The 6 Most Important Lessons In Marketing

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The 6 Most Important Lessons In Marketing

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 the product a lot in advance. They read it in announcements, on the forum etc. So what price would your members choose to buy the product at? The lowest possible price or a higher price?

You’d be surprised at what you’d find…

Our logical minds would tell us that the lowest possible price is when you’d pick up a product. But that’s not the case. Yes, many members do pick it up at the member’s price. But at least 15% or more pick up the product/service/workshop at a higher price.

Now why would they do that?

We can’t say. And neither can you. Maybe they weren’t convinced. Maybe they didn’t read the earlier emails. Maybe they were on vacation.

Maybe—and the maybes don’t matter.

What does matter is that a reasonable number of buyers (and we’re still talking members here) do buy at a higher price, and on a later date. Which means that if we didn’t follow up, those sales may not have happened.

And this little insight shows you that if your closest, tightest band of followers aren’t paying that much attention after being reminded over and over again, how will the rest of your audience react?

Yup, you got it right

The rest of the audience is more skeptical, more distant and so yes, logically they would react much slower. The less connected your audience is to you, the more they’d hesitate to buy your product. And hence, if you don’t follow up, you miss the chance of getting the sale from this audience for sure.

But that’s not all.

When you miss out on a sale, you don’t just miss out on one sale

I recently bought a series on “how to draw trees, how to draw skies” etc. I bought that product about three weeks ago. Yesterday, I bought some more product from that very same instructor. So what are the chances that I’d buy the second series, if I’d not bought the first?

It doesn’t take much to guess that you don’t get to second base, unless you slide to first. And yet the first would have never got my interest if it wasn’t for the consistent follow up.

Which is all very fine in theory, but how do you follow up without being a pest?

Well, it depends. There are several ways of following up. Yes, the most effective way is to be direct and to the point. That means an email that says: “Announcing the book on XYZ…” is going to get far more response than anything else you can send to your list.

That single announcement that is pure sales and nothing else will get a far greater open rate than any other email. Yes, it’s salesy, but customers want to buy from you. So if you have something to sell, they want to see it.

But being direct and to the point continuously, isn’t the best of ideas

If you keep pummeling someone with sales offers, they’ll soon tire of you, and stop paying attention no matter how great your offer. You can however, follow up with other methods. E.g. a book excerpt. Or a few testimonials from clients embedded in your weekly newsletter. Or an interview where you talk about your book.

As you can tell, there are many ways to follow up for a single product

And you don’t want to do them all at once. The mistake that rookies make is that they send out the excerpt, the testimonials, the interview etc. all in one email.

Well, fine, so now what do you have left to send to you list, when you want to follow up? Not a lot, huh! So keeping the follow up sequence ready is pretty darned critical. And yes, make sure you create this sequence well in advance.

In advance?

Yes, in advance. When you’re first selling a product/service all your cylinders are firing. Yes, you may be exhausted from having to put the product together, put the sales sequence etc. but that’s the point when you’re most focused on your product.

If you put together the entire sequence—or at least six follow up steps, you’ll get those follow up steps out of the door on time. If you don’t, you’ll soon get distracted with taking a break or just launching something else, and your existing product will get bounced to a black hole on your to-do list.

So follow up:

1) Follow up many times. Six is a good starting point.

2) Even your best customers don’t pay attention the first time, or even the fifth time.

3) A great starting price is often not incentive enough. Your best customers are likely to buy even when the price rises, so keep at it.

4) If your best customers are not paying attention, ahem, guess how much more work you have to do for the rest of your customers.

5) So it’s one sale. Nope, it’s not. If you don’t make this one, you miss out on future sales as well.

6) You can indeed follow up without being a pest—provided you plan your sequence of follow ups.

7) If you front-load all your follow-ups in one email, you have nothing to follow-up with. So yeah, space them out.

8) Plan and put the follow-ups in place at the time when you’re most exuberant (and yes, most exhausted). It may not make sense to work when you’re so fed up of everything, but once the moment passes, it will be even harder to put any sequence together.

And that’s it

You now have the 6 Most-Important Lessons in Marketing.

Unless you follow up 9 or 10 or 15 times.

Next Step: Links you should visit

1) How do you create presentations that enthral, hold and move  an audience to action? Find out more…

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

3) Are you losing tons of potential business because you don’t know how the brain works? Read how The Brain Audit can help you.

Products: Under $50
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

1) 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.

2) 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.

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

4) Chaos Planning
Year after year you sit down and create a list of things you want to achieve. Then suddenly it’s January 2015, and you’ve not really moved ahead as you’d expected!
Learn Why Most Planning Fails: And The Critical Importance of Chaos in Planning.

