Marketing Psychology – Don’t Be a Sucker

The old observation that there is nothing new under the sun is certainly true for marketing. There are so many shiny new toys that offer to help you succeed – books, ebooks, coaching programs, videos, newsletters, memberships – that it is enough to make your head swim. And none of them have anything really new to offer. I have realized, finally, that everything is covered in one of the best books of all time on marketing, even though it doesn’t claim to be about marketing. The book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, is about the techniques of persuasion that underlie all of the main aspects of marketing. I love this book because it cuts through a lot of crap, because it explains how the author, Dr. Robert Cialdini, discovered how to resist marketing hype, and because it is written by an old university colleague of mine. Just a personal bias there.

All You Need to Know

The six points of influence are listed in the figure below. These are widely available on many websites. What I want to point out here is that Dr. Cialdini not only outlined each of these and why they work, he also described how he had been a sucker for them and, more importantly, how he developed resistance to them. This is perhaps the best bonus that he could have included. It has helped me become more aware of when and how marketing is being thrown at me. See what I mean below.

Reciprocity: I’ll do something for you or give you something for free if you give me something back. How about a free report if you just subscribe to my newsletter? That is the most common example of reciprocity on the internet. This one is easy to ‘resist’ if you really wish. Just subscribe, then get the whatever-is-free, then unsubscribe later.

Authority: People are more persuaded if they recognize the influencer’s authority. Celebrities are bought and/or invented for this purpose. This strategy is a name-dropper’s delight. It doesn’t take much to resist this strategy when you stop and think about how little value a celebrity endorsement provides for anything.

Social Proof: Testimonials, testimonials, testimonials! Please don’t ever be suckered by anyone’s testimonial. They are never bad. Heaven help you if you are persuaded by testimonials. This is such a strong component of marketing psychology that it is almost impossible to wade through the countless testimonials (i.e., “social proof”) that clutters sales pages.

Commitment & Consistency: The Encyclopedia Britannica used to be sold door to door. Each sales rep was taught to ask 22 questions, starting with simple ones that could only be answered with a ‘yes’. People have a strong tendency to stay consistent with such answers, even when the final question asks for the sale. Very difficult to resist this one. You have to be able to violate your own consistency to not buy the product or service after you have said ‘yes’ 21 times in a row.

Liking: People are more likely to be convinced by someone they like. This is why attractive or humorous sales people, or sales people who are similar to you in some significant way, are successful. Have you ever read someone’s business story about how they were broke and out of work, etc., etc.? The purpose for this story is to get you to feel an identity with that person. This is the seed of liking, and it is a powerful tool of persuasion. Just keep in mind that it may not be a true story and, even if it is, it doesn’t mean that the product or service will necessarily work for you. Sneaky, huh?

Scarcity: Deadlines, scarcity of inventory, limited time price – all these create a fear that if you don’t act now you won’t be able to get what you want. I can tell you right now that if you ever encounter a web page that says something like, “This page will never appear again, so you have only this one chance to buy [fill in the blank],” get off that page immediately. There is just so much B.S. I can tolerate! The fear of scarcity is one of the most overused and easy to resist of all the six points to persuasion. How to you have a limited supply of ebooks, for pete’s sake? (Yes, I’ve seen that claim.)

Keep these things in mind when you encounter any kind of sales page or advertisement. Your awareness will make you a better customer and a better businessperson.

All the best,

Dr. D

MLM Opportunity Lead Funnel: Bad Attitude

Attracting a New MLM Opportunity Lead

Okay gang, here is what you are after: another MLM opportunity lead. Right? WRONG! This is what your MLM company wants you to envision. Just keep those warm bodies flowing into your funnel, and by magic you will get money out the other end. This is really easy, although it isn’t effective. You can fill your funnel with leads by buying lists, by advertising in every venue known to humankind, by bugging everyone you come within shouting distance of, or any other standard weak-attraction strategy that you know. The underlying attitude for this strategy is just to get busy filling your funnel, not necessarily to spend your time effectively building a solid business.

