How to get a FREE 30-Page Excerpt of The Brain Audit (Without Even Needing To Fill A Form)

 

If you’ve always wondered what The Brain Audit was all about.
Or if you’ve ever wondered what’s in this book that’s caused thousands of businesses to “sell without selling”, then here’s away to stop wondering.

 

Because you can get a chunky 30 page excerpt of The Brain Audit.
And it’s free. You’ll enjoy the cartoons. You’ll enjoy the way The Brain Audit holds your attention. And you’ll learn a lot–even in just 30 pages.

 

No catches. Not even a darned form to fill.
But let me not yada, yada. Here you go.

 

Warm regards from Auckland
Sean

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3 Ways To Deal With Overwhelm

Deal With Overwhelm

Overwhelm is like doing the dishes.

If you don’t do the dishes today, you have twice as many tomorrow.

And then on the third day of gorging and not cleaning, let’s not talk about it, shall we?

People who don’t keep up with stuff feel the most overwhelmed

You know those people, don’t you? They’re the ones who were around when computers came along. Who needs computers, they said. Then suddenly they were helpless. They couldn’t start up, let alone run a computer. They couldn’t find things on the Internet, and they’re also the ones standing in the queue at the post office to pay their bills (instead of doing it on the Internet).

The point is “overwhelm” is like the weather, it’s here to stay

So instead of acting like it doesn’t exist, let’s instead find simple ways to join in.

I use three systems:

1) Use dead time

2) Do 15 minute segments

3) Write down what’s in my head—and create a timeline

Using dead time

You can’t ever get ahead, but that doesn’t mean you need to fall behind. And dead time exists everywhere and every single day of the year. When I go to pick up my niece from school, I have dead time on the way to school and while waiting for her. I take a book and listen to audio on the way to the school.

Even if I don’t remember it all (and I barely remember 10%) I listen to it like radio. I learn a bit, everyday (yes, those 10% bits really add up). There’s time at the post office, dentist, even watering the lawn.

Of course, I don’t make use of 100% dead time. Sometimes it’s fine to just water the lawns, but most of the time I’m prepared for dead time. Most people aren’t. And that leads to overwhelm because in a day, you have at least 30-60 minutes of pure dead time. In a week, that’s about 5 hours; a month 25 hours; a year 250 hours. But that’s just dead time. There’s also learning time.

And I do my learning in 15 minute segments

At this point in time my day looks like this:

-  Learning Portuguese

-  Advanced functions of my Nikon D7000

-  Studying software such as Photoshop, Lightroom and InDesign

-  Writing a book, audio book, bonus for the book

-  Writing an article every day for 100 days (back to back).

-  Mentoring my niece for 5 hours (six days a week)

-  Managing the membership forum at 5000bc.com

-  Re-writing pages for Psychotactics

-  Drawing and painting a daily diary cartoon

-  Cooking new types of meals

-  Doing my photo book on Africa

-  Compiling a video about my nieces

-  Conducting three live courses (copywriting, cartooning, watercolors)

-  Strategic alliances

-  Email, yes that onslaught of email.

-  And ten million other things, of course!

In short, there’s not a lot of time. So I take 15 minute segments

I will plan for at least 2 x 15 minutes. Maybe one in the morning and one in the evening. And in those 15 minutes I may learn something about a program that will save me a ton of time. Or I may read something that forms the basis of my article and I don’t have to keep wondering what to write.

I believe in the concept that input leads to output. Without input there can be little or no output and if I can’t find 15 minutes, twice a day, well, that’s a poor day for me. And wonderful as these two systems are, nothing works better for me than just writing it down.

Writing things down and creating a time line

The moment I write things down, they aren’t in my head any more. To me that’s a lot of free space considering how much I want to do. So I write it down. But writing it down is the first stage. Then I do a simple time line. And that time line ensures one thing: It ensures that I actually think through how much time I have to do just about anything.

If I just write goals willy-nilly, I don’t get very far. If I put a timeline, I can see where I’m going to get stuck. No timeline is ever going to be perfect, but it’s a great start and most of the time it does pretty darned well.

Deal With Overwhelm

My timeline for the year. Notice I put in the breaks as well.