5) 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.

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


The “Power of Enough” and the tuna sandwich..

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Why A Break From Writing Will Kill Your Spirit

More.
More.
More.

We seem to live in a an world that’s never satisfied…
But there’s also something called “enough”.

On this day, you may want to listen and read about “enough” and how the “tuna sandwich” plays a role. What’s your tuna sandwich going to look like? It’s definitely a question worth answering. And…

If you’re on iTunes:
http://www.psychotactics.com/tunasandwich

If you’re not on iTunes or just want to read:
The Power of Enough

There’s a nice Kenny G type of track in the podcast, as well a cool Calvin and Hobbes Christmas story (There I go, name-dropping, ho, ho, ho).

Have a superb day.
I certainly will.

Warm regards,
s-


Let’s Just Get To The Bottom Of This Hill, Mr.Frodo

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Working_Smarter_View_From_T

Imagine thirty thousand menacing obstacles in your path to success.

You’re dehydrated. Hungry as hell. And wobbling like a drunk on too much Guinness. Your eyes hurt, your head throbs and your will is all but broken. You’re not even sure you want to go on.

You feel like Frodo.

As in the character Frodo, in the final episode of the ‘Lord of the Rings-The Return of the King.’

Terror and dismay gleam from Frodo’s big, expressive blue eyes. In the distance, he can see his goal. But it seems to him like he’ll never get there. He turns to Sam and says in a defeated tone, “Sam, it’s the Eye,” referring to the eye of Sauron – the enemy he must destroy.

And Sam turns to Frodo in a soft, encouraging voice and says, “Let’s just get to the bottom of this hill, Mr.Frodo.”

Let’s just get to the bottom of this hill, Mr.Frodo.

I spoke at the World Internet Summit in Sydney, Australia, a few years ago. And I saw about two hundred and fifty Frodos in the audience.

Confused. Weary. Inundated with dozens of tactics and strategies about the Internet, their eyes stared into nothingness. Frozen stiff at the task of having to build an Internet business from scratch, almost all of them seemed to have a cross too heavy to bear.

And they didn’t exactly have Sam to egg them on.

I said to them, like I say to you. “Let’s just get to the bottom of this hill, Mr.Frodo.” Then we’ll do the next hill, and the next and the next, till we get to our destination.

You’re bound to be struggling. I struggled at Yoga class. I’m a first-class doofus. Five minutes after we start the class, I wonder when it’s all going to end. I look at the ‘human pretzels’ twisting and turning to the left and right of me, and I can’t ever see myself being so flexible. And I despair.

But I’ve got my own personal Sam. I simply say to myself:”Let’s just get to the bottom of this hill, Mr.Frodo”

And hurrah, yippeee yahooey, I actually made it past Yoga session No.2. :)

Announcing: “Three-Month Vacation” Podcast–Now Live!
ThreeMonthVacation_Small1

“Informative and entertaining at the same time. Just like Sean’s articles. These podcasts are full of simple truths – the kind that you would think are your own ideas.”

But it only seems so because of the clear and simple way in which Sean explains them. For example, the first podcast illustrates the myth of the “Four-Hour Work Week”. It’s clear after listening to the podcast that one would crave to “get away from work” only if you don’t enjoy your work.

But what if you went to bed each night thinking of finishing the cool stuff you were working on? Would you still want to “get away from work”? Likewise, the podcast on productivity gives you a handful of tips you can implement right now to become more productive. Like the tip on keeping your work always open and available.”
 

It’s the best 15 minutes you can invest in yourself: Three Month Vacation

Next Step: Links you should visit

1) How do you create presentations that enthral, hold and move  an audience to action? Find out more…

2) Are you serious about getting your business to the next level in 2015? Have a look at 5000bc.

3) Are you losing tons of potential business because you don’t know how the brain works? Read how The Brain Audit can help you.

Products: Under $50
NEW! 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

1) 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.

2) 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.

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

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

5) 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.

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


Special Offer: Website Components-How To Create Compelling Pages On Your Website + Special Bonus (Valued at $45)

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When you buy Website Components-How To Create Compelling Pages On Your Website on the  13th, 14th, 15h or 16th December 2014, you’ll also get–’How  To Maximise The Power Of Bonuses’ (worth $45) absolutely free.

Website Secrets Special

Do you often wonder if your home page, about us page or client
acquisition page is working at less than its full potential? These
three pages are critical to any website, and yet we often put the
content together on these pages hurriedly.

Well, “hurriedly” is the wrong word to use.
Instead we spend hours trying to get just the right content; just
the right look. And then, after hours, maybe days of frustration,
we put together something that seems right.

