The most successful entrepreneurs understand there’s money to be made in entertaining customers-even if the “product” itself is boring.
Lots of people laugh at this idea-but the sales results prove it.
To drive the point home further, let me share an interesting story about math, Star Wars, and a student with ADHD.
The University of Central Florida did a study on ADHD. Part of the study was having a young student-presumbly with ADHD–watch:
-A 10 minute video on math
And…
– 10 minutes of Star Wars footage
The kid would not stop swiveling in is chair while watching the10 minute math video. This kid was like a tornado on this chair. He was bored to death.
How was he while watching 10 minutes of Star Wars? Focused & still as a statue.
What’s the lesson for entrepreneurs in all this? Entertainment is the secret to getting attention.
Entertainment in your marketing, business, public persona, customer service, and any other part of your business that customers interact with. All of it should have an element of entertainment.
Does this mean to act like a clown? Not necessarily. Use good judgment & modulate your entertainment in a way your ideal customer would enjoy.
As for this study, there is nothing stopping educators from teaching “boring” subjects in storyform. That way, the material better sticks in the minds of students .
Teachers who do this tend to get the best results from their students.
You want to get the best results (i.e. repeated sales) from your customers? Focus less on churning out boring webinars and more on making your content entertaining.
P.S. My book shows business owners and entrepreneurs the exact steps for using creativity to make lots of money. It costs around $30 everywhere else, but if you join my daily email list by clicking the link below, you can have a digital copy for free.
Get it here: https∶//powerpersuasion.net/
It’s now 5 years that I’ve working in the Agile Product Develoment space.
In the span of these 5 years, I’ve used 6 different “Agile project management”tools across various IT enterprises.
Some of these include major tools like Jira, AzureDevOps, VersionOne, etc.
The best one? Trello.
A simple, task-tracking app that can give most startups everything they need at the “Free Plan” level.
This isn’t a plug for Trello. But it is a call for you to not make your work complicated.
Here’s another example:
John Carlton is one of the top direct marketers alive today. One of the niches he specializes in is the golf niche.
I remember John talking about how all the pro-golfers he knew had only a few tools.
It was the newbies that bought all the seqsy gear .
To better make his point, John asked a pro to use the worst club he could find. The club was was unraveling, warped, and melted on the backside.
The pro was still able to hit the golf ball straight and true. Carlton then challenged another pro to hit a ball with a piece of rope.
The pro tied a knot on the rope and hit the golf ball over a house.
The lesson from all this: Just because a tool is old or basic doesn’t mean you’ll produce rusty or shabby results.
Great results are associated with good strategic thinking and sharp skills.
Tools are a secondary consideration.
I’ll go a step further and say that, more often than not, a new tool means you are preoccupied with busy work.
Focus less on chasing the newest gadgets and gizmos and more on what processes you need to implement to solve the problems you’re trying to solve.
Your bank account will be grateful.
P.S. My book shows business owners and entrepreneurs the exact steps for using creativity to make lots of money. It costs around $30 everywhere else, but if you join my daily email list by clicking the link below, you can have a digital copy for free.
Get it here: https∶//powerpersuasion.net/
I’m madder than a Baby Boomer using the self-checkout machine at the supermarket!
The story begins when Scott Adams-creator of the Dilbert comic strip- had a little Twitter catfight with yours truly.
He said I-and others like me who critiqued him for making incorrect predictions about COVID– were hallucinating and had cognitive dissonance.
Why would the creator of the Dilbert cartoons say such things about little ol’ me? Because I Tweeted him this observation from Ted Beale’s website, that’s why:
It has been interesting over the last month to watch the curious saga of Scott Adams on Twitter. He has gone from being a bog standard normie to very nearly crossing the bridge to covid enlightenment, only to draw back from the brink and instead go full on Branch Covidian. Of course, to save face for how he and others have been so wrong so often while a bunch of anonymous right wingers on social media have been right, Scott has taken to portraying himself as merely “doubting the doubters,” casting their correct predictions as mere luck, a case of the crowd occasionally getting something right entirely by accident.
Underlying all of this is Scott’s abiding faith in “experts,” and his corresponding incredulousness that non-experts, social media anons and the like, could have been right when the experts were wrong. It must be a fluke. Those who don’t think so are just engaging in confirmation bias, just”coping” (with what, being right when the experts were wrong?). Surely their rightness isn’t because they had access to better information or had better instincts than the experts, that’s impossible! All of this is even more ironic because Scott’s whole brand as expressed in his books and in his Dilbert comic strip is that those in positions of authority rarely know what is going on and the little guy drones in the trenches are the ones who really make things work.
