “buy now” –
Frank Kern: Yeah. You can sometimes say, “Here is the link.”
Eben Pagan: Oh, okay, right.
Frank Kern: That’s why they pay me up to $7.00 an hour, at times.
Eben Pagan: As I kept them reading them, I was trying to figure this out because I’m thinking, “Wait.
Where’s the magic here.” It’s like the hat with the rabbit coming out. You grab the hat and you’re looking,
and you’re like how does this thing produce rabbits? As I’ve gotten to know Frank, over time, what I’ve
realized is that these exercises that we’re doing here, where I’m saying what’s the most important, tangible
benefit that they’re going to get, and what’s the one that’s the most important to them emotionally; you’ve
just got to hammer that over and over. Well, what I do – my approach to that is about one-tenth of Frank’s.
Frank’s stuff usually – the words “get”, “money” and “now” are usually in – there are like what, nine ways you
could probably –
Frank Kern: Often times in that order.
Eben Pagan: Right.
Frank Kern: Yeah.
Eben Pagan: Often times in that order. I really had to say to myself, am I really making it this hard? Am I
really making it this difficult? To this day, when Frank sees a piece of copy that I’ve written, I usually – if he’s
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on the other end of the phone, I hear this sound [inaudible], and then words like, “Why didn’t you call me
first?” Because he’ll usually say, “Well, you wrote this whole thing; it’s two pages long, and what you’re really
trying to say is click this link and bye.” I go, “Oh, right.” So how do people make this so hard? What are we
doing?
Frank Kern: They’re scared. Carlton calls it selling from your heels. Have you ever tried to talk someone
into doing something, and you’re scared that they’re gonna say no, so you’re sort of backing off the whole
proposition? You’re like, “Oh dude, you know, we should really go see this movie and I know you probably
don’t like it, and I know you’ve got a lot of stuff to do, but it’s pretty good. If you don’t want to go see it, I
understand, but it’s still a good movie.” You know what I mean? That’s selling from your heels. All of that
takes all this effort and bullshit and you’re freaking out, when in reality, you just need to say, “Hey, here’s the
thing.
“You should really buy it because it’s good.” There’s two reasons you’ll sell from your heels. One is gonna be
that fear of rejection, which everyone has. It’s completely normal. I don’t have it because, let’s face it, I’m
clearly drunk, but people who are not – in the very few moments of sobriety, I’m terrified all the time. So a lot
of people have that –
Eben Pagan: Sobriety?
Frank Kern: No. What the hell was I saying? Oh, yeah. Another one is you have to have absolute belief in
the benefit and power of what it is you’re selling. For example, if you had a pill that would cure cancer, do you
think that you would have any apprehension, at all, of selling it to someone, yes or no?
[Audience Response]
Hell no because it’s the greatest thing in the world, really. So you need to have that belief about what it is
you’re offering. You’ve got to have it or else you’re freaked out. I get a lot of credit as being this amazing
marketer guy or whatever, but I couldn’t do the stuff that I do for something I thought wasn’t good. I couldn’t
do it. Everything I’ve ever sold, I’ve believed that it was just killer, and that’s why it’s so easy for me to sell it.
So you’ve got to have that belief, and if you don’t have that belief, you need to examine the reason why. The
reason why is – it could be a self-esteem issue, or it could be that your product sucks and you know it sucks,
and that’s really easy to fix, just make a better product.
Eben Pagan: I read the other day, we’re launching the wake up productive program and time management
program. I checked my email, and I always read your emails, of course. You and maybe one or two other
people, do I actually read all their emails.
Frank Kern: As long as it’s not John Reese. Let’s establish that.
Eben Pagan: It’s not Reese, no.
Frank Kern: Nobody cares for him.
Eben Pagan: No, no. The headline came in and it was all caps, and it said, “Confidential inside dirt.”
Frank Kern: Yeah.
Eben Pagan: From you. I opened it up, and I’m like, guaranteed gonna be interesting. I open it up, and it
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basically says, “Dear friend, I just invented this new product that Eben Pagan is selling, and you should go buy
it. Click here.” It was a little more –
Frank Kern: I should have said that, really.
Eben Pagan: Well, we would have sold more, probably.
Frank Kern: Next time, I’ll send that out.
Eben Pagan: Even though we haven’t sold it yet. But it was fascinating because I thought there’s no way
that that is about my thing; my time management course – confidential inside dirt – wake up productive
time management – and he bridged the gap in about three paragraphs. What’s your theory of subject lines
of emails and then – to the action – and how is it that some of your emails seem so disconnected from the
subject line and the action?
Frank Kern: Oh, well see, I thought that one was totally connected, but I guess because I was there.
Eben Pagan: I mean, confidential inside dirt – time management.
Frank Kern: Yeah, but it – I mean, think about it. It is confidential inside dirt because what happened was
you came down to the [inaudible] and we were – I think you said, “Let’s survey the victims,” – that’s what I call
customers. That’s the new term.
Eben Pagan: You said it.
Frank Kern: Okay, well listen, I think we can all establish that I’m single-handedly responsible for all of
Eben Pagan’s success, retroactively, in the present, and into the future. So let’s get that – I’m just gonna start
saying that about everybody. Insert this person here. I don’t know whose idea – I think I stole it. It wasn’t –
it couldn’t have been my idea.
Eben Pagan: Actually, I know exactly how it happened. I believe it was that evening at the altitude program
– that first night when we were making the video, and we were talking about –
Frank Kern: Oh, yeah.
Eben Pagan: Doing –
Frank Kern: [Inaudible] my mind.
Eben Pagan: Exactly – doing this program – doing an information, product marketing, coaching program.
I said, “I’m not exactly sure. I think this and that and the other.” And I think your quote was, “Survey them
bitches.”
Frank Kern: Okay. Well, someone else had surveyed them bitches prior to me, but anyway, so we’re down
– back to the confidential inside dirt being relevant to the time management thing. The story was completely
true. Eben comes down; we survey the victims; and that’s very confidential information, right? Even – in my
opinion, even the fact that you came down and we were plotting and scheming is confidential information,
and then, I’m revealing confidential information again by discussing the results of the survey with the general
public. So to me, it was, in fact, confidential inside dirt.
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It’s just – people don’t realize how interesting your life can be made, if you just allow that to happen. Other
people are like, “Yeah, a couple of dudes sat around talking about surveys and stuff,” but no, it could be spun
into confidential inside dirt.
Eben Pagan: Is confidential inside dirt more interesting than tabulated survey results?
Frank Kern: To some people, it may be.
Eben Pagan: How can you channel your inner Frank Kern? How can you channel the part of you – they’re
all running for the bar, look at this. How can you channel that part of you that can see excitement and drama
and intrigue and mystery in anything?
Frank Kern: Are you asking me that question?
Eben Pagan: No.
Frank Kern: Because I am Frank Kern. It’s easy for me. I’m often trying to be someone else, really. I would
prefer to be Matthew McConaughey, I think. He’s got it figured out. If I had my choice, I would probably
be him. He doesn’t look as good as me, but I would be willing to make that sacrifice. Well, for freedom and
America. Here’s the deal: everybody’s miserably bored most of the time, right? That’s no new statement.
Carlton really drove that home to me. You and Wyatt were talking, yesterday, about people being asleep,
unless they have small children, naturally, like I do, and then sleeping does not occur, ever.
Then they long to sleep. They daydream about sleeping is really what happens. But it’s true, and if you wake
up, you can realize that there’s interesting shit going on all the time. Everything can be made cool. Think
about it – if we were talking about the confidential inside dirt thing to complete strangers that were not in the
Internet marketing circle, it would be completely boring and irrelevant. But you and I have tricked the public
into thinking we’re big and fancy in this world; therefore, it’s interesting to know what kind of schemes we’re
getting up to. Simple. Who wouldn’t want to know what other people’s diary says?
To me, the survey results are sort of like the diary. Tell me your big thing. What’s your big problem or
whatever, and then you say here’s what they said. It’s bit; it’s interesting.
Eben Pagan: When you approach a sales piece, whether it’s gonna be a video, a sales letter, something that’s
a little longer, more involved, telling the whole story, what do you start with? What’s the first thing that
you’re hunting for? You have a way of spotting the hook that’s, I think, spectacular.
Frank Kern: I would love to give an intelligent-sounding answer to, really, any question that I’m asked. It
has yet to happen, and it’s not gonna happen today, so I’d like to apologize to you all. Since this is the last
time I’m ever invited to speak here, I can really do whatever I want to. There’s no real formula. Usually what
I’ll do is I’ll write the headline first. I always – I do my stuff in Dream Weaver. I write a sales letter and build
it as a page at the same time. That’s just a habit of mine. It’s like, well, this is the media, so why not work in
the media? If I was writing a direct mail piece or something I might write it out by hand.
But I always look for the story; there’s always a story to everything. When you go, today, to the link I gave
you earlier, and you read that sales letter, and then, consequently buy my stuff, today – this is all – I’m kind
of having a joke with my friends Dean and Harlan about NLP and the pacing. So after you buy mass control,
today, you will see what that’s all about. But anyway, when you read that, it’s a story. That sales letter is a
story. It is the inside story of the biggest launches in Internet history or whatever I was saying. We’re talking
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about all the behind-the-scenes stuff.
I always look for the story, just like the email about your time management thing. Everyone else is out there
saying time management, and I give the views because I’m telling the story. It’s an interesting story. So good
ways to detect what the story might be, would be how did this happen? Why did this product come about?
What pain created this product? What discovery created this product? What sense of situations created
this product? What could be funny about the creation of this? What could be weird or made to sound weird
about the creation of this product? But the story is king, to me.
Fiction sells more than non-fiction, I think. Let’s just say it does; sounds good.
Eben Pagan: You’re not afraid of the friction and the drama?
Frank Kern: No, I – I don’t like it in my personal life, at all. I hate it. But yeah, for use in the – now, this
is important: I don’t monger it. I don’t encourage friction and drama, and whenever I put that out into a
piece, it’s always made okay. So I’ll be like, “Big fight in the Internet marketing world,” and then I’ll just talk
about how – is this product better than this product? In the end, they’re both great products, and I highly
recommend both of them or whatever. So I’m not one of those dudes that’s like, “[Inaudible] said Eben
Pagan’s a dick,” or something like that – which he did, by the way.
Eben Pagan: But it’s all right.
Frank Kern: Swarthy motherfucker. [Inaudible]
Eben Pagan: Yeah, right. Yeah.
Frank Kern: Yeah, he is swarthy, isn’t he? You can tell him I said that, if anyone –
Eben Pagan: He who? Both of us?
Frank Kern: No [inaudible]. He’s swarthy. I don’t really know what that means, but it’s a – I like it –
swarthy. Why you want be all swarthy, Mike? But you know what I mean? So yeah, I use it as an attention-
getting device, but never with malice; never for the mere sake of doing it, and I don’t invent it. There’s got to
be an element of truth in there, like in the mass control letter. I really bring in this tension, in the story, of
how all that stuff happened by talking about the stompernet launch, and it’s all true. The way the story goes
is I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t know those guys.
I associated them with someone who I can’t stand, and I was like, “I don’t want to do that damn launch. I
just did Neil’s thing, and it was a lot of work.” I said, “Tell them I’ll do it for $25,000.00,” thinking that they
would refuse, and they didn’t. Which then, I’m like, “Oh, damn,” and then it turned into this big convoluted,
gigantic thing, and then I get the letter and the letter sucked, horribly, and it’s like a day before the launch.
That’s the real thing. If you’re in that world, it’s compelling stuff. That stuff happens all the time. In every
situation there’s a story; you just have to look at it.
People get in their own way, probably because of that self talk of fear, like, “Oh, no, this is gonna be stupid.
No one’s gonna like it,” or whatever. Speaking of that, there was a point I wanted to make when I was
listening to Wyatt yesterday. Wasn’t that good?
[Audience Response]
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That was outstanding, and he’s talking about using fear and stuff, and I don’t do that. I just have never
thought to do it. I’m gonna do it now, for sure. I was like, “God, I’ve been missing out. That stuff has
worked – being nice – imagine how well it’ll work if I’m not nice. This’ll be great.” But I was thinking – so
incidentally, there’s a bomb in the building, and unless 100 orders come in for my product, it will explode.
May or may not be true; probably not. I don’t know if you guys do this, but I scare the shit out of myself all
the time. I’m really freaked out most of the time. I’m like, “Good God, am I gonna get skin cancer?
“The sun’s out here.” I still – I don’t even like getting the mail because I’m afraid I’ll get a subpoena or
summons or something in there. I’m just a weirded-out dude, and everybody is freaked out, right? We’re
always telling ourselves these stories, or playing these movies. Dean and I have this joke about mental
movies that we’ll create. It’s easy to fall into this trap where you’ll play the movie like, “Frank gets sued by
the FTC again, naked,” or whatever. I realized that if we can scare other people even half as good as we can
scare ourselves, then we’re onto something. Well, it’s true. Have you ever gotten yourself all worked up about
stuff?
Have you? Raise your hand if you’ve ever freaked yourself out. If you can freak yourself out – let’s say you
can freak someone else out only half that good, well, then you’ve got something. So that was off topic, but I
wanted to get that out before I – because I’d written it down and forgot to say it.
Eben Pagan: Also, I had no idea Frank was gonna talk about mass control. We didn’t even have a
conversation. I just said, “Hey, you want to come up here and talk about some stuff?” and he said, “Sure.” So
I will say, though, if you’re interested in learning how to do product launches and do them well, this guy is –
he’s the closer. That letter that he put up there – is it the mass control sales letter?
Frank Kern: Yeah. I don’t really give a shit if you buy it or not. What am I gonna do? But you should read
the letter – print it out or something before you buy it.
Eben Pagan: Now, I’m gonna warn you today – I’m serious; I’m gonna warn you. If you read the letter,
you’re going to buy the product.
Frank Kern: You should probably read it twice.
Eben Pagan: Go read the mass control sales letter, and you’ll really get a feel for what I’m talking about.
You’ll notice that every single thing that he says in there is relevant to someone who’s interested in learning
how to make money online; learning how to do product launches; learning how to do what he did. There
isn’t any fluff. There’s nothing in there that’s irrelevant, and yet, it reads like a novel. It’s a page turner.
Frank Kern: It’s got to be. Everything’s got to be. One of the highest selling authors, right now, is a guy
named James Patterson. I think he sold 140 million of his novels, and he writes a new one every ten minutes.
I’ve been on a binge of James Patterson stuff. It’s okay. It’s not great, but this guy’s thing – his average chapter
length, I’ve noticed, is about six pages, and every chapter ends with something happening where you’re like,
“God damn it, I’ve got to read to the next chapter.” What’s going on it that – and I think it’s very important,
by the way, that everyone do stuff like this. If you seem something that’s really big and hot – Billy, just feel
free to do what you like with that one – get it, take it and analyze it.
So here’s a guy – regardless of whether or not you like trash fiction – here’s a guy selling 140 million copies of
his book. That’s a lot of fucking books. So you’ve got to be like, “Well, why in the hell is this guy doing it?”
Analyze what’s going on. The big lesson I took from that is this guy presents his information in tiny little
chunks, six pages at a time, each chunk leading into the next chunk. It’s brilliant; it’s absolutely brilliant.
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Each chunk leading into it in such a way that you’ve got to consume the next chunk because you realize the
chunk you just consumed was somehow just barely incomplete. It’s a big, big lesson.
Then, when you look at the mass control letter – that letter has seven section, so when you read it, you’ll see
that each section leads into the next. It’s like this cliffhanger thing. Even if you don’t read the whole letter,
read the subheads because the subheads alone tell the story, like, “I was screwed,” “I was terrified,” things like
that. When you read it, you’ll be like, “Why?” and there’s a reason. It draws you back into that thing. And I’ll
tell you another thing about that letter, and about my whole approach to selling, which is something I don’t
publicly discuss – it’s a technique that I call the Soze method. Have you ever seen the movie, “The Usual
Suspects?”
[Audience Response]
It’s one of the greatest movies ever, isn’t it? Remember old Kaiser Soze in there? What did he have you
believe?
[Audience Response]
That he was small and weak, right? What was he really?
[Audience Response]
He was a killer. When you read that mass control letter, you will see that the underlying, almost subconscious
message of the letter is it’s really a miracle that I was able to do this because quite frankly, as we can all tell,
I’m completely retarded. I do that for a reason because it counteracts the voice that we all have that’s saying,
“Oh, well he can do that because he’s got the magic powers,” or whatever.
So if you come across, and you use the Soze approach where you say, “Despite my complete ineptitude, I’m
still able to do this,” the reader and the prospect has this hidden conversation, saying, “Well shit, if that can
guy can do it, I can probably do it. And even if I don’t do as well as that idiot, by some bizarre twist of fate, I’ll
probably still do okay.” Eben’s statement was a great case in point. Eben said, “I’ve used to four percent of its
effectiveness.” My natural answer to that is, “Well, look at him.” So it’s a very, very good, very solid technique
to use, especially if you find yourself a little uncomfortable coming out and saying, “Listen to me. I’m really
good.”
If that makes you flip out or whatever, it’s totally okay. Use the Soze method; fly in under the radar. It’s good.
There’s a reason I don’t wear suits and stuff. I have long hair because I can, and I like to surf, but there’s a
reason I present myself as this semi-bumbling guy with no intelligence. It lowers the radar. It’s important to
lower that radar whenever possible. Now, erase that from your memory. Thank you.
Eben Pagan: It is true, though.
Frank Kern: Cut that part out of the movie – the DVD.
Eben Pagan: I don’t know if you know that we have this in common, but when each of us got our first real
good direct marketing package, and started studying this stuff, we both lived in small trailers.
Frank Kern: I just – what I thought you were gonna do the NLP thing about slipping your package into the
mail, and I was like, don’t do that. Yes, we did.
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Eben Pagan: Yeah. We – if we can do it –
Frank Kern: I’m pretty sure that if we can do it, anyone can. Yeah, I would – shit man, I’ve been through
unbelievable stuff. Ten – maybe more than ten years ago – in the ‘90s, I was about 50 pounds lighter. I was
completely strung out on a buffet – a cornucopia of chemicals, really. You would never – had you met me – it
was a pretty – it was a laughing matter. You would never think that person would become a self-made multi-
millionaire. I’m literally convinced – I say – I present myself as this guy, but I really do believe that if I can do
it, anyone can because in 1994, I lost everything I had in a flood – every single possession I owned, gone in a
flood.
I was asleep. Fire department said, “Hey dude, get up. You got to go.” I’m like, “Why?” They’re like, “There’s
this thing – it’s called the river – heading at your house.” By the time I even got to the yard, water was at – and
then whole house, gone. I was in college. I was a rock musician, at best, really. I was a very stoned person
with a guitar, is what I was. That didn’t pay very well. I lived in a trailer. I couldn’t pay my heat bill. I was so
broke that they turned the gas off for the heat.
I didn’t have hot water, so in order to bathe, I would take one of those Big Gulp cups, fill it with water, stick
it in the microwave, get it hot, haul ass back to the bathtub, pour the hot water in there, run back to the
microwave, get back with the thing – by the time I’d gotten it hot, the other water had been cold. There was
no carpet in the place; it was plywood. I didn’t have a bed; I had a mattress on the floor. My job was in a
fast-food restaurant, literally. It’s like, come on, Jesus. You guys are probably a lot more intelligent than – and
don’t make decisions that get you into those types of places. So again, I say, if I can do it, I think anyone can.
Eben Pagan: One thing that I’ve noticed that you – like I ask you for advice on something, or say, “Hey,
what should the offer be here?” You’re very good at quoting the experts. You’ve studied people that really do
things well, and I notice that you don’t really mess with their stuff. If someone said to do something – if Dan
Kennedy said, “Hey, write the headline this way,” or “Put the offer this way,” you’ll just say, “Well, Dan says to
do this.” I’ve noticed, in my experience with you, zero pride of authorship.
Frank Kern: No, I have none. I didn’t come up with any of this stuff. I stole it from other people and just
inserted profanities. That’s all I’ve got. This should be obvious. But yeah, if Dan Kennedy said, “Frank,
I want you to chop off the first digit of your little finger and eat that.” I would say, “Okay,” and it would
probably work because he said so. There’s no point in trying to reinvent the wheel. My cousin, [inaudible],
who you know – we all love Trey. That’s his nickname. His name is Trey, we call him – well, get your minds
out of the gutters, for the love of God. He was the first person that I ever worked with.
He and I lived in the same city, and he’s like my little brother, but he’s taller than me and he’s completely
psychotic, unlike myself. He was a commercial realtor, and he was making $30,000.00 or something. For
years, I’d been like, “Dude, you’ve got to get into this Internet marketing stuff. It really works. It’s crazy. I
don’t do anything.” He’s like, “Yeah, yeah, yeah; later.” One day, he’d finally had enough, and he’s like, “Okay,
what do you do?” So I told him what to do, and I told him this painfully obvious stuff. I was like, “Okay, well,
go on this thing called Click Bank and see what’s selling, and then promote that as an affiliate.
“Then, if you make some sales as an affiliate – you don’t have to make profit, but if you make some sales then
you know it’s a viable market, and then just go out and create a better version of that product with some
better marketing.” He was like, “How do I better marketing?” and basically, I told him what we’ve been
hearing this weekend. Unlike the other hundred something thousand people that I’d worked with prior, he
had the magic power to go, “Okay,” and he just did it. His first full calendar year in business, he did over a $1
million, personal revenue. Not because I’m some genius who transferred incredible knowledge – I was like,
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“Dude, here’s what you do.
I know this is what you do because these dudes told me to me and they’ve made lots of money. You just do
that,” and he was like, “Okay, I’ll just do that.” So I think 99 percent – someone says 90 percent of success is
showing up. I think 90 percent of success is showing up and following the damn directions. It’s that easy.
Eben Pagan: Did you know –
Frank Kern: Maybe we should have a course that’s called, “How to Follow the Directions.”
Eben Pagan: How to not follow directions.
Frank Kern: Yes. What would you not be doing if you weren’t following the directions?
Eben Pagan: Did you notice the strategy that he taught someone who made a million dollars in one year,
who had no experience before? Go to Click Bank and find what’s already selling. Start with what people
are already buying; then, go see if you can sell some of that as an affiliate. How hard is that to do, relative
to starting your own thing, whatever? Then, if you can make that work – even if you’re not making a lot
of money, but if you can just see the light – you can see it working – then go make a better version of that
product and sell that.
Frank Kern: With better marketing.
Eben Pagan: With a little better marketing. You notice the message that I’m always saying to folks? A
gentleman came up to me at the – when I was talking to folks about the Wyatt program, here – the very entity
said, “I’ve got a quick question about my message,” or one of the pieces, and he said, “I just can’t figure it out,
here.” I said, “Well, what’s your prospect’s biggest need? What’s their biggest desire? What’s the result that
they want?” and he said, “Well, I don’t know,” and there was a bunch of inner stuff. I said, “Have you asked
them?” and he said [inaudible]. I said, “You’ve got to ask them. They will tell you, for free, what it is.” They’ll
tell you –
Frank Kern: Well, who wouldn’t want to tell you? Good Lord.
Eben Pagan: The answer’s inside of them.
Frank Kern: Yeah.
Eben Pagan: Going and finding out what people are already buying, and then helping them buy more of
what they already want is a much better strategy than coming up with a brilliant new idea, and saying I’m
gonna figure out how to talk people into wanting my magical thing.
Frank Kern: Yeah. It’s like, “Hey, what do you guys want to eat?” “Hamburgers.” “Okay. Here’s some
hamburgers.” How hard is that? But that’s really the trick. That’s the whole secret, I’m telling you. I’ve got
a course that explains that in great detail. We drag that out forever, for days. We first talk about what is a
hamburger, really?
Eben Pagan: We’ve been in the guru mastermind – depending on when you joined – for four to six months,
that kind of thing. I’d say that – I don’t know – probably, realistically, when someone grabs me and they say,
“I’ve got to ask you a question. I need your personal help on this one,” 60 to 80 percent of the time, I’ll say
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something like, well, what’s your prospect’s biggest fear or frustration, or their biggest want or aspiration?
What’s the thing that they want to do? What’s the result that they – where are they going? What is it? And
the person will say [inaudible], but no, you don’t understand because my thing is different.
Frank Kern: Oh, yes [inaudible] is definitely different.
Eben Pagan: Well, right, exactly.
Frank Kern: They’re selling to people who – despite the rest of the entire planet, their customers have
completely different psychological makeup than the rest of the human race. Now, isn’t that the stupidest
thing you’ve ever heard, but we believe it all the time. [Inaudible] my people are different. They’ll never
do that. Okay, of course, I forgot that they were genetically altered in utero and have completely different
psychology than the rest of the planet. Carry on; you’re absolutely right. Ridiculous.
Eben Pagan: I’m gonna say that from now on.
Frank Kern: Yeah, that is just absolutely stupid.
Eben Pagan: That’s gonna be my answer. Right?
Frank Kern: Yeah.
Eben Pagan: Well, and the thing that strikes me as kind of obvious, and I’ve – you can tell, I kind of like
beating people up in front of the group and messing with them a little bit.
Frank Kern: Physically?
Eben Pagan: No, I mean psychologically.
Frank Kern: Because I’m into that.
Eben Pagan: You want to wrestle?
Frank Kern: Oh, sure. Again? There’s nothing weird about a couple of straight dudes wrestling on stage.
Not even remotely. What?
Eben Pagan: What was I talking about? I was distracted.
Frank Kern: I can understand why.
Eben Pagan: No, the point is that when they say, “No, my thing is different; my market is different; my
product is different; what I’m trying to do is different,” it never strikes them that oh, if you can’t figure out
what the benefit is; if you can’t boil it down to concrete terms, then it’s too different. It’s different enough
that it’s gonna be hard to get people to buy it.
Frank Kern: Well, if you can’t do that then what the hell are you doing? Learn how to do that really quick.
Pay attention, for God’s sake. Everyone should be able to do that. If we’ve got people that are not able to do
that, then we need to get on top of our game and teaching stuff. Surely, everybody can describe the biggest
complaint of their market. With ours, it’s easy, right? What do our people want? More money. So therefore,
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what do we sell? Money getting. I actually use the phrase, “money-getting system,” in my sales letter for a
reason. I just bloat it down to the most base desire.
Eben Pagan: And stole –
Frank Kern: From Dean, of course. Well everything – I told you already, none of my stuff’s original, at all.
I got other stuff I’d written down, I’d like to convey, here. What do you think [inaudible]?
Eben Pagan: I want to interrupt your flow.
Frank Kern: Oh, fine.
Eben Pagan: Al Ries and Jack Trout wrote a book called Horse Sense. It’s probably their least well-known
book, and the whole theme of the book is find a horse that’s a winner and ride it. My life changed when I
discovered that hiring people that were unmotivated, don’t have objectives for themselves, aren’t drivers,
aren’t proactive, and then trying to turn them into people that have objectives and are motivated and
are drivers is very difficult. It’s a losing game. Hiring people you like, and then trying to turn them into
superstars, losing game.
As soon as I figured that out, and then I learned there’s a set of questions, and there’s a way you can talk to
them, so that within a conversation, you can figure out if they’re already a superstar. Then, if they are, you
say, “Hey, do you want to come to work with me?” Then, you tell me what I need to do and let me get the hell
out of your way because you probably know better than me. That, as a general strategy, changed everything.
Same thing with business – instead of finding something that’s a dog – as Ralph, on our team says, “You can
put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig.”
Frank Kern: It’s still a good time, though. I’m just saying, that’s all – just making a point.
Eben Pagan: What were you gonna say, there? I think I’d better stop talking, immediately.
Frank Kern: You’re the one talking about putting lipstick on the hog. You see there? And once again, that
is the tale of the last time Kern was ever invited back to [inaudible]. I was gonna talk about a very important
asset that people don’t build, and that’s the story – your story. You’ve got to have some stories. Stories are
the best money getting and principle-conveying things you can have out there. Once again, everything I’m
telling you right now, specifically, has been stolen from Dan Kennedy. I talk about this a lot in mass control,
actually. I call them your fables.
If you stand for something, or if you can create an end-result for someone, you need to have a story that
conveys that that you can tell and you have memorized, as if it were your life story. Usually, we have all kinds
of stories about the bad shit that happens to us, right? Let me tell you about the time I cut my leg off with
the weed whacker – wrong kind of story. You need to have these stories that convey the end results. So rather
than rambling about what that is, I’ll just tell you some of mine. I would assume most of you know I was sued
by the Federal Trade Commission in 2003 for being a very bad person.
I’m still a very bad person, but that’s a great story that I have, and I’ll give you the abridged version, and then
you can sort of – we can deduce what I would be selling with the story. So in 2003, I was a big shot Internet
guru, or at least I thought I was. I’m standing in my driveway, talking to a merchant service provider about
how we’re going to continue accepting money from our clients because our previous merchant service
provider website – billing.com – took off with $300,000.00 of our money – give or take – never showed up
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again. This guy comes up to me and he goes, “Is this K4 Global Publishing?”
I said, “Yes, it is,” and he hands me 11 pounds of legal documents. Within that 11 pounds of legal documents
was a letter from the Federal Trade Commission, informing me that all of my assets had been frozen, and
that they wanted them all, and that I should probably give it to them. So I spent about six months paying
attorneys another $100,000.00 to basically figure out how I could give the Federal Trade Commission all of
my money to make them leave me alone. I don’t know why they didn’t just call, but some people operate
differently than me. So I was very freaked out about that.
They had a problem with a product I had made – my first product. It was my first big hit or whatever; it
turned out to really be a pain in the ass for me. It was one called Instant Internet Empires, and that was a set
of five e-books, each with reprint rights that you could buy for $47.00, and then you would have reprint rights
to the books and my sales letter. The feds called that a pyramid scheme. Still trying to figure out how that
could be a pyramid scheme, but I have no problem with a vivid imagination, and I think that sort of thing
could be encouraged. So anyway, I was like well, I can’t do this guru thing anymore; I’m scared to death of the
feds.
I was freaked out. So I had to figure out another way to support my family. I had remembered that I’d had a
little pet project in niche marketing. I’d had that in response to a customer that said I didn’t know what I was
doing; I could never sell anything but make-money products. So I’d made a little e-book about how to teach
your parrot to talk, and it sold okay. So I said, “You know what? I’m just going to say to hell with Internet
marketing.” I had a list of 300,000 subscribers. I literally deleted them all, like Cortez burning the ships, and
said fuck it; I’m going for niche marketing.
I’m gonna make $1 million just selling stuff to niches. So I did, and I figured out a system to do that. It was
an easy system, and I was able to continuously duplicate my results time after time and niche after niche,
making money in my niche business, all serving the pet market. I grew to – at its highest point - $100,000.00
profit per month. So then, I decided I would share what I had learned on that –
Eben Pagan: And you’re an expert in pet training, right?
Frank Kern: Oh yes, absolutely. I was appointed as one by myself. So I finally decided –
Eben Pagan: You don’t even own a pet, do you?
Frank Kern: Huh?
Eben Pagan: You don’t even own a pet?
Frank Kern: Sure.
Eben Pagan: What do you got?
Frank Kern: The spider or something in my –
Eben Pagan: Okay. I’ve been to your house numerous times; I’ve never seen any pets running around there.
Frank Kern: Well, they’re invisible.
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Eben Pagan: Okay.
Frank Kern: Yeah. But anyway, so I finally decided to share what I had learned, and share my duplicatable
system with others, and that system was called the underachiever system. So close – from beginning to
end, what did I have? I had a story, which demonstrated how I’m an expert in niche marketing, and it
demonstrated how I lost everything, built it back using this system, and at the end, I said, “and now I have
this system that shares it.” So you see, instead of a pitch, that was a story, right? Do you understand where
I’m going with this because I just wrote down on my notes, it says, “Tell them about stories,” so I don’t really
have a big outline on telling you about the stories.
You need to cultivate that. Everything that happens to you, and that can be used in your marketing, you
should be used with relish in your marketing. You need to have these stories. I have another one called the
parrot story. If I want to talk about niche marketing – I’ll be brief about it. The reason I’m telling you – none
of the products I’m talking about now are for sale anymore, but I’m telling you these stories as examples that
you can model – and be very brief with the parrot story. The story thing cool with you guys?
[Audience Response]
Okay. So I used to have this thing called cash flow circle with my friend Shawn Casey, who was a very, very
old person, but I still like him a lot. He drives a car that I had no idea they made them for men, as well, but
apparently, they made one for him, and that’s very nice. So anyway, we had this thing called cash flow circle
and one of the members wrote in, and they said, “You know, Kern, you’re full of shit. You have never sold
anything but Internet marketing products, and who are you to be teaching me?” and I was like, “This guy is a
complete asshole, but he is also right,” and I was flipped out about it.
So I remembered listening to some Jeff Paul tapes on the subject of mail order that I had a couple of years
ago. During the tapes, Jeff’s getting the testimonial or Q&A from one of the dudes in the audience, and the
guy’s saying, “Yeah, Jeff, I used your system and I have this product that teaches parrots how to talk, and I sell
it for $300.00 through the mail, and through space ads in magazines.” I was like, “That’s the most ridiculous
thing I’ve ever heard.” I’ve got to do that. So I did exactly what I told Trey, and I said okay, well here’s a
product that’s already selling; I’m just gonna create a better product with better marketing.
Well in this case, I probably didn’t create a better product because that guy actually knew what he was talking
about and I don’t. In that case, what I did was I said, “Okay, well here’s something that’s being sold off line
successfully. There’s no reason why it wouldn’t sell online,” and I threw up a little website about parrots I
went to Yahoo and I saw that 80,000 people searched for parrots every month, so I made my little website
about parrots. I had hired someone and paid them $600.00 to write the e-book for me, and I went to Google
and bought an ad words account, and stuck my ad in front of those 80,000 people who searched for parrots.
The next thing you know, the websites making – not a ton of money, but it’s making around – at its best, it’s
doing $3,600.00 a month in profit. So right around $3,600.0 a month, which was a little bit more than my