But is it really compelling?
Can it be more compelling?
What’s really missing? And is there a simple way to fix it–while
retaining your own voice, your own personality?

Introducing: The Website Component Series
Find out for yourself how you can spruce up the home page, about us
page and the sign up page. We deconstruct existing pages and then
in true Psychotactics-fashion reconstruct them step-by-step.

And the Special Bonus: How To Maximise The Power Of Bonuses
In this 40 page booklet you will learn
- The Psychology of Bonuses
- How to Find your Bonuses
- How to Create a One-Of-A-Kind Bonus
- How to Avoid the Bonus Trap
- Why Unbundling Makes a Big Difference to How your Product is Perceived.
- And more…

Judge for yourself at: http://www.psychotactics.com/website-secrets

Warm regards,
s-
P.S. This product is very critical if you’re just sitting down to
write your pages, but it’s even more critical if you have these
pages up, and you’ll like to improve them to help you convert more traffic.
Judge for yourself at: http://www.psychotactics.com/website-secrets

P.P.S. This special offer is only valid until 16th December 2014. Have a look
and make a decision based on what you read.
http://www.psychotactics.com/website-secrets


Announcing: “Three-Month Vacation” Podcast–Now Live!

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Two weeks ago, you signed up to be among the first to receive notification of the “Three-Month Vacation” podcast.

And I, in turn, set out to create something quite magical.

It’s a podcast that’s so thoughtfully put together, that you’re instantly going to see the difference between just “another” information podcast and the “Three Month Vacation”.

Each episode of 15 minutes, takes between 2-3 hours to produce, to make sure that you absolutely fall in love with it.

So here’s the link:
The Three-Month Vacation Podcast

Can you please do the following?

1) Subscribe to the podcast.
2) Leave a review

The first week or two of a podcast launch is critical, if we are to make it to the “New and Noteworthy” section of iTunes, and your review (and subscription) will be most appreciated. You can do this from your phone or your computer. And here’s a graphic, if you need any help.
http://www.psychotactics.com/images/5000bcimages/iTunessub.png

 

Warm regards,
Sean D’Souza
P.S. I’ll be uploading transcripts + other goodies over time.
The podcast are always designed to dig deep on one topic, rather than overwhelm you. But for now, if you could really pitch in, I would appreciate it. Once again, the link is:
The Three-Month Vacation Podcast


Positioning: The Difference Between Painkillers and Vitamins

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painkillers-vs-vitamins

Think about your transaction with Starbucks.
You’d think we go there for a coffee, right?

But a coffee could be considered a vitamin-kind of business

You know how vitamins work, right? You are told to take your vitamins. But you can’t always see the results of all of that pill popping. And you can’t even tell if it’s all nonsense, or if it really works. So vitamins become an interesting, yet seemingly weird exercise.

Now compare that with painkillers

Painkillers aren’t a nice-to-have. And when you look around you, you see companies that are vitamin-like. And those that are pain-killers. Starbucks is a decent example. It’s not exactly healthy to drink a ton of coffee, and it’s expensive.

Two tall lattes a day could push up your calories by about 160,600 calories a year. And it’s expensive on the wallet too, heading close to about $3000 a year on coffee alone.

So how does Starbucks make this very expensive vitamin-based exercise into a painkiller?

Painkiller industries are those you can’t do without

This means that the more hooks you get into the customer, the more they’re likely to want to come back time and time again. And Starbucks, at the very core, provided the greatest hook of all: the place to sit around away from home and from the office.

While cafes like Starbucks are a plenty today, the reason they first took off was the space you couldn’t do without. The coffee was better than any other place, or at least different, but it was also the place that provided the painkiller. You were free from the chaos, if only for 15-20 minutes.

While Starbucks was a point of refuge for folks in the West, it’s seen as a point of status in the East

In China, coffee is a bit of a non-entity. For thousands of years, the Chinese have stuck to their tea leaves. Over 70% of the hot drink market is still very much centred around tea. But coffee consumption is growing at 25% per year.

The key to that growth is the young and the trendy. The cafes are where the younger folk hang out. There’s a pain with not being trendy, and so the younger generation flock to cafes.

So what we notice is that there’s a very fine line between vitamins and painkillers

The line lies in the positioning of the product or service. If positioned as a nice-to-have, the product or service may lose traction.

When positioned as a painkiller, the product soon becomes indispensable. The concept of painkiller is tied directly to frequency of consumption. The more you consume, the more you will consume in future.

