Knowing, liking and trusting the seller can help. But it plays a supporting role, not the leading role.
Don’t act like you’ve never bought merchandise from a hustle man who you’ve never met and have no reason to trust.
If you have what someone really wants, they’ll talk often themselves into buying regardless of other considerations.
That’s the reason Know-Like-Trust is dangerous.
You spend an inordinate amount of time, money and energy trying to get “known” rather than creating a desirable offer.
You postpone making an offer until you feel you’ve built up enough K-L-T first.
Truth is, many of your would-be buyers are bored with you by the time you’re ready to make an offer.
Trust is important. But no one buys something they don’t want just because they trust the person selling it.
If you offer something that improves people’s lives, you don’t have to “earn” the right to sell it to them.
The longer you wait, they longer they’re missing out on the benefits of your offer.
Imagine Moderna (a company you don’t know) and Pfizer (which NO ONE likes and few people trust) waiting to make their vaccines available until they’d crossed some arbitrary Know-Like-Trust threshold…
Doesn’t work like that.
People begged to get those jabs. Stood in line for hours to get them.
Because they desire protection — and getting back to “normal” life.
What does your ideal customer really want? Show them how to get it.
And whoever paints the clearest picture of a specific desirable outcome wins.
P.S. Share this revelation with your business buddies. They need to know the truth too!
So an irresistible offer should be driven by “desire stacking.”
Which brings me back the offer I mentioned at the beginning of this email.
One of the most attractive, no-brainer offers I’ve ever seen.
A chance to rent out the mansion from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.
You may have seen this. Airbnb posted the link about a week ago, and Will Smith gave a video tour on YouTube on Monday.
When you see this, what’s your instant reaction?
For me — and countless people like me — the response is…
1st: WHERE DO I SIGN UP?
2nd: Please, God. Let me get a spot before they’re sold out.
I did not wonder how much it costs (and I definitely didn’t try to compare price vs. other lodging in the area).
Flying cross-country in a pandemic didn’t dampen my excitement.
If I could have grabbed a spot, nothing would have stopped me from booking a night.
Of course, different people have different responses. But for the right people, this offer is totally irresistible.
And the core reasons the Fresh Prince mansion is a no-brainer… are the same reasons behind most offers that are too sweet to ignore.
Let’s quickly break down 4 of them.
1. Status
Your offer should raise your prospect’s status — in his own eyes or the eyes of others.
When he says “yes,” what does he get that instantly makes him feel better about himself… like he’s just jumped to the next level (or at least finally discovered the elevator)?
How will he look to his (future) wife? His kids? His golf buddies. His competitors?
What will he have that others WISH they had?
A few bonus ebooks ain’t gonna get it.
2. Story Factor
Does buying from you give the customer an exciting, envy-inducing story to share at his next dinner party or networking event?
Does it change the story he tells himself about himself?
Or the story his parents tell to brag to their friends about their son?
Does it give him content that will get tons of likes on social media?
You might be shocked how much people will spend or suffer through to have a good story to share.
Think of all the great stories you could tell after staying at the Bel-Air mansion! And unlike a lot of business stories, you can share this one with just about everyone.
3. (Aspirational) Identity
Every conscious decision we make is influenced by the way they see ourselves and our place in the world.
If your offer connects to your should-be buyer’s identity in a unique way…
Helps him express externally how he sees himself internally…
Or moves him closer to being the person he wishes he was, letting Clark Kent be Superman, as it were…
It taps the deep-rooted desire.
How can your offer link your buyer to that identity?
4. Exclusivity
You don’t have to convince anyone there’s a limited amount of nights to book a stay in a mansion.
And you don’t have to convince anyone there’s high demand for the available slots.
But only about 365 people will have the privilege of securing one in the next year — if Airbnb keeps it open that long.
That kind of exclusivity and scarcity amplifies desire that’s hard to replicate in any other way — as long as you’re offering something people want in the first place.
It multiplies the status and story factor. Being part of such a small group boosts the impact to identity.
Leveraging exclusivity makes your offer significantly harder to resist. Use it to your advantage.
So there you have it.
When you’re thinking about how to make your offer as compelling as possible, remember…
Put value on the back burner. It’s all about stacking desire.
***UPDATE***
When I sent this article out as an
I sent my broadcast email newsletter earlier this week, I tested two very different subject lines.
One promises a valuable lesson about a topic I hear a lot of questions about…
The other seems to offer a voyeuristic peek into the lifestyles of the rich and famous.