This is What You Will Get

I swear there must be an army of people who fill out online forms and respond to ads about making money at home. They show up big time on lists for sale, and they will fill out your online forms in a heartbeat.  One of their main characteristics is that they will play dumb when you contact them. “Who are you? I don’t remember filling out any form for that?” Or, worse yet, they will complain about you spamming or harrassing them, even if you have a double opt-in list.

These people are often called opportunity seekers. I call them time vampires. Any amount of time or money that you spend on finding or contacting opportunity seekers might as well be tossed into a black hole.

This is What You Want

MLM business leads who are Real People. (Okay, I made up some names just to make my point.) People who are interested in what you have to say, who see value in associating with you, and who see you as a leader whom they can trust. The question that you have to ask, and to answer correctly, is: What do you have to offer that is truly attractive – i.e., why would someone want to work with you? The answer, by the way, does not lie your fabulous company with the top-notch leadership, products that sell themselves, best compensation plan in human history, or any other such nonsense. No, the answer is that what you have to offer is YOU. This is the standard for any kind of relationship, and MLM is all about building relationships.

MLM Business Leads are People Looking for Value.

Can you explain something – anything at all – to a potential enrollee into your MLM company that is truly beneficial? Can you teach them about marketing, and I mean REAL marketing? Can you show them how to make the most of their Unique Selling Proposition? Can you give them advice on how to get a business up and running without irreversibly going into the red every month? If you don’t have good answers to these questions, and many more like them, then you are probably going to fail at MLM. In fact, you may have already failed in the past, maybe more than once. If so, isn’t it about time that you used some common sense about doing business so that others can benefit from you and your leadership?

There are SOOOO many ways to do marketing and to have fun at it. It can be like playing a game or having a hobby, except that your finances get better when you have fun in marketing. I  guess I’ve asked more questions than I’ve answered in this post. And that, in my opinion, is a good thing. Maybe the bottom line is that you really must get into a trusting relationship with someone who is doing what you want to do. Then you can grow your own business by passing it along to others.

All the best,

Dr. D

Running a Business is Like Driving a Ferrari

Just imagine for a moment that you’ve got yourself a rock-solid business. This is the easy part, because so many really nice people are out there with business offers that are just outrageous. All you have to do is buy their stuff and you are off to the races!

Here’s where I have noticed an interesting tidbit about having your own business. If it is an MLM, the products sell themselves, the training is an absolute must for your advancement, attending presentations even if you don’t have a guest is the way to build success, listening to endless webinars is surely the be all and end all of your development, the compensation plan is the best one ever invented, and … well, as the old Romans used to say, ad  nauseum. The MLM business world is no different than other home-based businesses, whether you are stuffing envelopes, reviewing product sites, or selling your own home-made cookies. So here is the tidbit:

Someone, somewhere is, indeed, very successful doing the same business you are. So let’s just say that these business systems, no matter what they are, are like finely tuned machines. In fact, let’s call them Ferraris.

This means that you are driving a Ferrari of a business. You have complete control of how fast this thing goes, because you are the driver. What kind of picture does this conjure up? Are you going as fast as you want? Are you still enticed by all those business offers that sound oh so much better than the one you are stuck in?

Here’s a little pointer, now that you see how much control you have. Jumping into another business will not change the most important factor for your success or lack of it: YOU. Plenty of highly successful business people will tell you, if you can get them to turn off their marketing blather and really talk to you, that their success began when they took steps to transform themselves into high-speed drivers. Just a thought.

All the best,

Dr. D

Warren Buffet’s Rules YOU Can Use

While I am still putting together my plan for this blog, I thought I’d put out this little ditty about being financially successful. You can get a deeper perspective about rich people by reading “The Millionaire Next Door” by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko. The main concepts apply to Warren Buffet, although he has taken his money level 1000-fold (i.e., a thousand million equals a billion) to billionaire status. I really got a kick out of the advice that I am about to convey from Mr. Buffet. It hits home at SO MANY levels, and it has done so every tiime I’ve heard it.