This means that a coaching service like improving your golf game is a vitamin or a painkiller

And this totally depends on the way you’ve positioned your service. If it’s just about you getting out there and improving how you whack that ball over the green, then it’s fun. It will get you back every now and then.

But if positioning is different, the very same service becomes a painkiller. If the service is positioned as “never losing face in front of your buddies”, it’s now far more competitive, far more interesting to you as an individual.

And this painkiller issue doesn’t prop up when we’re trying to sell our own products or services

As business owners we definitely want to improve the sales of our products or services. So we sit down at our desks and come up with some mundane issue like “getting more customers” or “making more profits”.

And yet, this issue is quickly killed by talking to a client. That client yes a real person (called the “target profile” in The Brain Audit) is instrumental in expressing the difference between a vitamin-based product and a painkiller.

So let’s take an example

When I first started selling the Article Writing Course as a service, my sales pitch was about “writing quickly” or “writing well”. That’s a vitamin. It’s a nice to have, but it’s hard to convince a person to slog for three months to write quickly,or well for that matter.

Then I spoke to the target profile. And the headline morphed into: How to stop knocking on client’s doors, and get them to call you instead. (Learn why articles do a far superior job of attracting the clients you want, and how the right articles make you the expert in your field).

At this point it was no longer a vitamin—it was a painkiller

Most of us detest having to go into yet another meeting to get a client. We hate the marketing, the endless door knocking and it drains us of our energy. Having a client come to us seems like a dream come true.

And to have not just any ol’ client but clients that are perfect matches for you, is almost too good to be true. Now the service isn’t just skirting the issue of vitamins, it’s a must-have. Which is why even though the Article Writing Course is billed as the “Toughest Writing Course in the World”, and is priced well north of $2,500, it sells out in an hour, sometimes less.

The pain is so great, that the client feel compelled to reach out for that painkiller.

But isn’t this a bit over-the-top persuasion?

The reality is that we as humans make decisions based on intense need. We don’t form habits based on some future scenario.

This is why, for instance, if a comet were hurtling toward the planet in 2200, we’d be doing nothing. But if that comet was headed here in 10 years, we’d be working our tails off trying to find a solution to deflect it back into space.

Starbucks took what was considered to be a vitamin and turned it into a painkiller

By creating a need for the space, they created a habit. A habit that’s extremely hard to break, no matter how expensive in terms of calories or dollars. And it’s why we go back time and time again.

This insight of positioning your product correctly doesn’t come from sitting at your desk writing endless headlines. It comes from meeting the client and conducting the target profile interview.

Every product or service is both a vitamin and a painkiller.

Painkillers work better.

Launching Soon! 

The Limited Edition Cartoon Stock Series: Not the usual crappy stock cartoons.
Have a look: Amazing Stock Cartoon Series for your newsletters,ebooks, websites, presentations, etc

Next Step: Links you should visit

“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

The Story Telling Mini Series gave me the road map for my web-site.

Demet Kitis, Canada
Judge for yourself: Story Telling Mini Series

Top Selling Products Under $50

Critical Website Components: How to write compelling content for your key web pages
Story Telling Series: How to suck your audience right in, in a matter of seconds

Testimonial Secrets: Powerful Techniques to Get Better Clients-And Sales
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


Free! Excerpt of The Brain Audit: Why Clients Buy And Why They Don’t 

Introducing! Amazing Ebook Design In 60 Minutes:
Cut out all the unneeded features and learn the key elements you need to design a professional Ebook.

Black Belt Presentation Series: How to completely control the room-without turning anyone off?

Online Membership Website: How To Build A Powerful, Community-Driven Membership Website


How A Magic Moment Encourages Prospects To Become Client

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Magic Moment

The first time I converted prospects to clients, I had no clue what I was doing.

I decided to give a one-hour speech and managed to get about 20 people into the room. At the end of the hour, my goal was to sign up at least a few of those people to come to more such speeches. And yet, I had no clue how to make that transition happen. How could I get a group of folks to just sign up to something in the future, without putting enormous pressure?

Quite by accident I stumbled on the concept of the “magic moment”

The “magic moment” is a moment of empowerment. It’s a moment where the magician not only performs an awesome trick, but then goes on to show you how you can do the trick with incredible accuracy.

And you’ve stepped through awe, right into a moment of being empowered. Once you’re empowered, you know for sure you can replicate the trick over and over again, thus creating the same level of awe. And you’re hooked.

At this point in time, it’s easier to convert a prospect into a client

On the Psychotactics site, we do this in the Headline report. When you first get to the site, you’re encouraged to sign up. And in exchange you get the headline report—on why headlines fail (and how to avoid that failure).