mortgage, at the time, so essentially, this challenge that this guy had given me ended up giving me a free
house because that website was paying my mortgage. So then, I said, “Hey, if I can make one of these sites, I
can make more of these sites.” So I did, and that’s how the underachiever formula was born. End of story. So
you’ve got to have these. You have absolutely got to have these.
So again, I ask you, how did your product get created? What circumstances brought that about? How did
you discover the solution that your product offers? Why does that solution work? What effect did that have
on someone? If you don’t have your own story, you can borrow someone else’s by saying, “This guy, blah,
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blah, blah, blah, blah.” If you were selling niche marketing, you could say, “For example, this guy Kern,
complete idiot, still, somehow, he used niche marketing to make money,” and then tell my story. But you’ve
got to have those.
Eben Pagan: Excellent. You got any other little notes on your page?
Frank Kern: Sure. I wrote down little things matter. Competence is a rarity; demonstrate it and you will
prosper.
Eben Pagan: The end.
Frank Kern: Yeah.
Eben Pagan: What does that stuff mean?
Frank Kern: Well, that’s a big deal, actually. Do you ever call someone on the telephone, like a business
on the phone, and get immediately surprised when a real person answers? [Inaudible] holy shit, someone
answered the phone. Conversely, have you ever called and you get voice mail, and then you ask for the
salesperson, and you get service or whatever. Happens all the time. Competence is an increasingly rare
commodity in the world, right now. Good Lord, look at politics.
So when you display competence by doing incredibly difficult shit, like showing up on time and following
through with what you said you were going to do – if you say, “I’m gonna send you a free report on Tuesday,”
you actually send the free report on Tuesday, you gain trust. I have written down here, competence equals
trust. Just the little, little, tiny extra bit of competence will cause people to trust you, like you and want to
do business with you, and it seems to be such an obvious thing, but no one else is doing it. Nobody else is
actually answering the damn phone, or returning the email, or actually sending the report on Tuesday like
they said they were going to.
So if you’re that guy, you’re gold. I wrote tell the story of Porsche Trucking Company. So I bought a new car
a couple of weeks ago, and I paid $1,700.00 to have the thing sent out from Texas to San Diego – $1,700.00.
The Porsche is supposed to be there on Monday of this week. I’m stoked, right? I’m like a kid getting my
toy. I’m like, “God, when is it gonna be here?” I called the salesman 8,000 times. He said, “Yeah, dude, it’s
coming.” No car on Monday, so I called Tuesday and I’m like, “What happened?” The truck got a flat tire in
Los Angeles, and they’re waiting for a new tire to arrive.
Let’s think about how completely incompetent – I understand getting a flat tire, right? But do you think
– what if I took a sawed-off shotgun and put it in the guy’s mouth, and said, “I’m going to pull this trigger
unless you get a tire for this truck today, right now.” Do you think he could get the tire for the truck? What
do they make these tires in Alaska? It’s a fucking tire – but that is a complete demonstration of what’s going
on, and this kind of stuff is abundant, and it’s becoming accepted, and it’s becoming tolerated. So when you
actually do what you say you’re going to do, it’s a miracle. People are like, “This is unbelievable.”
When the car wasn’t there, I wasn’t really surprised. I was like, “Well, shit happens. Of course it’s not gonna
be there, it’s modern business incompetence.” So the little things matter. Do them.
Eben Pagan: That’s good.
Frank Kern: Yeah, very deep, revolutionary stuff. Show up – you’re kidding – yeah, really.
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Eben Pagan: Look over your notes. Put a little star next to the most important thing that you learned
– something that you can take action on immediately. What’s the one thing you’re gonna take action on
immediately? Anyone – want to do a little Q&A?
Frank Kern: Sure.
Eben Pagan: Anyone got a question for Frank?
Frank Kern: An easy one?
Eben Pagan: Very easy.
Frank Kern: That doesn’t involve math.
Eben Pagan: Two over here and two over there – first two to the mic.
Frank Kern: How’d you like the mad dash for money? I thought that would take longer. Oh, wow. All
right, which way do I go?
Eben Pagan: We’re surrounded. You might just want to [inaudible]. The camera guys are gonna hate this,
but – are we standing up?
Frank Kern: No, I’m just moving the chair so I don’t have to crane my neck.
Mark Wittauer: He wants to look at my beautiful face.
Frank Kern: That’s perfect.
Eben Pagan: Is this flashing the cameras in some weird way? If not, I can adjust it so it is. Oh, you’re
further away.
Mark Wittauer: It’s okay. I’m still close to you in here.
Eben Pagan: You see what you get for your money, ladies and gentlemen? This is good stuff.
Frank Kern: I like the independent feel.
Mark Wittauer: Put your legs together, though.
Frank Kern: Both of ours?
Mark Wittauer: Well, especially him. My name is Mark Wittauer, and I mentioned earlier that I
actually have an e-book called The Triumph of the Stupid. Really, I just want to thank you for saying how
stupid you are, standing here, because one of the domain names that I own, that points to it actually, is
frankkernisstupid.com.
Frank Kern: Thank you so much.
Mark Wittauer: And it actually talks about what you were saying, which is just single-mindedness in
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getting it done, and it’s something I find that a lot of people don’t do. They try to make it a lot harder than it
is, so I want to really just thank you for saying that and allowing me to make this shameless little plug, here.
Really, you’re an inspiration, I think, to a lot of people.
Frank Kern: Well, thanks. Thank you very much.
Mark Wittauer: Thank you.
Frank Kern: You, too, can be stupid, and if you act now, you can be extra stupid.
Male Speaker: Okay, so I have seen a lot of these systems, and I’m sure that a lot of these money getting
strategies would work if I were a robot and didn’t have emotion and didn’t need to do things that I was
passionate about. Also, I’m sure they would work if there was a crowd full of people that wanted exactly what
I had to offer. My two-part question is: one, what do you really look at when you’re mapping out – because
I’m sure – something tells me you’re extremely meticulous about how you look at a market and assess it, and
what numbers you look at.
I’m sure that’s a lot more complicated, and actually does require someone to be highly intelligent – maybe it
doesn’t – but how do you do that – just some quick tips there; and how do you get that to line up with stuff
that you actually care about? What’s that process like?
Frank Kern: Those are two different things. I’ll address the first one. The whole reason I got into selling
Internet marketing stuff is because I saw a gazillion people selling Internet marketing stuff and I was like,
“Damn, that’s clearly working for them. I think I’ll do what they’re doing.” My method for market selection,
literally, is to see what’s selling well. The criteria, more specifically – is it being sold well by someone with
inferior capabilities? That’s just gold. Trey – my cousin’s first thing – I’ll never forget it. We went to Zaxby’s
Chicken the day of his launch – he launched his little product, his first one, and he made a $1,000.00.
He was just freaking out. He was like, “Holy shit, dude,” and I was like, “I told you, man, it worked.” The
product that he started promoting to assess the validity of the market was one with – the sales letter is here,
and above the sales letter is a banner ad – or above the headline is a banner ad for a competing project – a
competing other guy’s stuff. I’m like, “Well, okay. He promoted this thing as an affiliate. It worked.” I’m
looking at him, and saying now, “Fellas like me and you, we’re pretty smart, and we understand the futility of
– before we tell people to buy our stuff, we tell them not to buy our stuff and go buy other people’s stuff.
So I think if we just took that out of the equation, we’d probably do a little better than this guy. What do you
think?” He was like, “Probably so. Let’s try it out, and see.” But that’s really it. That’s the magic. Selling
well with inferior marketing to what you’re capable of is the golden meal ticket forever. You cannot possibly
go wrong. I just refuse to try to change behavior. I just want to stand in front of it. You gauge the behavior
of a market buy what they’re buying, and then you say, “Oh, okay, well you guys are hungry for hamburgers.
Here’s some.” Make a better hamburger, and it’ll be served by women in bikinis, and then I’ll more of them.
Male Speaker: Awesome.
Frank Kern: Now, the trick about tying it into your passion is – I don’t really have the correct answer for
that because we cannot – or I don’t know how to – I shouldn’t make that sort of a blanket statement, but I
can’t, personally, change someone – and certainly change a market – to want what I want just because I want
it. They’ve got to – for my stuff to work – with me, internally – they’ve got to already want it, and I just do a
better job. So it’s likely that whatever it is that you’re into, someone’s selling something about it. So all you’ve
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got to do is figure out what they’re doing; figure out what they’re selling; do it better. That’s really the whole
trick.
Male Speaker: So are you passionate about the products that you’re creating when you’re creating them? You
love it.
Frank Kern: Absolutely, and that was a big breakthrough for me because I went through one phase where
I was teaching Internet marketing, and I got sick of it. I got sick of it because I ran out of stuff to say. I was
teaching niche marketing, and I was getting mad because I was like, “How many times do I have to tell you
this is what you do? You find out what people want; you stick a sales letter in front of them and say here’s the
thing you want.” And then people are like [inaudible] and I was like, “Ah,” so I got kind of burned out. I went
and I just went full force into my niche business, and it was very financially successful, but I could care less
about the business that I had.
Then, once I constantly found myself at parties talking about marketing, and I was like, “Wait a minute.
I’m doing this without getting paid. I could do this again and just teach different stuff that I’m even more
passionate about, which is persuasion and whatnot, and get paid for it.”
Male Speaker: Awesome.
Frank Kern: So I’m lucky, I guess, in that respect.
Male Speaker: Yeah, I happen to think that people who can get paid a ton of money for doing something that
they’re passionate about are some of the luckiest people in the world.
Frank Kern: Yeah, I agree.
Male Speaker: Cool.
Frank Kern: So thanks, guys, for paying me a ton of money. I appreciate it, or else I’d be hosed.
Eben Pagan: I want to contribute to that. I don’t know if you realize this, but you can change your beliefs.
You can change what you’re passionate about. You can learn to be passionate about things other than what
you are passionate about. If you’ve read the statistics, arranged marriages do as well or better than marriages
of love. How does that work? Are you passionate about the person? Are you passionate about having a
relationship? Are you passionate about continuing in the spirit of your family; of your culture? You can be
passionate about a lot of things in a relationship. I’m seeing the couples in the room looking at each other.
This is interesting.
Male Speaker: Just to add to that, I totally agree. I happen to think that if there were [inaudible] there would
be two circles: one is the things you’re passionate about; the other things are things that make money. There
might be, maybe, just a 3 percent overlap between those two circles, and the key is to find, maybe, that 3
percent, or maybe it’s 5 percent or whatever, but to find that overlap.
Eben Pagan: Well what about, maybe, going into the diagram of the things that just make a lot of money,
that you’re not passionate about, and working on a couple of them for a couple of years, and seeing all that
money hit your bank account –
Male Speaker: And then you might be passionate, at that point.
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Eben Pagan: And then saying which one of those, relatively, am I the most passionate about, and saying,
“Yeah, what can I find within that that I really love; I really enjoy doing.” I’ll tell you, there are a lot of things
that I do inside of our business, as the leader, whatever – management projects people – that I am really not
that down with. They’re really not the kind of thing that I love doing, so much. There have been – over the
last several years I’ve talked to people on my team, and I’ve said, “It’s funny, when I started this thing it was
fun.”
I was doing everything, and I was staying up all night, whatever, and now I find myself doing all these things
that are just – they kind of suck, in a way, but yet, I love it because what I’m doing – I’m serving all these
people. I’m helping all these people, and I may be in this management situation, where I don’t really like
doing the thing that I’m doing, but that person I’m working with is growing. They’re developing as a person.
You can change your priorities in life. You can change what you’re passionate about.
I kind of tend to say – I don’t know what it was, maybe 10, 11, 12 years ago or so, my aunt – who’s someone
that’s done well, in our family, for herself – worked hard, put her money away, she now kind of helps take care
of some of her family and so forth. She’s just set up well, and I said to her, “Should I,” – basically, I was a rock
musician, and she’s an opera singer. She’s a fancy –
Male Speaker: Together, you make Queen.
Eben Pagan: We never really jammed, but anyway, I said to her, “Should I follow the music?” This is kind
of when I was making my decision about really which direction to go, and actually, probably – now that I
think about it, it’s probably 15 years ago – and she said, “Get the money, kid.” That was kind of a weird thing
to hear from someone that’s an artistic, fancy opera singer type. The part of me that was like, “Oh, I don’t
know if I want to – I don’t want to be a sell-out,” kind of thing, but I think you can do a lot of things where you
can become very successful, make yourself powerful and successful.
Then, you can go contribute to others better – that may not – if it’s, “This completely sucks, and I hate –”
it’s like digging ditches in the winter with no clothing on. Then over here, it’s like Eddie Murphy in the
beginning of “Coming to America,” in the bathtub – there’s some stuff in this range that might not really be
too bad, but could produce a lot of help for a lot of people in the world. You could really serve a lot of people.
You could have a lot of growth from it, and you could find something within it to be passionate about, rather
than beating your head up against – and I’m not, necessarily, just talking to you. I’m just trying to talk
generally about this.
Male Speaker: I’m really glad that you got what – through what Seth Godin calls the dip of the management
stuff because this shit here has changed my life. I left my day job, and I’m taking care of my grandfather, who
has Alzheimer’s, so it’s been awesome.
Frank Kern: Sweet. Good for you. Thanks, man.
Male Speaker: My question is really answered by the previous question. I really appreciate the conversations
you just had.
Frank Kern: Thanks.
Eben Pagan: I do, too; it’s been fun. He could have walked up and said, “Here’s my product. I’m trying
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to figure the angle to sell it,” and had the smartest guy running around here doing this – well, the dumbest
smartest guy.
Frank Kern: You know what I would have said? I’d’ve said, “Well, Dean’s gonna talk in a minute. Do
whatever he says,” because that’s pretty much what I would have done anyway.
Adam Gilad: I was just gonna say that, thanks. Adam Gilad, I’m here from Los Angeles. A note about
James Patterson – it’s funny you mentioned – he actually came out of advertising, and he read a study that
most people read only for three minutes before they go to sleep, and so he designed his first book so that
every chapter could be read within three minutes, and he stuck to that ever since.
Frank Kern: There you go.
Adam Gilad: Came out of advertising.
Frank Kern: That guy’s a bad ass; Mr. Patterson.
Adam Gilad: Yeah, he’s a smart dude.
Eben Pagan: I don’t know if you know this, but he actually partners with people to write his books. Do you
know this?
Frank Kern: Yes, that’s awesome.
Eben Pagan: He pretty much has them do it.
Frank Kern: Yeah, that’s great.
Eben Pagan: He says, “Okay, so write things you can read in three minutes, leave a cliffhanger, call me when
the book is done and I’ll send you 10 percent of the money,” or whatever he says. Okay, good.
Adam Gilad: Well my question’s real simple. When I hear Eben say that it’s the best sales letter he ever
read, I want to make sure I have the URL. So is that letter still up, and where can we find it?
Frank Kern: Which?
Adam Gilad: The mass control –
Frank Kern: Is the mass control sales letter still up?
Adam Gilad: Yeah.
Frank Kern: Yeah, I gave everyone the link at the beginning of my dog and pony show, but I thank you for
the opportunity –
Adam Gilad: I just want to make sure that I have it, thanks.
Frank Kern: It’s masscontrolsite.com/mastermind.html, all lower case. It’s a good letter – masscontrolsite.
com/mastermind – for guru mastermind - .html – and I’ll take it down tomorrow because I’m cagey like that,
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about having that stuff up.
Eben Pagan: Thanks for sharing, Frank.
Frank Kern: Sure.
Eben Pagan: Now, look at your list, and see if you can figure out which one stands out as the big one.
What’s the big one from your prospects perspective? Remember, they don’t know you that well. That don’t
like you yet. They don’t trust you yet. What is that big risk, from their perspective, that really stands out?
Put a star next to it. Now, what I’d like you to do is figure out how you can reverse it. How can you make it so
you are taking on that risk, instead of them? Then, how can you figure out how – if they don’t get what they
want, they win. If your prospect doesn’t get what they want, they win.
It’s a weird way to get your mind to work, but just try it. What could you do to turn the risk around; to turn
it inside out. So it’s not just that they don’t have risk, it’s the risk is reversed. If something goes wrong, they
win and you bear the brunt. Get creative. Don’t worry about whether or not it’s realistic, right now. Go
into brainstorm mode, which is freethinking. Don’t judge your ideas yet, just come up with what would be
amazing to the prospect. What would they go nuts over? What would they say, “I’d be an idiot not to take
advantage of that offer because I win either way. Not only do I not have risk, but I win both ways.”
Male Speaker: One of the things I came up with was people might be discouraged by another program that
didn’t work for them, so I –
Eben Pagan: What do they have at risk?
Male Speaker: Just feeling like – hopelessness. They’re risking feeling hopeless.
Eben Pagan: You’re back to the inside. What are they risking?
Male Speaker: Go back to what they’re risking?
Eben Pagan: Yeah, what do they have at risk?
Male Speaker: Well, at risk –
Eben Pagan: Maybe I didn’t mention this – tangible, concrete, measurable. Everyone’s going oh, right,
back to that stuff again – the outside stuff, right.
Male Speaker: Mine’s an inner game product, so that might be a – I’m still struggling with that, in terms of
what you talked about – the currency and things –
Eben Pagan: You don’t need to struggle.
Male Speaker: Okay. I’m open to that.
Eben Pagan: This isn’t that difficult. What does the person have to do to get your product? Do you give it
away?
Male Speaker: No, they purchase it.
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Eben Pagan: Oh, there’s money involved?
Male Speaker: Yeah.
Eben Pagan: How much?
Male Speaker: The cost of shipping and handling, the first time around, and then for other products, it’s a
couple hundred dollars.
Eben Pagan: So what do they have at risk? Just give me a number; I don’t care.
Male Speaker: Okay, $100.00.
Eben Pagan: Okay, $100.00. Good, that’s a good place to start. You have $100.00 at risk. How much time
do they have to invest?
Male Speaker: Three hours.
Eben Pagan: Three hours?
Male Speaker: Yeah.
Eben Pagan: Okay, so a good place to start is I’m asking you to risk $100.00 and three hours. What could
you do to turn that around?
Male Speaker: Well, offer a double your money back guarantee, and if the program doesn’t work for you, for
whatever reason, or you’re unsatisfied with it, I’ll do a personal coaching call with you.
Eben Pagan: Okay, good; good progress. Raise your hand if you’ve gone through the last nine or ten
sessions of this program and been saying, “I feel like I’m getting the pieces of a puzzle, but that the whole
thing hasn’t quite locked together, yet. I don’t see how it all fits together.” Raise your hand – you’d like to see
how the whole puzzle fits together. Okay, good. Can you put this on the overhead? This is a simple formula.
It’s the seven-step sales system. What you’re gonna notice is that there are seven steps, and you’ve learned the
middle five. If you’ve ever read a direct marketing book, this is gonna look familiar to you.
There’s no rocket science, here: headline, story, product, bullets, offer, guarantee, action – super dumb
down. So I didn’t call it a product, I called it the value translation because I want you to translate the value
before you make the product. In the next guru master class summit, when we come together for the content
summit, we’ll dig deep into the product. I didn’t really call them bullets; I called them fascinations – the
fascination formula. I didn’t really call it an offer; I called it an action equation. I didn’t call it a guarantee; I
called it a risk reversal. I didn’t call it a story; I called it a conversion story.
The reason why we haven’t dug into the headline and the action is because the headline will emerge from all
the other stuff. If you do all the rest of the stuff, one of them’s gonna jump out – one of the bullets, something
in your story, something in the value translation or the action equation; something’s gonna jump out and
you’re gonna go, “Oh, well, there’s my headline, right there.” You take your best one of those and you put it
at the top. You take your biggest benefit promise, and you put it right at the top of your sales letter, or at the
beginning of your tele-class or at the beginning of your video, and that’s your headline.
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We didn’t go over the action because this one’s simple. Once you’ve done all this stuff here, especially the
middle five, and then you put a good headline on the top, you’ve got to remember to tell your prospect exactly
what to do. Don’t say, “If you’d like to order, here’s the phone number,” because that’s leaving it to them to
figure it out. Say to them, “Pick up the phone right now and call 1-888-555-1212, and tell the person that
answers that you would like to take advantage of this Special Offer Code 4BC37. They will say back to you X,
Y and Z. You will then give them your credit card number.
“The entire call will take less than seven minutes. We will ship your product to you; you’ll have it in three
days; you’ll have results within a week.” You follow? Tell me exactly what to do. Have you ever heard
someone say, “Don’t patronize me?” Patronize them. This is the place where you want to do that. You’ll
see people do banner testing. They’ll [inaudible] test banners, and they’ll put “click here” at the end of the
banner, and it’ll double the click through the banner – not always, but often times, just click here to get this
now will dramatically increase the conversion of the banner – so specific action steps.
Headline – biggest benefit – what is the biggest benefit? It’s the biggest result that your product or service
is going to deliver. That’s it. It’s the big benefit. Your conversion story – it’s your story. I want to know who
the hell you are, and how you figured all this stuff out, and what happened, and I want to get smarter while
it’s happening, and I want to feel like I’m making discoveries, and I want the whole thing to link back to
those benefits that I want. I want it to all connect. The product – I don’t want a product. I want the value
translation. You follow? I want to know what that thing’s gonna do for me.
I want to know those specific three things that it’s going to do. Fascination formula – plow through your
product, and take everything that’s interesting and make a bullet out of it that’s a fascination, that is just
so riveting and so interesting that you can’t help yourself. The action equation – back to those big benefits:
buy this thing; get these benefits. Action and then the risk reversal; so don’t just guarantee it, turn the risk
around. If you said to me, right now, okay, Eben, I want to create a good sales letter for my product. I’ve
already answered the questions of choosing my niche and creating a product – is there a strong emotional
need?
Are my prospects proactively looking for solutions? Do they have few or no perceived options? Do you
remember those? We talked about those a lot in the guru mastermind. Okay, good. Got a niche; strong
emotional need; prospect is looking for solutions; few or no perceived options; they’ve told me they want it;
we need to write a sales letter – and it was about bird training or something that I don’t know about – and
you said you’ve got four hours to create a very compelling marketing piece that converts like crazy. I would sit
down with you, the expert, and I would say, “Let’s knock a bunch of this stuff out.
We’re gonna make an outline, and then we’re gonna make a video, and you’re just gonna go through all of
these pieces, one after another, and we’re gonna get as many as we can in there, and we’re gonna do the
best.” At the end of four hours, we’d probably have a better marketing video. We could probably make a 20
or 30-minute video in four hours that would blow away 98 percent of the direct marketing that’s created out
there, if we just follow the formula. But instead of thinking headline, story, product, bullets, offer, guarantee,
action, we think biggest benefit, conversion story, value translation, fascination formula, action equation, risk
reversal, specific steps.
That’s where we come from. Everything on the left is putting you and the product and the process on the
stage, and everything on the right is putting the prospects needs and their desires and the outcome and the
benefit that they want on stage. Do you understand the distinction?
[Audience Response]
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My challenge, teaching this stuff – if I had to boil it down to just one thing, it’s the person who’s asking me
a question or the person who’s having a challenge isn’t thinking like a customer, they’re thinking like them.
They’re trying to get the customer to want what they want. They’re trying to force what they want down
the customer’s throat. You can hear when someone is thinking like a customer, and it’s so rare. So if you
want the answer to your problem, shift – go into thinking like customer, ask what it is that they’re trying to
accomplish? What’s that big outcome, that one major result that they want?
Frank said, “I know that with my stuff, it all boils down to a phrase that Dean Jackson – who you’re about to
meet – made up: money getting.” That’s it – money getting. He teaches Internet marketing – money getting.
So for him, if it doesn’t tie back to money getting, and fast, it doesn’t even hit his radar screen. That’s his
filter. You can see here that a lot of folks are struggling with, “Well, how does this interesting technique for
ironing your clothing, that I’m so passionate about, that I know will make people feel so joyous inside – how
do I find the benefit in that?”
You’ve got the telescope, where you’ve got the big end over here, and you’re saying how do I make this thing
focus in? So don’t do that. I’d like to introduce you to one of my two best friends in the world. In fact, if
it wasn’t for this guy, I would not be standing right here. I have him to thank for getting me into Internet
marketing in the first place, showing me how to make e-books, how to do paper click, how to do email auto-
responders. When people talk to me about the – you’re the father of the landing page, it really wasn’t – I’m
kind of like the bastard, redheaded stepchild of the landing page.
He’s really the who’s your daddy of the landing page. Dean and I actually got our start teaching marketing
together – how long ago – 12-13 –
Dean Jackson: 13 years.
Eben Pagan: 13 years ago, so this is like the reunion tour, what you’re about to see, right now. Boy, I wish
we had some video of us, back in the day, up on stage, doing critiques of people’s marketing in the real estate
industry. But, as I mentioned, Dean – until I met Frank, I used to call Dean the marketing sniper, or the
marketing rifleman because Dean has this way of looking at a situation, or an offer or something, and I always
know if he doesn’t like it – if he thinks what I’m saying is a bunch of BS because I’ll say, “Yeah, I’ve got this
great idea,” or “Here’s this headline idea,” or whatever, and he’ll listen, and then he’ll go, “Hm.”
I know that’s not good; that’s not what I want to hear. What usually comes after hm is, “Is that what a
customer would say?” Dean is – he’s been working with the company [inaudible] for 13 years now; helped
build that company very powerfully; has a couple of his own businesses – one of them in the real estate
industry – money-making websites; has, probably, the best real estate marketing system that there is; has a
coaching group of his own; and just knows a lot about direct marketing. So please give a warm welcome to
my good friend, Dean Jackson. I call him dog, so you can call him Dean, or you can call him dog.
Dean Jackson: You can call me – this is all right, right here. It’s comfy; very nice. I had an insight, when you
were just talking about that people don’t think like customers, but what I realized is that that’s absolutely
true. They don’t think like customers, but everybody acts like customers. All these people who come up
and share things, or people who come up and talk to you, they talk just like their customers talk because all
they’re concerned about is how does this apply to me? How is this my situation? That’s what every one of
your customers are thinking. That’s the only their thinking is how does this apply to me?
We often – we think about our customers as a group of people, but they think about themselves only as
individuals. When you think about it like that, the way that you act, when you’re in a group – in a group like
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this, for instance. I look at this, and the one thing that Eben has differently than what we do with the real
estate agents, is that when I’m doing a seminar like this, with 400 or 500 people in a room, every one of them
are real estate agents, so everything that I can talk about is specifically applicable to them. Now, everybody
in this room is in a different business, so every one of you are thinking – when Eben’s talking about principles
like this, you’re all thinking, how does this apply to me?
And every time you come and ask a question, or every exercise you go through, you’re not doing the exercises
thinking about somebody else’s business, are you? You’re doing the exercises thinking about you. So they’re
acting like customers, so they should apply that –
Eben Pagan: Yeah, no one’s walked up to the mic and said, “I don’t think that a few people over there really
got what you were trying to say.”
Dean Jackson: Yeah.
Eben Pagan: Or, “I don’t think that the group is really understanding this point.” I haven’t heard that one,
yet. I don’t think I’ve ever heard that one, actually, at anything I was doing.
Dean Jackson: No, they’re selfish. This is the most selfish group I’ve ever seen.
Eben Pagan: Huh, well, selfish bunch of individuals.
Dean Jackson: Yes. That’s it; a selfish bunch of individuals. Now, I told you some of the things that I wanted
to talk about.
Eben Pagan: Hit me.
Dean Jackson: One of them – I always share all these things because when I’m saying to Eben that my joy in
life would be to be a business philosopher, that kind of – I think about things; I observe things; and I see how
they apply to my situation, and how they apply to different people’s situations. So when I – well, let me say
this: when is a diet pill worth $153.00?
Male Speaker: When it works.
Dean Jackson: Does anybody know? If you were paying attention, over the last few years, what we’ve all been
privileged to see is a master class in focusing on your customers. I was watching – you guys are familiar with
that commercial – the one I was quoting – for Leptoprin? Doesn’t it sound like a pharmaceutical product?
For one thing, it sounds official, but do you remember the girl – do you remember the lady who was doing
the commercial? She’s standing there saying, “When is a diet pill worth $153.00?” And she’s saying, “If you’re
seriously overweight, and you need to lose 20, 30, 40 pounds, you need Leptoprin.
When you’ve tried everything else and it’s failed, you need Leptoprin.” It’s interesting because they’re
speaking to the person who has tried everything else. If they – what they have is a diet pill that you take and
it helps you lose weight. Now, do you believe that there’s some special formulation that makes Leptoprin
more powerful than any of the other over-the-counter diet medications that you can get? Is there anything
that makes it absolutely special?
When you think about that, the very best customer for them is somebody who already has proven that they’re
willing to take diet pills, but they probably have tried all of the diet pills and found out that none of the diet
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pills work. So how do they differentiate themselves from that? They say – speak directly to that person – to
the person who needs to lose 20, 30, 40 pounds, and price it at five or six times more than any of the other
diet pills that they could buy over the counter, which makes you think this must be the stuff. This must be
the real stuff. I have a serious weight problem that I need to take this.
So I was watching this. That commercial was one of the most successful short-form infomercials that was on
TV.
Eben Pagan: How long was that commercial?
Dean Jackson: It was about 90 seconds, I guess – 90 seconds, or maybe two minutes, whatever the standard
long-form –
Eben Pagan: I’m not a TV watcher, but I noticed something that he said. I’m just gonna comment a little
bit. Notice he said 20, 30, 40 pounds overweight? Do you think it’s a coincidence that the average American
is about 30 pounds overweight?
Dean Jackson: Yeah, isn’t that something?
Eben Pagan: Nice bracketing, to get everyone, but it still sounds very specific.
Dean Jackson: Making it sound like that’s a serious problem. If you need to lose 20 or 30 pounds, that’s
serious and you need serious medicine for that.
Eben Pagan: Yeah.
Dean Jackson: So I’m watching this, and I’d been observing it, and I thought it’s brilliant – looking at it
from a marketing standpoint, how that works. And then, I was about – maybe two years after the first time
I saw that commercial, I saw another commercial that started out with, “When is a diet pill worth $153.00?
When it works.” And then, it pans out, and there’s another girl looking at the television that’s playing that
commercial, saying, “Do you remember that commercial? Well, it’s true. Leptoprin does work, but you don’t
need to pay $153.00 for it, now, thanks to the folks at Generix Labs, now there’s Leptopril, which is the same
formula that’s available in Leptoprin, for less than five times the cost.”
Now, when you think about that, you look at – I thought that is brilliant because for all the world, it
looked like it’s mirroring the pharmaceutical industry where somebody – a pharmaceutical company will
invent something, and they get a short window of time where they’re protected from anybody using their
formulation, and then it expires, and you can get generics of the things. So Generix – with an x – Labs was
presenting this Leptopril. I thought that is the most brilliant thing ever, but something made me think, what
would make this masterful is if it’s the same company that’s doing it.
Eben Pagan: Thinking like an evil marketing genius.
Dean Jackson: Yes, and I thought that can’t possibly be, but I went and looked it up and I uncovered,
perhaps, the most evil marketing empire I’ve ever uncovered. I mean evil in the good way.
Eben Pagan: Good evil.
Dean Jackson: Yeah. So there’s a company called Western Holdings, which owned both Leptoprin and
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Leptopril. Now, guess what else they owned? Do you remember seeing the commercial that said – had
another woman, an older woman, saying, “Remember when you could lose 10 or 20 pounds, and how easy
that was? Now that we’re older, it’s a little more difficult. Once you reach menopause, we all know that it’s
much more difficult to lose weight. That’s why you need Estrin D. It’s specifically formulated for the needs of
menopausal women.” Then – do you think that’s possible, too? That there’s a weight-loss formula specifically
formulated for menopausal women?
Psychologically, that’s probably absolutely true. Now, when you look at what are some of the other things
that people might have a problem losing weight with, they have a solution for every one of them. Somebody
might say, “Well, I can’t lose weight because I’ve got a thyroid problem.” Well, you, my friend, need Thyrin
D because – no, it’s Thyrin ATC, I’m sorry. I get all my little alphabets mixed up in the end – but this one is
specifically formulated for people have undiagnosed underactive thyroid.
Eben Pagan: Undiagnosed –
Dean Jackson: It’s undiagnosed.
Eben Pagan: Underactive thyroid?
Dean Jackson: Now, that sounds like – you may be one of the millions of people who suffer from underactive
thyroid, and not even know it, yeah.
Eben Pagan: That is the most evil way of saying it’s not your fault that I’ve ever heard.
Dean Jackson: But now, here’s the thing, even if you didn’t fall into any of those, and you’re still – we want to
capture everybody – have you seen the commercial: are you over 30, over-stressed and overweight? Look in
the mirror. You’ve probably got excess fat around your belly, hips and thighs.
Eben Pagan: Are you overweight? You’ve probably got extra fat on your body?
Dean Jackson: Just let me ask you, aside from your belly, hips and thighs, where else might you store some
excess fat, if it’s not in your belly, hips and thighs. Now here’s the brilliant transitional statement – you say
all of that, and then they say, “Now, there’s Relacor.” That’s not saying anything that is making any claim.
They’re saying now there’s Relacor. It’s not your fault. It’s that’s nasty little stress hormone called cortisol
that traps fat around your mid-section. It’s just that. Now there’s Relacor. But there’s a point this: every one
of your customers is putting up some imaginary or real friction between them and the benefit that you can
offer them.
For weight loss, we just identified the main things that people say: well, I’ve tried diet pills; I’ve got a lot
of weight to lose, that can’t help me; but I’m menopausal, that’s why I can’t lose weight; I’ve got a thyroid
problem, that’s why I can’t lose weight; I’ve tried everything, I’m over-stressed. Now, what really got them in
trouble – and you don’t see many of their commercials on because a lot of their products have been banned –