I have to admit, the split test results surprised me:
If you’ve read my emails before, you may assume the mansion I promise a tour of is my own home.
(That’s kinda deceptive, but not maliciously so).
After the first hour, the voyeuristic subject line was opened TWICE as many times as the benefit subject line. Honestly, I thought the “Anatomy” subject line would win.And I definitely didn’t think either version would double the open rate of the other. There are a few takeaways here:
TEST. You really never know what will work until you get it out to the market
I’ve said it a thousand times, but must have forgot when I sent this test..
Sometimes entertainment is the most valuable benefit you can provide. That subject line brought MTV Cribs to my readers’ inbox.
If you want to keep your open rates from dropping over time, entertainment value is practically nonnegotiable.
People really do want to go behind-the-scenes, especially if your business has a personality component. They’re curious about the non-business stuff going on with you and others in your industry.
One of the top copy rules is that the copy must be about the reader. And while the “mansion” subject line doesn’t seem to be about the reader, it really is. It’s providing something they want: entertainment… escape… scratching the curiosity itch… aspiration… connection.
For me, Lamar Tyler is one of my top answers to the question “If you could spend an hour with one person/celebrity, who would it be?” I have a TON of respect and admiration for Lamar’s business acumen, leadership and brilliance. Plus, he’s one of the coolest guys you’d ever want to meet.
Last weekend, I got my hour with The Man.
Lamar hosted the inaugural Traffic, Sales and Profit Lunch and Learn series on Blab, and I had the honor of being his guest. We discussed a lot of topics close to my heart, like:
What is a unique selling proposition (USP)?
How do I make people want what I sell?
The differences in writing emails, landing pages, general web copy, etc.
The most painful mistakes people make when writing copy
When it’s time to hire a professional copywriter
“Why can’t I find a good copywriter?”
and plenty more.
I also revealed the most powerful characteristics of email copywriting — and why some people should NOT hire a copywriter to write their emails for them. (I’ve told potential clients on multiple occasions I couldn’t do better than what they’re doing.)
Check it out: The Science of Copy Lunch & Learn
An Important Point I Didn’t Get to Make in the Interview
I realized after the Blab that I forgot an significant point when we talked about why it’s sometimes difficult to find a good copywriter. If you’re expecting a stranger to instantly create a miraculous transformation of your business, you might be expecting too much.
Your copywriter isn’t (necessarily) weak just because he can’t make your boring offer exciting…or make a dead mailing list suddenly spring to life.
I’ve often quipped that I do work miracles, just not on demand. (Yes, I’ve said it to potential clients.) Even copy that seems brilliant doesn’t work 100% of the time. Believe me, I know from embarrassing experience. All of the pros have. For optimal results, you have to make the right offer to the right audience at the right time.
On the other hand, a great offer or a hot list can make even a pedestrian copywriter look like a superstar…
In Parts 1 and 2 of this short course, we’ve been talking about intensifying your potential customers’ built-in desires and directing them towards the thing that you’re selling. There’s a common thread tying together each of the points we’ve covered. Perhaps you’ve noticed.
You use your words to paint vivid, evocative images in the minds of your prospects…their response will correspond directly with their desires, motivations and priorities…
You base your marketing messages or sales pitch on the quest they’re on, the vision they have for their lives and the way they see their place in the world…
You do your best to be convincing…but those who become your customers are those who convince themselves that you can deliver the results they want.
Do you see it? Conversion is essentially a self-initiated change. All persuasion is self-persuasion.
Persuasion’s Passive-Aggressive Nature
“No matter how brilliantly an idea is stated, we will not really be moved unless we have already half thought of it ourselves.” ~ Mignon McLaughlin
If you’re honest, you know deep down that this quote speaks to real experience.
As irresistible as your message may seem to you, what really matters is how it matches up with what the hearer thinks about himself (his quest)… about the problem you’re addressing or promise you’re making… about you.
For example, if he believes he was born to be an entrepreneur and that reading a book can speed up the process and increase his chances of success, he’ll actively search for those kinds of books.
If he believes that “I could never succeed in business” and that starting a business a risk reserved for richer, more educated people, “be your own boss” products won’t appeal to him.
Vision Is the Delivery Mechanism
In order to get someone to buy from you, you need him to convince himself that your product or service will give him what he wants. To do that, you have to give him the materials he needs to convince himself. That brings us back to the concept of building vision.