And within about 10 minutes of reading the report, you know one thing for sure:  you can do magic with headlines. You can replicate or create great headlines, solely based on three simple steps.

You know how to take the steps, and how to check if you’re making a mistake. You’ve gone from just a prospect to possible client in a matter of minutes.

Of course this doesn’t apply to headlines alone

Remember that presentation I was making? Well, the “magic moment” was when I got the entire audience to respond in the same way. There’s a point in the presentation where I show how a “trigger” works.

That when you apply this trigger to your elevator speech or tagline, you create intense curiosity and people always ask, “how do you do that?” or “what do you mean by that?” The trigger then gives you the chance to talk more about your product or service.

So yes, this trigger is explained in detail in the book called The Brain Audit (yes, it’s for sale on the Psychotactics website). And essentially what you’re doing is putting a problem, solution and target profile together.

It works like this…

Let’s say someone asks you: What do you do? You simply give your solution, don’t you? So let’s say you mow lawns for a living, you’d say, “I mow lawns”. But if you were to string a problem (lawns that need a facelift), solution (you do the facelift) and target profile (well, let’s assume you do Bill’s lawns), you get a great trigger statement. And it looks like this: wrinkle-free home lawns.

If someone said: What do you do?

You say: wrinkle-free home lawns.
They say: What do you mean by that?

Tah, dah!

So you can see how the “magic moment” works can’t you? Just like the three methods in the “headline report”, you’re also keen to know how the “trigger” works and how you can get to the next step.

And if all you do is show the magic, then you’re not really empowering anyone at all. All you’re doing is demonstrating that you can do the magic trick. Of course, this alone is enough to get the audience to want to buy, sign up or do whatever you wish them to do. But I think it’s nicer to empower the audience as well.

Empowering creates encouragement instead of the push

People like to feel like it was their own idea, instead of being pushed into making a decision. And oui, you can make the deal sweeter. If you’re selling something that day, you may want to give a special price or a special bonus that enables the clients to take up your offer.

In fact, that’s just what I did when I first started out. I’d make the speech, empower the audience and then ask them to buy my book or to sign up for future speeches. Incredibly, we had a conversion rate of 30-50%—and get this, I was still very much a newbie back then.

Whether you choose a live event, a white paper, report, audio or video, it hardly matters

What matters when you’re encouraging the prospect to move to client, is to show them an amazing trick—that “magic moment”.

Then you spend time deconstructing the trick in great detail. When you do both steps, they’re empowered. Now they want to know more and will pretty much follow you anywhere.

Well, 30-50% will, anyway smiley

Launching Soon! (In November)

The Limited Edition Cartoon Stock Series: Not the usual crappy stock cartoons. But luscious, yummy stock cartoons drawn by Sean D’Souza and in Photoshop.

Next Step: Links you should visit

“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

The Story Telling Mini Series gave me the road map for my web-site.

Demet Kitis, Canada
Judge for yourself: Story Telling Mini Series

 

Introducing!

Amazing Ebook Design In 60 Minutes: Cut out all the unneeded features and learn the key elements you need to design a professional Ebook.

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
Free! Excerpt of The Brain Audit: Why Clients Buy And Why They Don’t 

Black Belt Presentation Series: How to completely control the room-without turning anyone off?

Online Membership Website: How To Build A Powerful, Community-Driven Membership Website


Why Thought Is Mostly A Waste of Time

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Thought Time Waster

What’s your definition of a thought leader?

No, don’t think about it. You know the answer already. It’s not some thinker. Instead it’s someone who does stuff. That’s how you become a thought-leader. You actually do things.

And there’s proof that thought is a waste of time

What’s 5 x 6. Ok, so we know it’s 30. What about walking across the room to get a glass of water? You didn’t think, left step, right step, left step, balance, balance, balance, right? In fact, if you did think, your mind would be so full of thoughts that you’d almost get nothing done.

Yet most of us are trained to think, think and think

We are told to sleep on things and think about things, when in fact nothing much changes with whatever’s in our heads. And that’s because thinking is only very useful at a learning or creation stage. When we’re in the process of writing a book, we have to think of what to do, because we write books so infrequently, that the whole process of writing becomes one big thought exercise.

If on the other hand we wrote every single day, the thought process would be a lot sharper, faster and may I say, better. You know this to be true, because you do something quite creative like driving to the supermarket. You have to dodge all those “bad drivers” on the road, look out for the ditch, make the correct turn, answer your co-passenger and yet you drive without so much as a thought.

The moment it comes to achieving anything slightly more substantial, we start to think

Is this book you’re writing heading in the right direction? Will anyone even bother to read it? You think, think and think. And then paralysis sets in. Too many thoughts start swarming in your head, and soon there’s no space to do anything.