is they developed a product called PediaLean. Can you guess what that’s for? It’s specifically formulated for
the needs of obese children between the ages of 6 and 15.
It’s just – when you start looking at how they approached this whole thing – of looking at what friction are
they presenting to themselves – just like when people come up to the mic and say, “Well, my market’s just a
little bit different,” fill in the blank – whatever it is. You’re absolutely right. Your market is different, and the
only who’s trying to make them all the same is you because it would be easier for you if everybody was all the
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same, but there’s no reason that you can’t have a specific formula, designed specifically for the needs of each
one of the major individual avatars that you’ve created.
It’s not trying to lump everybody into one avatar. It’s trying to identify who are all the individual avatars that
I can serve, and there’s no reason that you can’t have a product for each of them. None of us – very few of
us – are marketing things that we have to go into big production on, where it’s a whole process to create, and
we have to buy this big inventory of stuff. Most of us are marketing information products, in some way or
another, which are very easy to adapt to the market. Sometimes you don’t even have to adapt your product.
Does anybody ever get headaches? Yeah, a couple of you – migraine headaches?
I had a friend who would come down to Florida – he lived in Canada – and you can’t get this special Excedrin
migraine in Canada. So we went to the pharmacy – and I have a friend who is a pharmacist – and what we
discovered was that there is zero difference between Excedrin extra strength, and Excedrin migraine, aside
from the packaging – exactly the same pills in the bottle. Somebody who has a migraine is looking – they’re
thinking that’s what I have. That’s the one for me. Does anybody know if there’s even any Excedrin regular
strength? Everybody thinks – it’s almost like we’re going for something that’s a little bit more than what we
actually need.
If it’s extra strength, that should be fine for my regular headache, right? We all want to be over-healed. Now,
it’s not just evil companies that do this, too. How many of you have heard of Procter and Gamble? Now, if
you go to the grocery store, and you go to the laundry detergent aisle, how many laundry detergents do you
think Procter and Gamble has in that category?
[Audience Response]
Lots of different ones – this is a whole thing. Procter and Gamble specializes in specialized brands. They just
had their 23rd billion-dollar brand. Now, they have 23 brands that do over $1 billion a year. When you look
down the laundry aisle, it’s not just one thing called laundry detergent that they have. They’ve got Tide – and
what’s Tide for? When you want to get your clothes, what?
[Audience Response]
The whitest, exactly. That’s important to some people. But what if you want to get out tough stains? What
are you gonna use? Era is there. What if you’re a bachelor, and you’re in a hurry, and you don’t want to worry
about separating all your clothes? Cheer, exactly. You look at this – it’s like it would be easier for a company
like Procter and Gamble to have a box called laundry detergent, wouldn’t it? That’s what the supermarket’s
do. That’s what the big labels do. They don’t care about – it’s laundry detergent. It’s the cheapest thing; here
it is. You need it; we got it; there you go – big box of it.
But when you’re thinking like your customer; when you’re putting their needs first, you start thinking about
how are they identifying themselves? How are they speaking about themselves? What do they really want?
When you start doing that, there’s no reason that you can’t be like Procter and Gamble. There’s no reason
that you can’t have five different laundry detergents that are the best selling brands for that specific category.
When you look at it, what are the things that people would identify as being different about their needs than
just the generic needs of the people who you would categorize as your customers?
There’s probably at least five or six or seven different varieties of avatar that you could have. Wouldn’t you
say that’s true? Yeah. So when you start thinking about your ideal thing, one of the things that would make
it easy for you – the thing that makes it easiest to sell something is to sort your prospects before they ever get
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to your sales page. Sort them before they get there. Don’t have one thing where they come and they have to
read through to see that it’s for them. Sort them ahead of them, and then, when you’re right there, you know
that everybody that comes to that particular page wants that particular benefit.
That’s – it’s sort of like sacrificing a little bit, but the benefit that you get is that you can speak to everybody
like they are your ideal prospect. If somebody comes and leaves their name and email at your website, can
you tell which of the people who leave their name and email are going to be the buyers, just by looking at
their name and email? Can you tell which ones are gonna be the buyers? You can’t, can you? The very best
thing that you could do is to treat every one of them like they are going to be the buyer because there’s no way
for you to tell, and the people who are going to be the buyers will appreciate your leadership.
I loved when you were talking leadership, and you were talking about how people are silently begging to be
led. Most of the time, what people that I experience talking with, who own businesses – and same thing
with you – they don’t really have a crystal clear vision of the steps that somebody’s going to take to get to the
biggest possible benefit that you can offer them. So when you start thinking about that, you want to make
that identity that this is the one specific thing that you need for your very specific problem. There’s a book
that I’m gonna recommend for you called The P&G 99.
It’s a book about Procter and Gamble, and about their methods of creating all of these No. 1 brands. The
three things that stood out the most, for me, from that book – three of their principles are – No. 1, plan to
dominate. Now, you can’t even – you can’t say those words. You can’t say those words – plan to dominate
– without, in some way, changing your physiology. It changes the way you think about it. If you plan to
dominate something, that’s different than, “I think I’m gonna try this out a little bit.” They’re not coming into
the laundry category saying, “You know what I think we ought to try is a little laundry detergent.
Let’s just put some out there and see how that goes.” But they plan to dominate, and the reason they do
that is because it’s far more profitable to be the No. 1 in a category, than it is to be an also-ran – to be one
of the contenders. It’s far better if you plan to dominate right from the beginning. So the second principle
that stood out for me was build the very best product from the customer’s perspective. Build the very best
product for the need that they have. So that’s why, when you see all the new formulations of Tide coming
out, they’re not holding anything back.
If something costs more to put in, they put it in, but they charge more for it. You guys recognize that No. 1
brands often charge a premium for things because they’re not concerned with attracting people who are just
interested in price. What they want is to be the only solution – the very best solution – for that customer’s
specific need. Then, No. 3 that stood out was to treat every individual brand like it’s its own business unit. So
that’s why, when you look at all of the companies, all of the brands that Procter and Gamble has created, they
run all independently. They’re not advertising two of their products together.
They’re focused on one thing. They’ve got whole teams of people – if you want to see how deep you can go on
something, go to the crest.com website. It’s the Crest dental care system. They’ve got whole teams of people
who dream the day away thinking about how can we sell more Crest? How can we make Crest better? So
they’re completely focused on all of those things, and now, you see that – you always talk about how things
are sort of diverging, and they’re becoming more and more specific.
There’s not just one Crest, now; there’s Crest for whitening; there’s Crest for tartar control; there’s Crest for
sensitive teeth – all the things that you can imagine; all the possible friction that somebody might put up to
identify – self-identify themselves. So when you think and apply those three principles to your product; to
your brand – whatever it is that you’re creating – it really sets you up to be the only solution for that particular
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customer. You’ve got exactly what they need.
Eben Pagan: One of my thoughts, also, is that – as you’re saying – maybe there are five or six different
customer avatars – when I speak those kinds of words, what often comes up is an objection – I’ll just play a
little devil’s advocate, here.
Dean Jackson: Oh, I would love that.
Eben Pagan: You want some devil’s advocate?
Dean Jackson: I’d love it.
Eben Pagan: Well, I don’t have time to start six different companies, and make six different –
Dean Jackson: Well, start one.
Eben Pagan: Right.
Dean Jackson: Why not start one?
Eben Pagan: Which one?
Dean Jackson: Pick one. What one do you think’d be the best?
Eben Pagan: I’d say, probably, the one where the customers have the biggest need.
Dean Jackson: Exactly. So when you start out, you look at, probably, the curve of the way that that Western
Holdings unleashed everything – and I wish, now, I had been paying more attention to it – but they had the
Leptoprin, was the first one because who’s the very most likely customer to buy a diet pill? Someone who’s
already bought a diet pill; somebody who really needs to lose weight; somebody who maybe would try it
again if they thought for sure that it would work. So they’re leap-frogging all of those other things. This is
different. It is a diet pill, but it’s specifically for people who need to lose 20, 30, 40 pounds.
So you think about what would be your biggest group, or your biggest customer avatar, and focus on that
one first. Often, they’ll lead to the others because they’re mostly distinctions in that. So that one’s going to
appeal to people who are severely overweight, who’ve tried diet pills. Then there are menopausal women,
who just accept – they just might think to themselves, “Well, I guess this is what happens when you go
through menopause. I can’t possibly lose weight, now. It’s too late. I’m menopausal.”
Eben Pagan: Well, not if you have Estrin D.
Dean Jackson: Yeah. So you start thinking about – that’s why it’s – focus on the friction. That’s really where
it is. The friction is your freedom because if you start looking at where the friction – what it is that people
are presenting as the reason why, or specific things that they’re looking for – how my situation is different –
it’s funny, isn’t it? When you think about it like that, that your – you do, if you look at yourself or you look
at other people talking about their business, we act like customers. So it’s easy to start thinking like them
because that’s exactly how they act.
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Disc 5
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Eben Pagan: You and I were having a discussion. I don’t know if it was six or nine months ago, where you
stumbled across the realization that when you ask people, “What do you want your customer to do,” they
go, “Huh?” When Frank was talking about some of his most successful e-mails have been, “Read this right
away. Here’s a link you need to click, and watch this video.” When you really think about it, if you had the
power – this is why I always start with people when crafting messages. If you had the power to command your
prospect to do whatever it is you want them to do, what would that be?
Male Speaker: When Frank was talking about some of his most successful e-mails have been, “Read this right
away. Here’s a link you need to click, and watch this video.” When you really think about it, if you had the
power – this is why I always start with people when crafting messages. If you had the power to command your
prospect to do whatever it is you want them to do, what would that be? If you look at that in the context of an
e-mail that you’re sending out, a marketing message, Frank just boiled it down there.
What would you really want that subject line to do if you could have it do anything you wanted it to do? You
want them to read the message. Read this right away. That’s pretty effective. The next thing is that when you
get in there, what is the next thing you want somebody to do? You want them to click on that link. So often,
we try and convince people. We try to go through all this stuff to create all this obfuscation around the real
thing that we want them to do.
What we really want them to do is just click this link. What Frank has really mastered is saying as few words
as it possibly takes to get someone to do that one thing that you want them to do. They thank you for it.
People are thankful when you lead them. That’s why it’s so important that you always think ahead. I was
sharing with you that I just discovered how different things, different stimuli, trigger a different part of your
brain. I was sharing with Eben that when I was playing chess, there was a period of time when I had a friend
who was really into chess.
I was learning it and playing a lot. Does anybody play chess? What I noticed, for me, about playing chess
was that I started in my everyday life thinking two to three moves ahead on everything. I found myself at a
traffic light thinking to myself where the traffic light was out. I was thinking, “Okay, if I go, these guys are
going to go, and then they’re going to go.” I saw exactly how it was all going to play out. I started seeing
different things in my light, so that stimulated that part of my brain that can see what two or three moves
ahead of what is going to happen.
Then I started watching. One day, I ran across – I was really tired. I was veging in front of the TV. I came
across this show on the Discovery Channel called How It’s Made. Has anybody seen that? It’s almost like
trance inducing, that show. The announcer has such a soothing voice. The music is kind of – and it’s seeing
all these completely intricate assembly and manufacturing processes that you think can’t possibly be that
hard to build a light bulb. But it’s really a complex process.
It shows you, step by step, how everything works. I started thinking, and it stimulated that part of my brain
that I started thinking about marketing problems and seeing how that flows, how somebody is going to flow
through your entire system. I started narrating it in my head, like the narrator from the Discovery Channel
show.
Eben Pagan: That soothing voice with yourself.
Male Speaker: Yeah, and you start seeing how the intricate process is going to lay out. People thank you
when you take a leadership role and that you’re leading them to the next step. Often, what we do is we don’t
want to lead people to the next step. We want to be here for people. We want to present them with all the
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options they could possibly do. If you’ve got any questions, feel free to contact me. Has anybody ever said
anything like that to a customer in an e-mail or on your website? Look around. Everything you need is right
here. If you’ve got any questions, I’m just a phone call or an e-mail away. Don’t hesitate for a minute.
There is something going on there that I don’t know whether it would be a deeper inherent self-esteem issue.
It’s the way that we’re raised in society that we don’t – we’re much more comfortable when people ask us
questions and we can respond to them. We’re more than happy to serve them, but we don’t want to kind of
push things on people. We don’t want to seem pushy. I started thinking about that, and – Imagine if I were
to bring you into my home and sit you down in my living room and say to you, “I’m really glad you’re here. If
there’s anything you want to eat or drink, there’s lots of stuff in the fridge. Help yourself. I’ll be over here. If
you need anything, just give me a call.”
How many of you would go and get something from my fridge? Yeah, a couple. I don’t know if Sean Roister
would for sure. Can you – if you really put yourself in that situation, and you’ve probably been in that
situation a lot where people are saying that if you want anything, there’s lots of stuff in the fridge. Make
yourself at home. You never do. You never got to somebody’s fridge and take stuff out of the fridge unless
you know them really well.
If you contrast that – if I were to sit you in my living room and go into the kitchen, come out with a plate of
freshly baked cookies, and come right up to you and say, “Would you like a cookie?” How many of you would
take a cookie? Here’s the weird thing. It would be more difficult for you not to take the cookie than it would
be to take the cookie, wouldn’t it? Even if you didn’t particularly like the kind of cookie that I had baked.
You’d take it because it would be rude to reject me. When you really think about that, nobody likes to reject
anybody.
Nobody likes to say no. That’s why people who make direct requests often get the result that they’re looking
for. They’re trying to be confusing, you’re trying to wrap it all up in being of service, and available for people
and just letting them know that you’re here. You’re not going to push anything on them, but if they want
any help, you’re more than happy to help them. Often, all you have to say is, “Would you like a cookie?
Would you like to buy Frank’s Mass Control System today?” That’s all it’s asking somebody. Offering them
something. They’re more than happy to take it.
You would never in a million years, if I sat you down in my living room, say to me, “You know what? Now
that you mention it, would you bake me some cookies?” Even though I would gladly do it for you, probably,
but you’d never ask me to go out of my way for you, would you? No, you just need to take people by the
hand from where they are when they first come in. We’ve pre-sorted them right from the beginning. We’re
assuming that everybody that comes to your website is the buyer. They’re the one that is going to buy it.
We’re going to treat them all like they’re going to buy it, and we’re going to lead them to the next step.
“Would you like a cookie?” What are they going to probably want with that cookie? They’re probably going
to want some milk. You’re just thinking through, “What can I lead people to do? What’s the path that is
going to take them from the first contact they have with me to where they’re actually my customer?”
Eben Pagan: Gary Halbert has some great stuff. I was hoping we’d get some time to check his material out.
We may today. We may not have time, but TheGaryHalbertLetter.com has got all his newsletters up there for
free. Read them all many times. It’s the best copywriting education you can give yourself for free. Amazing.
He has a little saying in one of his newsletters, and it goes like this. Don’t worry about the dogs. Concentrate
on selling the foxes. What he means by this is if 100 people come to your website, and three of them are going
to buy your stuff, only talk to those three people.
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The mistake we make when we’re marketing is we talk to all 100. We’re really trying to talk the 97 into buying.
What we do when we’re talking to the 97 and trying to talk them into buying is we push the three away. We
set off the alarm bells of the three of, “What the hell is this? This is not for me.” Where as if you talk to the
ones who are there, motivated, want to take action, and help them make a buying decision, you’ll probably
get some of the 97 to jump into the boat and say, “Wow, this sounds like a good idea.” And you’ll get the three
that wanted to buy anyway.
Don’t talk to the 100 people. Talk to the three, and only talk to one of them one to one. Don’t worry about
the dogs. Forget what they think. It’s irrelevant. It really doesn’t matter what they think. They don’t matter.
The only people that matter are the ones that are going to buy. If they’re going to buy, you should be talking
to them as if they are going to buy. I learned this lesson in the dating world. If you approach a member of
the opposite sex, and you’re tentative, weird, and freaked out, and you think, “Oh, there’s probably only a
small chance we’d be compatible.”
You’ve got the demeanor of, “Hi. I realize it probably wouldn’t work out anyway. Even if it did, we’d probably
break up. I know the statistics. I’m kind of low self-esteem anyway. You probably wouldn’t like me. I know
you’ve got issues. I shouldn’t even talk to you.” You’re probably not going to get very far. A lot of times, you’ll
see a guy talk to a woman, and he’ll say something like, “You wouldn’t go on a date with me, would you?”
Good NLP, right? “You wouldn’t go on a date with me?” Great, perfect.
There was an epiphany in my own development when I thought, “Okay, let me think about this.” Let’s say
that 50 percent of the women I’d start a conversation with are available and looking for someone who is an
interesting date. Let’s say 50 percent of them aren’t available. They’re married, in a relationship, whatever. If
I walk up to all of them and start talking to them as if they’re single, available, would love to have a –
Male Speaker: Five star prospects.
Eben Pagan: Five star – six star prospects in this case. That’s probably going to make it much more likely
that the ones who are single and available are going to say yes. Then I realized that if you really do this right,
if you just walk up to someone and start a conversation and say, “Hey, how’s it going? Let me learn about you.
We should hang out sometime.” Everyone will want to hang out with you if you’re in a relationship or not
because you’re being friendly, assumptive, and let’s hang out. You have to start qualifying the other person.
It turns the whole equation around.
You can turn people off very quickly who would have been interested if you start talking weird.
Male Speaker: I heard Jay Abraham say one time that sometimes, the best headline to sell a horse is horse for
sale because sometimes there are people who are looking for a horse.
Eben Pagan: Some of those people that want to buy them are actually looking for horses.
Male Speaker: But so often, we try and create this broader lifestyle thing about buying a horse. We’re trying
to not only capture the horse buyers, but we don’t want to turn people off who don’t want a horse. We talk
about exhilaration, freedom, and relationship. That’s new to me, but a relationship with your horse. They
might talk about all those things, and the people looking for a horse might not see immediately that what
you’re talking about is a horse. Then they have to get four pages down your sales letter to figure out that
you’re selling horses.
My favorite example of that is Drew Rothe Jack Litz when we were in San Francisco. I’m going to tell that
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story because it fits perfectly here. Eben and I – this was in San Francisco, probably in ’96 or ’97. We had a
friend who worked with as a new home sales consultant. He’d sell new home projects. He was working with
this one project that were selling loft shelves. They were empty lofts, and you completed – they had 28 of
these. They had hired this big, creative agency to handle all of the marketing. They were running quarter
page ads in the Union Tribune. Is that the – what’s the big paper up there?
The Chronicle. The San Francisco Chronicle. They’re running these big quarter-page ads that were costing
$28,000.00 each, and running these ads that were looking down on a drawing of a turtle. It had an arrow
pointing to the turtle’s head saying, “This is you.” Then it had an arrow pointing to the shell that said, “Your
new loft at,” whatever the name of these lofts were, but they were south of market, which is in Soma, which
was the cool area at the time. Nothing was happening. It was ridiculous is what it was. They were having
these open houses and nobody was coming.
Eben and I, this was our favorite thing to do, we started scheming about it. We’re saying, “What are they
really looking for? The first thing is that if you sell multiple of anything, get that out of your head. It doesn’t
matter that you’re selling multiple of something because somebody is only buying one. You might as well
focus on finding one person who wants to buy it, and do that 28 times, rather than sell 28 condos.
So we started thinking, “What would somebody who is looking for this loft shell, how would they describe
what they’re looking for?” Soma was this – we didn’t know the area, but Jack was telling us how cool it was,
south of market. Everybody knows Soma. That’s what the area is. That’s where all the really cool people
live. If somebody were to describe a loft that they’re looking for, they might describe it as a really cool loft.
That’s what they’re looking for. We made this little classified ad that started out, “Soma,” because that’s what
everybody looked at.
So it’s categorized right there. “Really cool loft. You finish inside. Call my voicemail for details,” and it had
a phone number there. We made it seem like one guy selling one really cool loft. When we called – rather
– we started thinking we were so accustomed to saying, “Free recorded message,” which is something that a
marketing thing would say, but one guy might say, “Call my voicemail for details.” We left the number, and
then the voicemail said, “Hey, it’s Jack. If you’re calling about the loft, it’s on this street, south of the market.
I’m going to be over there on Sunday afternoon if you want to stop by after 2:00.”
We ran that ad one time. I forget the exact details, but let’s say there 18 people or –
Eben Pagan: It was like 20 or something.
Male Speaker: Twenty-eight people is probably what it was. They ended up selling I forget how many of
the lofts that they sold, but it ended up – one insertion of a little classified ad speaking to the exact target
audience, one person at a time, did way more than weeks and weeks and weeks of these $28,000.00 ads. Then
they proceeded to not run that ad again because it wasn’t the image they wanted to portray. The developer
was more concerned with portraying this image of this really cool place to live. It was some kind of a new
abstract.
Eben Pagan: Archetypally represented by a turtle.
Male Speaker: Exactly. It was the hot advertising agency that created the things. It was the developer’s son’s
buddy.
Eben Pagan: Right, right, right. There was a family relationship. Exactly.
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Male Speaker: It was this big awkwardness that they couldn’t not run the ads because even though they
weren’t working. But sometimes, people let their own, “I can’t do that because that’s not my – I’m more
professional.” People are afraid of being direct. You look at Donald Trump. We talk about leaving people. If
you ever watch The Apprentice, he’s always with the one word thing. Sit. Leave. Tell me. He has gestures for
things, but he’s clear and direct in his communications. We can be more like that, and maybe we’d be more
like Donald.
Eben Pagan: We could all use an extra spoon of the Donald. Did somebody say, “Oh, boy.” Yeah, the hair
is tight. Who has an idea that is a specific, actionable, practical idea that an information product marketer
could use to increase their conversion? It might be a specific tactic or technique. It might be changing the
color of a button. It might be a particular set of wording that you put on your website. It might be a pricing
scheme. Something that you’ve learned that is very specific and very actionable.
Something that you know how to do and you know that most people in here would get a lot out of this one
tactic. Who has got one of those things? Raise your hand. If you’ve got one that is really awesome, and that
you can explain in 30 seconds or less, get to the mic.
Female Speaker: This is an idea to help you get the words your customers are using so that you can
use them on your sales pages for better conversion. What I did was I created an extra e-mail account on my
domain that is called Vent@mydomain. I told them in the e-mail in my auto-responders that instead of
taking their frustrations out with their kids on their kids, to send me an e-mail and vent to me instead, and
take out all their frustrations in the e-mail. Then I’d get a bunch of e-mails from people saying, “I just lost it
today. This is what happened.”
Then I have tons of their words ready for me to just pluck and put into a headline or any other bullets.
Eben Pagan: That’s a really good idea.
Mike: I hope this falls into the rules of what you wanted. Not quite conversion rate increasing, but overall
conversion numbers would. It is when you’re going out and recruiting some affiliate partners. You get them
to finally agree to post a banner ad. If you give them fake affiliate commissions that you will end up paying
for, but they didn’t actually generate sales, you’ll get a higher stick rate with those new affiliates being more
excited to continue to promote you and keep those banners up. It’ll give them enough time to actually allow
real conversions to come over to prove your conversion rate for you.
Eben Pagan: Mike, my tweak on that to keep it honest as much as possible is you can just send them a
check and say, “Here are some affiliate payments in advance.” Right? Either way. A great one. Let them win
first.
Male Speaker: This one is for people who have an order responder series. What I did was I put a tracking
– on one shopping cart I put a tracking URL in each of my order responders that was different. If I had ten
e-mails in my order responder series, I had ten different links. I could tell which ones generated the most
sales for me. Then I took the e-mails that generated the most sales, and I looked at what was in those e-mails
that made them generate more sales, and I put them in my sales page. I moved those e-mails up to the
beginning of the series so my clients would get the ones that generated the most sales right up front before
they had a chance to unsubscribe, and my conversion went way up through the roof.
Female Speaker: This is offline, online integration. Test pay per click ads. Take your best ad. Expand
it by 150 words. Put it into a postcard. Use click to mail because they have the best connection to the
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postal service. Try three postcards consecutively. Minimum amount, 200 postcards in order to get a proper
conversion reading. Take your very best postcard. Take it up a notch. Go to a direct mail house. Put that
postcard inside the buyer’s packages going out.
Find a fit with your market. People who have already paid for something that will be parallel to what you’re
offering. That goes inside the package as a JB. Give away a bonus because it’ll be a benefit to your potential JB
partner as well as you. It’s a great lead generation, and you’re already into the buyer’s mindset at that point.
Eben Pagan: In the past, figure out worked in direct mail. We had to mail a bunch of letters and go
through all this hassle. She’s talking about shortcutting the process tremendously by testing pay per click
and taking pay per click that works. Expand it into a postcard, get the postcard working, and then expand
that. Understand? It’s the other way around.
Male Speaker: This is a Google content sharing tip. If you look at headlines in the newspaper, Frank
reminded me of this. You can see what the hot news is with blogs. What you can do is if you take the
article of the blog or whatever they’re talking about, and it’s relevant to you, and you can do this by setting
up Google reminders. You can actually place an ad that has to do with the article. If it’s relevant to you – if
you’re doing a dieting product, and it says – there’s a new headline like, “So and so dies of this diet,” you can
read the ad, and make your own ad that is similar to that, like, “Have you read lately that someone has died
through this article? Check out the results in return.”
You can put that right under with content on the same article. Google – I saw the click costs go way down. If
you are in the health market, you can go around and find all these blogs that have ad-sense on it and place
these ads. You’re talking like maybe 20 and 40 cents for a click for something in the health related field. It’s
a good tip to get lots of traffic. It’s really cheap, and it can be applied to anybody that has a blog that has
AdSense on it.
Male Speaker: Okay, so everybody has got an e-mail list here, right? Sometimes when you send them affiliate
offers, people are kind of immune to that, and they don’t like to click on them. What I like to do is I go to the
product creator. I get them to do an audio interview with me, so we give them like an hour of content, and
then we put on a soft sell [inaudible] affiliate offer, but a different URL. Then if you want to get really sneaky,
what I do is offer –
Eben Pagan: If you’re inspired by that level of sneaking, you can go up to extra sneaky.
Male Speaker: You give your list an hour of content that gives them a soft sell to an affiliate link, but if
you want to get really sneaky, what I do is I take that audio that I’ve got, and I burn it on a CD and mail it
to people. I either build a physical mailing list through direct mail, or I syndicate it like you’ve done with
articles. Give it to other podcasts and blogs. So they get the content, and then I get the affiliate sale off their
list.
Eben Pagan: I like how sneaky is getting to mean give away lots of cool stuff for free. I like that. I like
where marketing is going now.
Male Speaker: This tip is how to know with 100 percent certainty if your product will sell. How many people
would be interested in that? You don’t need to create the product first. All you do is you create the sales
letter. You spend $100.00 in pay per click. You do the keyword research, and you look for terms, keywords
relative in your market where approximately 100 searches a day happen in terms of volume. You buy up those
words, and you throw them up in Google AdWords. You want to go for five ad groups with about five to 15
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keywords per ad group. You want to make sure that you have Google Analytics turned on.
You want to have goal conversion set on for the conversion event from the ad to the page, and then from the
page to once they click the order. You put up the sale page and see if you get the order. If the order comes
through, you know that your product will sell, but there is one thing that the customer thinks that they’re
going to get the product. To be fair, return their money, and give them twice – if it was $50.00, send them
$50.00 back, and send them another $50.00.
Tell them that you’re still working on the product and are doing some changes to it. As soon as you’re done
with it, you’ll send it to them for free. If you want to know if the niche is viable, you can go to SpyFu.com,
and it will tell you how much competitors in the market are spending in their budget. If it’s $20.00 to $50.00,
or $50.00 to $100.00. That’s free, but there is a pay service that gives more details, but the free version will get
you all the info you need.
Eben Pagan: There was a lot of information in what you just said right there. Kind of complex. Can you
boil it down into three steps someone would do?
Male Speaker: Yeah, three steps. Go to SpyFu.com. Type in the keywords you think are your primary
keywords. Open up a Google AdWords account, and throw those keywords into groups of five to 15. Write
the ad. Put up the sales page and make an order form, and that’s it.
Eben Pagan: Another variation on that, if you don’t want to do the whole sell a product that doesn’t exist
yet is you can sell a tele-class that you’re going to do in the future, or you can sell a personal consultation that
you’re going to do in the future. You follow? You can package all the same content into something you’re
going to deliver later.
Male Speaker: I have a real life conversion success story that I just implemented with my own business. It’s
something you guys can do within the next few days, literally. I had, for one of my e-books, the standard sales
letter with a pop up window. Then a quarter of the way down the page, just remind, “Make sure to download
your free report,” and the pop up window is download your free report. I was getting about 8 to 15 percent
conversion, depending on how I split tested it. I changed the heading, changed the wording, whatever.
I was getting, on average, 10 percent. Then I was going through the archives, and I seen this psychic sales
letter. I remembered that, but I never bothered to implement it. I stuck the psychic sales letter up on my
site. It took a while to get it figured out and get the customized answers, but by using that, my conversions
jumped to literally over 50 percent.
It’s 52 percent conversion to my opt-in. So that’s one out of every two people that goes to my squeeze page is
getting on my list. That helped me increase my list by over 4,000 people since my last seminar.
Male Speaker: Just finishing a book called Predictably Irrational. Do you know it? Have you talked about it
here?
Eben Pagan: I haven’t mentioned it here.
Male Speaker: The first part of the book is all about pricing strategy. One of the things it talks about is that
people can’t evaluate a price on its own unless it has a context. In other words, is $97.00 a good price? I don’t
know. It depends on what it’s for. It also depends on what other offers might be made at the same time. Let’s
say you had a product that you wanted to sell for $97.00. Rather than just putting it up for sale at – and by
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the way. Let’s assume it has some bonuses built into it. Rather than just offering it at $97.00, instead, make it
$107.00.
Have another offer that is without most of the bonuses and most of the really good, juicy stuff. Make it the
core offer still, and make it $87.00. What will happen is people will spend $20.00 for that stuff, and they’ll pay
the $87.00 for the right to do it. They’re going to buy the thing that is just a little more expensive, but a much
bigger value.
Eben Pagan: Good psychology tip. They’ll buy the thing that is $20.00, but they’ll pay $87.00 for the right
to do it. Thank you.
Male Speaker: My name is Eric from Los Angeles. The best conversion advice, as well as the best customer
content management advice is on the Guru Mastermind website. For those of you a little more dependent on
seeing things in written form to really absorb all the fine points, instead of just audio and video, I created a
free, downloadable e-book. It’s 153 pages of every session, audio and video, on the Guru Mastermind website.
It’s only for us. Only for Guru Mastermind members. It’s available at MyGurumastermind.wordpress.com.
I’ll soon have the complete second month. It’s also about 150 pages as well. That’ll be up soon. You’re all
welcome to it. Just to prove this stuff is amazing, in the past, I’ve never written an e-book. I’ve never had my
own website. I wrote my first e-book in three days this past week. Last night I stood up my first website just
using the advice in here. Completely read to go, including sales page and landing page. It’s UARSRelief.com.
Some folks were asking me about my snoring remedy, and I want to say thank you so much, Eben, for what
you’ve done for us.
Eben Pagan: Time out for a second. I don’t know what that is, but it scares me. If it’s available to the
public. I appreciate so much what you’re doing, and I don’t know what’s in it. So thank you, and let’s talk.
Male Speaker: So on your webpage, you have a newsletter sign up box, name, e-mail. If you put a picture of
a real person, preferably you, by the sign up box, your conversion rate with increase. People, with I-tracking
studies, they always look for people first. That’s the first thing they see. You stick it where you want them to
go or do, and it increases.