And here’s my day today…

In 30 minutes I’m going to create a timeline for today and the month to come (I’ve already done one for the year). I’m not going to be at my computer but at a cafe. It’s more productive. I also have a dentist appointment. He’s almost always 10 minutes late. I’m prepared and not going to read some lousy magazines.

And yes, because I’m prepared, the drive to and from the dentist, and at the dentist will make up for at least 15 minutes, maybe 30 minutes or more of learning.

I could put it off of course, but it’s like the dishes

Do the dishes. It’s your best chance against the rising tide of overwhelm.

Next Step: Links you should visit

1) Are you serious about getting your business to the next level in 2014? Have a look at 5000bc.

2) NEW! The Brain Audit: Why Clients Buy And Why They Don’t (Available in Different Formats)

 

Products: Under $50


1) You already know that 80% of a sales letter depends on your headline.
So what’s the remaining 20% that causes customers to buy? Find out more

2) Do You Often Hit A Wall Called ‘Writers Block’?
Learn how the core elements of outlining can save you from the misery of writing your next article.

3) Chaos Planning
Year after year you sit down and create a list of things you want to achieve. Then suddenly it’s January 2014, and you’ve not really moved ahead!
Learn Why Most Planning Fails: And The Critical Importance of Chaos in Planning.

4) Nothing bugs you more than a painful client. A client who hassles you at every step of the way.
Learn how to use the power of the ‘six critical questions’ to get incredible testimonials—and attract clients that make every day an absolute joy.

5) Do you feel like banging your head against the wall when writing content for the important pages on your website?
Introducing: How to write compelling content for your key web pages. A series of three books on how to create your “Home Page”, “About Us” and “Get Customers To Sign Up” to your website/blog. 

6) Do you know that visuals immediately improve your sales conversion?
Learn how to create drama and curiosity and help improve your web page conversion with visuals.

7) Do your websites, brochures, presentations, etc… confuse your clients? 
Put some sanity into your design, even though you are not a designer?

Black Belt Presentations: How do you create presentations that enthrall, hold and move an audience to action?

 

 

Next Step: To get more Psychological Tactics
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Announcing! Why “Lazy Testimonials” Attract The Wrong Clients

 
Nothing bugs you more than a painful client.

A client who hassles you at every step of the way.

A client who won’t pay on time.
A client who takes up so much of your energy that you get drained.

I used to have clients like that

And then at some point I stopped getting bad clients.
Every single one of our clients were helpful, kind and extremely co-operative.
Work became a joy instead of a painful exercise.

And after a lot of digging, I found out the reason for the change

If you’ve ever struggled to get consistently good clients (or detailed testimonials for that matter) then you’ll find that this knowledge is more than just common sense. It’s a bit of strategy you can’t do without.

Judge for yourself at:
http://www.psychotactics.com/testimonialsecrets

Regards
Sean

 

P.S. This is what Cornelia Luethi  has to say: 

“Business owners are often too scared to ask for testimonials”

I’ve been using Testimonials as a marketing tool for years – and I didn’t think there was much left for me to learn about testimonial techniques. Especially so after reading those powerful “six questions” in the Brain Audit.

After reading The Secret Life Of Testimonials, I learnt how to get more authentic and dramatic testimonials with great impact.
And–most importantly–how to use them to maximum advantage. Sean shares all kinds of layout and formatting secrets so that the message is visually stunning as well as a good read.

What I found really useful is how Sean de-constructs various testimonials, showing you the parts where they fail, and thereby enabling you to create testimonials that work a whole lot better.

I particularly liked the run-down on how to create video testimonials as that’s something I’ve been thinking of doing, but wasn’t sure how to get started and how to approach it. Plus there are some great ideas on how to get testimonials using online media.

I’d definitely recommend The Secret Life Of Testimonials.
Testimonials are absolutely vital for sales conversions, but business owners are often too scared to ask for testimonials, and don’t know how to use them effectively. In this book, you’ll learn how to get great testimonials – and with confidence.