But instead, if you had a kind of plug and play system and simply put those ideas in that system, you’d have to think a lot less. You could actually achieve, then review and refine your book. But no, we choose to think instead.

And this is because thinking is the fallback position

I remember the time I went to pick up my niece from Auckland airport. My niece was just 3 years old. And coming in from India, she’d never used a seat belt in a car before that day. So would she sit in the car with the seatbelt? Would it be too big for her? Would she throw a tantrum? Would she do this and would she do that? Luckily I had someone else do all this thinking for me, because all I did was drive to the airport.

As things turned out, no matter what I thought, a three-year old does what she likes. And as I found, she was not only happy to use the seat belt, but liked the car seat so much that we had to take it out of the car, and into the house, so she could have her own seat—and seat belt.

The brain, your brain and mine doesn’t need a seat belt

And too much thinking takes up too much glucose and gets the brain tired. So the brain uses a shortcut. It learns things so it doesn’t have to think. You learn to walk, swim, drive, use Photoshop or watercolours. You learn how to pick good vegetables, cook a great meal, because the best chefs and artists don’t spend much time in thought. Instead they spend time executing. And the reason they can execute is because they’ve learned and refined a system.

What you need is less thought and more system

Thinking is mostly a waste of time. Yes, there’s no harm in thinking when creating stuff, but to think, think and think is what drives people crazy—and mostly makes them miserable. This is because these needless thoughts rarely go up and away. They tend to spiral downwards in a doom loop until we can no longer think any more. We’re drained and guess who is to blame?

So find yourself a good teacher

Find yourself a system.

Then work that system over and over so you don’t have to think.

That’s when true creativity happens.

That’s when you become a thought leader—and actually do stuff!

 

Announcing!

The biggest frustration with article writing is the sheer amount of time you struggle to write quickly.

Structure helps you write quicker than ever before. 

The Article Writing Online Course 2015 sold out in 26 hours, but you can get yourself the home study and write faster than ever before.
Judge for yourself: Article Writing Home Study

Next Step: Links you should visit

“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

The Story Telling Mini Series gave me the road map for my web-site.

Demet Kitis, Canada
Judge for yourself: Story Telling Mini Series

 

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
Free! Excerpt of The Brain Audit: Why Clients Buy And Why They Don’t 


Black Belt Presentation Series: How to completely control the room-without turning anyone off?

Online Membership Website: How To Build A Powerful, Community-Driven Membership Website

 


The Article Writing 2015 Course Page Is Live

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It’s finally here: The Article Writing Course 2015
If you want to be on the course, you’ll need to get to the page below.

As you know, we’ve sent you the prospectus and the sales page (without the ‘buy now’ buttons well in advance) so you could do your due diligence. Well, here’s the final step. To book your spot, you need to make your payment.

The page link
http://www.psychotactics.com/articlewriting-details

 

Best of luck getting on board,
S-
P.S. Once the seats are filled, they’re filled. And you’ll only get a seat in the rare chance that someone backs out.

P.P.S. If you’re having any trouble, email me, Skype me at “psychotoon” or send me a message on Facebook. My details are below. You can also safely call me if you need to, as it will be 9am on Saturday here in NZ, and at least today, I will be at my computer for an hour or so.

How to connect with me
Email: sean@psychotactics.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sean.dsouza
Skype: psychotoon
Phone: 64 9 449 0009


The Article Writing Course 2015: Why Bother Reading This Prospectus?

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How do you benchmark a course?
Do you benchmark it based on one superstar?
Or do you benchmark it based on the fact that everyone gets to the other side successfully?

When you read the prospectus, you’ll find out for yourself.
You don’t have to read 70+ pages of testimonials to find out that from the year 2006, clients have gone from utter struggle and frustration, to becoming stunning writers.

Part of the stunning results comes from the sheer determination
Part of it comes from the structure of the course–and the philosophy of “tiny increments” instead of an information overload. And the fact that I’m there every day, several times a day, critiquing, working with you–making tiny adjustments.

So read the Article Writing Course prospectus, because it shows you how the Psychotactics “tiny increments” system gets results for everyone–not just one superstar.

How do you benchmark a course?
Let the detailed experiences of the alumni tell you the story.
Have a look at the prospectus and judge for yourself.
http://tinyurl.com/prospectus2015

Warm regards,
s-
P.S. We don’t accept more than 25 on the course. It’s intense. It’s tough.
We open registration on Saturday 8th Nov, at 3 pm Eastern (US).
The course fills up incredibly quickly (often in matter of hours).