Eben Pagan: We still have chatter from the controversy of what that was going rippling through the
audience. Friction in the Guru Mastermind. Someone is getting busted. Will you start over and say it again?
Male Speaker: Without getting into the details of the psychology of it, when there is a page of information,
people always see people first. They always see their eyes. On your webpage, you have name, e-mail, signup
box, e-newsletter. Go ahead and put your picture by the signup box, maybe leaning up against it, and it will
increase your conversions. It’s proven.
Male Speaker: This one is – just go to a website called Bubbl.us. It’s mind mapping software website. If you
go there, you can create a quick start guide for you product. It’s just a very visual representation, which you
can then – once you’ve made that, you can export it as a JPEG, a picture, and create a video recording using
Cantasia or Screen Flow, and put that on your website sales page as an additional bit of stacked value, as well
as to overcome the objections and friction that people may have to not knowing where to start.
I have to start with your proactive. You’ve got audios, e-book, and some video just giving it direction, step by
step, as to what they can do so that they’re not too confused or asking for a refund right afterwards.
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Male Speaker: My name is Jason. I have a great way to – we talked about risk reversals earlier. In order to get
some more risk reversals that your customers have where risk is to ordering that your customers have is have
a popup script that comes up when they click back when they decide they don’t want the e-book and don’t
want to order. Say, “Why didn’t you want to order today?” Have a box they can fill in and say, “If you give us
a legitimate answer, we’ll give you the e-book for free.” Do it for 100 or 1,000 customers. Find out why the
majority don’t want to order it.
Eben Pagan: How much does it cost to give the e-book away for free? Nothing. How much is the
information worth that can increase your conversion? A lot. Great idea. Thank you.
Female Speaker: Here’s a few. I can’t take credit for all these because I deal with so many of the
marketing experts. I’m just not going to assume everybody knows these already because I know them just
because I’m around you guys so much. Put your opt-in box above the fold. No. 2, pictures, videos, audios, all
convert.
Eben Pagan: Above the fold means when they hit your website, they can see the opt-in box. They don’t
have to scroll down.
Female Speaker: So it’s above – yeah, don’t scroll down anywhere. Make sure you check it in both
Firefox and in Internet Explorer. Photograph of yourself. Video, audio, what else, quick and dirty. There are
certain colors that convert really well. I forget the code on it, but if you go to our site, it’s the color there in
the headline. Another thing is – it’s a red burgundy, but there’s a particular color that is supposed to convert
more. Forgive me for that. The other thing is saying that there is a video inside as well as outside converted
with my real estate.
For real estate it worked this way because they don’t want to go there. I said, “Save time and gas. See the
place inside.” They’ll give you your name, e-mail address, and data before they go inside so they don’t have to
drive there.
Eben Pagan: Interestingly enough, my friend Brad Fallow, several months ago I was talking to him. He
said, “You know two word phrase increased Google AdWords click through conversion more than any
other two word phrase? Free video. I’ve said it before. A couple people may have heard it from him. Free
video. Very powerful. Good. Thank you guys very much. Next, over the last 90 days, who has implemented
something and could tell a really great speed of implementation story?
You’ve implemented something, you got some great results, you could tell an awesome speed of
implementation story. Who are you pointing at? That one? Not many people. What about if there is a new
MacBook Air in the mix? So we can take maybe – how about eight of them. The first eight to the mic. We
did this last time and had fun. Let’s just throw that on the line. We’ve got four, five, six, seven, eight. Here’s
the deal. The audience is going to vote.
The group gets to pick who has got the best speed of implementation story. It’s not necessarily about who
made the most money, but if you did make money, that means you made good results and are probably giving
customers what they need. That would be good. You’ve got 60 seconds to tell your story. Try to give us a little
context of who you are, what your product is, who your customer is. Talk about the implementation story
over the last 90 days. Talk about the time frame. Talk about what you did, and talk about the results you got.
Female Speaker: Since the last meeting we had, I wrote this book using the time chunking method.
I also launched a group-coaching program. I threw up a website. I stopped being accessible to my list. I
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stopped doing these live trainings I was doing, so they really wanted more access to me, so I threw up a
group-coaching program, and I sold out in one day. Then I used videos. Thank you, Andrea, for your advice.
I used videos. I did a viral video, and yesterday, Scott Martino sent it to his list, and my video – last time I
checked, I had gotten about 600 opt-ins.
They’re still coming in because the video went out yesterday. Those are my three stories.
Mark: How coincidental. I’m Mark from San Antonio, Texas, as well. Since our last meeting, I’ve created
and released my book, Crushing the Credit Bureaus. I also did a press release. It got picked up by all the
major newspaper real estate sections for San Antonio, Austin, Houston, Dallas. Asked to speak at those
events, and I’ve also been contacted by two of the larger regular real estate agent groups to come and do
presentations to their groups on helping their customers. Especially now in the credit crisis that we’re in to
getting their customers’ scores up.
I’ve also had a coaching program sold out for a couple clients that said, “Hey, I need my credit fixed now. I’ll
pay whatever it takes to get it done.”
Andreas: Hi, I’m Andreas from Sweden. I’m in development of a song-writing product. I wanted to
know the fears and frustrations of my prospects. I went to Facebook and ran an ad there. Through Facebook,
you can target people with interests like songwriting and music. I sent them to a survey. I told them I
wanted information about creating a great, free songwriting product. I got their fears and frustrations. They
were very open-minded in their writing. After the survey, I asked them to go to an opt-in page so I could send
them information when the product was ready for them. Before I stopped the ad, I got about 400 people
taking the survey.
Fifty percent of those also did opt-in.
Eben Pagan: Fantastic. I particularly commend you that you started with the customer in mind. Got
several submissions. We filled up with content, but we didn’t get time to do these as much justice as we
would have liked to. I went through and pared them down. I got some that I thought would be good for
critiquing and giving some lessons. HealthLady.com. Lose weight, feel better, have more energy. Much
better. Sugar, the legal heroin. You get an A. Nice work. Quick tweak for better conversion. If you’re like
me, you’re about to read and it’ll shock and horrify you.
Like many of you, I’m very saddened. You’re talking to a group. Talk to one person. Like you, I’m saddened.
Remember, they’re alone when they’re reading this. One little tweak, but good work. I love down there,
“Sugar is legal.” It’s so controversial. Don’t be humiliated ever again by a service company that does not
respect your time. If we’re not there on time, your service call is free. This headline, what business could it
apply to? What’s your guess?
Plumbing, cable, air conditioning, electrician, utility. Is that a problem? It is a problem. We’ve got a
picture of a sleeping baby and somebody holding a wrench, and then a big starburst that says, “Contact us
for an estimate.” Stop that. My Finance Manager, Version 2. The mortgage broker’s most powerful sales
commission and client software. This is – I think this is – as I recall, this is down the page a bit. Whose is
this? Come out from under the table. Where are you? He’s gone? Goodbye. He’s got good stuff.
What you’ll see here that is well done is mortgage broker’s most powerful sales commission and client
software. They know what they’re talking about. This could be done a little better, but a few examples of
what you get. Bam. Save unlimited amounts of information about your clients. Easy fill in the blank and
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save with just a few clicks. Keep track of all your lender details. Manage your clients. Quick access to lead
facilities. This is all stuff that makes sense to their client. It’s very client centered and client focused.
Secrets of chocolate. You’re about to discover seven healing powers of chocolate that will change your life.
One of the things we talked about in the customer summit was Eugene Schwartz talking about sophistication
levels of market. We’ve also talked about where the customer is at. My gut tells me I want some chocolate,
but it also tells me that the person that is coming here didn’t come here because they’re ailing, and they think
chocolate will heal them.
I could be wrong, but there is probably a little bit of a mismatch here, a disconnect. I would have asked them
what is the biggest problem of frustration with the client. AcaiBerryResource.com. Acai and super foods.
How to be healthier, look better, and have more energy. Does this sound like they understand what their
customer is looking for? If you’ve got five minutes, you’ll discover nutrition secrets of acai and top ten super
foods that will change your life. How could that phrase be made more powerful?
Change your life. They’ve got it going on up here. Healthier, look better, have more energy. Top ten super
foods that will instantly make you healthier, look better, and have more energy. Good, stick with it. This is
good stuff. Inside, you’ll learn how to disease proof your body, add many good years to your life. Cut your
chances of getting a heart attack by 50 percent. Cut down on sugar without giving up sweets. Charge your
energy banks like nothing you’ve ever tried.
Lost weight naturally and easily. End your chronic fatigue now. Somebody who gets it. Whose is this? More
submitted runs. Fantastic. Okay, from comfort zone to confidence zone. How to claim the confidence,
power, and effectiveness you already have within you. What do you notice immediately after going through
this training? We’re talking about stuff within you. Someone came up to me at the break. I’ve had a couple
different people ask me questions along this line, which are, “Wait a minute. You sell inner-gain programs.
How can you be talking about results and stuff?”
The quick answer is the people who buy my inner-gain programs already bought something else. We don’t
really sell many inner-gain things to people who haven’t already bought our more technique-based stuff.
After they buy our technique based stuff, which also has inner-gain stuff woven in, and I’ve built trust with
them and they know our stuff works, I say, “Go buy this. It’s good for you.” They go and buy it because we’ve
built trust.
They’ll believe me that the inner-gain stuff works because they’ve seen it work. They’ve gotten proof. When
you see me giving an example, don’t do that right out of the gate. Realize that when someone shows up to my
website, I don’t say, “I’m going to teach you a million ways to get an ethereal feeling of goodness throughout
your body. Just opt-in here. It’s not it. What could we do? Whose is this? People who are looking for
confidence are looking for it for a reason. That reason is to get some result in the real world. It can be made
much stronger with whatever that reason is.
Are you tired of tiny MLM checks, chasing friends, cold calling expensive leads, only to be rejected? Not
bad. Free videos reveal new MLM internet formula that puts new reps and more money in your business,
automatically, 24/7. Does the person who is reading this site want new reps and more money in your
business? Is that what they want? It’s like one level away. What do they want? It’s the Dean Jackson term.
Money, getting. That’s what this is about. Money getting. When we condensed it up here when we were
talking about this. We broke it down to you give me – how much money was it again? I don’t remember.
$2,000.00. I think it was in 90 days, I’ll give you $10,000.00 a month. Something like that. So in this video,
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I will teach you how to be making $10,000.00 a month of passive income within 90 days. I’ll teach you how.
They’ll watch the video, and it’ll say, “Here’s how to do it. Buy my stuff.” I’m being crass, but do you follow?
Hold up what they really want. MLM Lead System Pro. Do people want leads? Leads is about three steps
away from what they really want.
The lead turns into a buyer or distributor, which turns into more sales, which turns into more commissions,
which eventually turn into the big promise of multi-level marketing, which is passive income. Sitting on my
ass, and checks hit my bank account. I don’t have to do anything. You follow? Get closer to the outcome that
they want. Discover how you can have your own fully branded, personalized, attraction marketing system,
like the top producers online, generating quality prospects, building your list, and exploding your business
profits.
A lot less effort and money than you’re currently spending. Maybe, but it’s probably one thing that is the hot
button there. I don’t remember what the number was, but inside, I’ll show you a three word phrase to run in
Google AdWords that will give you 47 new people a day contacting you because they want to make money for
you. I thought this was particularly interesting. Old school and new school. Old school, friends and family,
warm list, three-foot rule, networking, prospecting, strangers, buying leads, and cold calling.
New school, picture of a mouse, attraction marketing, capture pages, list building, internet marketing, Web
2.0, automated sales funnels, no selling. The idea, the foundational idea is good. Comparison, saying that
this is the old way and this is the new way. The challenge with this is this is like when you say friends and
family, I don’t really know what that means. It’s a cutesy way of saying, “You don’t have to bother the people
you love.” It’s much better to say, “You don’t have to bother the people that you love.”
Attraction marketing. That’s a cutesy way of saying, “You put the bait out there, and the fish come to you.”
You should better say something to the effect of, “Run this three word ad on Google, and 47 people a day will
call you to want to make you money.” Translate it. Good, but got to break it down. TheLLCExpert.com. Free,
introductory LLC report. What is an LLC, and what can it do for me? If you reversed those two, if you made
the headline, “What is an LLC, and what can it do for me,” big and in quotes like that, and then underneath it
said, “Free introductory LLC report,” this becomes ten times better.
It’s much more conversational. Not too bad. Design wise, this is a little weird. You’ve got this left aligned
LLC expert that isn’t lined up with anything else. You’ve got these buttons across the top that are kind of
centered. All of that is distracting from your offer. Fast and easy LLC formation. Your papers prepared
and submitted to state within two to five days. Five minutes of your time. We handle the rest. Good stuff.
Whose is this, by the way? It really is. Submit and run. Everybody’s here, aren’t they?
Why wait the two to four weeks it takes other services to prepare your documents? Pretty good stuff, but
what I don’t see is why is somebody singing up for LLC? Why is someone getting an LLC in the first place?
Tax issues, asset protection. Instead of saying fast and easy LLC formation, wouldn’t it be more powerful if it
said, “Fill out this form below, and your assets will be protected within 48 hours.” More to what it is they’re
looking for.
This was interesting there, this nice little checklist. LLC Expert Formation services include – and then there
is a whole list of things and check boxes over there. That’s a nice little design element because all at once, it
says it’s $99.00, and the fine print plus state fees, which are like $29,000.00. It’s probably down at the bottom.
It’s bam, bam, bam, checkmarks. I totally get what is going on here. Order button. This just popped up.
Click to order right now. If you prefer a demonstration or more information, call Darren or Angela at instant
access, instant download, PayPal.
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Good, click below to order right now. But all the sudden, we’ve got, “If you prefer a demonstration or more
information, call here. Instant access, instant download.” We’re moving between al these different things.
You’ve spent enormous amounts of time, energy, money, hassle to get someone to your website in the first
place. They stayed, came in, gone through your whole offer. By the time they get here, the free train is
moving at full speed. It’s on the tracks. It has picked up as much steam as it’s going to get when they get
here.
What you don’t want to do is confuse at all. Any amount of friction you introduce close to the purchase hurts
you exponentially worse than it does when it’s up on the banner ad or whatever. Do you follow? If they made
it all the way here, they’re really serious. So click below to order right now, and then re-summarize your offer,
or just have a button if you did a good job of summarizing it before. Click below to order right now. Click the
PayPal click here to buy button below. You can download your e-book. You’ll be reading it in seven minutes,
and you’ll get X specific results by tonight. Click this button now.
You follow? Keep that freight train moving. Finance your freedom. Quit your job. Escape cubicle hell. Live
anywhere. Could it really be possible to quit your day job, and start living a life of massive freedom in three
months flat? I like the direction this is going. What’s squishy about it? Finance your freedom, quit your job,
escape cubicle hell, live anywhere. It doesn’t tell me what the benefit is. Are you trying to tell me I’ll make
passive income? Is this about me making money? Am I going to get a different job? What’s going on? Who
is it for? Whose is this?
Get a microphone for that gentleman right there. Who is your customer, and what is this?
Male Speaker: My customer is anyone who is living in cubicle hell and hates their life.
Eben Pagan: And wants to quit their job and live anywhere?
Male Speaker: Yes. Someone whose day job is the major life sucking force in their life.
Eben Pagan: Instead of saying, “It’s anyone who,” let’s try being more specific. Tell me about the one person
who it’s for.
Male Speaker: I’m thinking of – I surveyed my people, and they seem to be a lot of 27-ish year old tech people
who would rather be working from their own house.
Eben Pagan: So you teach 27-year-old technologists how to work from home.
Male Speaker: Sure. Yeah.
Eben Pagan: Are they still working? Is this some kind of passive income? What is this?
Male Speaker: They’re working about ten hour weeks and doubling their income.
Eben Pagan: If I’m a 27-year-old technologist who is working in a cubicle, would it more impactful for me
to hear, “Finance your freedom, quit your job, escape cubicle hell, live anywhere,” which doesn’t even sound
like it applies to me, or would it be more powerful to say, “If you’re in your late 20’s and work in technology in
an office, I’m about to share with you how to quit your job, work ten hours a week from anywhere, and double
your income.”
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Male Speaker: Yeah. The problem is I put that up on my blog, and that’s actually the header. I need to take
down the header and just focus on the headline, I think.
Eben Pagan: Okay, if that’s the problem, then get to work on the solution. Thank you very much. Attract
affluent interior design clients. You’re a talented interior designer. Are you enjoying the success you deserve?
Attract affluent interior design clients. That’s not too bad. Attract affluent interior design clients. Why is
that not too bad? Somebody who is an interior designer wants affluent clients. That’s meaningful to them.
How could we take it to the next level? Free video shows you step by step to get ten affluent interior design
clients to call you every week. You follow? Next level. One last one.
How to get by in Spanish with just 138 words. With this simple method, it takes just 138 words to express just
about anything you want to say in Spanish. Are you skeptical? You’re probably thinking, “Is this for real, or
is this more internet BS?” There are a lot of big promises and small results when it comes to Spanish. I know
because I’ve been where you are. Before you go any further, click the button below. Then reason on to find
out how to get your free Spanish fast start test drive. How are we doing? Not bad. Why is this awesome?
It’s such a huge promise, and it’s so clear and so achievable, and it’s so much smaller sounding than anything
else I’ve ever heard before. It’s all right there. This is probably the best stuff we’ve looked at so far. How to
get by in Spanish with just 138 words. With this simple method, it takes just 138 words to express just about
anything you want to say in Spanish. Who is in? I don’t even want to learn Spanish, but I’ve got to learn that.
Whose is this? Good job.
How could we take this to the next level? Give them a round of applause. Benefit driven headline. I think
that one is not too bad. There’s a lot in there that is subtle and good. When people want to learn a language,
most of them are lazy. They don’t want to learn it because they want to go negotiate contracts. They just
want to get by with a language that people use. I know enough to get by. I recognize a lot of thought that is
in here. How can it be taken to the next level? I think that there is something – is there a landing page? An
opt-in before this? No. That promise is so strong that right there, I’d be closing them for an opt-in. Click
here for a free video, and I’ll show you the first 13 words in ten minutes.
Wham. Free. Get the opt-in. I’ll bet you that – this is spooky. I want to do business with you and figure out
how to do this in other languages because I recognize a good business opportunity when I see one. I’ve never
seen anything like this. This is also begging for a one-page order form. How to get by in Spanish with 138
words. Bam. A bunch of bullets. Free trial. Buy this thing right now. All right there. I don’t speak any other
languages, but if you had me bet money on anything I’d seen so far, I’d bet money on this right here.
Male Speaker: Yesterday, you know Caleb, who was talking about his mother making her first money online.
The problem I’m facing, and this is my biggest pain, is trying to make that first dollar. I feel like I’m on the
verge of it. I have internet marketers talking about making however much, but it’s not talking to me. He said
to me yesterday when he was just talking about getting you – he shows people how to get them to make that
first dollar online. When he said that, he spoke in my words. I actually had tears in my eyes because to me, it
was if he was gift wrapped from God in my favorite color.
I had tears in my eyes because I felt so much relief. That’s exactly who I’m going to go to. Whatever you say
– Caleb, I can’t find him. I’ve been looking all over for him. I dreamt about him last night. I actually dreamt
about him last, but he became the focus because he has exactly what I need in the words I use. He used
more words that I would use. For example, when you get to that point, you’re ready to explode. It had a huge
impact on me.
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Eben Pagan: Yeah, Alex Mondozian has done a lot of work focusing in that area, too. Teaching people to
make their first dollar online. Okay, what do you got there?
Male Speaker: This is basically trying to summarize how you use framing to increase conversion. When
you saw the silence about who found a good frame, I think maybe this will resonate what it did for us on our
table was that we understanding framing. We get that it’s the context inside of which it shapes the whole
conversation you’re having with the prospect. From there, it was like what are the step-by-step pieces we
need to create the ideal frame? Breaking it down a little more into Step 1. Find the beginning point that most
people are starting at.
That archetypical fat guy beginning point. Check this with me. That’s Step 1. Step 2 would be find the ideal
endpoint where you know you’ve gotten there. You’re where you want to be. That’s our Step 1 and Step 2
that frames it. The beginning – you relate it to them. Make sure it matches the language that the customer
or prospect was speaking in their own mind for destination A. For B, make sure that matches up with where
they want to be. Is there more to the framing conversation than that?
Eben Pagan: I don’t know if you can tell, but I’m flying without a net on this when I’m talking about stuff
right now in terms of conversion to marketing that I’ve never really talked about with a group of people.
I’m feeling my way through this as well. This is setting up a contrast frame. I started out by talking about
comparison and contrast. We’re just setting up a contrast between before and after, and then we’re working
within that. There are many other types of frames and frame works that one can get into here. That’s why I
say we’re talking about magic right now. We’re out in the land of space.
I’m trying to see how well I can communicate some of these ideas that I think in my own weird marketing
fantasies that I think really work for me. I think they’ve worked for a lot of other people who I have been
able to communicate to as well. That’s good. If we’re going to set up the contrast and put the borders around
before and after the contrast. You’re here and you want to be here. A good way to approach that seems to be
to figure out that archetypical or quintessential external reality picture moment for the beginning, and then
the same thing for the end. Then be able to communicate those very well, which this gentleman did a great
job of with this guy helping this guy become this guy.
You could see it, so we’re talking about that kind of within that world of the contrast between before and
after. But there are many other frames. You could look at Robert Chowdinia’s Weapons of Influence. Each
has frames to set up.
Male Speaker: You mean each of those six points?
Eben Pagan: Yeah. So as an example, I could set up an authority frame when I start out the whole thing,
the whole marketing piece. Instead of doing the before and after frame, I could just say, “I think what is going
to work best in this marketing situation is I’m going to set a frame called, “I’m the authority, you’re the idiot.”
I’m going to first prove what an authority I am. Then I’m going to just give you what to do and expect that you
do it. Do you follow?
Male Speaker: Yeah, that’s another frame.
Eben Pagan: Exactly, and to set that frame up, I might not do before and afters. I might just tell stories
about a person that got this result, and a person that got this result using a method that I created. That
was like three years ago method. I remember that Frank Kern helped Jeff Walker with his last launch, and
I got watch a little behind the scenes stuff because these guys have become friends. I don’t remember what
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Frank’s original headline was, but it was pretty good. I’m sorry, Jeff’s original headline was for product launch
Formula 2.0. Jeff is a very good copywriter.
It was kind of direct marketing and what you’d expect. Then Frank Kern looked at it and said, “No.” He
changed it to something like, “Over $100 million has been made with my product launch formula, and that
was the old version.” They were using the old one.
Male Speaker: That’s an authority frame.
Eben Pagan: Very powerful kind of authority frame. I didn’t do any before and afters. There’s a little bit of
contrast. That’s the old one and this is the new one. That says, “I’m the big dog, and now I’m going to take it
to the next level.”
Male Speaker: That’s very different from what we just described of I was in this moment where things were
terrible, and then they’re getting better. Just starting out from like, “I’ve done this. I know how this is. I’m
going to show you, step by step, how to do it yourself.”
Eben Pagan: You’re making me realize right now that because I’ve studied a lot of these frame creation,
reframing, deframing, and just constructing these invisible boundaries with human communication and
thought, because I’ve done it for so long, some of them seem obvious to me. If I start talking about one, I’m
just getting the experience that I can see it, I can be talking about it, and I can say, “Hey, contrast this and
this. Find the picture for this.
Find that one.” It seems so obvious to me that even though I – honestly, I feel like I’m saying it in a way that
is so crystal clear that, “Oh, okay. So maybe I really do live in a weird, strange reality in my head. I’m going to
need to get better at explaining this.”
Male Speaker: I think what just helped is coming up with some template. If we think of these frames as
different templates. Just by putting a name on it the way you have with a lot of your other distinctions.
Here’s the name of the contrast frame. This, what you’re working with, would go well with a contrast frame.
For you, you’ve been in this industry for a while. You should consider an authority frame. If you can start
bringing that unconscious competence into being able to distinguish these into separate frames, then that is
stuff – I think that would be easier to digest.
Eben Pagan: You’re making me think I’m going to have to do some work on this. One of the things that
Frank Kern teaches in mass control is a set of stories. A couple of them. One is hometown boy makes good.
Another one is the reluctant hero. Let’s just take those two. Hometown boy makes good is the story of some
average Joe who had an average life who was just bumbling along. All the sudden, he stumbled across some
magical thing, and then it blew up and did very well, and hey, I can show you how to do this, too.
Reluctant hero is somebody who maybe has always been a superstar. They’ve always been awesome and made
a ton of money, but they reluctantly were like, “I don’t want to do this guru thing that much. I kind of have
some of each of those in my story, the way I – but I really am the reluctant guru. I don’t like to stand in front
of people and say, “Look at me. I’m so cool.” I don’t like to brag about myself. Maybe I’ve got self-esteem
issues or my dad hit me too much when I was a kid.
When I sit down and I go, “$20 million and I’m really cool. You should listen to me.” A part of me goes, “Eh.”
I have to disassociate from that and really think, “Okay, a customer who wants to go from here to here. What
do I need to take out of my experience and put in front of them so they say that that guy can probably help
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me get from there to there?” These are just frames. The hometown boy makes good is a frame you operate
within.
If you start out with hometown boy makes good, and your whole story and persona is all about that, and
you’ve kind of got an awe shucks, but hey, it works. Frank has got a lot of that awe shucks. “I just did the
thing, and $27 million fell. Want some money? It’s yours.” If he, in the middle of the conversation, stopped
and said, “Well, I didn’t mention that there was a period of ten years where I was abducted by marketing
mystics who took me to the pyramids in Egypt. They transmitted all marketing knowledge of all time into my
head, and they made me do drugs. Then I came out. I didn’t mention that happened.”
That would be it. His credibility would be game over. If you take someone like Seth Godin, for instance.
Seth Godin isn’t really the hometown boy makes good. He’s the, “I wrote 130 books or something and
just kept trying and trying and trying. Then I started Yoyo Dye, and Yahoo bought it. Then I was the VP
of marketing for Yahoo. Then I wrote Permission Marketing.” He’s like marketing God. That’s his deal.
That’s who he is. If he came out and changed that and started saying, “I really don’t know that much about
marketing. I’m not that smart of a guy,” there would be a record scratch immediately.
Everyone would be like, “What?” Credibility would be hurt. The point is that there are many different
frameworks. You can become like a marketing frame detective. Now that I’ve stumbled on this, next year
I’ll have a whole product out about this. I’ll be talking about how smart I am and how I thought of this, even
though this group helped me figure this out.
Male Speaker: I can just see that next time we have, “Here are seven different frames.” We go through each
one and practice fitting our story into each of those, and then feel which one feels most authentic or true for
us. Whatever one is most compelling getting feedback, or we split test them.”
Eben Pagan: I’ll tell you right now that where I’m coming from is it seems obvious to me that the ultimate
frame is what is your prospect’s biggest fear or frustration, and what is their biggest want and aspiration?
What’s the emotional drive they have? What’s the result they want? What’s the outcome? Where are they
now? What do they want to be? That’s the framework. That’s the main one. That’s the most important one
is understanding those two things.
Male Speaker: So there’s frames, and then there’s meta-frames that the frames fit inside.
Eben Pagan: Exactly. The big one, the one I’m always hammering on all the time, is that if you can
understand where your prospect is and totally have that dialed and sum it up in a few words – like I can sum
up – if you put 1,000 men – if we transformed this room, and there were 1,000 random guys who had never
heard of me, and you said, “Sell them some dating products right now. Go.” I’d stop, close my eyes, think
for a minute, open my eyes, and I’d see, “Have you ever seen a woman that you wanted to approach, but you
couldn’t get up the nerve to do it?”
I’d go into a little thing here, and in three minutes, I’d have a bunch of guys go from, “Who is this fruitcake up
on the stage I’ve never heard of,” to, “I don’t know him. I don’t trust him, but in three minutes, I want to hear
the next three.” After ten or 15, I’d have them thinking, “I wonder if he wrote a book.” By the end of an hour, I
could probably sell them a lot of stuff. Because I know them because I am them. I have lived in their shoes.
Later, I went and not only took my own experiences, but I really sucked up where they’re at. I tried to learn
and see all of it. Then I saw them make the transformation, and I really paid a lot of attention. The words
aren’t really what matter. What matters is that the other human being says, “You get me. You understand
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where I’m coming from.” I don’t know if that answered it well.
Male Speaker: Yeah, it’s kind of like we’re feeling through it together.
Eben Pagan: Yeah, that’s a better frame than any other frame. The others that were laying on top of it, like
the influence weapons and other things, are very important, too. Good.
Male Speaker: You might have answered a little bit of this, so it’s fine if it doesn’t go where I originally
thought it might.
Eben Pagan: Hang on for one second. I just had an epiphanal moment. No, it’s cool. Almost everything
that I teach as an approach or method is some kind of a frame thing. Almost everything I teach is a frame-
ish thing. That’s the level I operate on. You’ll notice that I rarely put the thing up there and say, “Here’s a ten
page sales letter. There are blanks where you plug in your words.” That’s not style. I say, “Let me deconstruct
all great sales letters, and let me give you the 12 elements. We’ll take element No. 3 right now, and we’ll dive
into that for 90 minutes.”
“I’m going to teach you how to think like this. I’m going to teach you how when you get to the time when
you write a bullet, you’re not just writing a bullet. You’re writing a fascinating. You know how it works.” You
follow? I don’t write bullets. I’ve got a framework in my head that says if I, as a customer, don’t read that
bullet and say, “I have to know what is because it’s clear that that will be a direct line to the outcome that I
want, and I want to get rid of it because it’s a waste of my time.” We’ll dig into that and learn it together, but
that’s a frame.
Is that making sense? That’s probably why people keep coming back and learning from me because they can
never figure out what the hell I’m talking about. That’s another secret of marketing.
Male Speaker: So if we get that crystal clear picture of what we think where that customer is at and where
they want to go, do you – in my example – I’m going to struggle saying this because I haven’t figured out the
right way to ask the question. They think they know what they want, but the way to get there is not that way.
You have to redo their thinking.
Eben Pagan: Good, stop. Excellent insight. Remember, most people are asleep. Humans that are walking
around asleep have the, “I get it,” thing going all the time. They want to get it as fast as they can. They’re
struggling to have the, “I get it,” feeling. To get the, “I get it,” emotion so they can shut that off and not
have to have pain around it anymore and be like, “Okay, I totally understand this thing now.” We jump to
conclusions. It’s why it said that, sometimes, people who have been in marriages can understand what I’m
about to say.
You say something, and then your spouse says something. They get mad at your for it in this whole thing, and
you realize that’s not what I meant, and they’re freaking out over here. You say, “Hey, I didn’t even mean that.
That’s not what I was trying to say. You got that wrong.” Then it’s like, “Oh, so now you’re telling me I’m
wrong.” Customers who have problems think, at some level, that they know what they need as the solution.
People that go in to see therapists – like the old saying is, people don’t go to therapists for a cure. They go so
that someone will validate their problems. One of the therapists’ greatest tools, but also greatest crutches, is,
“I understand how you feel. I would feel the same way if I was in your situation.” You’re valid feeling that way
about that thing. When your customers come to you and your prospects come to you, they’ve got their ideas
of the way they think it should work. If you don’t meet that criteria to some extent, they get weirded out and
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frustrated.
They go, “That’s not the way this thing is supposed to work.” You see it happening with me when I’m
interacting with folks all the time. I say, “Do it this way.” They say, “I thought you were supposed to do it
this way.” Who cares what you think? I love you. Do it this way. First you do it my way, and then you do it
your way. They’re not saying, “My testing and my theory shows me that this thing works better.” They’re
frustrated. They’re like, “But I thought you were supposed to do it this way because I read that in a book.”
You have to deal, often – and in some of the deeper exercises I’ve had when I worked more one on one with
folks, sometimes I’ve given them the explicit exercise of spending a lot of time considering what the does the
prospect think they’re supposed to do to solve this problem? Then you can get in line with all of that stuff.
Sometimes, in your introduction or story – you might want to write that one down, by the way. Very valuable.
When you’re communicating with them, what is a bird teaching technique that everyone thinks is the way to
do it, but it’s not only not useful, but it’s counterproductive?
Male Speaker: Yelling at their bird when it bites you? I had another example. I’ll say it, and then maybe it