What this unmasks, I suspect, is ultimately that he is a product of his generation and cannot escape its assumptions, even when he tries to. The intellectual underpinnings for Boomers were formed when most of America’s institutions still actually worked as advertised. Their generation is used to assuming that things like government agencies and large corporations fundamentally operate for the good of those who they supposedly serve. This creates a normalcy bias that leads to undue trust being granted to them. Boomers have a great deal of difficulty coming to grips with the increasing institutional decay and dysfunctionality that characterizes modern America.
Scott then says this in response to my tweet: Compare my actual Covid prediction record (the best in the nation). with the interpretation below and spot the cognitive dissonance tells.
It’s weirdly fascinating to see how easily people hallucinate entirely different lives for me.
So I responded with: The voices in my head were telling me that Mr. Adams might have made a mistake. But it was all a hallucination, after all. What a twist! I’m glad he set me straight–this cognitive dissonance is getting in the way of me being a master persuader & predictor, goshdarnit
There was more fun to be had with his followers–but I won’t bore you with those details.
I will say that the point about Boomers is accurate: They process information in a way that gives a lot of weight to “experts” and people in authority.
I’m not upset about this at all. In fact, I use it to my advantage when writing ads in the alternative health niche. The target audience for the health products I write for are people between 50 to 70 years old—that is prime Baby Boomer territory.
Any, I’d like to hear about your experiences in selling to Baby Boomers. What patterns have you found that work with this demographic?
Feel free to write me back & let me know
P.S. My book shows business owners and entrepreneurs the exact steps for using creativity to make lots of money. It costs around $30 everywhere else, but if you join my daily email list by clicking the link below, you can have a digital copy for free.
Get it here: https∶//powerpersuasion.net/
I was waiting in line at the grocery store checkout when I saw this book on the magazine rack : “Coloring Myth & Magic: Volume Two”
“ A coloring book for adults?” I wondered, “ What the hell is going on here?”
I turned the page of the coloring book and saw an ad for another product. Here’s the text of the ad:
===========
“Need more space to work through things? We’ve got you covered.”
Sweatpants & Coffee
The Anxiety Blob Comfort and Encouragement Journal
Prompts and exercises for letting go of worry and finding inner peace
“Includes calming coloring pages”
========
What does this tell us? Lots of adults are spending money on coloring books designed to help them calm down.
And it’s no surprise to see why: 25.5 percent of Americans between the ages of 18 to 24 — that’s over 1 out of every 4 young Americans — said they had “seriously considered suicide in the past 30 days”, according to a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
I’m not going to go into the potential roots of this anxiety problem: Too much social media, the breakdown of families & communities, hormonal imbalances, etc.
I’m not a doctor and I don’t pretend to be one on the Internet.
But I will say that you as an entrepreneur have a higher likelihood of making more sales if you can find what’s causing your target market anxiety.
When you understand what your buyers fear, hate, and love-you’ll be in a better position to give them great service.
If your product solves a real problem for your buyers, it should help in removing at least some of their anxiety.
So make sure your marketing puts a spotlight on those anxieties.
I don’t say this to sound manipulative but rather to help you build a stronger relationship with your customers.
There’s nothing wrong with that. As a matter of fact, it’s a good idea.
Remember, a publisher is making lots of money selling coloring books to anxious people.
Clearly, the buyers of these books are finding some benefit.
So give the people what they want.
Is your product less beneficial to your target market than a coloring book?
I doubt it.
Or at least I hope not.
P.S. My book shows business owners and entrepreneurs the exact steps for using creativity to make lots of money. It costs around $30 everywhere else, but if you join my daily email list by clicking the link below, you can have a digital copy for free.
Get it here: https∶//powerpersuasion.net/
I’m madder than a broke web-cam girl who lost Internet connection!
You know, there used to be a time when I had to work hard to entertain myself.
As a kid, it took EFFORT to go to the TV and flip through a limited number of channels at very specific times to enjoy the shows that I wanted to watch .
For example, I loved old reruns of looney tunes. I could look forward to Bugs Bunny chomping on his carrot as he put the anti-rabbit bigot, Elmer Fudd, through one gauntlet of sociopathic humiliation after another.
It was fun.
it was wholesome.
It taught me everything I know about respecting boundaries.
Fast forward to the present day: If I want to be entertained, I just need to look at the news.