Make sure you put at least a couple of alarms so you don’t miss out.
Here is the sales page with all the details about the course.
http://www.psychotactics.com/article-writing-course-how-to-write-articles/


What You Can Learn from “Snake Oil” Gurus

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Snake Oil Gurus

You probably don’t like snake oil gurus.

They pad their products with fluff, promise you the earth and don’t deliver. And yet, the next time someone says: I’ll show you how to convert thousands of people to your blog without doing more work—boof, you’re in.

So why do snake oil gurus work, when your business doesn’t?

It’s a simple understanding of pre-sell. One of the core elements of pre-sell is philosophy and methodology. Philosophy is mostly what you stand for, and methodology is how you get it done.

And the snake oil merchants have a sound understanding of philosophy. They know that they want to get rich, rich, rich and have tens of thousands, even millions of people treat them like gods. In short, money with a solid dollop of power.

Now whether you like it or not, you like that philosophy

You can indeed see yourself as someone reasonably powerful, maybe like J.K. Rowling. Lots of money, lots of power. Everyone bowing and scraping, without the need to be out there flaunting it all. Or maybe you like to flaunt. Maybe you’ll be a Kim Kardashian kinda character with helicopters, opulent mansions—all the stuff that snake-oil promises.

There often is just one problem with snake-oil

It doesn’t deliver. The methodology is where it all falls apart. You get the philosophy, you buy right into it, but even as you’re buying into it, you know the methodology is not going to work for you.

That’s because the methodology is going to involve a lot of schmoozing, a lot of tricks, a lot of selling—almost pummeling customers to buy into your system.

And you don’t like that. Besides most of the methodology doesn’t boil down to much. All you really have to do is fight your way into a similar snake-oil inner circle and you’re away.

All of this creeps you out—it sure does.

So is there a way out of this mess?

Yes, there is. It’s called pre-sell. Your customers need to get your philosophy first. Instead, you’re all stuck into improving—not talking about your methodology Which means you aren’t communicating either the philosophy or the methodology, both which are probably a lot superior than the snake-oil merchants. You probably have a method for getting about 50 new customers a month, but does that sound sexy?

Nooooo it doesn’t. 10,000 new customers, a list of 750 people signing up every day: those are the things that sound super-sexy, right? But waitasec, back up that truck, because you’re wrong.

50 new customers a month is sexy.

14 new customers a month is amazing.

In certain cases even 2 customers a month is enough to blow the customer’s
mind.

Provided the customer understands your philosophy

Why are 14 new customers so much better than 750 a day? What do you look  for in those customers? How does it help to treat those customers better, differently even.

Take for example, a guy called Jiro. He runs this little sushi bar in (get this) a basement of the subway station of Ginza, Tokyo. And he takes on just 10 new diners a night. Yup, just 10.

And his philosophy is to give you the freshest sushi experience ever

Going to a Jiro dinner is almost like a final exam. You actually feel the need to prepare to get the best of the evening. And you do, because at $375 per person, and having waited 3 months to get your seat, you’re quite into the philosophy long, long, long before you show up. You’ve bought into the person, his philosophy and his methodology long before you pay for your meal.

We all make the same mistake

At Psychotactics, our products are 3% filler. What does that mean? If you buy a book or audio or workshop, there’s going to be 3% filler. I’d call it breaks (e.g. the pages between the chapter, or the music in between or the breaks at a workshop). But strictly speaking 97% takes you from A to B in a super-elegant way, with “tiny increments”.

Our philosophy isn’t world domination. It’s not to spread twenty-thousand kilometres across the planet. Instead it’s depth. We want to explore a topic one inch wide and twenty thousand feet deep.

And so when we create the products or training, it’s always incremental. It’s always filled with dozens of examples. The examples always pertain to successes and mistakes. They always strive to cover not just products, but services and training too. And the products are always sandwiched with summaries, cartoons with captions that summarise and yes, our passion: food.

But do you get that idea before you buy our products?

Of course not. We’ve gotten so busy with our methodology that we’ve never stopped to talk about what drives us to create this stuff. Our methodology is solid—and doable. And so we fail to realise that it’s not enough for us to know who we are, we have to tell the story. The philosophy must go hand in hand with our methodology.

And the snake oil merchants are good teachers in this respect.

They realise that philosophy matters more

That why something is being done is more important than the way you do it. So they get away with just the sizzle and not the steak. You on the other hand can’t bear the thought of promoting your products without the steak, but forget the sizzle. And this is why we all have to take a step back if we want customers to really love our products and services like we do. We need to drive home the philosophy—first. Then explain our methodology.

