'HIGH FIVE'...newbie checks in!

by Road Show

Posted: 18 years ago 16 replies

COPY WRITING

Hi all,

I am excited to have found this website...particularly The Copywriting Forum. Let me explain why...

Internet marketing is my most recent obsession; however, my lifelong passion is the "art of language"...using high impact words, phrases and stories to convey my thoughts and ideas. Naturally, I have been in sales for most of my adult life. The problem is this - the sales profession can be a cruel mistress. I recently lost my job as a sales manager in a recession-sensitive industry. Adding insult to injury, my job was given to one of the owner's sons...aughhhhh, lol!! I find myself in need of a new direction and feel that I should capitalize upon this strength. Please don't flame me for putting myself out like some sort of guru...I'm not. Actually, I will likely just sit for awhile and learn from y'all. I promise that I will do my best to reciprocate.

Kindly,

Doug

#checks #copywriting #fivenewbie #high #leadership #newbie #sales

CopyMonster

18 years ago

Welcome to the Warrior 'jungle' Doug!!!

Sorry to hear about the job. Nevermind, as they say - when one door closes another opens. And maybe this one happens to be the WarriorForum. Many have come here before you and some have graduated to some fairly comfortable lifestyles... and a few to some obscenely comfortable lifestyles.

The 'art of language' or perhaps for me the power of communication - covering both verbal and non-verbal aspects of the subject is a total fascination for me. I'll stop short of obsession but once you realise that the world is your oyster when you know how to influence... well, it's almost addictive.

There are some smart cookies here to learn from so feel free to join in or not. No one gets flamed here unless they do something completely idiotic...

Brian

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Scary good...

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Road Show

18 years ago

Thanks for the kind words, Brian. 'Power of communication' is a great way to address those aspects of persuasion for which language is but one aspect. The power of listening...actively listening, and then paraphrasing to demonstrate that what was said was heard and understood...is still widely disregarded. How does one apply the visual aspect of this power when all the 'guru's' are suggesting to cookie-cutter the look of highly successful squeeze pages? Are there standardized rules, or do's and don'ts, that limit the imagination? Is there a next-hot-methodology to shake up the industry, or has the process been one of refining what works down to it's immutable essence? I have so much to learn, no?

Hey, while I've got your attention, what are your thoughts on my survey question. Here is my list:

The big five motivations (I am looking to add UNIQUE motivations if possible):

1- People spend money to make money.
2- People spend money to save money.
3- People spend money to save time.
4- People spend money to gain peace-of-mind.
5- People spend money to enhance their quality-of-life.

Doug

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3 replies

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Ricky Allen

18 years ago

Hi and welcome Doug

When I started writing ebooks I adopted what I call Ricky Allen's first principle - the FECBMTM principle!

I concentrated on giving others the opportunity to do things:

Faster

Easier

Cheaper

Better

OR Make Them Money!

Take Care

Ricky "The Ebook Generator" Allen

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http://www.charityshopprofit.com/

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CopyMonster

18 years ago

Originally Posted by Ricky Allen

Nice one Ricky! Short, sweet and at a guess, quite profitable.

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Scary good...

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MaskedMarketer 18 years ago

People like to be SAFE.. People like security.. Think Home Land Security.. People want to protect themselves and want to be safe.. So safety is def. a good motivator..
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"I Pay Less Attention to What Men Say. I Just Watch What They Do."
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rwil02

18 years ago

To GAIN PLEASURE
To AVOID PAIN

Of the two, avoidance of pain is usually the stronger.

Take every one of those points above, and they can be mapped back to one of those two.