These are the rules that Warren Buffet gives to the CEOs of his companies:

Rule No. 1: Do not lose any of your shareholder’s money.
Rule No. 2: Do not forget rule number 1.

Okay…so the message is, do not lose money. Wouldn’t our economic lives, personally, nationally and globally, be a lot different if we and all the folks in charge had followed these rules?

If this advice seems simple-minded, then at least consider its source. Warren Buffet has done pretty well with it. You can, too.

All the best,

Dr. D

How and Why to Network

This subject is so profitable and so much fun that entire companies (e.g., BNI – Business Networkers International) focus on it. The ‘how’ of networking is the subject of a few good books, such as Ivan Misner’s, “The 29% Solution: 52 Weekly Networking Success Strategies.” This kind of knowledge is important for making networking events productive. Too many events are like the typical chamber of commerce meeting, where people exchange business cards and call that ‘networking’. According to good networking advice, the best thing you can do is collect business cards from a few key people whom you have spoken with. And the conversation is best when it centers around questions that you ask of another person, and the answers that you can use in later follow up as a reminder of your encounter. Indeed, it seems to be a law of the universe that you will come across as a great conversationalist by saying almost nothing!

Typical Network Marketing Is Ineffective

How does this compare with a typical ‘network marketing’ meeting? No wonder those things are such a glorious waste of time. One or two people do all the talking for the presentation, then you get to spend your time afterwards in selling, convincing, and pitching to your guest(s) about whatever the products and opportunity might be. I don’t know about you, I just think this is one of the least effective ways to build your MLM business.

By the way, the reason for the typical meeting structure has little to do with your success and a lot to do with the company’s success. I’ll have much more to say about this in one of my upcoming newsletters, so be sure to subscribe to it. I will also have a lot to say about what you can do that is much more effective than bringing guests to a company presentation. MUCH more effective.

Why to Network

Networking is the activity that builds better relationships with others. If you can get to know others and get to be known by them, you form a basis for trust. A good relationship is the key for any kind of success in network marketing. After all, just in case someone takes you up on your opportunity, you will have to have a level of trust that translates into your leadership of that new person. And any new person has to see how you do that so he or she can do the same.

Some of this perspective seems like a no-brainer. Nevertheless, your company and any other company that you join will most likely ‘teach’ you MLM building the old fashioned way: making gazillions of calls, using the 3-foot rule, browbeating your warm market, attending meetings and conferences, listening to teleconference calls or their  insidious tech version, the webinar, etc., etc. Just think, if you actually have just 10 hours per week to build your business, all of it can get chewed up in being ‘woo-busy’ with all this stuff, and you will never have time to actually sponsor and develop a leader into your organization.

Ah, this is fun, isn’t it? It is easy to take potshots at these kinds of things. It is harder to find good advice that works by doing something else. However, there is plenty of other stuff that you can do with your 10 hours per week that will actually lead to income. I’ve put together a little lead-in on this topic on my page, “Can MLM Work for You?” This is a start, so take a look at it and let me know what you think.

Dr. D

Know Your Ideal Customer

Attracting the right client, one who comes through your door or to your website and buys your product or service, seems to be the first step in growing any business. However, who is your ideal customer? This concept came across my desk in the new book by John Assaraf and Murray Smith, “The Answer: Grow Any Business, Achieve Financial Freedom, and Live an Extraordinary Life,” recently. The is the best book of the year for business development.

Who Is Your Ideal Customer?

The standard view of defining an ideal customer entails demographic information: gender, age group, income level, marital status, geographic location, etc. Although the value of this kind of information may seem obvious, most businesses put no effort into defining these categories. This means that finding and marketing to the ideal customer just won’t happen.

What Does Your Ideal Customer Want?

