[StomperNet] Steering People with Storytelling

Hello again!

If you did your homework, you've opted in at Mark Joyner's site
to watch the 2 Joe Sugarman videos I told you about yesterday.

As promised, here's my little "cheat sheet" of notes that will
help you break down and study Joe's masterful presentation, and
hopefully use a couple of his tactics in your OWN marketing.

And don't forget to join Mark, Joe, AND Ted Nicholas tonight at
8pm for a LIVE webinar. You should have already been registered
if you signed up to see video 2.  If you didn't, there's still
time!

Plus – FAIR WARNING – Here be *SPOILERS*!  I'm going to talk IN
DETAIL about some of the sneaky, cool tricks Joe used in his
presentation, and the effect of seeing it work will be RUINED
if you don't watch the videos FIRST.  (So go already!)

Once you've watched both videos, start here:

=====

Steering People with Storytelling

What I love about Joe's presentation here is how it shows an
extremely masterful use of storytelling, and how he uses this
powerful tool to accomplish multiple different goals – all of
which cumulatively add to the power of his closing offer.

Here are a few things I spotted.  Consider how Joe used these
methods, and how YOU might be able to adapt them to your OWN
marketing.

Creating Curiosity

The longest running story in Joe's presentation had to do with
the Batman credit cards.  Did you notice how that one plot
thread was woven through Joe's whole presentation, tying the
ending to the beginning?

When you have a long sales letter or sales pitch, you want to
have some kind of unifying thread like this simply because it
makes it easier for people to stick with you through your pitch
if you give them something worthwhile to pay attention to.

The viewer's desire to know the end of the Batman story
literally tugs at you through the whole presentation.  In all
honestly, 100% of my decision to commit to watching Part 2 of
Joe's video based on my unshakable curiosity about the Batman
cards.  Would Joe EVER get to sell them?  Would they be a huge
hit?  How does it END???

Curiosity is a powerful force.  It's a MAGNET that draws
people's full attention.  It's also a powerful motivator – in
this case the video was split just where it needed to be so
that the REAL ACTION Mark wanted from me (signing up for the
webinar) seemed like NOTHING.

The itch of curiosity was so strong that it was WORTH my name
and email address so I could scratch that itch with the
resolution of the story I had become so involved with.

Giving Value to the Worthless

Also notice how the card itself is literally worthless.  Joe
has a whole useless pile of these things sitting in storage for
DOZENS of years.  The *whole point* of Joe's story about the
card is that it was a flop – a failure.  A miss.

But it's that VERY SAME STORY that creates a value for the card
NOW.  The formerly worthless card is magically transformed into
a desirable item simply BECAUSE of its unique life story.  If
you have one, then YOU have that cool story to tell.

I like to think of this as "Pedigree".  A Pedigree gives value
to something, even if the item itself has little or no value.

Other examples of this are those little garden gnome statues.
I'm sure everyone's heard the stories about the "kidnapped"
gnomes?  Basically, a person swiped a neighbor's garden gnome
before setting off on a world tour.  The "gnomenapper" sends
the neighbor postcards and photos of their lowly little gnome
in famous scenes from around the globe.

Eventually the gnome returns home with a photo album of his
globe-trotting adventures.

Suddenly, a cheap, poorly made, ceramic lawn ornament becomes a
priceless object.  All because it has a Pedigree, a History, a
STORY.

Maybe an even better example: when you catch a home run ball at
a baseball game, is that ball physically worth anything more
than any other baseball?  No, not really.  But what if it's the
winning home run of a historic World Series?  Nope, the ball is
still physically worth the same as any other dumb old baseball.

But the STORY, the PEDIGREE, the HISTORY – that can actually
add an INCREDIBLE value to an otherwise worthless item.

The desire to be a part of those kinds of historic, epic
stories is what drives us to want these kind of items.

What Joe does here is create a wonderful, engaging story, and
by offering you a Batman card at the end, he invites you to be
a PART of that story – to make it your OWN story.

By the end, I wanted one of those worthless pieces of plastic
so bad I went straight to eBay to see in I could find one.

Breeding Familiarity

Last week, I talked about how engaging both the emotional and
logical parts of your prospect's mind can help you create
powerful calls to action.

Well in order for people to trust you enough to let you
interact with them emotionally, you need to become FAMILIAR to
them.  Joe does this in his presentation through telling you
humanizing stories of his failures.

If you've ever struck out with a girl you really liked, you
felt empathy with Joe when he told you about how he studied for
weeks to become an expert in San Diego so he could impress a
girl who was from there – only to find out she was from
Sacramento, after all.

I'm sure if any of you have been in business for long,
especially the bootstrap, entrepreneurial kind of business, you
can DEEPLY relate to Joe's stories of having to borrow money
from friends.  You can also feel his pain when he repeatedly
strikes out with selling his Batman cards – we all know what
it's like when an idea fails.

Through these humanizing anecdotes, the audience comes to feel
a kinship with Joe.  "He gets knocked around by life, just like
me!"

Manufacturing Trust

So Joe's heartwarming tales of overcoming common struggles of
life and business allowed him to create an emotional bond with
you.  He also uses storytelling to engage with what I spoke
about last week, your "Lazy Skeptic".