When you’re helping your prospect imagine all the wonderful tomorrows that are sure to come after he buys your product… when he can see himself enjoying a brighter future because of you, he’s really selling himself on your proposition. Of course you’re doing your part: feeding him the raw materials he needs to see that mental image. This is where copywriting, storytelling, demonstration and testimonials come into play.
You want him to come to a predetermined conclusion: that your product is his best option to achieve the transformation he’s looking for. Rather than stating that too explicitly (which will probably be a turn-off for most potential clients), you want to help him draw that conclusion on his own. As Blaise Pascal said, “People are usually more convinced by reasons they discovered themselves than by those found by others.”
When he decides that you’re the best choice based on his own “reasoning,” you’ve won a firmly-convinced convert.
How do you make people want what you’re selling? I mean, that’s the point of marketing, right?
Let me clarify one thing before we get started. I don’t believe in it’s possible to create desire. Our desires are pre-existing. Your job as entrepreneurs and marketers is to create products and services that there is already some existing desire for, then direct the desire our potential customers feel toward your offer.
Now, I hear what you’re saying. “There are companies making big money selling things people didn’t know they wanted. Just look at Apple. They’ve sold millions of devices nobody even knew they wanted.”
Steve Jobs himself said that “A lot of times people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”
Jobs was dead wrong.
What about the auto industry? Henry Ford once said “If I’d asked my customer what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.” Nobody wanted cars. But in 2012, global car sales topped 80 million units.
Believe it or not, this apparent discrepancy actually proves that marketing is about selling what people already want. People may not have wanted a car, but they did want to travel faster. So Ford gave his customers what they wanted – it just came in a different package than they expected.
The same is true for Apple. Jobs and company didn’t create a brand new desire; they channeled desires that millions of people already had into a unique new line of products.
Apple didn’t invent music and inject it into the iPod. It just made it easier to access the tunes you love and carry them with you everywhere you go. Apple didn’t have to convince anybody that carrying one multi-capability device was better than hauling a music player, camera, GPS device and a phone.
The iGadgets are products appealing those already-present desires in an attractive new way.
So instead of asking “How do I make people want what I sell,” figure out how to channel your ideal prospects’ desires toward your product and the satisfaction they’ll experience when they buy it.
Vision, The Ne Plus Ultra of Desire Intensification
The real key to directing the desires of your potential customers is to create a vision, an image in their minds. Business gurus spend a lot of time talking about coming up with your own company vision, and that’s important. But until you’re building a vision in other people’s minds, you’ll always struggle to sell your product or service, especially if you’re not the cheapest, closest or only available option. (A precarious position at best.)
Even then, you face the danger of being overtaken by someone who does inspire visions in your customers’ minds.
Feast Your (Mind’s) Eye On This
According to Roy Williams, the 7th Law of the Advertising Universe is this: “Engage the Imagination, then take it where you will. Where the mind has repeatedly journeyed, the body will surely follow. People only go to places they have already been in their minds.”
Think about it. When you’re making a big decision, you’ve always imagined scenarios of how it will turn out. You’ve seen yourself enjoying the benefits of action or enduring the pain of indecision. You’ve smelled the salt air and felt the warm waves soaking your feet on Waikiki.
When you keep picturing something you want, that recurring vision heaps up desire that sooner or later you have to act on. Or go crazy.
Eugene Schwartz said this in Breakthrough Advertising:
“Above everything else, advertising is the literature of desire…Advertising gives form and content to desire. It provides it with a goal. These desires, as they exist in the mind of your prospect today, are indistinct. They are blurs—hazy, ambiguous, not yet crystallized into words or images. In most cases, they are simply vague emotions, without compulsion or direction. And as such, they have only a fraction of their true potential power.
“Your job is to fill out these vague desires with concrete images… your job is to show him in minute detail all the tomorrows that your product makes possible for him.
“This is the core of advertising—its fundamental function. To take unformulated desire, and translate it into one vivid scene of fulfillment after another. To add the appeal of concrete satisfaction after satisfaction to the basic drive of that desire. To make sure that your prospect realizes everything that he is getting—everything that he is now leaving behind him—everything that he may possibly be missing. The sharper you can draw your pictures…the more your prospect will demand your product, and the less important will seem your price.“
How Do You Score?
Are your marketing materials are delivering in these areas? Are they intensifying and directing the desires of the people you really want to do business with? Are you talking about what interests you or what interests them?
In Part 2 we’ll plunge a little deeper into this topic. In the meantime, make an effort to get to know your prospects and customers better than ever. It’ll be one of the best investments you can make.