Exhibit A
====
OnlyFans Bans Sexually Explicit Content Over ‘Mounting’ Pressure From Banks
=======
OnlyFans, if your ‘re a Traveling Companion of Sultan Wes who happens to be too pure of heart (and gaze) not to know, is a London-based content subscription platform.
The site half-heartedly insists it’s platform for all sorts of creators like chefs and musicians..
But everyone knows it’s just a p*rn site.
Anyway, the upshot of the story is that OnlyFans announced plans to ban poorn starting Oct. 1, due to pressure from banks and payment companies.
This raised a question: Could OnlyFans afford to NOT show explicit content and still survive as a company?
Lets be honest, OnlyFans banning explicit content is like LinkedIn banning tiresome humblebrags—what else is left?!
Dan Kennedy, one of the great champions of direct response marketing, always insisted that the most dangerous number in business is 1.
You never want to be 1 lost client/customer away from losing your business
You never want to be so reliant on a single source of revenue that you’’re business would fold if it was taken away.
This is why SaaS leaders (the smart ones, at least) are so keen to keep their pipelines full.
“Diversify your portfolio” might sound like a platitude-but ignore it at your own peril.
This isn’t a hard concept to understand —it’s just a bad idea to have all your eggs in one basket .
OnlyFans is a great cautionary tale to internalize this lesson
By pulling explicit content, it’s as if OnlyFans put all their eggs in one basket and then decided to go vegan!
Perhaps they could diversify their portfolio and try to compete with Khan Academy and Osmosis and teach lonely med students anatomy (haw haw) .
I don’t know what the solution is for them, but they need to do something.
For now, they have been able to buy some time after pushing back on behalf of their customers and “content creators”
Who knew that 300lb basement-dwelling virgins eating Doritos while whacking off to eGirls dressed as Bugs Bunny (doing UNSPEAKABLE things with carrots) had such purchasing power?
But that’s a business lesson for another time…
P.S. My book shows business owners and entrepreneurs the exact steps for using creativity to make lots of money. It costs around $30 everywhere else, but if you join my daily email list by clicking the link below, you can have a digital copy for free.
Get it here: https∶//powerpersuasion.net/
I was close to giving Safeway my money.
It was late at night. I was far from home I found myself in a supermarket.
I was hungry and wanted to check out if they had any dairy-free protein powders I could take home.
After scanning the shelves for a few seconds, I found there was only one dairy-free option.
I let out a sigh of relief. That is, up until I looked at the ingredients list of the supposedly “dairy-free” protein shake –and found that it contained milk.
Not only did I not buy the product– I made a promise to myself to not buy any protein shakes from Safeway ever again.
Safeway lost my trust because I caught a brand on their shelves lying.
But I ‘m not the only guy who has had to deal with this. You’ve had to deal with it as well, whether it’s:
-A line of Hershey’s syrup that claims it’s full of calcium…. but the ingredients list actually says 0% calcium.
-A product that has “Made in China” written right under a prominently displayed American flag
-Kellogg, to cash in on swine flu fears in 2009, putting “Now Helps Support Your Child’s Immunity” across boxes of Rice Krispies cereal.
The list goes on….
As a consumer, you have to deal with lies, deception, bluffs, and all sorts of dishonest shenanigans every day. It’s especially frustrating when it leaks into a high-stakes B2B deal.
You’re probably getting lied to dozens of times during the day
Your prospects are experiencing the same thing.
There’s a lot to be said about how to navigate the skepticism of your buyers.
All I’ll say at this point is that your marketing promotions and sales presentations should make clear to the prospect that you don’t NEED them to buy.
Your product doesn’t do everything and is not for everyone.
Master this principle, and buyers will believe (and want to buy from) you more than any of your competitors.
P.S. My book shows business owners and entrepreneurs the exact steps for using creativity to make lots of money. It costs around $30 everywhere else, but if you join my daily email list by clicking the link below, you can have a digital copy for free.
Get it here: https∶//powerpersuasion.net/
Who you spend your time with has a direct impact on your income. If you hang out with winners, you’ll likely become a winner. If you hang out with losers, you’ll likely become a loser.
Let’s take the example of actor, Will Smith.
Smith is one of Hollywood’s most successful actors, with two Academy Award nominations to his name.
He is so talented that President Barack Obama gave Smith his blessing to portray him in film, apparently saying Smith has ‘got the ears to play him’.
But here’s the thing: Smith’s reputation (and income) would probably be higher if he didn’t have an anchor hanging around his neck: His wife, Jada Pinkett Smith
Recently, Will & Jada have publicly admitted to being in an “open relationship.”