won’t go where you’re going, but it was mentioned to me by a guy I was sitting next to. The people think that
the bird is the problem, and in reality, the owner is the problem.
Eben Pagan: That’s a bunch of abstract stuff. That’s not where we want to go. What’s the right way
everyone thinks is the right way to train a bird? Stop for a second. Who has never owned a bird but thinks it
might be cool to own a parrot? One guy. Okay, a couple folks over here. How do you think you train a parrot
to fly to your shoulder? Come over here for a second. We’ll just play here for a second. This could make you a
lot of money.
Male Speaker: My frame of reference wouldn’t be the parrot because I know nothing about the bird. I’d have
to go to another animal that had a problem.
Eben Pagan: This isn’t a problem. We want the parrot to fly to our shoulder.
Male Speaker: In a dog, if a dog is deaf, how do you get a dog to respond to your commands?
Eben Pagan: Kick him?
Male Speaker: No, you put a piece of food in your mouth. He sees you do it. You’re going to reward him with
it when he keeps watching you. You make sure he keeps watching your face with your commands.
Eben Pagan: So you know how to train animals?
Male Speaker: That one I do. I have a deaf dog.
Eben Pagan: Let’s just say that world was full of deaf dog owners for the sake of this argument. In their
minds, the way to train a parrot to fly to the shoulder is to put a piece of food in your mouth, have the parrot
see you put the food in your mouth, and then – let’s say that’s what everyone believed. Let’s further say that
when you’re training parrots, if you took the piece of food and put it in the mouth, the bird will always fly to
your shoulder, but then it will bite your lip. But nobody really knows that because they’ve never trained a
parrot.
Maybe it was in a movie 50 years ago, and it just became the way things are. Knowing that piece of
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information is incredibly valuable because it allows you to play with the frame and play with the relationship
with the person. You can then say, “Let me talk to you about the most popular way to train a bird to fly to
your shoulder. In the movie 50 years ago, the guy put a piece of food in his mouth, the bird watched, flew to
his should, and took it out. Here is what actually happens when you do that.”
Then you talk about a horror story. This is one way of spinning this whole thing. What does this do? In
the beginning, when you’re communicating about the No. 1 or the best or the most common way, and you’re
talking about it like an expert with expert authority, the prospect reading it is going to be saying, “Yeah, that’s
interesting. I’m going to learn how to do this. That matches up with what I think.” You’re building a rapport
with them. It’s making sense.
They’re like, “Yeah, that’s kind of the method I was going to use anyway.” Then a record scratch, and you
say, “Not only is that not going to work, but you’re going to get hurt doing it.” Whoa, now the frame is totally
changed. They’re off balance, and you’re strong. Then you say, “Let me tell you the right way to do it.” The
balance of power is suddenly shifting in the relationship. One of the most powerful things I have found to
do in marketing that is subtle, but it’s very powerful if done right is to lead someone down a path where they
really think this is where it’s going, and then reverse things on them.
I actually once saw Joel Bower. Who knows Joel in here? A few people in here. A powerful stage presenter.
Just so forceful and so amazing. I once saw him speak. He’d walk up and say, “We all know the way to sell
more of our products is to close hard at the end of a public speech. Everybody knows it.” Then he’ll go on
and rant about it, and everybody is like, “Yeah, okay, fine.” He goes, “Wrong.” He has been talking about it
for five minutes, and you’ve been taking notes on it and listening to what he had to say. He’s like, “Wrong.”
He does three or four of these.
You’re so confused and destabilized because you realize he’s a master of that technique he’s talking about, and
he could do that one and make it work. He’s also telling you it’s wrong and that it sucks. I don’t remember
exactly why I went down that path right now. So now I remember. Your customers think – just write this
down. Your prospect thinks they know what their problem is. They think they know what the solution is,
and they’ve been corrupted by people that were trying to sell them quick fixes.
Your prospect – they think they know what their own problem is. They think they know what their solution
is, and on top of that, they’ve been corrupted by people who have quick fixes. A couple of – between two and
five years ago, I talked to a lot of people who would say to me, “How could you rent an apartment right now?
Look at real estate prices. They’re rising so fast.”
I’d say, “Well, I’ve been in real estate business for a while in the past. I have a lot of friends in it. I’ve been
watching it. It’s been going like this for 20 years. My gut tells me that when it’s at the top, that’s not –” They
would say, “Jeez, I just bought two rental properties. I got zero down mortgages on them. How could you
not?” Then I’d say, “Let me just say this again. Not because I want to try to change you, but I have been in the
real estate industry for a while. I know a lot of really smart people in the industry. It doesn’t make sense to
me, and here’s why. Here’s my data. Here’s a couple charts I’ve been looking at.”
That look of, “How could you be so dumb?” With some of the ones I cared about, I’d say, “Let’s do some math
real quick. How much do you know about real estate? How much do you really know about investing in
transactions? Let’s say you’ve got a piece of real estate and you want to sell it. How long it takes and what –”
They say, “Well, not that much.” Everyone is – it’s back to the whole thing. I’d say, “Okay. Let’s say you buy
two rental properties for $300,000.00 a piece, and you’ve got no money down.”
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The only direction they can go is up. Fine. But what happens if they go down? Let’s say they just drop by 10
percent. Now you’re $60,000.00 underwater. How much does it cost to sell those if you need to sell them? It
usually costs between 8 and 10 percent when everything is said and done, and the whole game is over. So now
we’re talking another 60 – you follow me? You’re trying to buy $600,000.00 worth of real estate because you
think it’s the ticket to retirement, but a little dip could cost you $120,000.00. Have you thought that through
all the way?”
The look comes over the face of, “Eben, could you really be this stupid? Could you not see the math on this?”
And then the argument of, “But you’ve got a renter in there who is paying the rent.” Yes, but what if they lose
their job, and the whole neighborhood goes to hell? “That couldn’t happen. This is America.”
I’ve been through that one several times, and I have a little anger towards my friends about this because
the several years that it was happening, and now, in a most loving way, I have to help some of them get out
of their bad situations. If humans could do it with that, could they do it with debt, their parrot, or with
everything else? We hate to not know. Human minds hate confusion. They hate ambiguity. They hate not
being able to figure things out. What do we do when we hate all that stuff? We jump to conclusions. We
take a few facts and put a picture together. We go, “Oh, that’s the way it is,” and then we get the, “I get it,”
feeling, and then we don’t have to worry about it anymore.
I’ll take it one step further. What do we do – and this could make anyone in here $1 million if you could really
understand what I’m about to say. I’m serious about this. What do we do after we go through that whole
process I just said? Get out of confusion, make a decision, say I get it, put it behind us, be idealistic, and then
we wind up wrong. Blame. We project responsibility and blame onto some external thing.
“It was someone else’s fault. That person told me to do it.” “If Bush wouldn’t have been president, everything
would have been fine. If this wouldn’t happened –” So we put it outside ourselves. And when we go through
the process of making a decision, doing the investment, whatever. We get idealistic. We say, “I don’t want to
deal with this anymore.” We put it behind us, and it works for us, and we get a lot back, and then what do we
do? Brag.
We use it as the cornerstone of our social conversation. We somehow always try to, “Yeah, I made a pretty
good investment decision.” This is why, in marketing, you may have heard me talk about this before. There
is – it’s a joke between a lot of top, direct marketers who joke around. The magic, four word phrase. It’s not
your fault. If you want to really manipulate people, which I hope you don’t do, even with the temptation, “It’s
not your fault,” can build rapport with anyone who is having a problem. Just say, “Hey, you know what? It’s
not your fault.”
You can see people relax. “Oh, somebody understands.” What we’re often looking for in marketing
situations is to figure out what the problem that the prospect is facing, and explain. I get that you were in an
unfortunate set of circumstances. If circumstances would have been different, it would have gone the right
way. Your reasoning was right. Your reasoning was good. If somebody bought $600,000.00 of real estate, it
dropped, and now they’re in trouble, what they don’t want to hear – let’s say you want to go sell their houses
for them, right?
You want to help them out. They don’t want someone to walk in and say, “Did any of your friends advise
you not to buy this real estate?” “Yeah.” “They were right. I bet you feel like an idiot right now, don’t you?”
What they want to hear, and is accurate – remember, everything is probability here, so it all depends on your
perspective. What they want to hear is someone who walks in and says – you might even say, “I kind of saw
this coming, but hey, American real estate has always been good. This has happened to a lot of people. It’s
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an unfortunate set of circumstances. A few things, a few conditions. Mortgage guys got out of control, some
legislature, whatever.”
That’s what the person needs to hear in that moment. Someone that can relate to where they’re at.
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Disc 6
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Eben Pagan: Good morning. Enjoy the last couple of days? Get a lot out of it? Okay, well, today it’s about
going to the next level. We’re going to have a deeper conversation.
This first section is called Advanced Persuasion Architecture. And it’s called that because it’s the coolest
name I could come up with for the stuff I’m about to say. What’s interesting to me about conversion, and that
moment of conversion and offers, and so forth, is that as you evolve as a businessperson, when you start out,
you don’t know where to start, so you’re just copying things. Oh, that looks like a good button shape there,
or that looks like a good way of saying the offer there, I’ll just steal that and put it on my page. And then
you start to get it, you get a little bit of theory, and you start improving things, and you start measuring, and
things start getting better, and you start to say, wow, I think I get this.
But there’s always another level of getting it. So there’s always another level of both simplicity, of both getting
the core idea, and of, kind of, the expression of the concept, of the implementation of the concept. And so
we’re gonna talk, in these sessions, about both simplifying, and going to a higher, simpler, more fundamental
level, but we’re also going to talk about more specifics, and more ways of expressing these higher levels.
So we, kinda, started more in the middle, and now we’re gonna work our way up and down at the same time.
So here’s the mind-set I’d like us to have for these sessions. Every part of your communication is an offer.
Every part of your communication is an offer. All of it is an offer of some kind. What do I mean by that? I
mean that when you’re creating any type of message to your client, anything that they’re going to see, any one
of your products, anything, you have to remember that the objective in business, and the objective in selling
information products especially, is to deepen the relationship. Right? On the one stand to get your prospect,
or your client, to see you as an invaluable resource, so wanna purchase more stuff from you, to give you more
money in exchange for your value, and on the other hand, to really help them get the results that they want.
And when you realize that every part of every communication, at some level, is an offer to do that, it, kinda,
changes the framing of things. Because what I see a lot of people doing in business is they create an offer,
they sell a product, and then they say, okay, well, I’m out of product selling mode – I actually make this
mistake often myself – I’m out of product selling mode, and now it’s time to just, kinda, deliver the product to
the prospect. Okay, here you go, here’s your product, get lost.
And we miss that incredible – that opportunity when they’re consuming the product to deepen the
relationship, to sell them other stuff, to get them to take advantage of other offers, or we design a website in a
certain way that makes it hard for the prospect to understand that there’s more down the road. Right?
So if you think about every part of every communication as an offer, some part of an offer, some way of
offering something more, something deeper, I think it’ll change the way you design just about everything you
do.
Now, over the last, whatever, 10, 11, 12 sessions that we’ve done here, we’ve been talking about mind-sets and
practices. Even though it’s been, relatively, theoretical, we’ve done several exercises, there’s a piece that’s very
important as you create your offers. And this is what you might think of sighting and aligning your offer.
When you get a new rifle, or a new gun, which I never have but I hear from people who are into such things,
one of the first things you wanna do is sight the gun. You wanna line up the scope, or the sight, to make sure
that it’s shooting accurately. And the way that you do that is you line up the little thing over here, and you
line up the little thing over here, with where the bullet is going.
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I’d say in, oh, I don’t know, I’m making these numbers up, I pluck them from the air, but oh, something like
98 percent of all the marketing documents that I see, and websites that I see, the beginning of the website
doesn’t line up with the end. They’re not aligned to each other. And the simplest way to describe how to do
it right is to say, what’s your prospect’s biggest desire, or what’s their biggest frustration, or what’s the biggest
benefit that they want? What’s the result that they’re looking for? Where are they at? Start your website off
with that, or your marketing communication off with that thing, and then at the end, when you’re closing,
or you’re making your offer, make sure that you end with that, and end by saying, if you wanna get this thing,
click here, and bye.
Again, I’m back to being kinda crass. Give me your money, and I will give you this thing. But that’s what it
really boils down to. And that’s what they want. That’s what your prospect, that’s what your customer wants
is to know that when they show up, oh, this is the place to get what I’m looking for. They wanna know that
immediately.
Then, all the stuff we’ve been talking about over the last couple of days, goes right after that. Where, they
wanna know your story. They wanna have rapport built between you and them. They wanna have a trust-
based, credibility-based relationship. They want to feel like you can relate to them. They want to imagine
themselves taking action and enjoying the benefits. They want to see the value equation. They want to have
it translated for them in a currency that they can understand. They want to have it summarized. All this
stuff, but when it all wraps up at the very end, they wanna hear, again, I’m gonna get that thing that I need,
and press this button, and the result is on its way.
So we’ll look at a couple of submissions. I didn’t get many from this group, but I have a few, and we’ll talk
about this as a concept. But very importantly, look at the very beginning, and the very end of your offers,
and ask yourself, are they lined up? Are they in alignment? Take everything out of the middle. And then,
as importantly, you have to go back to your lead generation, or your customer activities, and you have to ask
yourself, is the first thing that one of my prospects sees, when one of my partners mails a promotion, when I
put a banner ad up on a website, when I have a paper click ad, is that first thing, and the very last thing right
before they buy, are those things lined up and connected in some way?
Now like anything else, there are exceptions to this. You might find that some curiosity building headline
that generates your type of prospect pulls them in, and then you can blend into your offer in the close. I
mean, these things are valid sometimes. But generally speaking, the place to start is to make sure that the
very beginning and the very end are locked. They’re completely lined up. And if you’re promising a big
benefit in your headline, better have that big benefit at the very end.
If you’ got a headline that promises to teach someone something for free, and you’ve got a piece of content
that you give away for free, free line content, a piece of video, some audio, downloadable e-book, remember
that that’s the thing that got them to take action. Remember, Dean said it in 20 different ways. But who’s
the most likely person to buy a diet pill? Someone that’s already bought a diet pill. That’s counterintuitive
for most people. Most people would say, well, the most likely person to buy a diet pill is someone that hasn’t
bought a diet pill. Who’s even more likely than someone who has bought a diet pill? Right? Someone who’s
bought every diet pill, and tried them all.
Have you heard that salesmen are the easiest person – people to sell? Right? It’s an old saying, right?
Marketers, we love to buy and take advantage of marketing. We love to look at other people’s marketing and
like, worship it, and say, oh, I have to buy just to pay homage to the amazing marketing that this person has
done.
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So if it worked once, it will probably work again. Okay? Sometimes a guy will ask me in the dating advice
space, I met this really wonderful woman, and we went out, and we had a wonderful date, and we had a
wonderful evening, and it was very romantic, and we really had this connection and we did this, and we did
this, and we did this, what should we do for the second date? I’m like, I don’t know, I’m not a rocket scientist
for anything, but maybe, do some of that same stuff? I mean, you guys seemed to enjoy it the first time; try it
again.
I mean, if at some point she says, I’m tired of having a great, fantastic, enjoyable date every time, I don’t know,
lay on the couch and drink beer or something. I don’t know.
Entrepreneurs, I’ve noticed, like to mess with things. Are entrepreneurs, a lot of them, high difference
people, Wyatt? Okay. So Wyatt, as you get to know him, and as he and I do more work together on different
projects, you’ll be able to learn more from this guy. Wyatt’s one of my mentors. I talk to Wyatt every week;
he teaches me stuff that always blows my mind. And I’ll just give you a little insight, here, into maybe, what,
if this works for you, a part of your own personality that could be blocking you from having success with
marketing and conversion.
There’s an old story you may have heard me tell, which is about Donald Peterson, who was the CEO of Ford.
Famous guy, who under him, they worked with Deming, who helped them build the Escort and the Taurus,
and some of the best-selling cars, and they came back really strong; they did very well. There’s kind of a
legend about him. They hired an advertising agency to come in and do an advertising campaign for them,
for Ford. And one day, Donald said to his advertising group, he said, you know what? I think these ads are
getting tired. I think it’s time for us to switch them up, and change them. And his Ad Execs came back and
said, we haven’t even started running the campaign yet.
He’d just been seeing all the stuff that the advertising agency was making, getting ready to run the campaign,
and he said, I think this is getting tired. Right? Me? My logic in life is, if it works and we’ve been doing it for
a while, we should immediately stop doing it. Because there’s gotta be a better way. That just seems to be the
way that I’m wired. Drives my sensing, judging, organized, team members nuts, right? They hate that stuff.
But entrepreneurs are, what I just mentioned here, high difference people. And could you just talk, maybe,
for three or five minutes on sameness and difference? Maybe?
Wyatt: Okay, what is the relationship between what you’re doing now, than what you were doing a year ago
on your job? So think of what the answer to that is. Now, did you rephrase the question? Some people would
say, what does what I’m doing now, how is it similar to what I was doing a year ago, or how is it different? So
in your mind you already begin to translate this.
So we’ve got this thing, is the glass half full or half empty? There is, obviously, two ways to look at a thing. So
when sameness people come into a situation, they are looking for what they already know, for what’s similar
to what they’ve already experienced in the past, and they try to fit everything in, even though it’s different,
they ignore the difference and they fit it into the similarities. Whereas difference people, when they see
something, then they’re going, oh, that’s different from this, is different from this, is different from this. And
that they see difference, and furthermore, they want difference in their life.
So you’ve got two kinds of customers then. So the hardest person in order to be able to sell to is somebody
who’s a satisfied customer of somebody else. So basically then, they’re happy with what they’ve got. They
want the same thing. They use the same brands, they go to the same restaurants. They live in the same
house. They have the same spouse. They drive the same car. And everything in their life is pretty much
sameness.
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Now, difference people, on the other hand, are always doing things different. They like variety. They can’t
stand to have the same way every time. And so they, then, are creating difference. They’re looking for
difference. They want difference. Now they have no brand loyalty because they’re, basically, always looking,
and trying other things. Once you’ve done it for a while, now try something else, try something else, try
something else.
So in marketing, what is, perhaps, the greatest advertising blunder of the last century? What was, perhaps,
the greatest advertising blunder of the last century? Coca-Cola. The greatest brand name in the world. Its
slogan is, “It’s the real thing.” What is that like for positioning? And so what happens is that the difference
people at Coca-Cola decided, hey, they begin to get freaked out by Pepsi, that was beginning to make grounds
on them, and they decided, well, what would they do? And they thought, well because of all these taste tests,
that they’d change the formula for Coca-Cola, the most popular brand in the world, and that they would
make it more like Pepsi.
So of course, what happened? The public, immediately, was up in arms, and went, no, we don’t want a
different Coke; we want the same Coke that we’ve always had, and that everybody’s always had. So in the end,
of course, they finally woke up, and they brought back the old Coke. But you can’t call it old Coke, so they
called it Classic, of course. And you can’t even find the new Coke, that disappeared a long time ago.
So we could go on and on with this sameness, difference, but it’s one of the most important distinctions in
understanding people. As Eben said, most entrepreneurs are difference people. And there’s a good thing to
that, and there’s a downside to it. So my wife and I did a modeling project in England, where we went and
modeled 50 of the most successful entrepreneurs. And basically, all of them were difference people. And
what made them an entrepreneur is they were able to see an opportunity; they were able to see something
that somebody was not taking care of.
But also, it was a curse. It was, like, everywhere they were, they were always scanning for what was wrong, for
what could be fixed, for what could be done better. Which is a blessing as far as discovering new products
and new services, but at the same time, it’s like they could never rest, they could never be happy, they could
never be satisfied. So they have the creativity. Creativity and difference are directly associated.
What is creativity? It’s figuring out a different way to do things, and a better way to do things. The downside
to that is that entrepreneurs are always wanting to change things. They’re never happy; they can’t leave
things the way they are. They’re trying to change them. And the problem in their companies, then, is that
they’re always – Eben is saying – they’re always readjusting, they’re always making changes, and that drives
the people that are trying to come up with stable structures that are going to work, and drives them crazy.
So entrepreneurs can start companies, but they can’t, necessarily, maintain them or grow them. And they
usually end up plateauing.
So this then becomes a big challenge. The difference person comes up with a great idea, but then they leave
that – it’s interesting, we model – when I go in and model in various things, it’s, like, sometimes you’ll say,
well, who was the best you ever had at this? And people will scratch their head, and they’ll say, well, Joe really
good at that, and Bill was good at that, and Ellen was good at that. And I’ll say, where are these people, I’d
like to model them. And they’ll say, oh, that’s really interesting, he’s no longer doing that, he’s over here. She
left to do this.
And the difference people, even though they got a great thing, as Eben says, instead of repeating it, they
end up doing something different because they can’t stand to have it the same. They’re bored out of their
mind by that; they want something different. And their life is continual difference. Now the spin out of the
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difference are all of the creative ideas, that when appropriately taken and developed, can make major changes
in the word. And the problem is the entrepreneur, then, is the one that’s got the idea, but when they set up
their companies, they’re always changes things around, and it may not work.
Also, who are the consumers? The majority of the consumers in the world, about 65 percent are either
sameness, or sameness with exception. So they, basically, want the same thing. It’s okay if it’s gradually
different, slightly different, if it’s improved, but it’s not okay if it’s different.
So difference people come in because they love difference, and it’s like neurolinguistic programming, which
I do, when, in the early days, people would go into the businessman and they’d say, we’ve got this incredible,
revolutionary, technology, that will totally and absolutely change the way you do business, don’t you want it?
And the people would just look at you and go, where did you come from? How did you get in here? And I
better talk to my secretary to make sure nobody like you gets in here again. And I say, well, don’t you wanna
be a pioneer? And they said, hell no! Pioneers are shot in the chest by Indians with large arrows. I don’t
wanna be a pioneer; I wanna wait until every company in America has adopted this, and whenever every one
of them has done it successfully, then I will do it. But until then, don’t come in, and don’t bother me.
So anyway, we could go on and on. Is there any other areas, particularly, you want me to touch on?
Eben Pagan: No, that’s good, thank you.
Who thinks that they might be on this side of the difference continuum, maybe raise your hand? Okay good,
got a few of those here.
So meddling with things just for the sake of meddling with them is very fulfilling for the difference person,
right? Oh, I changed it, good. It’s not the same; I can go to sleep now, perfect. I’ve tortured all the rest of the
people that I work with today, ah, I can rest in peace.
Dave runs the biggest team in our company, and actually, the most stable team as well, but that’s a whole
different story.
So what I’m trying to say here is when you find things that work, as Wyatt said, you might wanna improve
them a little bit, but be careful messing with them too much. Don’t screw up the Coke formula. Once you
find the formula, keep using it. And it’s critically important that when you start building your business, and
you start really getting some traction, that you create a set of metrics that report back to you what’s going on
inside of your conversion.
So you need to know how many leads you’re getting. You need to know how they’re converting on the front
end. You need to know how your up-sells are working. You need to know how they’re converting on the back
end. You need to know how each ad is working. And don’t get bogged down – if you’re just getting started
with this, don’t get bogged now and say, oh, there’s no way I can track all that different stuff. I mean, it would
just take 20 years to put that system in place. Just track the biggest things, okay? Track the three biggest
sources of traffic that you have. Track the two or three pages that are converting the best. Track the groups of
customers that are the ones that produce the most money.
Just put a few pieces in place. Start with the highest priorities first. And when you do that, and then you
visually display this information, and you look at it on a regular basis, and you have other people looking at it
on a regular basis, it helps prevent change-itis, where you just start messing with things. It also helps you to
see these ideas that I’m talking about right now, most importantly, you gotta line everything up. Everything
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has to be aligned.
Wyatt just said that two-thirds of customers are, essentially, sameness people. So if they buy something for
one reason, they’re probably gonna buy another thing just like it for the same reason, and they might buy
another thing just like it for the same reason. You know the sameness person? You know the kind of person
that I’m talking about? You know the kind of person that we’re talking about here?
I can think of someone that I worked with in the past, who will remain nameless and faceless, but is that
exact person. Drives the same car forever. Has, like, the same relationship forever, that everything in the
relationship is exactly the same. Like, the same greeting of the spouse, the same – like everything is just the
same. Same office, same location, like, everything just stays the same. Is that bad? No. For me it might
be; that might not be what’s fulfilling to me. Although I find the more I add sameness and stability in areas
where it’s wise to do that, the more fulfilled that I become in my life. The more I learn to, kinda, get over this,
almost like as a, treat it as a condition that helps me in some areas, right?
Okay, so all this started with the idea of lining up your offer. So as we’re having this discussion, make sure
that your offer is lined up. When people join your list in the beginning, always remember why they joined
your list. Keep that in mind. When someone becomes a customer of you, always remember why they
became a customer. Remember that initial part of the site. So down the road when we’re rolling out other
things, instead of just saying, oh, let’s try a bunch of stuff, just remember, they bought back then for this
reason, they’re probably still, kinda, like that. So more stuff like that is probably good. And more marketing
communications like that are probably good.
In our business, one of the things that we do is if we create a promotion for one of our new products, or
we’ve got a product and we’ve been selling it for a while, and all of a sudden something pops, we go in and we
examine it. And we say, okay, what was the topic there? What were we talking about? How did we relate it
to the product? What was the positioning like? How did that whole thing work? Why did that work really
well? And then we test our hypothesis, and we create another marketing communication, and we send it out
to the same group of people, and we see what happens. And if a lot of them buy, we say, I’m on to something
there. That way of saying things resonates.
Now the difference person, the high difference person, like me, would say, intuitively, okay, well that worked
really well, so now I’ve gotta do something different because that already worked, and that’s not gonna work
again. It’s really not that way.
If you’ve ever studied direct mail, you’ll remember that if you try a direct mail campaign and it works really
well, the first thing you need to do is to re-mail the exact same offer, to the exact same group of people
immediately. And if that works, you re-mail the exact same offer to the exact same group of people again.
And you keep doing it until it stops working. That’s what they learned in direct mail. Why? Because some
people didn’t open it the first time. Some people only read part of the way through it. Some people read it,
but then forgot about it. Right? There are all these reasons. But if it worked, just keep hammering on it.
We were talking, coincidentally, about Proctor & Gamble yesterday, and Dean was talking about, how many
billion dollar brands do they have now? 23? And Terry, who just walked into the room, actually used to work
with P&G. 23 brands that do a billion dollars. What is the offer that Tide makes? Clothes clean. What is it
really? Sum it up as narrowly as you can. Bright whites? Good. I’d say, from what I’ve heard, whiter. Right?
Kinda like the music that Farmer makes. Yeah. Right?
So they’ve condensed it all the way into this one concept called whiter. Now they got a billion dollar brand.
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Think about that for a second. They lined everything up with that one idea. How long has Tide been
around? Anyone know? A thousand years, something. How long had Tide been around as a top brand?
50 years, maybe. Very powerful when you think about it. Whatever it is that you’re selling, there’s a whiter
for your particular product in your particular market. And the better you get at condensing it down, and
distilling it down, and refining it down to one single idea, that one thing about what you offer that resonates
with your customers, and then saying it as briefly, and succinctly, and powerfully has possible, the better.
One word, two words, three words, a few sentences, the biggest frustrations of your customer, the biggest
benefits that your product offers, always working on these, and always talking to your customers to figure out
what is that hot button?
Some of the folks that work on our team in our, kinda, as our gurus, let’s say, or our marketing folks, when I
sit down with them, and I have discussions, some of which last for years. I mean, well, they all last for years,
depending on if they’ve been around for years, the conversation’s been going on for years. When we sit down
to talk about what’s the next product, or what’s the next marketing idea, or let’s refine this a little bit, the
conversation all comes back to – I always try to direct the conversation always back to what are the customers
saying? What are they saying when they show up? What’s their frustration? What’s their fear? What are the
exact words?
And my experience has been that it usually takes a year or two of really chipping away at it, of talking about
it, of thinking about it, of testing things, and making products. It takes me, and the other person or people
involved, a year or two to really get down to right down to what that core issue is. And then once we identify
it, and we see it work, there’s, like, this magical moment that takes place, where we realize, oh, that’s what it
was; there it is. And what’s funny is it’s always 20/20 in hindsight. Right?
When you look back on it, you go, well, of course, that’s what they were buying, those are the ads that they
were answering, it was always right there. But that perfect diamond, the crystal, the laser beam focus, takes
a while to unearth it. And then once you’ identified it, then you’ve got to figure out what’s the best way to say
it, what’s the best way to express it. When I say it to this audience, how do I say it? It’s a project that’s – it’s
like never ending.
You know, when I started teaching dating advice seven and a half years ago, I teach what I think of as, you
might call a principle-centered approach. Right? The real idea is become a person that’s more attractive,
learn how the whole thing works, get a life you love, and you’ll attract someone else, kinda, into your life.
But we have to dress that up a little bit because that’s not what the average single man wants to hear, right?
The average single man wants to hear, here’s the line, that’s it. Once you learn this line, as soon as you’ve
memorized it, supermodels will be banging your door down to have whatever type of relationship you want,
right? So to get from here to there, we’ve gotta, kinda, transition.
I discovered early on that men were very interested in pick-up lines. Fascinated by them. In fact, men
actually read pick-up lines for entertainment, even if they never intend on using them. There are books of
funny pick-up lines and whatever, and guys research and read them on the Internet, even if they would never
use them because it’s so fascinating, just that idea.
And I’ve realized that your approach, when you’re approaching another person, is very important. That first
impression is very critical. The paradox is that if you become your highest potential, if you really actualize
yourself, whatever you say will be fine because male or female, the person of the opposite sex will look at you
and say, okay, you’ve got your act together. Like, I can just see it. You’re a whole person. You’ve got your life
together. You’re going somewhere, and I’d like to know more about you, whereas, if you don’t have your act
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together, the most magical pick-up line in the world, really, won’t work.
What I’ve seen is just interesting as hell, spooky, but like, a sociological experiment, is very fascinating, is all
these other guys came out, and they said, well, let’s take the pick-up line, let’s treat that almost like a science.
And they invented these things they call routines or patterns, where a man will walk up to a woman, and he’ll
have this whole thing rehearsed, with all of these stories about his life, and magic tricks, and all this stuff.
And it’s all completely, like, structured. So it’s like an actor showing up to act in a movie.
And I remember one of my friends was telling me that he was talking to another guy who was really into this
stuff. And the guy said, I’ve got 18 hours of material memorized. I don’t have to think of an original thing for
18 solid hours. So at 18 hours an one minute, right, don’t you wish you were there with a video camera? Like,
on the woman’s face when he has to think of a creative, original, thing to say. Where it’s like, oh, that’s my
last routine, like – so anyway, where did you go to school?
Not surprising, by the way that – by the way, a lot of these guys have since then, and I’ve watched them, a
lot of them have evolved, and they’ve started to realize that that stuff’s just, kinda, childish in a lot of ways.
But there’s some value to it, in a way. Once you understand how everything works, you realize that your
prospects, the ones that you’re meeting that are really interested in what you have to offer, they’re really
interested in the same thing. They’ve got the same hot button.