You don’t ever have to be a snake oil guru

You don’t ever have to care about world-domination. You love what you do, and you want to do a lot of it. But your customer needs to know.

So yes, pre-sell

Pre-sell your philosophy first. Don’t let the snake oil guru get there before you.

Next Step

If you haven’t read the free report—Why Do Most Headlines Fail? (And How To Create Headlines That Work Every time), subscribe to get your copy.


Why You Need To Treat “Amazing” Marketing Strategies With A Little Caution

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Amazing Marketing Strategies

There’s an episode on the TV comedy series, “Everybody Loves Raymond” and it involves a recipe.

It goes like this…

The daughter in law wants a recipe.

The mother in law is keen to show that’s she no Scrooge and offers to give the recipe. There’s just one thing missing—yup, the secret ingredient that makes the dish like it should be made.

Most marketers give you their recipe

And often it’s not like they hold back the secret ingredients. They just fail to give you the exact details. Let’s take for example a marketer that tells you not to send out newsletters so often. Maybe he boasts that you don’t need content, that you don’t need to send out a newsletter except one every few weeks, maybe even months.

Sounds like a superb plan, right?

I mean, c’mon, who really wants to write newsletters frequently? It takes so much time to write it, then format it, then send it out. A strategy that involves none of this work, sounds like heaven. And yet, you’ve only heard what you want to hear because that’s what we do as humans. We tune in to what we want to hear and tune out the rest.

In this case, part of the strategy is to stop writing so many newsletters. But a second part of the strategy also involves contacting dozens, maybe hundreds of other bloggers and getting them to comment or at least point to your blog.

So wait, how do you get those hundreds of bloggers?

Oh that’s easy. You just get in touch with them.

See the problem, yet? Of course you do. Where do you find the bloggers? Is there a strategy? What if the bloggers don’t respond to your comment? What if they don’t point to your blog? Since everything truly hinges on those bloggers, it would make sense to focus a lot on that part of the system, right?

Oops, looks like an ingredient got left out of the mix!

And this is often what happens. People are people and even when they don’t tend to leave stuff out of the mix on purpose, they do.

And some do so, on purpose.

I once went to a workshop with a world-renowned painter. He was very helpful, but he left out the minute details. Since I was quite friendly with him, I asked him why he left out those details: “Oh that’s easy,” he said. “If I give them everything, they’ll get as good as me”.

But let’s not be cynical—not everyone is cut from the same cloth

All the same, when buying an info-product or course, you’d want to do your due diligence—mostly after you buy the product. Before you buy the product/course, there’s little chance of knowing what the product is going to deliver (yes, even the best sales letter in the world is designed to get you to buy, it’s not a prospectus).

But once you’re in, and you don’t find the answers to your questions, you need to get those answers. Without that precise ingredient, things don’t fall apart—but they don’t work either.

In order for the whole system to work, you need more than a few videos and some fancy notes

You need step by step precise strategy. Every time the marketer tells you: do this or do that, they’re moving into a new rabbit hole. And that rabbit hole is very deep indeed. If they just touch on the concept and move along, you can be sure you’ve missed out on a great deal. You’ve actually missed out on a whole chunk that would make the strategy work.

The way to analyse a product or course is to start with the bird’s eye view

Can you locate the main topics? For instance in the info-products course we have three topics: Structure, Stories and Summaries. Now when you look through each of those topics, is each section explained in detail? Are there enough examples, case-studies that enable you to understand each part in the greatest detail? Does each section elaborate on the mistakes you could make—and which mistakes to avoid?

Think of what would happen if the creator decided to skimp a bit on the topic of “summaries”

You wouldn’t know how critical it is, would you? I mean, what’s the big deal with “summaries” anyway? And yet, it’s super-crucial. The only reason why a marketer or teacher will bring up a topic is because there’s a nice, big—and deep rabbit hole. And if they don’t take you down that rabbit hole, tah, dah—you’ve seemingly got the entire strategy, but there’s an ingredient missing.

It’s easy to say, don’t write so many newsletters.

It’s easy to say, do this and do that.

But it’s also easy to leave out tiny bits out of the recipe—often quite by mistake.

And then you end up like the daughter in law in the “Everybody Loves Raymond” series. You think “you’re” the problem. You think “you’re” the one that is hopeless and not talented. You think “you’re” the one who needs to rethink your future.

When all that’s missing is the secret ingredient.

A tiny, seemingly inconsequential ingredient.

Next Step

If you haven’t read the free report—Why Do Most Headlines Fail? (And How To Create Headlines That Work Every time), subscribe to get your copy.