Now if only I was better at mapping forward

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Roger Willcocks
L-Space Design
Please vote to help me win a 3kW solar array

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zapseo

18 years ago

Some suggestions:

ebook -- 21 Mind Motivators (with stories about how they are used) by Alex Mandossian & Yanik Silver. I liked it so much I bought the resale rights for some hundreds of dollars. If you'd like buy a copy, let me know.

book -- "How To Write A Good Advooertisement" by Victor Schwab -- which has a list of why people buy.

book -- Robert Cialdini "Influence: The Psychology Of Persuasion" (and prolly his most recent one, "Yes!", but I haven't read that yet.)

general: Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

People often think of NLP as involved with words. Or with persuasion. Those are defintely territories NLP has explored, but, according to co-founder John Grinder, NLP is about modelling excellence. I'd say that the way the science of linguistics thinks about things -- about order, and sequence, about syntax and semantics -- has been used to understand not just language, but communication (both with oneself as well as the more obvious "with others"), and "state" (like "states of consciousness" -- but with the not just mental but also physical aspects as part of the equation.)

Kinda of a long pre-amble to what I'm going to say next. One of the areas in NLP that relates to "motivations", and understanding "motivations" -- is the study of criteria. Far much to go into here, but incredible stuff The thing outside of NLP that it is most like (in my experience) is 'values clarification". But they are only vaguely the same.

Live JoyFully!

Judy Kettenhofen, Profit Strategist/Copywriter
NextDay Copy

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hightekvagabond

18 years ago

Lots of great info here! I'm glad I found this place.... You guys did skip over the Various Buying types defined by the Stanford study:

Achiever: Unique, first, one of a kind

Emulator: Sex and Power

Belonger: to follow the crowd (sheep)

Social Conscience: To make a change in the world (motivated by being smarter then others)....

Needs Driven: Zapseo mentioned Maslow, these guys are very low on Maslow's pyramid and are buying not based on mental attitude but based on survival

Sub Groups:

Social Conscience A: Outside the system

Social Conscience B: Inside the system

(There seems to be confusion about A vs B, and different sources flip flop them one or the other so your sources may say they are reversed of what I just said)

Integrated: This is a Person is is balanced between Achiever and Social Conscience.

Then like Zapseo said there is NLP, it is nice when you can get enough of a feel for your target market to know if they are Aduio, Visual, or Kinestetic and gear your language towards the right modality.

Or there is the Sandler Sales approach, Sandlar says everyone buys for pain and thats it. Find someone's pain and they will always buy... but thats just what Sandlar says.

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zapseo

18 years ago

Originally Posted by hightekvagabond

Then like Zapseo said there is NLP, it is nice when you can get enough of a feel for your target market to know if they are Aduio, Visual, or Kinestetic and gear your language towards the right modality.

shudder.
Without going into a lot of detail, John Grinder said that if there was obene thing he could take back in NLP, it is the labeling of people as A/V or K. There's a lot more subtility and nuance, and A/V/K has much more association with "state" -- as in, using particular states that are appropriate to particular tasks. Engineering tends to be a highly visual task, athletics, highly kinesthetic. (And I apologize, because I am somewhat guilty of perpetrating this concept by calling engineers highly visual in another thread here on the forum.)

In fact, one area of study of NLP is called strategies -- and strategies involve sequencing, order, enumeration of various A/V/K states. e.g., "I hear X and get a feeling Y" might be part of a reality strategy for some folks.

Or, as John also has said -- such things as (what) eye accessing cues (mean) are generalizations and the communicator should have sufficient sensory acuity to know when the generalization applies, and when it t doesn't. (Obviously, sensory acuity here means some sortt of one-on-one communication; the equivalent in copywriting is a bit more complex and can include surveys and other forms of market research...)

Live JoyFully!

Judy Kettenhofen, Profit Strategist/Copywriter
NextDay Copy

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Road Show

18 years ago

All good info here, y'all. I am absorbing as quickly as I can. Much going on in my personal life this month, but I am committed to learning and personal growth...so keep bringin' it, lol!!

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hightekvagabond

18 years ago

zapseo,

Yes, I'm aware there is a whole lot more to NLP then just A/V/K and that it hits different aspects of your life. But, when you have a very targeted market doesn't it make sense to sometimes lean in specific directions?