Looking at the public actions & statements of this kinky couple, a lot of this ickiness can be attributed to Jada.
It’s like not a week goes by without Jada finding some way to embarrass Will in public.
In 2020, Jada admitted to cheating on Will –with an opioid-addicted rapper half her age– and has zero regrets about her actions.
And, unsurprisingly, the shenanigans keep on continuing.
Keep in mind, although Will Smith is an A-list celebrity, Jada is a B-list actress.
The only big movies I remember Jada being in were the “Nutty Professor” and “Collateral”.
Let’s be honest, if Will Smith wasn’t her husband, the world would have forgotten about Jada.
But he still keeps her around. Will still allows Jada to influence his decisions.
The result? A continued loss of respect for Will Smith within his industry and community.
This loss of respect & lack of self-discipline will affect any business venture Will decides to pursue.
We might not see the results of his self-implosion today or tomorrow but it’s going to happen if Will doesn’t correct course.
So here’s the lesson for the businessperson: if you want to succeed as an entrepreneur, you need to do what’s necessary in order to achieve maximum sales and marketing effectiveness in your business.
This means surrounding yourself with people who will help you in your mission.
P.S. My book shows business owners and entrepreneurs the exact steps for using creativity to make lots of money. It costs around $30 everywhere else, but if you join my daily email list by clicking the link below, you can have a digital copy for free.
Get it here: https∶//powerpersuasion.net/
Here’s a true & funny story that shows what might be hurting the selling power of your marketing.
It’s about the late Gary Halbert. He’s a man who became one of the greatest direct marketers in history.
But he didn’t start off that way.
Early in his career, Halbert was cocky and arrogant. He wrote a radio advertisement for a diet book targeting overweight people. Here’s how the ad went:
ATTENTION ALL FAT PEOPLE!
DOES YOUR GARBAGE MAN DELIVER INSTEAD OF COLLECT AND THEN YELL “CHOW TIME!”?
WHENEVER YOU GET ON AN ELEVATOR, NO MATTER WHAT BUTTON YOU PUSH, DOES IT ALWAYS GO DOWN?
WHENEVER YOU GO SHOPPING FOR GROCERIES, DO YOUR NEIGHBORS LAUGH BEHIND YOUR BACK AND SAY, “THAT LITTLE PIGGY WENT TO THE MARKET AGAIN?”
LISTEN: FAT AIN’T WHERE IT’S AT.
LEARN HOW TO GET RID OF IT.
READ THE AKRON BEACON JOURNAL.
READ IT TOMORROW.
LOOK FOR THE PAGE WITH THE BIG HEADLINE THAT SAYS:
THE WORLD WOULD BE A BETTER PLACE WITHOUT FAT PEOPLE: HERE’S HOW YOU CAN HELP GET RID OF THEM.
THAT’S TOMORROW IN THE BEACON JOURNAL. LOOK FOR IT!
BYE PORKY.
As you can imagine, Halbert’s ad did not perform well at all. His client lost thousands of dollars and only sold around 3 copies of the book.
Here are the lessons Halbert learned that you need to internalize:
1.) Don’t try to be overly creative and clever in your marketing.
2.) Don’t make fun of your customers. Have some empathy.
Here’s a law of human relationships: Nobody cares about what you say until they believe that you care about them.
The more prospects feel that you understand the problems they face, the more they’ll buy.
You’ll get higher conversions because humans buy from people that they like and trust.
Having empathy in marketing is so basic but SaaS leaders struggle with implementing this concept.
Now I have shown you the path–because I care about you, boo.
P.S. My book shows business owners and entrepreneurs the exact steps for using creativity to make lots of money. It costs around $30 everywhere else, but if you join my daily email list by clicking the link below, you can have a digital copy for free.
Get it here: https∶//powerpersuasion.net/
Why are junior marketers hurting your sales? Why do you have to micromanage every movement your interns make? Why do you have to deal with vendors and employees who never seem to “get it?”
Any successful businessperson will tell you the reason–you get what you pay for.
To better illustrate the principle for you, here’s a funny story that happened to me over a year ago.
A technical recruiter reached out to me through LinkedIn.
I’ll protect his identity-and dignity-and call him “Rajdeep” . Here’s the conversation with some details redacted:
====
Rajdeep: Hello Wesam, I have an urgent role for Scrum Master in [LOCATION REDACTED]. Please do let me know if you would be interested and would like to know more about this role. Thanks
Me: I need to know the rate range first though
Rajdeep: : I do have the rate range here in between [LAUGHABLY LOW RANGE] on W2. Please advise.
