Why You Should Study Magicians To Learn To Write Compelling Copy
One of the clients I write for has an interesting story.
His name is Mike Staumietis.
His father was one of the encyclopedia salesman who trained Gary Halbert to sell encyclopedias door-to-door.
At the time, "Big Mike" (as he's known today) didn't know who Gary Halbert was.
But years later, when he became a marketer, he'd realize what a great thing that was to have been around world-class talent like that.
One of the greatest lessons I've learned from Mike is how magicians are perfect models for marketers of all sorts. Because they are masters of misdirection.
Speaking of the late great Prince of Print, he used this principle all the time.
He would often write about the "credit card mafia". About how credit card processing companies, when you flooded them with too many orders in too short a span of time, had the ability to shut your business down indefinitely for any whimsical suspicion they may have (fraud, laundering, or maybe they just plain don't like you).
The story about the credit card processors is true, but while you were focusing on that... what was really being communicated implicitly was that he was a copywriter who regularly generated enough money to shut down credit card processors. Those are the sorts of problems that greedy business owners hungry to hire a good copywriter are only too happy to have. So you see how that positioned him?
You could say the entire art of magic (and marketing) is really misdirection. To slip right by resistance. That's what their presentations are all about. While you're looking one way, they're getting away with murder in plain view because you're distracted. They've managed to absorb all your attention onto this one finite point.
The best magician I know of to study so you can learn to do this yourself... and I mean across the board... in terms of skill, presentation, and just wonderful showmanship (he's really fun to watch), is hands down a conjurer from the UK called "Derren Brown".
The cool part is... you can find almost all of his material free on youtube. Just type "Derren Brown" into the youtube search engine.
If you're part of the copywriting community, you may or may not know about hypnosis and NLP, which Derren regularly displays a good amount of skill with. So you may be interested in watching "The Heist", where Derren uses both of these skills (and more that will be useful to the clever salesman) to influence people to commit armed robbery in broad daylight in London - of their own free will.
Also, a good place to start, is his interview with Richard Dawkins.
The reason I really like Derren though... what's really special about him... is he's an iconoclast. He's completely ready to exercise an attitude of faith and be open to the truth, whatever it may be. And so he will venture out and experiment with suggestibility and see what he can get people to believe. How those beliefs affect their behavior. And most importantly... he challenges beliefs that have been far too long unchallenged.
He's always ready to smoke out the charlatans by replicating their "feats" and then showing how its done so people can choose for themselves what they ought to believe.
In any case... check out Derren Brown on youtube, especially "The Heist", "The Seance", and his interview with Richard Dawkins.
I think you'll all be shocked to see what you can learn from him, and you may find yourself very pleasantly surprised how you can apply what you learn from Derren to your own sales challenges.
P.S. What is communicated implicitly is really the art of any sort of communication, and soon I'll post some really cool tricks about how you can use this tool of implied messages. For me, it's meant schmoozing with world-class marketing talent and getting copywriting jobs without promoting myself at all. But I'm lazy. If you're a "hard-charger", it's actually sort of scary to think what could be possible.
P.P.S. I'll also be sharing some insights with you about NLP in the future. I've never been certified officially, but I got Ross Jeffries to buy me lunch in a contest at one of his seminars, and I was going head-to-head with certified master practitioners. The man is controversial, but he's easily the best teacher of hypnotic communication you could ever hope to learn from. Bandler, Grinder, et al. are good... but Ross is the Zen master. You'll "get it" much faster if you learn from him.
More to come soon, Warriors.
Peace.
His name is Mike Staumietis.
His father was one of the encyclopedia salesman who trained Gary Halbert to sell encyclopedias door-to-door.
At the time, "Big Mike" (as he's known today) didn't know who Gary Halbert was.
But years later, when he became a marketer, he'd realize what a great thing that was to have been around world-class talent like that.
One of the greatest lessons I've learned from Mike is how magicians are perfect models for marketers of all sorts. Because they are masters of misdirection.
Speaking of the late great Prince of Print, he used this principle all the time.
He would often write about the "credit card mafia". About how credit card processing companies, when you flooded them with too many orders in too short a span of time, had the ability to shut your business down indefinitely for any whimsical suspicion they may have (fraud, laundering, or maybe they just plain don't like you).
The story about the credit card processors is true, but while you were focusing on that... what was really being communicated implicitly was that he was a copywriter who regularly generated enough money to shut down credit card processors. Those are the sorts of problems that greedy business owners hungry to hire a good copywriter are only too happy to have. So you see how that positioned him?
You could say the entire art of magic (and marketing) is really misdirection. To slip right by resistance. That's what their presentations are all about. While you're looking one way, they're getting away with murder in plain view because you're distracted. They've managed to absorb all your attention onto this one finite point.
The best magician I know of to study so you can learn to do this yourself... and I mean across the board... in terms of skill, presentation, and just wonderful showmanship (he's really fun to watch), is hands down a conjurer from the UK called "Derren Brown".
The cool part is... you can find almost all of his material free on youtube. Just type "Derren Brown" into the youtube search engine.
If you're part of the copywriting community, you may or may not know about hypnosis and NLP, which Derren regularly displays a good amount of skill with. So you may be interested in watching "The Heist", where Derren uses both of these skills (and more that will be useful to the clever salesman) to influence people to commit armed robbery in broad daylight in London - of their own free will.
Also, a good place to start, is his interview with Richard Dawkins.
The reason I really like Derren though... what's really special about him... is he's an iconoclast. He's completely ready to exercise an attitude of faith and be open to the truth, whatever it may be. And so he will venture out and experiment with suggestibility and see what he can get people to believe. How those beliefs affect their behavior. And most importantly... he challenges beliefs that have been far too long unchallenged.
He's always ready to smoke out the charlatans by replicating their "feats" and then showing how its done so people can choose for themselves what they ought to believe.
In any case... check out Derren Brown on youtube, especially "The Heist", "The Seance", and his interview with Richard Dawkins.
I think you'll all be shocked to see what you can learn from him, and you may find yourself very pleasantly surprised how you can apply what you learn from Derren to your own sales challenges.
P.S. What is communicated implicitly is really the art of any sort of communication, and soon I'll post some really cool tricks about how you can use this tool of implied messages. For me, it's meant schmoozing with world-class marketing talent and getting copywriting jobs without promoting myself at all. But I'm lazy. If you're a "hard-charger", it's actually sort of scary to think what could be possible.
P.P.S. I'll also be sharing some insights with you about NLP in the future. I've never been certified officially, but I got Ross Jeffries to buy me lunch in a contest at one of his seminars, and I was going head-to-head with certified master practitioners. The man is controversial, but he's easily the best teacher of hypnotic communication you could ever hope to learn from. Bandler, Grinder, et al. are good... but Ross is the Zen master. You'll "get it" much faster if you learn from him.
More to come soon, Warriors.
Peace.
Gil-Ad Schwartz