A second and equally valuable definition, as described in the book, is psychgraphic information. In other words, why does someone buy from you? This is not so easy to know unless you ask your current customers. You can buy plenty of “who” lists of customers from list brokers, although your “why” list is best when you build it yourself via questionnaires, interviews or surveys that you conduct yourself. This may seem like a lot of work. However, Assaraf and Murray offer a little number-crunching to explain how valuable this effort can be, as outlined here:

How to Multiply Revenue by Sixteen-Fold

Consider the concept that 20 percent of your customers generate 80 percent of  your revenue. Now the math gets to be really fun: the 20-percenters generate four times as much revenue as the rest of your customer base, and there are four times fewer of them. The value of each of the 20-percenters is therefore sixteen-fold higher than the non-20-percenters. Your most effective strategy to increase business is obvious: Get more 20-percenter type customers. When you know who your ideal customer is and why they buy from you, you can put more effective effort into getting more of them. When ALL of your customers are of the original 20-percenter type, then you will have increased your revenue by sixteen-fold. Now doesn’t that seem like fun?

This little overview us just a glimpse of how the combined use of demographics and psychographics can boost your business. I don’t pretend to do justice to this strategy here, so I simply encourage you to get the book and dig into it for yourself. Oh, and this book offers a lot more than this topic, so I will mention more of it later.

Dr. D

Using Internet in Marketing – Blog Talk Radio

Internet in marketing is almost a must these days, so gazillions of people are screaming for attention in cyberspace in hope of making money. One of the relatively new ways to get attention is Blog Talk Radio, where you can sign up for a free account and host your own radio show.

My Standard Radio Experience

For comparison, I hosted a weekly radio show for about a year in the Phoenix, AZ, area not too long ago (”Natural Health Show” about nutrition). The details were: I paid a $1200 per month fee; it was up to me to get advertisers to cover my expenses; and a break even ROI required roughly 60 new customers in my retail nutrition store per week from the show. Even though it was fun, it never came close to breaking even. And this was in spite of having a consulting naturopathic physician, Dr. Joe Brown, as my co-host. The listenership simply wasn’t there.

Cyber Radio

Just this past week I recorded my first 30-minute show on Blog Talk Radio. Now that broadcast is archived for future accessibility to anyone, worldwide, at any time. I used my scientific expertise in plant biochemistry as the basis for talking about natural shingles treatments. Now I can send people there, link it in my newsletters, or even broadcast it in my store. And all for free! As an added bonus, you can also get code for displaying graphic links, like the one below:

The SEO Boost

Besides all of he marketing benefits that I’ve mentioned so far, it seems that Google likes this venue and boosts ranking faster than almost any other strategy. Who knows how long this will last. However, since Google gets a lot of ad revenue from the wide exposure of online radio shows, having your own show will be of benefit for SEO for a good while. So, put your SEO hat on and imagine the possibilities … they are endless. Take a listen to a few shows and see what I mean.

Dr. D

Avoiding Internet Marketing Scams

Do you qualify as an Internet Marketing Sucker, like I do? I hope I don’t sound too paranoid on this topic. However, I have wondered whether marketing scammers have a committee that is devoted to how to get me, personally, to buy marketing materials from them. Have you ever felt that way? Have you had your fill of ’secrets’ and ‘buy now or you will never in all eternity see an offer this good again’ or ‘you will get these gazillion really hot bonuses for free if you just click here’ …ad nauseum.

I must admit that, in spite of my scientific background, and in spite of knowing exactly how marketing psychology works, I bit on another really awful deal a couple of days ago. A seemingly harmless price of $27 was easy to pay for an all-everything webinar (and aren’t they all?), because the sales audio was just so convincing about everything that I would get from the webinar. My webinar purchase was also used for upselling me on an irresistible $47 book with lots of bonuses, which was linked to someone else’s report for another itty bitty $9.97. I finally stopped the bleeding there, although I’m sure it went much, much further. I’m also sure that I disappointed a whole chain of affiliates at that point.