Me : Sorry, [MUCH HIGHER RATE] is my minimum
Rajdeep: Oh! Kill me Please. Out of my budget.
Me: You will only attract monkeys if you pay in peanuts
Rajdeep: Understand! I can only pay what I am getting from Customer.
======
Don’t be like poor, suicidal Rajdeep.
You want to get the best talent and pay competitive fees.
How can you afford the best talent?
Increase your profits.
How do you d increase your net profits? Well, you can either…
A.) Cut down on costs through process improvement
Or
B) Increase Revenue
If you can do both, you’ll be unstoppable.
P.S. My book shows business owners and entrepreneurs the exact steps for using creativity to make lots of money. It costs around $30 everywhere else, but if you join my daily email list by clicking the link below, you can have a digital copy for free.
Get it here: https∶//powerpersuasion.net/
Every atom of motivation–every spark of desire–comes from self interest.
The Netflix survival-drama show “Squid Game” provides some lessons on how you can use your prospects’ self-interest to your (and their) advantage.
The show centers around the unlucky middle aged Seong Gi-hun who lives with his elderly mom in South Korea.
Gi-hun is divorced, drinks too much, has a krapy job, and has run up a bunch of gambling debts that are so high, he’s starting to get threatened by sadistic loan sharks.
But then, a mysterious man- representing a mysterious organization -comes along and gives him the chance to play in a series of games with the promise of becoming a millionaire if Gi-hun wins the competition.
Our desperate hero accepts the offer and soon finds himself shipped away to a remote island facility along with over 455 other people.
There’s everyone from violent gangsters, to immigrants, to stock traders, and math teachers.
But regardless of background, all these players had one thing uniting them: They all have unpayable debts and are all desperate enough to risk their lives for a chance to make millions.
And when I say “risk their lives”, I mean it. Contestants who lose a game are killed off.
The story is great and I recommend you watch it. But the show is also instructive because there are lessons in here for the entrepreneur.
Here’s a list of sales-boosting nuggets from Squid Game :
1.) Target the Right People To Sell To
The shadowy organization running the Squid Game isn’t just “marketing” to anybody.
It’s deliberately keeping tabs on people who are in enough financial trouble to want to opt-in to a game that requires players to risk their lives and kill other players.
Once the organization determines a prospect is ripe for recruitment, they move on to the next step…
2.) Pitch Your Product/Service With a Demonstration
The organization sends a mysterious clean-cut and well-dressed operative to approach the prospect.
The man offers Gi-hun the Korean equivalent of around $85 if he wins a children’s game where players try to flip each other’s folded pieces of paper.
The catch? If Gi-hun loses a round, he has to let the mysterious man slap him across the face.
Gi-hun opts into the game and gets smacked on the face every time he loses.
He finally wins after enduring several humiliating slapping sessions and the man then gives Gi-hun a card and invites him to play similar games with much more money stake.
Gi-hun accepts the offer, is knocked out by sleeping gas, and is taken to the facility where the organization cleverly….
3.) Visualizes The Rewards to the Prospect
Once Gi-hun and the other players awaken in the facility, a huge piggy bank hanging over their heads is the first thing they see. This piggy bank keeps filling with money as players are killed off and the game progresses. It’s made clear to the players that the winner of the contest will have this money all to themselves.
This piggy bank concept is applicable to marketing. Make sure that whatever visual design you use in your marketing is created in a way to get prospects salivating.
4.) Keep Your Most Loyal Buyers… By Filtering Out Flaky Buyers
After the first game (a particularly bloody round of Red Light, Green Light), the players invoke their right to leave the game at any time by majority vote.
Here’s the interesting part: The majority choose to come back and continue playing because they hate their normal lives so much more–either because of financial troubles or being on the run from the police.
They see the game as a shot to win big and rid themselves of their problems.
This means that the players who came back to play the game were far more committed.
Use this principle in your marketing. Set up your business in a way that repels flaky, wishy-washy buyers and retains your most fanatical customers.
I could go on more about the business lessons to be learned from Squid Game.
But I’ll end it here for now.
P.S. My book shows business owners and entrepreneurs the exact steps for using creativity to make lots of money. It costs around $30 everywhere else, but if you join my daily email list by clicking the link below, you can have a digital copy for free.
Get it here: https∶//powerpersuasion.net/