Cornelia Luethi
FX Marketing, Auckland, New Zealand
Judge for yourself: Testimonial Secrets

 

 

 

 


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Writing Salesletters or Articles? How to Ditch The “Tired” Analogy

Writing Salesletters or Articles? How to Ditch The "Tired" Analogy

I remember how I always groaned when my father started to tell his story of “how he drew a kingfisher”, when he was just a boy in school.

I loved the story, but I’d heard it so many times, that the thought of escape always crossed my mind when he’d start up that story. The reader experiences a similar “groan moment” the minute you start up on an analogy that they’ve heard before.

Analogies like how you learn to ride a bicycle, drive a car—these are tired analogies

These analogies are boring for the reader, no matter if you use it in a sales letter or in your article. So how you decide when to ditch the analogy? Or better still, how do you improve it so it’s not so “tired” after all?

Let’s take an example

In the book, The Brain Audit, there’s an analogy of standing near the airport carousel waiting for your bags to be unloaded from the flight. So what’s interesting about that situation? Well, for one it’s not something that you hear about a lot. It doesn’t have that ring of “when you learned to ride a bicycle”. And so, by merely changing the example, your analogy becomes slightly more interesting.

But what if we wanted to make it even more interesting?

This is where the power of the personal story comes in. Imagine yourself waiting for the bag. What happens? What happens next? What ups and downs do you go through just waiting for those silly ol’ bags? In The Brain Audit, the bags aren’t just bags—they’re “red” bags.

And there aren’t just “red” bags, but there are “seven red bags”. And the story rolls out where one of the bags goes missing. As you can tell, this isn’t just some tired analogy, but something that’s slightly riveting. You want to know what happens next. You want to know how all of this then reconnects to the story.

So the key to writing better analogies is to write a personal story first

Put yourself at the airport. What did you do? What happened next? And next? And yes, I know I said this already in the last paragraph, but can we have some ups and downs as well as you’re relating the analogy? In fact, the moment you dip into a personal story, even a tired story of riding a bicycle comes to life.

About the best way to sidestep a boring analogy is to use a personal story. In fact, let’s take an example of a personal story.

Only an idiot would learn to cycle like me.

Most people find the safest, flattest area to learn how to cycle. Not me. I decided to learn on slopes filled with red mud. Everytime I fell—and I fell a lot—the mud would graze me badly. And of course, learning on a slope means you’re tempting gravity all the time.

Yet, long after the wounds have healed, the learning of how to ride the bike has stayed with me.

But what if you don’t want to tell personal stories?

Well, turn the personal story into a “YOU” analogy instead. Tell the personal story but without using “I”. So the story would work like this:

Why would anyone be insane enough to find the most difficult cycling course?

Most people find the safest, flattest area to learn how to cycle. But imagine you decided to learn on slopes filled with red mud. Everytime you fell—and you do fall a lot—the mud would graze you badly. And of course, learning on a slope means you’re tempting gravity all the time.

Yet, long after the wounds have healed, the learning of how to ride the bike has stayed with you.

Notice how the analogy isn’t tired, isn’t personal and still seems like an amazing analogy?

If you’re ever reaching for a tired analogy, the first recourse would be to simply find something that’s unusual—like the “seven red bags” story. However, an even better strategy is to write a personal story because personal stories have this inbuilt oomph factor. Should you feel shy about revealing the personal story to your audience, all you have to do is simply tweak it a bit. Put in the “you” into the story and you have a great analogy.

Analogies can be used not just in articles, but also in books, presentations and sales letters

Some of the best writers and marketers know the power of the story and analogy. And they use it very effectively to drive home several points throughout their marketing or editorial material. And they mix it up a lot with analogies and stories, while the amateurs simply write yucky, boring stuff.

Tired analogies are for lazy writers.

Be not sloppy. Be not boring.

Put in the power of story in your analogy and let the “groan” go away, today!

“My biggest hesitation in joining 5000bc was trusting it’d really be a safe place to make mistakes, while still getting support. “

5000bc Membership

Your Be helpful, Be kind, or Begone messaging really helped with. I found that my membership has already paid for itself 4-5x over already.

What blows my mind is Sean’s interaction and support. 
He took me through finding the uniqueness of a new venture. He could have easily charged me $625 (his hourly consulting fee). But he didn’t, he just gave guidance and allowed others to learn from my experience.

