I showed the below list to two marketing consultants. They both asked me not to publish it. I then showed it to a non- marketing person. He said he was going to print the list and tape it to his computer, so he could refer to it every day. Apparently there is real dynamite here. It scares some people. It inspires others.
After writing eleven books on marketing, reading several hundred other books on persuasion and psychology published over the last century and a half, and spending more than twenty years creating advertising and publicity to convince people to do what my clients wanted, I sat down and compiled this list.
You could probably build an entire marketing campaign or improve an existing one with any one of the below insights into human nature. Each week for the next year I will take one truism from the list and quickly explain how you might use it. If you want to receive the weekly memos, just sign-in at my website, http://www.mrfire.com. (If you’re already on my email list, you will automatically receive the memos.) For now, here’s the list:
People can be persuaded to your side with a good story.
People only do things for the good feelings they get.
People will pay any amount of money to have their inner states changed.
People only buy from people they know, like, and trust.
People make snap decisions about you and your business based on little things you usually overlook, even the paper stock of your business card.
People pick up on your energy, more than on what you say or do, and decide to work with you or not based on what they sense.
People know when you are lying, though some may mistrust their own instinct.
People want you to do what you say you will do when you say you will do it; they will reward you if you go one step further and deliver more than what they expect sooner than when they expect it.
People only act for self-serving reasons, no matter what they say or you think.
People will never change their human emotions or basic desires, only their dress and their tools will change.
People never question their own beliefs, so don’t try to change them.
People cannot tell you why they buy anything or predict if they will buy something.
People always respond to free offers of something interesting to them.
People will believe a wild claim if it is just this side of unbelievable.
People will spend their last dime to be entertained.
People respond to flattery.
People want to be happy. Period.
People want low prices while still wanting the best deal.
People can tell if you don’t believe in your product or service.
People respond to enthusiasm.
People will follow commands that make them feel superior.
People buy for emotional reasons and justify their decisions with whatever logic they can find or create, no matter how ridiculous.
People idolize the past, complain about the present, and fear the future.
People will never argue with you if you never make them wrong.
People are deeply affected by what others think.
People always act for positive reasons, even if the behavior is negative.
People will read any length of sales copy as long as it is interesting to them.
People become information junkies when they are interested in buying.
People will respond to you if you get out of your ego and into theirs.
People want to be recognized.
People want to be loved.
People are interested in other people.
People are interested in the new, the off-beat, the unusual.
People are always interested in women, babies, and pets.
People love food and will read a recipe stuck in a sales letter.
People universally feel deprived.
People do not care about you or your business until you show them how you can help them.
People will mentally fill in holes to complete a story or sales pitch.
People will deny that advertising works while responding to ads.
People will read an ad if it doesn’t look like an ad.
People will believe a news story over an advertisement hands down.
People are collectors of something, whether of books or thimbles or recipes, though they may deny it.
People will continue with a bad habit until it hurts.
People will do whatever you want as long as they don’t have a counter-thought to your request. Handle the objection and they will comply.
People unconsciously respond to your unconscious intentions.
People feel that something or someone else is in control and desperately seek ways to have power again.
People think about sex far more than they will ever admit.
People will deny that this list is entirely true.
Joe Vitale is the #1 best-selling author of “Spiritual Marketing” and author of way too many other books and tapes to list here. He also published a new bestseller The Millionaire Mindset. Grab the exclusive FREE 40+ page preview at: http://www.themillionairemind.net/free/?a3jli