And while you’re getting your act together and becoming Tide, whether everyone just knows that it’s whiter,
and that’s it, and you’re reliable and dependable, and while you’re on your way to billion dollar brand, you
need to structure the beginning of that conversation. You need to figure out what works, and put your best
foot forward, and show yourself in the best light. Now, I like to think of finding a balance, of course, where
we don’t wanna be – we don’t wanna cross over into manipulative or anything that leaves us with the feeling of
heebie geebies, like we’re not being authentic. But you’ve gotta lock that down; you gotta figure that out.
Even though I get the heebs, sometimes, from watching these things happen, I have watched men really
transform their ability to interact with other people by just taking a simple, little conversation starter, or little
approach, and going up and trying it a hundred or a thousand times in a row. And finally, it’s like, okay, I’ve,
kinda, overcome my social anxiety; I’ve realized it’ll be okay. I’ve – that crutch, whatever. And then they see
how it works, and they go, oh, now I see what to do. Now it works even better when I just really communicate
who I am.
A good example, I was just talking to Dean Jackson, my good buddy, and he was out visiting Dean Graziosi,
and Dean and I had a conversation a few months ago, maybe six months ago, about this, kinda, same topic,
but Dean just built this huge video studio where he’s really taking things to the next level. And when he
shoots his infomercials now, and I mean, he’s one of the top guys, he’s been on TV every day for like ten years
or something, improvises it all. Right? None of it’s scripted anymore. He sits down with an interviewer, flips
on the cameras, and just goes.
So how could he do that and be this top guy? Because he’s been practicing and drilling and retraining and
refining his message, and understanding the hot buttons, and so forth for so long, and he’s also been out
investing in real estate, and being on site ripping down drywall. He’s just – he’s so authentic, he’s so really
who he is. And he knows the main drivers; he knows the main things he needs to communicate. And
now it’s just wired so it’s – we wanna buy from people who are selling information that are more authentic.
And I really feel like we like to buy from people that really think they’re 100 percent, through and through,
authentic, not fake at all.
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And when they’re authentic, and polished, and just awesome, and trustable, we’ll do anything. So on your
way there, refine, tighten, line up every part. Remember, if they showed up for reason A, and they wanted
to buy for reason A at the beginning, or they just wanted to respond for reason A, reason A had better be
mentioned about every five minutes, and at the end when you’re closing, reason A, buy now, give me money,
I’ll give you more of reason A. That’s the formula.
I want to introduce you to two ideas here. Again, kinda, more advanced psychology. Obvious when you learn
these, but very important. Malcolm Gladwell wrote a book called Blink. Who knows the book? It made a big
slash. And what the book, essentially, said was, we all have an intuition, and we should trust it more. That’s
really what it said. And when I looked at the book, I really – I, kinda, read it and I was, like, well, yeah, duh.
Right, of course, that’s your gut. Like – and somehow in society, or business, or whatever, we’ve just gotten
away from trusting ourselves, and trusting our immediate, emotional reactions.
And we’ve also gotten away from realizing that other people are constantly making these split second
decisions based on all of their previous experience and data, and so forth. So on the one hand, when your
prospect comes to your marketing page, when they come to your website, when they watch your video, their
blink has to trust you. They’ve gotta have a green light on the blink. So – like, as a gestalt, or as a whole thing,
it’s gotta be like, that works. Trustable or not? Yes or not? No. Okay. Trustable or not? No? Okay. I think
I heard maybe one yes in there somewhere. Why not? Yellow highlighting. Okay, don’t read it. Okay, don’t
pay any attention to the words. Trying too hard to get our attention.
Male Speaker: More sales, not enough [inaudible].
Eben Pagan: Okay, more sales, not enough article news look. Now this, I mean, this is really designed like
an editorial. I mean, look at this. This is like 95 percent editorial. There’s 5 percent, like – it’s gonna be Dean
Jackson quote day. But Dean said, one time, we were talking, he said, could you imagine if you were, like,
flying down the freeway at a hundred miles an hour, and all of a sudden you saw the State police behind you?
Not like the normal police, but the State cops. And they’ve got their lights on, and you’re like, uh oh, game
over. Is this gonna be the one where they throw me over the hood, and arrest me, and take my car from me,
and all that, kinda, stuff that I’ve heard about? Oh, no, and you’re just in a hurry somewhere.
And you’re sitting there, and your heart’s pounding, and like, the State trooper gets out, and you know how
they’ve got, like, the boots, and the big hat, and the spurs, exactly because you’re in Wyoming. And he gets
out, and he’s walking, and you look, and something looks a little weird. And as he gets closer to the car, you’re
looking in the rear-view mirror, and you realize he’s got the whole uniform, with the badge, and the hat, and
the thing under the head, but he’s got a big clown nose on. What would happen? Right? Complete change
of physiology. Even though he had the patrol car, and the outfit, and the everything, the clown nose screws
up the blink.
You follow? What’d you say?
Female Speaker: I said, that’s profound.
Eben Pagan: That’s profound.
Female Speaker: [Inaudible]
Eben Pagan: You can talk as much as you like. You wanna mic?
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Female Speaker: Yeah, I’ll –
Eben Pagan: No, no, I’m kidding, I’m kidding.
There’s something happening here that’s putting the clown nose on the State trooper. But we can’t tell exactly
what it is. Everything’s talking about, well, it’s this, it’s that, whatever. My perspective would be that it’s a
combination of things; it’s the way the whole thing is organized. That the gut says, not exactly. This is one of
my favorite designs online. I don’t know exactly why. Trustable or not?
Trustable or not?
Male Speaker: Yes.
Eben Pagan: Yeah? Okay, I don’t think I heard any no’s; I was listening carefully. Why is this trustable?
Don’t read anything. Just look at it like a piece of art.
Are you hearing all these different things? Everyone isn’t answering the same thing. Everyone’s not saying,
the font is all the same color. That’s not what everybody’s saying. Everyone isn’t saying, professional
photograph. They are all these different things, like sophisticated, simple, right? Organized, whatever.
There are a lot of reasons why this is trustable, and why this is – something about it, it’s not quite there.
This is close; I mean it really is close. There are a few small tweaks we could make to this, tiny little tweaks,
and leave 95 percent of this the same. I mean, 19 out of 20 pieces, and I could take this and make it trustable.
What I would do, by the way, is I’d take that picture, and instead of, kinda, fading it over there, I’d probably
move it over to the right, put a box around it, a little caption under it, that has her name, and maybe, author
of the book whatever. So this is, kinda, a featured person. And I’d take that headline and I’d make it – I’d
probably left align it, and I’d get rid of that exclamation point.
And then I’d take that yellow highlighting thing, if you’re gonna make something ugly, you probably wanna
make all of it ugly, not just one piece of it, right? Because ugly does work. But this is trying to be classy and
ugly. So I’d probably get rid of the yellow highlighter thing, and I’d move that over to the left as well.
Just those little tweaks, that little bit, would take this most of the way to you saying, oh, that’s not too bad.
Because right now it’s got that, there’s something about this, like, I’m trying to sell you something, not, this
is a very smart, sophisticated, well-respected author who has something to say, and it’s gonna be valuable to
you.
Are you following me with this? Little, little things.
Let’s look at another one. Let’s find another random one here. Trustable or not? Yes or no? Yes? Okay.
So I’d give this one, like, about a 90 or 95 percent. Maybe 90 percent, 85 percent. Some people, kinda,
hesitated. But what’s the difference, really, between that, and this?
It’s simpler. Yeah, forget the words.
So listen to all these words that people are saying. Right? It’s simpler, it just flows, right? Are these specific,
tangible things that we can lock down? Has anyone said the picture is in the upper right corner, instead of
the upper left? That’s why this one is more trustable. Have you heard any specifics like that? I didn’t hear
any. I didn’t hear any specific things like that. So that’s a tough one, right? Most newer marketers would say,
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well, what do I do? Like, you’re frustrating the hell out of me right now. But listen to what the group is saying
right now. Listen to what the group is saying. The group has a lot of different answers. And when someone
says, this one’s cleaner, I don’t think most people are responding, no, it’s not, it’s not cleaner.
I think at some level everyone’s, kinda, saying, yeah, I guess that is a little bit cleaner; it does flow a little
bit better. What does cleaner, and what does flow better mean? We’ll talk more about design, of course, in
the program, but what I want you to ask yourself is, is the blink there? You really gotta get into, with your
marketing, is the blink there?
There’s an old saying from architecture, God is in the details. And the details of things like this are very
important. One thing about this design that know one really mentioned, that is much better than this one,
is this looks like two different things trying to happen at once. There’s the thing that’s going on on the right,
and the thing that’s going on on the left, and intuitively, they don’t look like they’re the same. What is it
about the two things that don’t look like they’re the same? Other than everything.
Okay, two different pictures, good. What is different about the pictures? Right. One of them is color, and
one of them is black and white. Notice? That’s an inconsistency that your unconscious mind just picks up
immediately. What else is different about the pictures? Let’s start scrutinizing. The picture, just the – just –
forget the type, just the two pictures. What’s different about them?
One seems candid, and one seems professional. Okay, good, what else? Okay, one’s square, and one’s
vertical. Okay, inconsistency. One’s male and female, that’s – maybe, but what else? Their hands. There are,
kinda, a lot of hands in these pictures, aren’t there?
I think the hands showing up in both of them isn’t necessarily bad. There is some consistency there. That
does suggest to me that they are, kinda, related.
Okay, the cropping is different. Not super different.
Notice the edge of both pictures. Notice the edge of the color picture, there’s a gradient, it fades on both
sides, and then it’s chopped hard on the top and bottom. And on the black and white picture, it’s cropped all
the way around the edges. You see that?
Notice the relationship of the picture to each other. Is there any relationship? Are they connected in any way,
or do they seem related in any way? No, they’re not aligned to each other.
These are all the things that just pop up immediately for me. What else? Anyone seeing anything I’m not
seeing?
Just the picture. Okay, forget everything but the photograph. I know that everybody wants to talk about the
type, and look at everything – I know we’ve got a difference people here, who don’t want to stay within the
boundaries here.
White background and black background, interesting. Okay. But try to stay out of the content so much.
Don’t worry too much about that. What matters here? Yeah, forget the content so much. Yeah, forget the
people. We’re talking about the details here that would apply to anything. So here, put this one back up.
Okay.
So look at these for a second. What’s going on here? I think it’s interesting that that picture at the top there,
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there’s two of the same thing. Right? There’s a certain symmetry to this. If I were to design this page, by the
way, I would change a couple of things. Can anyone guess what I would do to change this page? I’d probably
make that graphic at the top bigger, so that the left edge of it lined up with the left edge of “start your
engines.” I think that would pull it together a little bit more.
Now what did they do to make it so it’s okay that those two big graphics aren’t left aligned with “start your
engines?” Okay.
Male Speaker: There’s the shadow and a reflection.
Eben Pagan: Okay.
Male Speaker: The graphic goes to the left.
Eben Pagan: Okay, good. So notice behind it, there’s, like, it’s almost like they’re sitting on a table top, and
you can see the edge of the tail top behind it on the left. And that, perfect.
Okay, so do you see what I’m talking about? That shadow up there behind the graphic, actually, does go all
the way to the left, and aligns with “start your engines.” You don’t see what I’m talking about? Look at the
box in the upper left corner, the Nav menu. Everybody see that? Down at the bottom of that, the bottom
right corner, if you look just to the right of that, and kinda, just above it just a little bit, just to the right, you’ll
see a little shadow there. Do you see that? That shadow, graphically, kinda, represents a table top that those
two things are sitting on. Imagine it that way. And you see if it – it runs all the way along, you see it, between
them, and then all the way over on the right edge. You see that?
If you notice, that is – that’s the boundary of the graphics. They’ve got better graphic designers than me,
by the way, so don’t listen to what I’m saying, or what I would do. But if you notice, that is what makes the
alignment of this whole page work. Is those little shadows in the background there. You see that? That ties
the right and left edges together. Got it? Good. Exactly, it is, it’s, sort of, grayed out.
There’s something about this that everything is just aligned; it’s all lined up. Because I’m more brutal, I
would have probably made those things bigger, and just said, square the whole thing off so it’s just super
easy to see that everything is related to each other here. Those guys at Apple are more subtle, and that’s why
they’re all billionaires, and I’m not.
Let’s see here. Okay. What could take this to the next level, and make it just even a little bit more trustable?
Same font, spaces, faces. Less centering. I’d say that less centering is probably a good bet. Because
everything below this graphic at the top is centered. You notice that? And if you really think about it for
a second, if we could remove that top banner, and just look at the bottom part, there’s something about
the bottom that just doesn’t look that the super professional. There’s something about it that’s, kinda,
amateurish, if you just isolate that. Do you know what I’m talking about? Do you see that? Because
everything’s centered.
Go back over here to this Apple graphic for a moment. Notice the clean left alignment, and how that looks?
And then down here, we’ve got this nice line right here as well. And you see the way the edge of this graphic
lines up with that? See the way those clean left alignments look really professional? Can you see that?
There’s something about that, that just seems a little bit more trustable. Come back to the submission.
Okay, excellent, let’s just do one more. This is a great one. This guy helped this guy become this guy. Before
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112 days, in just six months. Good? Is this trustable on your blink? When you just look at the – yes or no?
Male Speaker: Yes.
Eben Pagan: Yes? Okay. I think it’s pretty good. There’s something about this that, to me anyway, my
gut wasn’t, yeah, I trust this. My gut was, there’s too much space here. That this message could have been
condensed so I could have got even more information, more densely packed. I don’t know if you agree with
me, and I don’t know if my gut is right, but this just seems like there’s a lot of space around here. There’s
something about – like when you buy Bill Phillips’ book, Body For Life, which, hopefully, you’ve read by now
– that when you look at those before and afters, and he, kinda, in a way, popularized this whole format.
There’s something about that, I don’t know, it’s like condensed wonderfulness of just seeing those pictures,
like, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam. This, this, this, this, this, this. I could be wrong, but I’m trained in
before and after fitness pictures, to get more information quicker. But by the way, this is a – you get like a 98
percent here. I’m just being picky, and trying to talk about what could take it to the next level.
Trust or not trust? Yes or no? Do you trust this?
Male Speaker: Yes.
Eben Pagan: I think I heard one no. Why do you trust it? It’s clean. There’s something about
communications like this, I think, that are inherently trustable. This is just my intuition about them. We’re
talking philosophy here. Because it’s naked. There’s something about this that says, this is it, like, this is
just bare words. So I’ve either got something really valuable to say that’s gonna blow your doors off, or you’re
gonna be gone in five second. I’ve really got no hype for you, this is it, here it is. And it’s, also, two colors,
beautiful left alignment. The headline, while centered, which can be an eye-catching device, by the way, if
you centre some things, or centre headlines and sub heads, the centering of the headline is aware of the left
alignment. Does that make sense?
It’s clearly intentional, the design of this piece. Very creative and original design, by the way, whoever you
are.
Okay, so on the big level, we’re talking about your blink. What I would like you to do is become a student of
the details of trustable marketing. Become a student of the details of trustable marketing.
When Dean and I were, originally, studying direct marketing, kinda, learning about it together in a lot of
ways, 12, 13 years ago, we would rip magazine middle ages out that had great direct marketing ads. And we
would look at them, and we would say, okay how did they get this to look so much like an editorial article?
And we would see that, as an example, sometimes advertisements will have that big capitalized advertisement
at the top of the page. You know what I’m talking about when they make something look somewhat editorial.
Who knows what I’m talking about? Okay good.
And we would see one of those beautiful, editorial-style ads with the big word “advertisement,” we’d cringe,
and then we’d find another one. And instead of saying advertisement, they would say, the creative designer
would have designed the element into the design. So maybe it would be in italics, and it would say, “This
article is a paid advertisement given to you by whatever.” And it would look almost like a little overline,
like a part of the design; it fit right into the whole thing. They didn’t let the magazine put the big word
“advertisement” up there.
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They figured out how to wordsmith it in, and then when they delivered the ad, the department that was
running the ad looked at it and said, okay, they’ve already got that in there, fine. Right? They figured out
how to just tweak it one more level deeper.
Another thing that I’d like you to become a student of is spectacular editorial design. Become a student
of great editorial design. Okay, is this an editorial article, or is this an advertisement? Editorial or
advertisement? Tell me.
Now, it’s interesting because this is not – it doesn’t follow all the rules of an editorial design that’s, like, the
ideal direct marketing newspaper design, or the ideal direct marketing ad design. And yet, somehow, you
still know that this is an editorial, and it’s not a marketing piece. You know it as soon as you look at it. Why
is that? How do we know?
But I mean, that could be an ad just as easily with all the exact same elements. Do you follow me? How do
we know?
There’s a page number at the bottom? There’s no call to action. But there could be one. I mean, a lot of ads
have been written with a call to action in there. Finer print? But I mean, here. U.S. government announces
historic $0.50 quarter program here set to end forever. Editorial or ad?
Male Speaker: Ad.
Eben Pagan: Okay. We know it’s an ad because we’re marketers. But a lot of the things that everybody was
saying are true about this. I mean, it’s got the small type and – I could have just as easily taken all the stuff in
the other one and put it right in here. How do we know? I think it’s a miracle that we can. I, actually, don’t
know how we know. I can’t quite figure it out. But I love to study it like crazy. Yeah?
I look at it, and I don’t know, so I read it.
The point that I’m trying to make here is, you don’t know, exactly, how you know. None of us do. But like
we’ve learned from the other part of the program, we confabulate reasons, and we make ourselves smart in
our minds, and that robs us of the incredible gift that’s right in front of us.
When you find an editorial design that you like, that just – you just go, wow, that just feels valuable to me,
and looks like an editorial design, what’s the best thing to do immediately? Cut it out and make an ad that
looks just like it. You follow? Make an ad that looks just like it. I’ve done this for years. Here we go. Losing
weight but still have belly bulge? Ad or editorial? But what did you think when you first saw it? Okay, I
heard most people say editorial at the end.
You want to think you’re smart. When I say ad or editorial, instead of saying my gut told me it was an
editorial when I first saw it, you looked through and went, oh, see, I see, it’s an ad. Yeah?
No commercial element. What about that big red circle up in the top there with the stuff inside of it? Do you
wanna talk? We’re gonna get you a mic if you do. Take the mic here, real quick.
Female Speaker: When they’re reading a reporter’s opinion about thing, it gives credibility in a way that
an ad can’t. An ad is, kind of, like, totally subjective, and editorial is completely objective.
Eben Pagan: Something that’s, kinda, brilliant, I noticed, in Wired magazine. You notice how they now
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have wired, tired and expired for wired and expired? Who knows what I’m talking about? Who doesn’t know
what I’m talking about right now? Okay. So they’ll review something, they say, okay, here’s a new digital
camera. Here’s the good and the bad and whatever, and then at the end it’ll say, wired, which means here’s
the cool features, and it’ll say $399 price tag, fits in the palm of your hand, has interchangeable lenses. And
then it’ll say expired, meaning here are the features about it that are totally uncool. And it’ll say, takes old-
school compact flash cards, doesn’t have a USB port, blah, blah, blah.
So they find the thing about it that’s wired and cool, or the few things, then they find the few things about
it that are expired. And they just say them about everything. And there’s something inherently trustable
about that. I’m just, kinda, following on to what you’re saying here about, if there’s a reporter talking about
something, it’s a third party talking about it, it’s not you talking about you. Which, incidentally, is one of the
reasons why I think it’s so important to understand the needs of your prospect whenever you’re designing
anything like this, so that, as you’re writing copy, you’re not talking about you, and you’re not trying to sell
something. You’re talking about them.
Special advertising section, I gotcha. So what’s going on here? How come this one flew under everyone’s
radar, even the trained marketers in the room?
There’s what? There’s no obvious pitch. The what now? Logo is very small. Good. Kinda to Allison’s point,
there are no, what she described commercial elements. Nothing obvious. Like, is this an ad or an editorial?
How do you know? There are a lot of different things but the little yellow star burst there. The Visa sign?
Where’s Visa – oh, yeah, exactly, we take credit cards. Sometimes that’s a subtle clue.
How about this one? Right, that could pull you in right there. That’s a pretty good one. Attractive woman
with the flat stomach, the words belly bulge right there. Losing weight but still have belly bulge. They
understand their prospect pretty darn well. They’ve got the elements locked down pretty tight.
Relacore. Is that one of your western holdings, Dean? That’s the, it’s not your fault ad, huh? Oh, that’s the
stress hormone one, okay, gotcha. Yeah, she looks like she’s got a lot of stress hormones flowing through her.
Freshly de-stressed hormone. Beat belly fat for good. Ad or editorial? How do you know?
Information, content, structure. I love things like this. When I see something like this, and I can just
immediately comprehend what’s going on, and it’s inviting and friendly, what do you think my first thought
is? I need to use that in an ad somewhere. Okay? I gotta use that in marketing. You can find these – go pick
up any Cosmopolitan magazine, any Men’s Health, and just get a subscription. I mean, really, subscribe to
the big, major magazines, okay? Read Cosmo, read Men’s Health, read Men’s Journal. Yeah?
Female Speaker: I just wanted to ask you, I heard that the ads, actually, on the magazine racks for
Cosmo, are different than the ads – I’m sure it’s not inside – but the cover page is different from the ones at
the grocery stores, than they are when you subscribe, that they actually have a different ad writer. Is that
true?
Eben Pagan: Don’t know, but wouldn’t surprise me.
Female Speaker: Because they want it more compelling because it’s five times more.
Eben Pagan: The age of mass customization is here. It’s cheaper and cheaper to do all kinds of things,
like, split print runs and delivering things online and so forth. So I mean, obviously, if someone’s already
subscribed and bought you, you’re probably gonna wanna sell them something other than a subscription,
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whereas if someone hasn’t, you’re probably gonna be very motivated to sell them a subscription.
You’re gonna say something, Mark? Just hand the mic back there.
Mark: There’s one thing that seems, to me, to be different between all of these. I think everything – every
one of the pieces of editorial that you’ve shown could easily be an ad, but for one thing. And that one thing
is a call to action. That’s the one thing that they don’t have. Or let me say it this way, a self-serving, or a
self-promoting call to action because you can have an editorial like this that has a little box at the bottom. I
mean, they do this in lots of women’s magazines, I’ve seen them around my house, where there’s an article
about something and then it says, we talked to so and so from ABC Company who said, and here’s their
website. It’s not a strong call to action, but well, at least they’re getting the link, or the reference.
But the thing that really distinguishes any of these, to me, any of the editorial from an ad, is the call to action.
Like, I mean, there’s the whole world of article marketing online, right? The whole purpose of writing the
article is to be considered editorial on somebody else’s website, right? And of course the reason we do PR
is exactly the same, right? So that we can provide, well, what somebody else might perceive to be editorial,
but for us, clearly, is an advertisement. So that’s the only thing to me. Because, like, if you go back to that
other one with the big headline, the one with the black and the red on the left side, put a call to action at the
bottom and that’s an ad.
Eben Pagan: Ad or editorial? Did the Red Baron hate this watch? Now, think you’re an average magazine
reader and you see that. Is it an ad or an editorial when your eye first sees it? Ad? Let’s say you’re fascinated
with watches. Is it an ad or an editorial? There’s something – no I understand – but there’s something
about this that’s really interesting and good, and maybe, even if it is a little bit ady, right, there’s something
about this that seems, like, I gotta read this because there’s some information in here that I gotta know. I’m
into watches. Did the Red Baron hate this watch? What’s going on. Now this is, I think this is a relatively
sophisticated pitch by a company that’s taking much bigger risks than most people would, and they’re
probably commissioning these custom watches, and they’ve got all this history involve, and so forth, and
they really understand the mind-set of a customer to be able to make an offer like this work in print and with
shipping and so forth. But I think this is pretty good, personally.
Were you gonna ask something? Microphone. This is last question of this section, by the way, or comment.
Male Speaker: Thanks, Eben. The page with the yoga lunges, the only way that I can see using that as an ad
online, is maybe, as a banner, or maybe in the midst of a sales page. How do you – how would you use that?
Eben Pagan: I could imagine creating a downloadable free report that’s, actually, like a Frank Kern-style,
30-page sales letter. I mean – Frank, when he did his last launch, I don’t know if you remember, he had –
when he did the mass control launch, he called it the Mafia report. And you know what the Mafia report
was?
Male Speaker: No, I missed that one. I got in on a launch right after that. Right after he took that down.
Eben Pagan: The Mafia report was the sales letter for mass control.
Male Speaker: PDF sales letter.
Eben Pagan: Yeah, it was the PDF of the sales letter of mass control. It was called the Mafia report. So I
could see created a Mafia report, and I’ve got something that I wanna demonstrate, and I could see dropping
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a graphic like that on one of the pages. Like, here’s what you do, this, this, this, this, this. What do you sell?
Male Speaker: Mostly what we’re talking about here today is the child behavior niche.
Eben Pagan: Okay, child behavior, perfectly. Perfect. So could you have nine pictures of good or bad
behaviors that you could see just putting there, that the graphic would immediately – or, like, a parent yelling
at a child and a little headline, a little piece of copy that’s very David Ogilvy-style, here’s the idea. So someone
could look at that thing and go, wow, in four minutes, I just got nine amazing ideas. These guys really know
what they’re talking about. And then it said, want another hundred of these? Push the buy button. There’s
something I could imagine.
Male Speaker: It seems like such a great attention-getting advice on a sales page.
Eben Pagan: This is, roughly, a similar thing. Right? This guy helped this guy become this guy, in just six
months.
Male Speaker: It’s lacking the instructional element of it, though, that I think –
Eben Pagan: Right. In other words, the other on – remember when I said this could be a little denser, that
could – it seems like there could be more information conveyed here, a little white space. The other thing
that we were just looking at is more the direction, I think, you could get more in there. Where, when the eye
sees it, it’s, like, this is eye candy. Like, oh, wow! I mean, I could see underneath this, there are three more
pictures that, kinda, match these, like those others, but it has three exercises that don’t look very difficult, or
three type – one is, like, the guy eating, like, a really enjoyable-looking chocolate shake, and one of them is
him walking out in nature and like, doing some exercise, and another one is, I don’t know, him doing some
fun thing with an attractive woman. And like, that’s what led to this. You know what I mean? Okay?
Why do we trust this, and not the other stuff? What about it? I don’t know either. But I want you to start
studying these things, and asking yourself why. Why do I trust that thing?
Now, of course, we wanna balance trust with attention getting and so forth. Dean, who’s in the room, it’s
weird, it’s like having Dean in the room for these things, it’s, like, everything’s about him now. It’s triggering
all the anchored memories in the past. What’s that book, the Handbook of Direct Mail? I dragged it along
here. Were you gonna talk about it? You got a microphone for Mr. Dean here?
So we talked about the gestalt or the blink, right? It’s gotta be trustable on its face – you can get rid of this
now. In addition to that, as someone is going through your marketing, at every stage, they are saying to them
self, does this – at an unconscious level, is this pulling me further in, or is this pushing me further away. Do
you want to talk about this concept of filters and amplifiers?
Dean: Dean. When you’re looking at – that’s –
Eben Pagan: Will you just come up here for two minutes?
Dean : Okay.
Eben Pagan: Because you’re so eloquent, and more than me. Any break I can get. Any time someone else
can do my job for me is welcome.
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Dean: Well, when you were talking about that ad, or the [inaudible] but the editorial where it had his body
will tell you everything you need to know or – I was looking at that, and that’s exactly what I was thinking, is
how to make a great advertisement. I forget who the guy was, but he was the advertising director for Reader’s
Digest magazine. And when they first started doing ads, and it was his job to make sure that the ads didn’t
look like ads. So he would lay things out that they looked like they were part of the content of the magazine.
And everything, when people look at any piece of content, they’re putting it through this mind-set, where
they’re looking at it, and they can detect any little thing that makes it look like an ad. And when we look
at things, we’re looking, and we’re either – every element of your ad is either a filter or somebody’s belief on
something, or somebody is looking at it and saying, that’s not quite right, or it’s an amplifier that’s making
something seem even more compelling, even more interesting, more authentic.
So when you look at those things – it’s funny because you and I have talked about this, about looking at
editorial things and looking at great editorial layouts, and a lot of the things that I’ve done is, kinda, use
these, like, something you’d see in the Lifestyle section of the newspaper. If you’re doing advertising, you
know how on the front page of the Life section they might have a profile, and you can tell there’s something
about the way a commercial picture looks – you don’t even know what. It’s like pornography, I [inaudible] I
don’t quite know what it is, but I know it when I see it.
It’s the same thing when you look at commercial photography, you know it when you see it. And when you
look at the Lifestyle section of a newspaper, or you look in Time magazine, or you look in Business Week, or
any of these great publications, the pictures that are there, seem more authentic, or seem more like content,
than they do like commercial materials. And so we totally adapt that.
I don’t know whether they showed you the reverse mortgage ad I did, it had a picture of a guy in his yard with
a shovel in his garden. And the headline was – I forget where the town was, but let’s say Winterhaven – so
the headline was, “Winterhaven retiree finds $152,000 nest egg buried in backyard.” And it looks like this
Lifestyle-like slice of life article. And it went on to talk about how he had been living in that home, and he
had all this equity built up in his house, and it was – that’s the way he described it. And the quote, to tie it all
together, to make it authentic, he said, it was like $152,000 buried in my backyard.
So having those things where you, kinda, get people in, and it’s just curious enough. It did not look like an ad
for all the world. You’d never guess this was an ad, yet it looked, at the end, it ties all together.
Eben Pagan: Remember when we were looking at Ivan and Nancy’s new design yesterday, where she
said, basically, is sugar the new heroin? And I said, okay, A plus, gold star, you’re done. What about that is
powerful? Why is that so interesting? She’s pointing the finger at sugar, but on an unconscious level, you
realize it’s to protect you. She’s like being the watchdog, almost like the consumer advocate there. So the
whole thing works, right? It all works on an unconscious level because she’s got it.
Talk about filters and amplifiers in direct mail and all that.
Dean: Sure. There’s a great book, and it’s hard to find, but there’s a book called The Handbook of Direct
Mail, and it’s by a guy named Siegfried Vogele. And he’s from Europe; it’s a very difficult, sorta, book to find.
You may be able to find it on Amazon as a used book. But one of the thing – I’ll tell the silent dialogue story
to match it up.
When people are looking at any piece of communication, whether it’s a piece of mail or an ad, they’re looking
at it, and they’re – what you really have to address, is the silent dialogue that’s going on in somebody’s head as
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they’re looking at it. And so you imagine – he goes through this whole thing of looking at, and going through
the dialogue of somebody getting their mail. So they’re looking, and you know how Gary Halbert would talk
about people sort their mail over the garbage can, that they’re looking – and you can see this in your own life.
You go to your mailbox, and you pick up the mail, and you’re walking back to the house, and you’re sorting,
and you know what it is, but when you see something that you don’t quite know what it is, you’re, well, what’s
this? Who’s this from? Is this for me? Is it – so you’re kinda guessing. And that’s why Gary would say that
the A pile mail that he talks about, where you take the good stuff, or the stuff that looks like personal mail,
or things that are just for you in this pile, and the junk mail that’s clearly junk mail in this pile, and that goes
in the garbage, and the A pile goes in the house. Well, what makes that happen is the silent dialogue that’s
going on in your head.
If you get an envelope that is shaped, roughly, like this, with handwriting, that looks like it’s an older lady’s
handwriting, and it’s right around your birthday, and it seems like there’s something cardboard inside, you
might be thinking, oh, it’s a birthday card from Grandma, and I know there’s gonna be $10 in there. So it’s
like exciting. That goes right into the A pile. But if you get something with a window envelope, with an all
caps Dean Jackson, and a bar code and a bulk mail indicia, and it’s clearly something that is not just for me.
So when we look at these things, every element of the communication is either filtering your desire or
your interest in reading it, or it’s amplifying your desire to read it. So anything that you can do to look at
it through the eyes of your customer, and through their filter, that what they’re looking at it, is how can I
amplify what they really want? How can I amplify the benefit here?
This I wanted Eben to – this is the layout I’ve been talking about, how when you look through the newspaper,
when you look in different newspapers, the way they layout the editorial content. This would be the kind of
thing you would see in my Winterhaven newspaper. The way – in the Business section, or in the Real Estate
section, it would look just like that. And there’s something how, the picture just, kinda, looks like a candid
picture of a house, and the little thing up in the top that shows the difference in the prices, and the way
everything is written seems like it would be written by an editorial writer. It’s the same style.
So you, kinda, look through and get that, what our PR friend was calling that objective kind of view on