The one thing I like most is no-BS feedback from people. The people really want to help you succeed and they receive your feedback with gratitude. It’s really beautiful.

3 other benefits would be
1. Vanishing reports
2. Audio interviews
3. Seeing the “behind the scenes” of Sean’s products and sales pages

I would definitely recommend 5000bc. Why?
Because it’s perfect support for any question you can have about marketing you are working on implementing.

John Reisinger
Tacoma, WA, USA
Judge for yourself and get on the waiting list.

Top Selling Products Under $50

Testimonial Secrets: Powerful Techniques to Get Better Clients-And Sales
Story Telling Series: How to suck your audience right in, in a matter of seconds

Sales Pages: How To Write Benefits and Bullets That Speed Up Sales
 Article Writing: How To Speed Up Article Writing With Simple Outlines

Visual Basics: How Visuals Help Increase Sales Conversion On Your Website
Design Clarity: How to put sanity into your design with some really simple tweaks
Chaos Planning: How ‘Irregular’ Folks Get Things Done

Critical Website Components: How to write compelling content for your key web pages

The Brain Audit has been around for many years and has over 800 testimonials. It is  a complete system that enables you to understand what’s going on inside the brain of your customer.
Not read about The Brain Audit as yet? Find out more here.

1) Black Belt Presentation Series: How to completely control the room—without turning anyone off?
2) Online Membership Website: How To Build A Powerful, Community-Driven Membership Website

 


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How To Avoid Dragging Out A Well Known Story (And Boring The Reader)

How To Avoid Dragging Out A Well Known Story (And Boring The Reader)

You know that story your mum used to tell? Every time she’d start recounting it, you’d groan. You had heard that story ten squillion times before and your mum just ignored you and told it anyway.

You may forgive mum, after all she’s just dear ol’ mum, but your readers won’t always be as kind. If you bore them, they’ll just move on.

So how do we bore readers with our story?

We do this by unfolding a sequence or story that’s extremely familiar. It’s so familiar that as the reader is about 30-40 words into the sequence, they already know what you’re going to say for the next 100-200 words or so.

Let’s take an example or two

Let’s say you’re writing about Goldilocks and the three bars.

Now, the sequence is unknown. (Yes, that was bars, not bears). But if you talk about Goldilocks and three bears and drag out the sequence, it gets tedious, because I already know what you’re saying.

So you shorten it like this…

We know about Goldilocks, don’t we? And those three bears? And how she broke in sat on their chairs, ate their porridge and then slept in their beds?

And then you go on to the rest of the article

When you tighten that sequence, you respect the intelligence of the reader, but still bring in the story to jog their memory. And of course the story is integral to your article, so you can’t leave it out. So your job is to keep the sequence tight and taut.

Let’s take another example: a story about retirement

The downslide of retirement is quite a familiar territory. It goes like this: The person retires: They’re excited; Then they get bored.

That retirement sequence was literally three lines. And you can get to the point awfully quickly if the story or sequence is known. But you don’t always have to be so curt. You do have a little more leeway than three lines.

Your opening could be: Retirement is a sickeningly familiar story, isn’t it? Everyone works like crazy, longs for retirement and then it happens. We get bored and disillusioned. But what do you do once this disillusionment sets in?

And then you go to the rest of your article

Which of course makes the reader very happy. But more importantly it saves you about half an hour of slaving over an opening that is going to put the reader off, instead of helping them move through the rest of the article.

Keep the sequence tight

Keep it taut.

And yes, smile when mum starts up her story yet again.

“I have a business and attracting new customers require a continuous effort. I am always searching for ways to take my business to the next level.”