Hindsight on Product Value

I forget all of the details, probably just as a way to bury a bad memory. What happened was that I cleared my schedule, secluded myself, put on my headset, and signed into the webinar 5 minutes early just to be sure that I got my spot. I was the only one there for a while.

The webinar was two guys chatting about one of the guy’s copywriting business. Even though the voice quality of the interviewee was horrible, I did learn that ghostwriting is a lot of work without any residuals. I confirmed that observation by visiting a site (freelance.com? – it doesn’t matter) that advertises jobs for freelance writers. As near as I could tell, most jobs offered in the neighborhood of $1-$4 for researching and writing a 500-word article. I couldn’t get off of that site fast enough. Slave wages!

I also learned from the webinar that I’ve got to build networks of satisfied clients who refer more clients if I want to really hit the big time as a copywriter. When I heard that I thought, “Omigod – I actually paid someone to tell me this?” The “interview” went on like this for about an hour. By the end of it I had not taken any notes. This is a sure sign that I heard nothing of value.

Getting Product Value Before You Lose Your Money

If any of this sounds familiar to you, then what I’m about to say will be of great value to you. (And I promise to follow my own advice from now on!) In a regular retail setting, you almost always have an opportunity to see and look over what you might want to buy – a printed book, a set of tires, a magazine, a sandwich, etc. – which is not generally the case online. Ebooks, in fact, are routinely the worst possible value for your dollar on the planet, and you aren’t allowed to examine them ahead of time. Indeed, they routinely have wide margins, big print, and lots of white space, and they are WAY overpriced. Audio and video marketing materials are equally shallow for the money you pay. So what can you do about this?

Here is one strategy: Note that all sales pitches guarantee your money back if you aren’t satisfied, usually within 30 days (which is mandated in the U.S., anyway) and sometimes longer. You have no way of knowing the truth of such guarantee. You do, however, have a grace period through your credit card company, during which you can reverse any charge. The grace period varies, although 24-72 hours is common.

Yes, what I am saying is simply to get the product and seriously evaluate it for whether it measures up to the claims in the sales pitch that led you to buy it. Unless you are brand new at this and truly naïve, you will be able to tell immediately if you have a good product. If not, call your credit card company and cancel the charges.

Be Honest and Expect the Same

It is crucial for you to keep this uppermost in your mind: The universe pays back what you give out. So if you do, in fact, reverse the charges on something or get your money back from the seller, then ethically you must discard the product. Keeping and using something that you didn’t really pay for is stealing, and if that is the way you get through life then that is what you will attract.

If an Offer Sounds Too Good to Be True…

…then it is. Here is where the best strategy, which you have to develop on your own (sorry, I know this isn’t really concrete advice), is to keep a list of other entrepreneurs whom you trust, and listen to them. Sure, many will want you to buy something from them or their affiliates. That is the nature of business, which is fine. You will be able to tell whether they are giving you good value for what they offer.

You can also choose whom you trust from a referral. For example, if you have decided to trust me yet, you can then trust my referral to John Thornhill’s blog at Planet SMS (http://www.planetsmsblog.com). I don’t earn any affiliate income through him, so this referral is genuinely based on my experience with his blog and his products, because of their value to me. Indeed, a clear thread that runs through all of John’s marketing is providing value. He even gives more away free of charge than anyone else I know.

These are just a few things for you to think about and act on, in defense of your money and your time. Don’t waste either. There is, of course, much more to do that will propel you to making money, instead of just defending yourself against spending it foolishly. It will be much more fun for me, and I’d bet for you, when I truly show you how to bring in real dollars. There is so much exciting stuff to write about, and to hear about from you, that this blog is already becoming a great resource for my visitors.

And Now for One of MY Favorite Ways to Make Money

Network marketing. Actually, making money by helping others become successful in network marketing. Like most businesses, online or offline, network marketing businesses (meaning, individuals doing network marketing), have a huge failure rate … 80-90% or more in the first year.