He needs his audience to trust him.  Now due to those emotional
connections he made with his other stories, he HAS convinced
you that he has a trustworthy character.

He even tells you this in his video – when he talked about how
he paid every penny back to the investors in his failed
business, even though it took years of hard work.

But he also needs you to trust his FACTS, not just his
intentions.  You know he's a good guy at heart, but can you
believe his other claims?

Well he proves it through demonstrating Authority.

The stories about his incredible business successes with Blu-
Blockers, and his advertising agency, and how he gives seminars
for people in beautiful Hawaii…  those all give him
credibility as an expert in his chosen field.  The help
establish his position of AUTHORITY.

Of course, the killer introduction he was given before he took
the stage helped too.

Do you think you would have been as likely to watch Joe's whole
presentation if you hadn't been told who he was before he got
started?

I doubt it – but he was presented as an authority, and his
story confirmed it.

If the Wildest Claim is True…

Here's another cool thing Joe did.  Do you remember when he
revealed his time working for the CIA as a spy in Germany,
helping Russians defect?

That's a pretty insane claim, right?  How many people can boast
of that kind of experience?

Well he also said that as part of his training, he needed to
learn to speak perfect, fluent German, without an accent.

Did you catch later in his talk, where he actually spoke in
German?

Do you see how by providing this little detail of proof for his
most OUTRAGEOUS claim makes every other claim he made easily
more believable?

Let this serve as a reminder – when you need to provide proof
for your own products and services, do what you can to prove
your MOST EXTREME claim.  If you can do that, everything else
you claim will usually be taken at face value, making it much
easier to make your case for a sale or deal.

Greasing the Chute

Now, one of the most powerful things Joe did with this
presentation is a cool little time manipulation.  You'll recall
he insists that everyone fill out his order for at the
*beginning* of the presentation.

What this allows him to do is create an actual sense of URGENCY
and SCARCITY at the end of the presentation, when he drops the
price for only one minute.

If you DID fill out the form like he asked, you can immediately
hand it in.  It lowered the level of commitment for those that
followed the instructions.  They didn't need to *snap* out of
the moment to get their wallet and fill out the form.  All they
had to do was say "yes" and hand over a piece of paper.

Now when that flurry of people jumped at his offer, what do you
think happened to the people that had NOT followed his
instructions?

You can practically HEAR them FRANTICALLY filling out the forms
because he left them NO TIME to reconsider, and they were even
further pressured by all the people turning in the forms in
front of them.

It reminds me of this recurring nightmare I have where I'm
still in school and I forgot a test, and everyone is turning in
their final report and my page is BLANK!

It makes you gasp and gulp and rush.

And he creates that frenzy without trying very hard at all!
It's amazing to watch.

Be Consistent and Authentic

The final thing that Joe did, which I thought was very subtle
but VERY powerful – was PROVE that he was being authentic with
his scarcity play.

Now I'm not saying this really was pre-arranged, but he
couldn't have planned it better.

When the guy from the audience tries to turn in his form to Joe
LATE, and Joe turns him down…  Remember that?

I bet any doubt or skepticism ANYONE had about Joe and whether
he was for real, and whether giving him their credit card
number was a safe thing to do… I bet it VANISHED when he did
that.

Why?

Simply because he PROVED that he would DO what he SAID.

By proving that you will do what you say – that your claims
(and stories) are AUTHENTIC – that you will behave CONSISTANTLY
with your words – you win nearly unbreakable trust from your
audience.

See, Joe made a SPECIAL offer to those who acted and took his
offer during that minute.  People LOVE to feel special and to
be a part of something special.

If he had just let that guy squeak in, it would have erased the
"special-ness" of his offer.  You can even hear some of the
audience boo-ing the guy trying to sneak in his order form!

They were boo-ing because Joe created the EXPECTATION that they
needed to act fast.  He MET that expectation when he turned the
straggler down.  All he did was behave consistant with what he
said, and the crowd LOVED him for it.

And there's a good reason I'm closing with that point.  These
techniques I'm revealing to you here are EXTREMELY powerful.
When you get good at persuasion, it's as close to a superpower
or real-life magic spells as you can get.

And because of that, we ALL have a RESPONSIBILITY to be
Authentic and Consistent – We MUST NEVER use these powers to
manipulate people into doing something harmful.  We MUST NEVER
use these powers to leave people in worse shape than we met
them.  We MUST NEVER lie or be dishonest when we tell these
powerful kinds of stories.

In exchange for my teaching you about all these little "secret"
tricks and tactics, all I ask is that you dedicate yourself to
being one of the "good guys" in our industry.

Because we all know there's way too many of the bad.

Until next time,
Keep Stomping
~Andy Jenkins

P.S. DON'T FORGET – I didn't make ANY of this stuff up – all
the cool stuff I talk about here comes from Joe Sugarman's
videos on this page.  If you already signed up there, don't
miss the chance to get on the LIVE webinar TONIGHT at 8pm
Eastern – Joe himself, Ted Nichols, and Mark Joyner – all
MASTERS of the art and science of persuasion.  Join them and
hear them talk WAY more about this kind of thing.  I'll be
there listening myself.

P.P.S. Leave a comment below if you don't mind.
We love the feedback – let us know what you're thinking!