 Story Telling Series: Psychotactics

The Story Telling Mini Series gave me the road map for my web-site.
Demet Kitis, Canada
Judge for yourself: Story Telling Mini Series

NEW! The Brain Audit: Why Clients Buy And Why They Don’t (Available in Different Formats)

Top Selling Products Under $50

1) Testimonial Secrets: Powerful Techniques to Get Better Clients-And Sales
2) Story Telling Series: How to suck your audience right in, in a matter of seconds

3) Sales Pages: How To Write Benefits and Bullets That Speed Up Sales
4) Article Writing: How To Speed Up Article Writing With Simple Outlines

5) Visual Basics: How Visuals Help Increase Sales Conversion On Your Website
6) Design Clarity: How to put sanity into your design with some really simple tweaks
7) Chaos Planning: How ‘Irregular’ Folks Get Things Done

8) Critical Website Components: How to write compelling content for your key web pages

1) Black Belt Presentation Series: How to completely control the room—without turning anyone off?
2) Online Membership Website: How To Build A Powerful, Community-Driven Membership Website

 

 


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How Pre-sell Helped Reduce Frustration by 75%

Do you know what’s the biggest problem with sales of
any kind, whether offline or online, product or service?

It’s the fact that the customer is not ready to buy when you’re ready to sell. So there you are with your wonderfully crafted product or service, and while a lot of folks have promised to buy it, those sales aren’t happening right this moment.

So you have to do what we did at the start
We had to keep promoting the product for weeks (actually, months on end) to get traction. And when it came to live events like workshops or online courses, it was even more critical that everyone bought by a specific date. Of course, if you’re terribly persistent, things happen.

But all this persistence drains you
And anyway we never wanted to have those rotten squeeze pages. We didn’t care one whit for joint ventures (even when offered). Affiliate systems are nice, but again, not quite our cup of tea. So we had to find a system that would meet our goals and reduce frustration dramatically.

Even so, the first time we ran the pre-sell strategy we were surprised!
Most products or events took a bit of time to fill. So we sent out our email, put the sales page up and went out for a coffee. An hour later, this $2500 course was already oversubscribed. And while that’s nice, we thought it was a fluke.

So we tried it again and again
We tried it several times in 2010, then in 2011, then in 2012. Yup, 2013 and 2014. And we even got some of our closest clients to try it on other products e.g. a company selling tea. Without fail, it reduced the frustration and sold the product/service.

If you want to say goodbye to the frustration you will find the pre-sell (pricey as it is) is well worth the price—and then some.

But check it out for yourself at:

http://www.psychotactics.com/presell

Warm regards,
s-
P.S. The prices go up by 50% tomorrow.
Seeing that it’s not a cheap book already, that’s a steep rise. So pre-purchase your copy before Feb 16th, 2014. And yes, there’s our smiley refund guarantee if you don’t find it to your liking. So go have a look.


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How To Audit Your Benefits and Features For Singleminded Impact

How To Audit Your Benefits and Features For Singleminded Impact

In 333BC, Darius, the ruler of Persia was sure of his victory on the battlefield.

After all, his soldiers outnumbered Alexander the Great’s army by 2:1. And yet, Alexander used an unusual ploy. Instead of the usual strategy of both armies battling it out, he decided to just go after Darius. That single-minded command caused Darius to be outflanked and forced to flee.

That single-mindedness is something that every copywriter needs to focus on, when writing benefits and features. And the reason why you need to focus is because it’s very easy to go off track when writing a three-four lines on a specific feature/benefit.

Let’s take an example from the sales page of this book called “Client Attractors”

One the sales page we see features/benefits that read like this…

1) Big Brand Mistakes

Big brands make the same mistakes that small businesses do. In their hurry to create a sales page, they leave out critical information in their features and benefits. Learn how to avoid the mistakes—especially if you’re a small business owner.

2) Powerful Graphics

Many writers pooh-pooh graphics, but did you know that some of the biggest and most successful brands online use graphics to consistently drive home benefits and features. But how do you use these graphics correctly?

3) Benefits With A Secret Weapon

It’s clear as day once you know the secret, but some benefits are far more potent than others. The secret lies in how you insert a ‘problem’. The ‘problem’ creates drama and makes a run-of-the-mill benefit stand out. Once you know how to use the ‘problem’ in benefits, you’ll want to use it all the time.

So what three points did you get from those benefits/bullets?

The first one was specifically “big brand mistakes”. The second was just about “graphics and how to use them” and the third was the “unleashing the secret power of the problem”. In short, the benefits/features started out with one point and drove home that one point, without getting distracted.