something. Just stating the facts. Well, houses are for sale cheap in Winterhaven right now, or Wakulla –
that’s a county in Florida that I wrote this particular ad for. See the guy in the garden there? “Wakulla retiree
finds $152,000 nest egg buried in the backyard.” And it was funny, the gentleman who we ran that ad with,
had some lady call him up and say, I know that guy. Like, that guy looks familiar there. But it got the point
across.
And just coincidentally, we found the very best place to run that ad was opposite the obituary page. Which
is where – no, but contextually, reverse mortgages for people 62 and over, that seems to be the most-read
section of the paper, for older Americans, so –
Eben Pagan: What does this look like? What does the layout style look like? The National Enquirer. That
hot diggity thing. It’s just so what is this? I gotta see it. With diggity, with –
Dean: Yeah, I mean, I don’t know where I got that, where that – it just came to me. That’s Frank’s favorite
new phrase now, hot diggity. But there – that’s the kinda layout that I was talking about that – in both of
those we’ve been able to convert those to postcards even, too, which work the same.
Eben Pagan: Does it look like an ad or an editorial? Right, there really doesn’t seem to be anything about
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this that looks like an ad.
Female Speaker: Dean, have you tested doing this, and doing a local number to make it more or less ad-
like? Or do you go with the 800 always.
Dean: I always go with the 800, but you could do both. It’s all contextual. When we were doing the ad for
the condo – or the loft shells, where we said, call my voice mail for details, and we put a local number because
that seems like the thing it would be. In this context, when you read the ad, it seems like, wow, I can call and
get this information.
Female Speaker: And then when you do a local –
Dean: The magic words, though, are the recorded message. People know that they don’t have to talk to
anybody.
Female Speaker: And I’ve learned that from polish, but with real estate, I’m just trying to get it in my
head, if I did a local one, would you still say recorded message, or would you just leave it as the local number?
Dean: It would all depend on the context. I’d have to see how it all works. For something like this, I would
go with the free recorded message.
Female Speaker: In an ad, like, a little mini ad, like, let’s say you put it the way that you had suggested
before, you’d go –
Dean: What would it be? What would the ad be?
Female Speaker: Let’s say, for example, hot condo for sale.
Dean: If you’re doing a condo, just like we were saying, if you wanna – I see what you’re saying, when you’re
talking about your condo project, just like that, if you wanted to model what we did with the loft project, I
would do it with a local number.
Female Speaker: And no free recorded message after the local number.
Dean: If you’re making it seem like one person, one person wouldn’t say, free recorded message, they’d say,
call my voice mail for details. Or I put details on my voice mail.
Female Speaker: Cool. Fantastic, thank you.
Eben Pagan: Thank you. My mentor, Jerry, taught me a great little analogy. And he said that if you want
to get a deer to become friendly with you, you gotta realize that deer are very skittish. You can’t just walk up
to the deer and say, hey deer, hi deer. That won’t work. So you might start by putting a salt lick out in the
woods. And what does a deer do with a salt lick? Right, it comes walking into the area, and it’s like, salt. But
there’s probably a catch here, something probably wants to eat me. So it’s paranoid, and if it hears something
in the woods, it runs away.
And then it comes back because it remembers, there’s salt over there, and I kinda want that, so let me, very
cautious, and it’ll walk very cautiously up to the salt lick, stop, right? Walk up. And then run away. And
then, maybe, it’ll come back, and it’ll walk a little closer. Finally it gets up to the salt lick, thinking, as soon
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as I touch this, the trap is probably gonna be sprung. Quick lick, and then it runs away. And eventually the
deer will start coming back to the salt lick and having a little bit more; it’ll trust a little bit more. And then,
maybe, you might be able to sit a hundred feet away from the salt lick, and the first time the deer shows up
and sees you, it’s gone.
But then, eventually, it’ll walk back over, and it’ll realize that you’re not trying to hurt it. And then maybe you
can be 80 feet away, you see how this all works? Well, that’s the way customers are with their money. It’s like
the deer with the salt lick. Very, very, vigilant, hyper vigilant, trying to pay attention and look for any little
clue that something’s not right here, so that they can say, disconnect, no, don’t want it.
So when we’re talking about filters and amplifiers, some things can amplify your message, and some things
can filter your message. But there are, kinda, what you might call the death penalty issues, which, as soon as
one of those happens, it’s just game over. It’s gone. Okay, if you pull out a knife and come running after the
deer, that’s it, you’re probably never gonna see the deer again.
So what it’s important for you to do is to scan your marketing. And what I do is, personally, this is my
strategy, is, when I’m writing and creating marketing, I’m filtering it through two processors at the same time.
I’m trying to imagine that I’m the consumer of the marketing, as I’m writing it. Okay? So I’m trying to write
it – my main intention as a writer, is to get my clear, singular message across, that’s unambiguous.
So as I’m writing, I’m always saying things over and over and saying, could I interpret this in two different
ways? Disambiguating is, kinda, a fancy term for this. Which is that there’s only one possible way to
interpret this thing. And you’ll find that by reading things out loud, somehow that helps us to see if
something’s ambiguous.
And then, at the same time, I’m imagining I’m the consumer, and I’ve got that filter on at all times. Are
they saying something that just doesn’t fit here? Have, at some point, they become distracted and gone off
message?
I just went to a really interesting seminar with a guy named David Deida, and he does, kinda, I don’t know
how you want to describe this, but advanced relationship, spirituality, sexuality, coaching. If you are
interested in having a great relationship in your life, go to one of his life programs. It’ll blow your mind.
There’s nothing like it, David Deida. Bring your open mind with you because it’s, kinda, crazy.
One of the things that he points out is that when a man and a woman are in a relationship, that the deeper it
goes, and the more authentic they become, the more a man will experience the side of a woman that’s like a
storm, that’s just like the fury. And what you have to learn to do as a man is stay present, stay in the moment,
don’t zone out, don’t get distracted, don’t withdraw into yourself because the more you do that, the more it
just angers a woman. She hates that. And men never get that piece, we don’t figure that out, so we withdraw
even more. So the more – and it just pisses her off even more.
And there are a bunch of exercises that we did and so forth, but I find it fascinating that – now that I know
this, and I’ve been studying this guy for years, so this wasn’t new information for me – but overtime, and
through a lot of mistakes in my own life, and experiencing them firsthand, I’ve realized that this is really true.
If you can stay right there, and stay present in the moment, and be there, that the other person can sense that
you’re there, and then everything can become okay a lot faster.
Well, it’s an interesting analogy for marketing because your prospect, or your customer, they’re really, all the
time, unconsciously, seeing whether or not you’re present. They’re very vigilant to see, whether or not, at
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some point, you’re going to betray some motive that you have to secretly take advantage of them, or take your
eye off of serving them. We all have that radar system. We’ve all got a really intention radar system.
And when you get started in marketing, it’s easy to just copy, here’s some lines that people wrote, and here’s
what the other marketers say, and to forget that – or to never even know in the first place, that the customer
is always on that, what’s in it for me channel? What’s in it for me? Always sorting by, are you really here to
serve my needs? Are you really looking out for my best interest?
And this is getting more and more so, faster and faster, with the Internet. Authenticity and so forth,
is becoming just much more important. Almost to the point where, you’ve heard, maybe, about the
millennials, right, the, kinda, latest up and coming generation, right now, that were born after, what is it,
1982, I think it is? Is that what millennials is? Anyone know? Len? Under 30? Okay.
So what would that be? ’78?
No, it’s more modern folks. It’s people born like something early ‘80s, I don’t know, maybe it’s not the
millennials, but whatever the latest, kinda, generation is, I was just reading about this, they have a – they
grew up with the Internet, so they have a different mind-set, and they’re very oriented toward, kinda, the
community, and making sure that everything that everyone is doing is right for the community, and that it’s
authentic, and that it’s real, and it’s transparent. Something about growing up in the Internet, where you can
just find out anything about anyone, kinda, instantly, and figure out whether something’s real or not, or if you
get an email and it looks weird, you just take the headline, and you type it into the Google, and you go, oh,
scam, whatever.
They can peer through the veil a lot better, and somehow they see a bigger connection to things. And I think
that’s where everything is going, and I think all of us are more and more, when we look at an advertisement,
or we look at a sale’s letter, or we look at an offer, we’re saying, are they trying to take something from me, or
are they trying to give something to me? Okay, so that’s, basically, all the philosophy I wanna go into on that
particular topic.
So let’s tie this back together. On the first level, we’ve got to have the gestalt, we gotta have the blink. When
someone looks at your marketing piece, it has to say, gut check, okay. This looks trustable. And then, as they
go through it with a fine tooth comb, everything needs to be an amplifier. You need to ask yourself, what is a
filter, and what is an amplifier? And be brutal with yourself. And if you don’t know, ask someone else, or take
it out.
Is it pulling me in further? Is it making me trust you more? Or is this one of those things that, I don’t know.
One of the reasons I love paper click advertising, and I love giving it to people as an assignment to learn direct
marking, is because you only get, what is it 95 characters or something like that, and that’s it, in a Google Ad
Words add. You can’t afford to put a word in there if you don’t know that it’s powerful. Every word needs to
count. And you learn that very quickly.
So now what I’d like to talk about is creating a truly irresistible offer. In the first sessions, we talked about,
what I think of, as the architecture of an offer. Creating conversion is about creating an offer. How do we
take the offer to the level of irresistible? And I don’t remember where I heard this phrase, but maybe you
know where it came from, Dean, but the idea that you want your prospect to get to the point where they slap
themselves on the head, and they say, I would have to be an idiot if I don’t do this. I would have to be an idiot
if I don’t take advantage of this. Any ideas?
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We did? Oh, I was probably talking about myself.
Yeah, I’d have to be stupid. A non-genius with a J. Right, I would, I would have to be dumb, I would have to
be ridiculous to not take advantage of this.
So the offer, in the earlier sessions we talked about Robert Cialdini’s influence factors, his influence weapons.
So he has three minor weapons of influence, and one of them is contrast, which, I like to take from being
a passive concept, comparison and contrast, to an active concept, which is framing. And how you frame
something has a dramatic effect on how people see it. Okay? How you frame something has a dramatic
effect.
Brian Tracy talks about a study that was done in the psychology of achievement. He talks about a study that
was done where they took a couple of teachers, and the principal brought them in to the principal’s office and
said, it turns out that you are our best teachers. Okay, of all of our classes, and all of our students, you two are
getting the best results. So we’re doing a pilot program here, where we’re gonna take all of the best, smartest,
brightest, students, and you’re going to get to teach them. And of course, since you’re our best teachers, we
expect you to get the best grades in our school. And they said, great.
So at the end of the year, they went back and checked, and sure enough, these teachers, their students were
getting the highest grades in the school, and not only that, in the whole school system, they were number
one. And then they brought them back into the office, and they said, guess what? We were kidding. The
children were randomly selected. And the teachers said, whoa, well, I guess that must mean we’re the best
teachers. And they said, no, you guys were randomly selected too.
Just that expectation, just that framing, set the whole thing up, and made that come into reality. Somehow,
I get the feeling that you know one or two things about framing, Wyatt, that would be interesting for us to
hear, right now.
Wyatt: All meaning is context dependent. So the meaning doesn’t exist, in and of itself, it exists in a context
of communication. And in order, then, to understand the meaning, we have to understand the context, and
as the context changes, the meaning changes. So if I say something in one context, it has one meaning. But if
I say it in another context, it has another meaning.
So we have this idea that, somehow, words, magically, represent the things we associate them with, whereas,
in actuality, they’re simply arbitrary tokens, chosen by speakers of a language, in order to communicate. And
somebody that’s speaking a different language, has totally different words. So there’s no direct connection
between the word and the meaning. Meanings exist in us, they don’t exist in the word. And meanings are
things we give to it. And the meaning we give to it, depends on the context. So therefore, framing is the art
of creating a context, and a meaning in that context, to communicate what we want to communicate.
So human beings are meaning-making organisms. People are gonna try to make sense out of what you say,
even if it doesn’t make sense. So therefore, understanding that humans are going to do that, you never just
give people information because they may interpret it in a way that’s not what you want. So you need to
frame the way you want them to interpret the information. So it’s information plus framing determines,
then, how people are going to make meaning out of it.
So this makes framing critical to everything. And particularly we’re talking about cognitive framing here as
opposed to affective framing or conetive framing. So cognitive framing is how do we frame it in the mind
so that, therefore, when the person hears it, they’re gonna interpret it in the way that we want them to
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interpret it? And if we don’t do this right at the very beginning, you never get a second chance to make a
first impression. If you don’t do it right, you gotta go through a more complex process called deframing and
reframing. So it’s critically important you frame it from the very beginning. If you don’t frame it from the
very beginning, and people interpret it the wrong way, now you’ve got a real problem. Because now you’ve
gotta get them to go back uninterpret it, deframe it, and then you gotta reframe it the way you want it.
So this is the essence of framing then. The essence of framing is presenting the information inside a
framework so that people will interpret it the way you want them to interpret it within that framework.
Because, once again, information is only – only has meaning within the context. So you gotta provide the
context. That’s the fast, down and dirty, thing on framing.
So the frames are incredibly important so in writing your copy, in writing your content, then it’s amazing
how people are able to take something you say, and interpret it in all sorts of different ways than the way you
original intended. And we’ve all had that experience. I mean, if you’re married, you probably have it on a
regular basis. So that what you think is clear communication, turns out to be interpret in a totally different
way. So the whole key is quite simple, provide the framework in which you want people to interpret it.
And Eben talks about clear, unambiguous communication, clear unambiguous communication means
that it’s framed in such a way that there’s only one way to interpret it. And when we do that, we eliminate
misunderstanding, we eliminate confusion, we eliminate all of the problems that exist in communication. So
the key, then, is framing. Framing is everything. Framing is the key to all communication, it’s the key to all
training, it’s the key to all learning, and it’s the major key to all advertising, all marketing. And if you set the
frame right, then people will buy into it.
Now, once again, as Eben said, basically, all communication boils down to one simple question, what’s in it for
me? So that if we want to communicate, we have to understand the mind of the person we’re communicating
with. We have to understand the frames that they’re likely to put things into. And then, with our
knowledge of where they’re coming from, how they look at the world, their frames, then we can frame it so
it communicates and makes sense to them. And if we don’t do that, then it’s not gonna make sense to them,
they’re not gonna be able to answer the question, what’s in it for me, and they’re not gonna go anywhere with
it.
When I do the trainers’ training, I create certain frames at the beginning. And so the first thing I’ll do is I’ll
pre-teach. So I have a story. And the story pre-teaches the things that I want to communicate, but it does it
in the context of a story, so it’s not direct, but it’s already formatted the mind of the person, so now they’re
beginning to go, oh, there’s an analogy, or at an unconscious level, they’re aware of it. Then I start adding in
the conscious framing.
So when I teach the trainers’ training, then the first element that I want to frame is that it’s all about learning.
And that training and learning are the opposite sides of the same thing. And that learning, then, is what
training is all about and that we need to understand what learning is. So if I use the word learning, and I
asked you to define it, everybody in here would probably have a slightly different definition.
That’s the challenge with communication, is, words that are concepts and abstractions, each of us has a
different experience to connect to that. In NLP we call it, what then is your complex equivalent of your word?
And your complex equivalent is based on your life experience. So what we need to do is try to, then, take a
word – and when you look in a dictionary, you’ll find, like, different meanings for the word listed by different
numbers. So I may be using it in one sense, and you may be using it in another sense. So I wanna make sure
we’re on the same page, but also, I wanna lay out the way I want you to start thinking about what we’re doing.
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So in the context of learning, I go back and I say, if we – I start with the feedback mechanism. And I say,
one of the great advances in understanding the world in the 20th century has come from systems thinking,
and come from cybernetics. And cybernetics, then the basic element behind cybernetics is a feedback
mechanism. And in the room, there’s a thermostat, and we set the temperature, and because of our body
heat, the temperature goes up, as it reaches a certain point, the thermostat kicks in, the cooling goes on. It
cools down, at a certain point, it cuts off, and it does it automatically, so we don’t need to run over and turn it
on and off.
Now then, an interesting discovery happened. And the interesting discovery was, when people realize that
this same mechanism in cybernetics, this feedback mechanism, actually, doesn’t just work for machine, and
their regulation, it also works for human beings. And that when the results of our behavior are fed back to
us in such a way that we change the nature, and direction, of our behavior, we have a process called learning.
And therefore, frequently when we think of learning, people say, I learned this; I learned that. That’s not
what we mean by learning. The only thing we mean by learning is your behavior changed. And the next
question is, how will your behavior be in the future? So I’ve just framed what I mean by learning.
So from then on, I hold that frame, consistently, through the training. So at the end of every exercise, instead
of saying, how did it go? Or what did you do? Which requires a subjective evaluation, or else, if I’d observed,
I would have known what you did, instead I ask, what did you learn? Because I want people to encode the
training in terms of learning. So from the very beginning I’m creating frames, I’m enforcing the frames,
I’m holding the frames. The end of every exercise, what did you learn? And then if anybody – I’m listening
carefully. And if they say, I learned that, I go good, now how in the future will your behavior be different? If
it won’t be different, you haven’t learned anything. So that would be an example. And then there are other
frames. I’ve got a list of about six frames. And so the other night I was thinking, then, about the frames that I
wanna lay out for the training that Eben and I are gonna be doing in December, so I was starting to list some
of the frames. And one of the first ones is gonna be around learning. Then we need to have a frame around
what teaching is.
So frames, then, are the way that you take the major concepts that you wanna communicate, and you indicate,
then, how you’re using those words, and you’ve gotta be consistent in your framing. If you’re inconsistent,
you confuse people. So you gotta set the frames, you gotta enforce the frames, and it’s like Dean was talking
about, you gotta continually amplify, you gotta continually increase and focus on that.
Eben Pagan: One example in information product marketing is let’s say someone purchases your first
product, and they go through it, and they enjoy it, and they say, oh, that was great. But you didn’t consciously
set up the frame for how it relates to everything else. Let’s say, in Example 2, someone purchases your
product, and I says, introduction, right at the beginning. And right in the introduction it says, dear friend,
I’m very excited to introduce you to Step 1 of my 10-step system, of my 10-step curriculum.
By the time that you’re finished with Step 1, you’re gonna be able to do this, and this, and this, and it’s going to
prepare you for Step 2, where you’re gonna learn, this, and this, and this, and by the time you’re finished with
all 10 of the steps, here are all of the things you’re gonna be able to do.
Say that’s one little frame change that I make. How could that change the results of the lifetime value of one
of your customers? How could that one little shift change things? I mean, who had an aha just from that one
little idea right there? Okay good.
The stuff that I’m talking to you about here, I struggle with this stuff. I mean, I woke up this morning in bed,
and I was thinking about it, and going, how can I teach something that’s that abstract, and that weird, but
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honestly, I feel like I have to tell you the things that I do. Like, this is what I do, this is how I think, this is how
I do these things, even if it’s a little bit difficult and complex.
So framing is happening all the time. And in fact, you’ll notice that when you meet strong personalities,
or when two strong personalities meet each other, there’s a constant frame struggle that’s going on at an
unconscious level. Who’s smarter? Who’s better? Who gets to run the show? Who’s making the decisions?
Within the first few seconds, when two people meet – it’s, like, when two komodo dragons meet, and they,
like, size each other up, and they’re, like, who’s gonna be the boss here?
That’s happening when two people meet, on an unconscious level. And it’s pretty quickly decided. You
can see who’s making eye contact, and the whole thing happens, and then, okay, done. And then once that
framework is set up, then it’s a social contract, it’s an unconscious social contract, and that’s just the way
things go.
In many – I wanna try to avoid getting killed here – but in many religious meetings, when they start out,
there are a series of exercises, of prayers, of singing, of body movements, that are synchronizing the group,
symbolically communicating power to another place, so all this stuff that happens so that by the time the
leader shows up, the job has all been done, right? The game is over. And I mean, this can be used for good or
for evil, just like anything else, all frame stuff, it’s all frame setting. So like I said, this is real good, okay? This
is up there in the 95 or 98 percent good range.
This guy helped this guy become this guy. So what kind of frames are being set up here? Anyone? What’s,
kinda, the frame here? Just, kinda, yell it out. You wanna talk about it? Just come up here for a second.
By the way, who is this guy? Who is the first, this guy, is he here? Where are you at? Okay, there you are,
awesome. Good work, by the way. This works, doesn’t it? Okay, good. There you go.
Male Speaker: The frames are being set that they can achieve a result immediately. And the result would be
the body that they wanna have.
Eben Pagan: Okay, excellent. So the frame is set that they can achieve the result immediately, and have the
body that they wanna have.
Male Speaker: Yeah.
Eben Pagan: That’s basically true. There’s multiple layers of this works right here. Right? At an
unconscious level, you know that if you win the lottery once, you were lucky. But if you win the lottery twice,
that’s impossible. And if someone says, I used my system to win my system to win the lottery three times,
does their system work?
Male Speaker: Yeah.
Eben Pagan: Like, it has to, right? It has to work. There’s no way you can even win it twice, so if you won it
three times, then, I’m gonna buy your thing because, I mean, if I could even win it once, I’m gonna be really
– do really well. So mister this guy, the first guy, did he win the lottery in some way? Right? Right, I mean, I
don’t know how he figured that out, but I’ve been wanting that for a long time. And then he helped this guy
here, who looks a lot more like me, than that guy, turn into this other dude, who, wow – is the other guy even
buffer than the first one? Like, I gotta take a look, and what have you.
The frame that I get, the unconscious frame that I get set up here, is this system is so regular, it’s so powerful,
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it’s so definitely works, that the first guy, who clearly is the most in-shape dude that – more in-shape than
anybody I know, helped this guy turn into this other guy, who that other guy is more in-shape than anyone I
know, it just has to work.
But I’m not consciously thinking that. What are you seeing when you see this, Wyatt?
Wyatt: One, I would wanna chunk up and go meta to the whole process, and step back and observe, so
what’s happening here? So that we’ve got transformation occurring, we’ve got change occurring, and we’ve
got someone that has control over that change mechanism. And we’ve got time that’s involved in the process.
So that, once again, the meaning is context-dependent. So I can talk to you about fitness, I can talk to you
about changing your physiology, I can talk to you about getting in shape, and each of us is gonna have a
totally different concept of that.
But by having the picture here, now, immediately, we have a representation, and we would go, oh, okay, this
guy is in shape. And now this guy’s in shape, and this guy’s not in shape. We learn by contrast. So we’ve got
the contrast, so it nails it down. Instead of talking about abstract fitness and everything, it’s talking about
now we’ve got a concrete embodiment of it. And instead of talking about abstract change, we’re saying, oh,
this guy changed to become this. This guy helped him. And that there’s a timeframe in.
So that is – those are the basic frames around the process. And then the implicit in it, of course, then, is if
he can do it, then probably I can do it. So that’s gonna be, perhaps, the most important frame of all for it to
communicate, as Eben said, if you got this guy that’s fit, and this guy’s fit, and both of them are fitter than
anybody we know, and this guy in the middle is designed to look like – that he might be as much of a wimp
as, maybe, I am. And then the implicit frame is, if he can do it, I can do it.
Wyatt: So those are some.
Eben Pagan: That’s good stuff. Now – so you remember, I talked about comparison and contrast? Because
we only understand things in relationship to something else that we already know, and we’re always trying to
figure out – our views are relative, our perspective is relative, relative to some other thing, some context. So
he’s setting all of this up to immediately communicate the contrast that he wants to communicate.
My gut tells me, by the way, just, like, as brainstorms as I look at this, right, this guy helped this guy become
this guy. I might try, this guy turned this guy into this guy. Because what’s – when you say the words “this guy
becomes this guy,” that’s very powerful. What is the implication? He’s a different person now. Right? Think
about that. He’s a different person.
How could we make this stronger? What’s missing from this, by the way, based on what you’ve been learning
for the last dozen sessions? Specific amount of time? It’s there. Oh, I see. But there’s more; there’s a bigger
thing here. Yell it out. Value equation? Okay, maybe.
I think, that this guy who became this guy, didn’t do it because he just wanted to look like that. I think,
that that was only a means to some other end that isn’t here. You follow? Any guesses what that might be?
Babes? That’s one way of saying it. One thing that it could very well be. I’m not sure, I don’t know, it might
be to win a body building competition, right? Maybe that’s what he’s seen himself doing. It might be to get
babes. It might be to – what? Avoid pain? Maybe. But what’s the specific outcome? What’s the measurable,
tangible thing outside of him that it could be for?
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Okay, so body confidence, or physical self-esteem. Sex. That’s like babes, only more to the point, right?
Leave it to the sexpert in the room to say that.
So I don’t know if I’m right, but when I find things that work, and we’re barking up the right tree, I think
we should bark further up that tree. I mean, I don’t know, but this guy, turned this guy, into this guy,
who attracted this girl, and there was a supermodel next to it, that – somehow that would become a more
complete equation in my mind. I don’t know if it would work, but even if you had, like, a smaller picture in
parenthesis, like parenthetically, and then he attracted this girl. Like, I’m saying it, but I don’t really wanna
feature it, but I just wanna mention it because that happened. Right? Every guy that looks at this will – you
know that –
And so when it says, how you can use Vince’s simple step-by-step belly busting ab sharpening system – by
the way, ab sharpening, is one of the best little phrases that I’ve ever read in fitness marketing – did you make
that up, or did you steal it? Nice work, I like the way you think. Belly busting ab sharpening to get into, or
back into, the best shape of your life. I’m not kidding when I say, you will simply and safely lose up to 3.8
pounds of body fat, each and every week.
So somewhere in here, a little parenthetical, one day I was out at the beach, and when I took my shirt off,
three supermodels ran over and tried to give me their phone number, and I wound up in a great relationship
with this one, somehow that doesn’t seem like it would hurt this whole mix. What does that do to the frame,
by the way, if we add the picture of the super babe?
It totally changes the frame of this whole thing. In this frame that he has set up right here, what’s he going to
be filling in the letter with? Right? What are all the components gonna be about in here that tie back up to
that frame that’s set up? It’s gonna be, I got myself in bad ass shape, and I have gotten other guys in bad ass
shape. That’s, like, the proof, that’s the whole frame here. Does that make sense? Anything said outside of
that kinda doesn’t match what was set up in the beginning. Whereas, if I add the fourth picture of the super
babe, then what is all of the copy gonna be about?
Well, yes, and actually by the way, this one could be about life transformation. Because he really did say, help
this guy become this guy, and I like the subtlety of that, I like it a lot. But when you add the super babe to the
mix, now the copy becomes about, how I got myself in shape, and proven, I mean, I help other people do it
too, and I can tell stories about them, but then I have permission to keep adding that extra piece, which is the
end result. I can now mention nine times in this sales letter, how coincidentally, upon becoming buff stud,
good-looking dude, and transforming life, super babe showed up and jumped all over and had wild monkey
love.
Do you want to contribute here? The point that I’m trying to make is, you can set the frame up any way
you want, but once you do, don’t step out of it, don’t start getting weird, and then, inside of this letter, start
talking about your interests and hobbies, and some weird thing, and try and show off because you’re also
a chess champion, whatever. Don’t step out of this very powerful framework that you’ve set up. So set the
framework up intentionally, but then really dial in within it.
So here’s what I’d like you to do right now, ask yourself the question, how can you show, at the beginning of
your marketing, visually, or with words, the contrast between where your prospect is, and where they wanna
be? How can you rapidly communicate? Maybe it’s pictures, maybe it’s audio, maybe it’s a video where you’re
talking to somebody who isn’t there, and then you’re talking to them after they were there. How do you set up
that contract right from the beginning?
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And then, how do you imply, as you’re setting it up, that you’re the one that delivers that result. You’re the
one that is the creator of that.
Male Speaker: I was taking this example, and wanted to see if I could, maybe, do it with some video because
it’s more than just – an attacking bird would be hard to portray in an image, especially since they might be
attacked in multiple ways. So I have this bird who, I could show with – really quickly attacking in the three or
four most common ways they attack, drawing blood, and I’ve actually gotten this bird now to, untethered, fly
outside, and like me enough, fly around, come back to my hand, and – like at a park – and nestle in for a pet.
And that could be a short contrast, kinda, this bird turned into this thing, and that thing’s so unbelievable,
kinda like, the – most people really don’t think they’re gonna look like the bodybuilder.
Eben Pagan: Good. Okay, so great. So it goes from bird that attacks in four scary and painful ways, to
– yeah, I can’t even imagine what No.2, 3 and 4 would be, so I’m out at a park with the bird and it’s flying
around, and then it lands, and then it nestles in for a pet. Yeah. To me, being novice, I had a parrot when
I was young, and didn’t really fly to my shoulder, or something, that seems a little far. Like, in the body-
building example there, he didn’t, like, have a guy that was in the street, like, homeless, obviously, with the
cart next to him, and the bag over his head, and then Arnold Schwarzenegger. Right? He had a much tighter
kinda range. A guy who looked like he was overweight, but didn’t look unhealthy, in a way. Like, the guy
looked like he still had a little bit of vigor, like, kind of an average person would be. And then he’s buff, but
not Arnold Schwarzenegger size. Like, he’s got that kind of buffness that every man looks at and goes, if I
looked like that, that would be it, all my problems would be solved, kind of thing.
Male Speaker: So not quite so unbelievable.
Eben Pagan: Yeah. So let’s bring it in a little bit, right, so that we could operate within very believable
realm.
Male Speaker: Just could bring it indoors, maybe.
Eben Pagan: What’s the one place where a bird attacks, most commonly, that anyone can relate to, and
hates.
Male Speaker: Their hand.
Eben Pagan: Okay. Where does it bite them?
Male Speaker: It would bite that. It would bite anywhere along this ridge, if you asked it to step up.
Eben Pagan: So a bird going aaaah. Biting someone’s finger, okay, starts off. Right, where’s a place that
a person would be really afraid that their bird might attack them, but wouldn’t, maybe, even mention it, or
wouldn’t say it?
Male Speaker: Probably their face.
Eben Pagan: Okay, the face. So if someone had a bird that bites them on the finger, would they be weird
about having it near their face?
Male Speaker: Yeah.
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Eben Pagan: Okay, so what about a little narrower range of, like, bird biting person on finger, and then bird,
like, right here on shoulder, like, giving master a kiss, or taking a seed out of their mouth.
Male Speaker: Okay.
Eben Pagan: Right? Because we’re addressing that big unconscious fear of, if they’re gonna bite my finger
– I mean, I’ve lot to have a bird on my shoulder, but I’ll never have this bird on my shoulder because I don’t
want him to bite me on the face. Maybe that’s it.
Male Speaker: I gotcha, okay.
Eben Pagan: Right? And then, now, you’ve got a range within which to operate. And I mean, I think you’re
setting up a frame here, too, that is – there are a lot of implications here because I think, I’m thinking, as a
potential bird owner, if you can get my bird to stop biting my hand, and I’m comfortable enough to get it to sit
on my shoulder without thinking it’s gonna bite my face, if you then show me a video of you at the park with
a parrot flying around, which, I think is completely out of the question, by the way. I mean, I would never
– even if you told me you were the best in the world at this, I’d say, I am never bringing my parrot out to the
park, because even if it would do that, there are hawks, and I saw The Parrots of Telegraph Hill, and I know
what happens to parrots that fly outside in California. You know what I mean?
Male Speaker: Okay.
Eben Pagan: But if you could do that, then if you sold me – you had a program called, how to train your
parrot to hunt for hawks or something, I’d go, oh, well the dude did that, so you know what I mean? Like, you
get me across that little expanse, and I’ll go way across.
Male Speaker: Thanks.
Eben Pagan: Just one little idea. Okay.
Male Speaker: So my transformation –
Eben Pagan: Hang on, lesson there? Tighten up the framing so that it’s very believable, and very directed
right to that range of how far your prospect – like how far would be believable for them, and how far, if you
could get them there, that would just set you up, and frame you in their mind as guru. All right, I’ll take any
of your stuff.
It’s ironic how a guy will come to my website on the dating side, and if they get a little personal ad email, that
they send out, and a woman writes them back, on a personal site, that they don’t even know, that’s it, they’re
gonna come buy my program because that worked.
184