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zapseo 18 years ago

yeah...lol, great example of anchoring -- of John, anchoring me.

When I hear people label someone as "V", "K", or "A" -- my lessons from Grinder kick in. LOL. Never mind I haven't seen the man in 17 years.
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Road Show

18 years ago

Originally Posted by hightekvagabond

Keeping in mind that nothing in life is certain except death (& taxes/jail time), it then follows that everything in life is based upon the assumptions we make. The accuracy....or 'specificity' as I like to say... of those assumptions is the lifeblood of sales and marketing. IMHO, the less specific the assumptions, the more generalized the audience; ergo, the more diluted the sales message.

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Road Show

18 years ago

Originally Posted by Ricky Allen

Thanks Ricky! These are different ways of saying the same, but with single "power" words...

Originally Posted by bf68

Good stuff, Brian. I look forward to joining the War Room. At the moment, I am exploring too many things and will see you there as time permits. Are you on Twitter?...I just joined...look for me as Road_Show...

Originally Posted by Renate

People spend money to learn and improve.

This is what people want...which I think is the key motivator...to improve their 'quality of life'. It comes in so many forms, but what people really want is to ENJOY each and every experience. If you can make that happen, you can be paid handsomely for doing so.

I hope others will continue to add their thoughts to the discussion of buyer's motivations.

Doug

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Renate

18 years ago

Originally Posted by Road Show

People spend money to learn and improve.

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CopyMonster

18 years ago

Originally Posted by Road Show

The power of listening...actively listening, and then paraphrasing to demonstrate that what was said was heard and understood...is still widely disregarded. How does one apply the visual aspect of this power when all the 'guru's' are suggesting to cookie-cutter the look of highly successful squeeze pages? Are there standardized rules, or do's and don'ts, that limit the imagination? Is there a next-hot-methodology to shake up the industry, or has the process been one of refining what works down to it's immutable essence? I have so much to learn, no?

We all start with what we got. Some have more, some less - it's what you do with it that counts.

Agreed - actively listening is incredibly powerful. And that's great when you know how. I read a book that had a good section on this earlier in the week in fact.

For me, the cookie cutter suggestion is just a shortcut to doing what works - as opposed to figuring everything out yourself. Similar to NLP references of modeling successful behaviour. Why reinvent the wheel so to speak? Of course, true marketers are never happy with status quo and constantly test new ideas. Start with fundamentals and go from there.

Hey, while I've got your attention, what are your thoughts on my survey question. Here is my list:

The big five motivations (I am looking to add UNIQUE motivations if possible):

1- People spend money to make money.
2- People spend money to save money.
3- People spend money to save time.
4- People spend money to gain peace-of-mind.
5- People spend money to enhance their quality-of-life.

Doug

Motivations... from my own research you can label and delineate them in a million different ways.

At the top level (or most general): its all about pain and pleasure. People move away from pain and towards pleasure.

Ultimately however, people are motivated by what they value - being a good parent, husband, respected by peers - whatever it is, if you offer a way for them to get it, they'll give you their last dime. Not suggesting you should take it. But that's how strong these are. Identifying these basic drivers comes down to knowing your market.

Allen (Warrior Jedimaster) has an excellent section in the War Room which discusses your question. I'd recommend joining as the info in there is well worth it.

To add to your list - how about:
To have fun
To look attractive/cool
To get laid (to put it bluntly)
To be part of the group

or at a deeper level
To get respect/recognition from those around them (external reference)
To feel important on some level (internal)
To compensate for insecurities
To feel attractive
To avoid some fear

Note: enhance quality of life - covers many different drivers/motivations.

My suggestions are far from exhaustive but its late and I should be doing some other stuff like sleep.

Triggers by Joe Sugarman is a good reference on how to move/lead people.

At the end of the day (and I have a bunch of notes on this) you have to get people where they live... not physically but in their minds.

Thanks

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Scary good...

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'HIGH FIVE'...newbie checks in!

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