But even so, it’s easy to get distracted when writing a few lines of the benefits/features

So yes, this isn’t a battle of “Alexander vs. Darius”. It’s just a sales page that takes a lot of effort and concentration. It’s possible you could have slipped up and gone off on a tangent. So go back to your benefits and features. And examine them one by one listing the one point you wanted to make for each benefit/feature.

Does each of your benefits and features drive home a single point?

It should, because it’s only when you singularly focused on driving home the point, will you get and keep the attention of the reader.

The copywriting battle isn’t as easy one. But even when faced with incredibly uneven odds, you can still make every word on your page count.

Use single-mindedness as a strategy.

It worked for Alexander. It should jolly well work for you.

How do you get meaningful testimonials, without needing to bribe anyone for it?

 Testimonial Secrets Bonus Video

Utilizing the easy to understand, easy to implement information in this book should bring in far greater revenue. And even better, it solves a problem for me of how to get real, meaningful testimonials, doing it legitimately-and without making anything up, or needing to “bribe anyone”.

The best thing of all: I’ve learned how to get these testimonials long before anyone has bought the product!

Allen Weber
Jacksonville, Florida, USA
Judge for yourself: Testimonial Secrets


“The Brain Audit is not some ‘how to’ book– it’s a way of thinking.”
What The Brain Audit provides that was missing in all of the ‘mainstream’ teaching and training is the piece critical to all sales: how the brain perceives and processes information.

Susan Trinter, Corporate Dev. Programs
Washington D.C., USA
NOW available in Different Formats ! The Brain Audit: Why Clients Buy And Why They Don’t.

 

Top Selling Products Under $50

1) Testimonial Secrets: Powerful Techniques to Get Better Clients-And Sales
2) Story Telling Series: How to suck your audience right in, in a matter of seconds

3) Sales Pages: How To Write Benefits and Bullets That Speed Up Sales
4) Article Writing: How To Speed Up Article Writing With Simple Outlines

5) Visual Basics: How Visuals Help Increase Sales Conversion On Your Website
6) Design Clarity: How to put sanity into your design with some really simple tweaks
7) Chaos Planning: How ‘Irregular’ Folks Get Things Done

8) Critical Website Components: How to write compelling content for your key web pages

1) Black Belt Presentation Series: How to completely control the room—without turning anyone off?
2) Online Membership Sites: How To Build A Powerful, Community-Driven Membership Website

 

 


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Announcing: The Pre-Sell of the Pre-Sell Book (Available at an early bird price!)

Why Pre-Sell Book: Psychotactics
It’s here!

The pre-sell of the the pre-sell book.

What’s that supposed to mean?
Well, the book isn’t ready yet. It’s work in progress. There are pages to be written, cartoons to be drawn, audio to be recorded and tons of little things to be finished before the book is available.

But until 15th Feb, 2014 you can get it at an Early-Bird Price
I know, I know. A book that costs over $200 hardly sounds like an early bird offer. But believe me, it is. For one, the book isn’t padded like other courses. You could go out there and get several ”formula launch courses” for $2500 or more. And frankly it’s hard to apply those formulas because they depend so heavily on numbers.

At Psychotactics, we’ve gone the opposite path 
We’e always tried to operate like it was 2002, and we’ve just started our business. When we sell products, services or courses, we rarely go out to large numbers. In fact, most of our courses/services are filled up with an audience of fewer than 400 customers–sometimes less.

We don’t have any affiliate program, no advertising campaign…
No Google adwords; no social media presence to speak of; no joint ventures blasting our products/services to everyone in sight. And yet, we’ve thrived over the years simply by putting out great products/courses and services. And doing so with small audiences.

You’re probably small too
Your audience may not be much to boast about. Yes there’s a ton of blah-blah about how to get 20,000 fans and increase your subscriber list by 432%. And yet, you know deep down in your heart, that isn’t going to happen in a hurry.

Pre-sell helps your clients know about your products/services a lot in advance
And it helps them decide based not on this relentless joint-venture-formula-blast, but through a slow, organic method that works. There’s no fluff here, no soul-selling craziness. And yet, make no mistake, the products/services fly off the shelf when offered.

We’ve learned a lot of stuff over the years.
We’ve done a lot.
Nothing has been as magical as pre-sell.