Emotional State Conditioning Session Instructions

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Reference Manual

Male Speaker: Pleasure.

Male Speaker: Emotion.

Eben Pagan: Pleasure, emotion, experience.

Female Speaker: Instant gratification.

Eben Pagan: Instant gratification.

Female Speaker: Stimulation.

Eben Pagan: Stimulation.

Male Speaker: Imagination.

Female Speaker: Our mood changes.

Male Speaker: Three acts.

Male Speaker: Refuse.

Male Speaker: Because that’s where you learn.

Male Speaker: Because they’ve already gotten comfortable.

Male Speaker: [Inaudible]

Eben Pagan: Confidence. Rejection. What else?

Eben Pagan: Conflict. Fear.

Female Speaker: [Inaudible]

Mustapha: You’re welcome.

Eben Pagan: Excellent. Thank you.

Male Speaker: Their own self-doubt.

Eben Pagan: Scarcity. Self-doubt.

Male Speaker: [Inaudible]

Male Speaker: A trigger.

Male Speaker: A thought.

Male Speaker: [Inaudible]

Male Speaker: Fear.

Eben Pagan: Fear. Any others?

Male Speaker: [Inaudible]

Eben Pagan: Anxiety.

Male Speaker: Doubt.

Male Speaker: Insecurity.

Eben Pagan: Doubt. Insecurity.

Male Speaker: [Inaudible]

Eben Pagan: Where have I heard it before?

Male Speaker: [Inaudible]

Male Speaker: [Inaudible]

Wyatt Woodsmall: Thank you. Thank you.

Wyatt Woodsmall: On the waking dream?

Eben Pagan: You know, we’re all asleep.

Wyatt Woodsmall: Okay, yes.

Eben Pagan: Robots.

Male Speaker: To write faster.

Linda Feinholtz: Thank you.

Eben Pagan: Thank you.

Eben Pagan: Excellent.

Eben Pagan: Good. Thank you.

Male Speaker: Thank you.

Scott Robinson: Scott Robinson, scottrobinsoninc.com – I [inaudible]

Eben Pagan: scottrobinsoninc.com?

Scott Robinson: Yeah.

Scott Robinson: scottrobinsoninc.com.

Eben Pagan: I’m just messing with you. Okay, go ahead.

Scott Robinson: Thanks.

Eben Pagan: You’re welcome.

Eben Pagan: Ass?

Eben Pagan: Oh, it is.

Eben Pagan: Awesome. Thank you.

Rob Weeks: Thank you.

Eben Pagan: That’s a good one.

Male Speaker: Prospects.

James Fairfield: James Fairfield, Philadelphia.

Eben Pagan: What’s her biggest fear?

James Fairfield: The clients.