This is a big topic, which deserves a lot of its own space. So for now I’ll just say that the little offer at the top of this blog’s first page, about building your business on a budget, is the best idea for home-based entrepreneurs that I have ever seen. Generating leads is the key to getting off the ground profitably while you are building your main business. It is definitely worth your time to take a little peek at the videos that tell how to do that.

Dr. D

Recession Just Means Different Opportunities

First of all, the whole notion of being in a recession is just an agreement. Financial changes, and even the value of money, are just agreements. So it should be no surprise that agreements change, values of money and commodities change, and money moves. The key concept here is that money moves. It does not leave the planet. It doesn’t disappear. People are now moving their money differently, sometimes only in response to media brainwashing.

Where the Money Is

My favorite quote recently, which actually comes from the 1970s, is by the Mahareshi Mahesh Yogi (if I got that spelled correctly). In response to Johnny Carson, who asked the Mahareshi where he was going to get the money to expand the Transcendental Meditation movement worldwide, the Mahareshi said, “From wherever it is now.” Wow – what a great attitude!

If you are doing all the things that your high-priced business coach tells you to do, that the most-hyped books advise, that the “buy-this-right-now-cuz-you-will-never-get-this–chance-again” marketing programs and products scream at you, and whatever else you can do used to work, and you are still not making a profit … well, then the money that you are going after has moved. You’ve got to do something different to go get it from wherever it is now.

What Insanity?

Stop the insanity (i.e., doing the same thing over and over, expecting different results) and change your approach. For example, this would be a great challenge: figure out how to market something valuable to hedge fund owners. The top hedge funds, which are out of reach of any nation’s regulations, control $14 trillion – which means they control the economy of most of the world.

Okay, now thinking more realistically (I don’t have a clue about marketing to hedge fund owners), all you have to do is define your ideal client, locate him or her, and market your product or service directly to this specific new niche. If I sound like a guru here, that’s because I’m not giving you any solid direction. Gurus are infamous for giving out great ideas without any real direction on how to fulfill them unless you buy their $7 or $27 or $497 or $2,497 must-have crapola.

And the Good News is…

I’ll have a LOT more to say about all this, in digestible pieces, day by day. Mostly what I wanted to accomplish with this little post is to provide an encouraging word. There is plenty of money moving around, and your fair share is there for the taking. You must get the right advice on how to do so, without being chewed up and spit out by all the guru sharks who take your money and run. I look forward to comparing shark bites with you, as a means to spreading the word on achieving financial success without losing your shirt.

Dr. D

What Must You Do to Make Added Cash in the Next 24 Hours?

Just sit quietly for a moment and think about how you can answer that question. It asks how you can make added cash, meaning more than you are otherwise making right now. Can you come up with one way to make more money, or ten ways, or fifty ways? Can you make one dollar, a hundred dollars, a thousand dollars, or even more – in the next 24 hours? Robert Allen, the “No Money Down” real estate guru, once bragged that he made more than $90,000 in a 24-hour period. And it had nothing to do with real estate. Of course, he is one of the many “gurus” who make their success sound as though you, too, can make a gazillion dollars in the next microsecond, if you just buy whatever they are selling so you can be like them.

Ask me sometime how Mr. Allen actually did what said he did, which I believe to be true, and why it is highly unlikely that you can make any money at all by buying anything from him whatsoever. This goes for all of the other “fast-cash” gurus, too.

Here is a fact to take to heart:

Some people are making lots and lots of money, and most people are not. And it doesn’t matter one bit whether the economy is booming or heading into recession, whatever that is. A small proportion of people are rich and most people are not. This is the case regardless of whether the economy is booming or heading into a recession, whatever that is. Money does not leave the planet. It just moves!

The key to getting all the money you want is simple:

You must get it from wherever it is now. That’s what rich people do, and they are not any different from you. It is not hard finding money, and it is not hard getting it for yourself. In fact, all you really have to do is get the right directions from someone who has already done so. I am putting together a starter kit on how to begin, pieces of which I will begin to post soon.

Dr. D