Nothing.It’s saved us time, made us a small fortune, allowed us to take 3 month-vacations every year. And most, if not all, the aggravation of wondering and waiting is minimised.

So how do you buy into the magic?
You can pre-purchase it today before the price goes up.
This price is valid until 15th Feb 2014 (yup, that’s next weekend).

Judge for yourself:

Warm regards,
Sean
P.S. The premium bonus is a product in itself. You’ll be able to create a “mini-sales page” that works and takes away a ton of aggravation. You’ll learn how to put together a template quickly and effectively (which really is a big boon, considering all the work that has to be done when launching just about anything).

P.P.S. If you’re wondering, the price will go up by $100 next weekend–and then keep climbing. So this week is a bit of a bargain.

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How To Stop Your Left Brain From Thinking

How To Stop Your Left Brain From Thinking

Do you know how you freeze when you see the tool bar on a program like Photoshop?

Do you know how you’d feel if you were thrown into a cockpit and asked to fly a plane?

Yes, you did know how you felt, the first time you were asked to drive a car.

It’s your left brain at work

The left brain is the bully brain. It doesn’t just complicate things with its logic, it goes one step further. It drowns out the free-thinking nature of the right brain. But first let’s deal with logic.

The left brain is mathematical and logical

So like all maths problems it likes to be correct every time. Which is fine when you’re dealing with maths and 7 + 3=10 (and can never be 11). Every thing has to be black and white.

It’s different when you’re drawing, or playing music or writing an article. You can have your black and whites and a range of rainbow colours. This of course drives your bully brain totally crazy. It’s trying desperately to pigeon-hole what you do into black and white. And of course, it fails. This sends you into a bit of a spiral as you consider the options to rationally solve the problem.

Instead you should reach out for the right brain—the crazy brain— instead

The right/crazy brain doesn’t give a hoot about being black or white. So if you wanted to teach someone Photoshop, the right brain will accept that you don’t own a computer. It will also accept that you don’t have Photoshop in front of you, or the fact that you’re sitting in a cafe instead. And yes, you can teach someone Photoshop a lot quicker when the bully brain has been shut down.

This “crazy brain” activity applies to article writing, as well

Let’s say you’re writing outlines. And you logically want to think through the outlines. Well, that’s going to take you about 15-20 minutes per outline and your bully brain ping pongs between black and white. But instead do something quite radical.

Cause the bully brain to shut down

The way to do this is to give yourself a fixed time. So you have to cover the entire outline in fewer than say, 5 minutes. Immediately your bully brain will snarl. Surely you can’t have speed and quality, it hisses. But ignore it. Just go with your crazy brain. And at first, you’ll get resistance, but eventually the bully, like all bullies, will just get fed up and leave.

I found this when I was teaching shorthand back in 1990

My dad used to own a secretarial college. And I’d just learned shorthand (which is a way of taking dictation really quickly, just using a bunch of squiggles). And I’d been deputed to dictate to a new batch of students. Well, I started the dictation slowly, but as the days passed, ramped it up to a rather quick speed.

My mother (who also taught at the college) was not impressed

She told me to slow down. She told me that the students would make mistakes. And yet, we found that the mistake rate had actually gone down when the students didn’t have time to think. Their accuracy was up and their speed was better too.

But does that mean you should always go with the crazy brain?

No, of course not. Both brains have their value. But you have to recognise that the bully brain doesn’t do very well when dealing with fuzzy stuff that doesn’t end up with 7+3=10. So you have to bypass it. Sometimes speed works. Sometimes it doesn’t.

Sometimes change of method, location, technology—there are different things that work. And your job is to find out how to stop your bully brain from taking centre stage and prancing around like a spoiled two-year old.

Is the bully brain taking over?

If you freeze; take too much time; if what you do is driving you crazy, you need to stop the bully brain. Find a way to access your crazy brain instead to tackle the same job in a totally different way. You get your work done and most importantly that bully brain shuts up.

Phew!

P.S. The brain loves a break.
So no matter what you’re doing, take a break, if only a small one. A few minutes makes a big difference. Don’t head to Facebook. Just take a genuine break. Step outside for a few minutes. Or just lie on the floor and relax your back. And the brain functions a lot better.

Try it.

About The Brain Audit
There are two very specific extra “weapons” that The Brain Audit gave me. Weapons that I never got from the many copy writing courses out there (and if you’re like me, you’ve got them all, too).

The Brain Audit

The Brain Audit not only explains HOW the brain works, but also WHY it works. This is master-level applied psychology, necessary for any self-respecting marketer.

Gabor Wolf
Marketing Consultant— Budapest, Hungary 
Judge for yourself—The Brain Audit Kit is a complete system that enables you to understand what’s going on inside the brain of your customer.
(P.S. The Brain Audit has received over 800 testimonials)

Top Selling Products Under $50

1) Story Telling Series: How to suck your audience right in, in a matter of seconds
2) Client Attractors: How To Write Benefits and Bullets That Speed Up Sales
3) Outlining: How To Speed Up Article Writing With Simple Outlines
4) Visual Basics: How Visuals Help Increase Sales Conversion On Your Website
5) Design Clarity: How to put sanity into your design with some really simple tweaks
6) Chaos Planning: How ‘Irregular’ Folks Get Things Done
7) Critical Website Components: How to write compelling content for your key web pages

1) Black Belt Presentation Series: How to completely control the room—without turning anyone off?
2) New! Be Kind, Be Helpful or Begone: How To Build A Powerful, Community-Driven Membership Website

Next Step: To get more Psychological Tactics
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Why Marketing In 2014 is like being in 1920

In 1920, marketing was a chore.
People were separated by vast distances. To get any sort of message
across was a royal pain.

And this is what 2014 looks like as well.
There’s Facebook, Twitter, Glitter, Mitter and a million methods
that are distracting you–and your customer. And with every month
that passes, the distraction gets even greater.

Marketers, of course, will tell you a different story
They’ll tell you that you can get 10,000 Facebook fans overnight.
They’ll tell you that their list is growing by 500 customers a day.
They’ll give you these wonderful, overnight success stories.

So you’ll buy the “magic trick” and hope that it works for you,
and invariably the market takes over. The distraction kicks in,
and it’s harder than ever to get newer customers (let alone
get customers to listen to you).

So what’s the solution?
The solution has been staring all of us in the face for the longest
time. You never needed (or will need) 10,000 Facebook fans. Yes,
it’s very nice to get 500 customers a day, but hey, let’s be
realistic.

What you’ve know all along is that you can indeed get all
the revenue you need from fewer customers.

But fewer customers come with their own caveat
The fewer the customers, the more you’ll have to make sure they’re
paying attention. And that’s why you need to drip feed them
information over weeks, possibly months. It’s a patience-based
system, this concept of pre-selling.

And yet, pre-sell works pretty solidly. With pre-sell, you are able
to systematically get the few customers to buy your products and
services consistently. This ensures you have a lot less stress, a
very solid income and aren’t spending all your time doing yet
another joint venture, affiliate program or crazy ad campaign.

Best of all, pre-sell enables you to test the validity of your
product or service (yes, even a service) long before you spend all
that time and effort creating it. If you do it right (and there’s
no reason not to), you get a small stampede that keeps you more
than satisfied–even with just a small group of customers.

1920 was indeed a chore.
And 2014, will be a pain too.
Or not.

Have a look: http://www.psychotactics.com/presell

Note
1) This is a pre-sell page. There is no “buy-now button”.
2) The buy-now button will be put in place on Sat 8, at 3 pm
(Eastern US).
3) Yup, all the details are on the page. Have a look.

Regards
Sean


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The Blech System of Pattern Recognition

January 28, 2014

  Did you eat something today? Drank some sort of drink? Well, there’s a good chance you’ve been exposed to the multi-billion dollar flavour industry. Almost all the products we eat or drink have these flavours and companies spend massive amounts of money researching to make sure the get the right flavour for their product. […]

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The 6 Most Important Lessons In Marketing

January 21, 2014

1) Follow up. 2) Follow up. 3) Follow up. 4) Follow up. 5) Follow up. 6) Follow up. How do I know this to be true? Because recently we launched a book on Membership Sites. As is the norm, we give the best price to our members at 5000bc. We also let them know about […]

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