I can speak from first hand experience. We’ve sold over thousand copies of the Brain Audit since it was released in Ver.2 last year. And here’s a story about pirating. One guy bought the book, and they shared it around. One of the people who read the book was so impressed with the content, he came back and bought membership and then bought US$2000 worth of consulting.
And this isn’t unlike the pirating of the Windows system. Today Windows Operating System dominates over 90% of the world’s computers. If Windows tried they couldn’t spread the operating system that quickly. Eventually, even if just 50% of the Windows users turn out to be legitimate, it’s a big paycheck for Windows.
Plus you’ve got to understand the concept of front end-back end. If you see your book as the end of it all, you’ve made an understandable, yet strategic error. You see, you could afford to give away or pirate your own book, And then provide such valuable information that the person reading book no.1 (pirated or not!) is keen to come back and buy more product/services off you. Adopting a strategy like this has proven very fruitful to us. We wrote a book on the ‘Psychological Power of Headlines’ and not just showed you how to write a headline, but WHY you should write it in the way you do.
People were willing to pay for it.
We gave it away. Yes, in effect, we pirated our own product. And that brings a very steady stream of visitors to our website as a result. Look at the long-term strategy when you’re planning things. Short term measures are like prohibition. It may appear to work but is eventually counter-productive.
Don’t lock up your work. Make it a series. Then give away your first book and get people coming back for more. That’s where you fortune and fame lies
Go To Top of Page | Ask Your Own Question
Question: If there was one thing that would be of greatest importance in online marketing, what would that be?
Let me answer this question with a question. If I asked you to give me your wallet, what would you do?
I have done this at dozens of workshops. Sometimes, we’d have twenty people at the workshop, sometimes fifty. Without exception, they all give me their wallets, credit cards, baby pictures and everything.
Why do they do this?
It’s about trust. They trust me implicitly, like a baby trusts its father when he throws her in the air. The baby instinctively trusts, even laughs every time it’s done.
And while you may argue that it’s not so much an online thing and more a human thing, I’d like you to back up the truck a bit.
Why? Because online the risk is magnified
Do you know who I am? Do you know where I live? Do you know anything at all? Do I really live in New Zealand? See, you’ve got to trust me. And thank goodness you all do, otherwise it would be pretty tough going and I’d be talking to myself. 🙂
Every little thing you do has to build that trust and do it one Lego block at a time. The internet can be a scary place. They’ve got to trust you with their credit card and god knows what happens when they punch in those numbers. If you don’t get the trust, you’re struggling up a very steep hill, and its a long way backwards if you slip.
So how do you build online trust?
There are lots of ways, but there’s one way that surpasses them all. It’s called Giving. People often ask me how they should sell. For God’s sake, stop selling and start telling. Tell them what you know. Your clients need to be educated, they deserve to be educated. The more you educate them, the more they trust you, the more they love you.
So how much do you give?
I’m going to scare you here. There… Boo!
Ok, I guess that didn’t scare you, but this one will
Give all you know. Aaaaaaaggh! Doesn’t that scare you? If you give everything you know, then what’s the use of you being there. Hang in there, I haven’t finished…so don’t get that brain racing away. Give away tons of information, make it credible, put in examples and give it away. And here’s why it works.
How many ways are there to explain one topic?
I’d say about seventy billion ways. Hey, you’re the expert. Can’t you find twenty ways to explain it? If you’re not reading and learning everything in your field, how can you be the expert? And if you can’t give freely, how am I going to trust you?
If you’re feeling nice and insecure, notice how many pages are there on the PsychoTactics website. If you printed out the articles just in the Free Tactics, you’d be printing a book of about 200 or more pages. And what does that do to you? You want more…Clever eh? So what’s stopping you from giving in the same fashion?
I know what…You’re afraid they’ll take it all.
Understand this. There is a huge difference between information and systems. Information educates, and creates a need where possibly the need didn’t exist.
What I’m saying is I will give you the wood and give you the tools. You had no idea you could build a table and chairs. Now I show you that the concept of tables and chairs exist. Whoopee, now you don’t have to sit on the floor.
Except, how are you going to do it?
And that’s the SYSTEM. You give information and sell systems. That’s the key. Effectively, you could sell the information on how to build the chairs and tables and that would be the system. Step by step instead of the general overview.
Then there are people that don’t want to build the tables and chairs without supervision and need you there to show them how. This is called consulting. See how you go up the food chain.
But it all boils down to trust.
If they don’t trust you in the first place, it’s goodbye right after hello. So build trust.
Some other visual ways to build trust
1) Have photos. People want to see what you look like. And have descriptions of those photos. Let them look inside a bit of your world.
2) Build a background. The more you know someone, the more you feel you can trust them. Tell them where you went to school, the jelly beans you like, the food you cook, the place you live in. Hey, if I know you well, I relate to you. I TRUST you.
3) Signatures. They’re an unwritten form of authencity. Put your signature in places where it’s important. It shows authority and puts a stamp. You only sign important documents, and that’s embedded deep in our psychology.
The My Personal Experience Section:
I didn’t realise how important this trust factor. Mum used to say, “Sean, they’ll copy you, don’t give it away.” I used to always retort. Even if they do copy, it’ll be like a photocopy-one generation down. They don’t have the same experiences, the same depth. But I never used it as a strategy.
Now I do.
I will give you all the information you need. Clients are bowled over by the virtual attack (that’s what they call it) of information that I bombard them with. Right after that, they buy into either books, reports, consulting or whatever. They know they can trust us. The concept is, If I can give so much freely, how much more would I have in my head? And that’s what clients should feel about you too. But be very sure to get buy in or opt in.
The result?
We have more work than we know what to do with. We have clients that we can choose from. The phone doesn’t ring and we don’t care. And yet, just two years ago, I’d be sitting with my eyes glued to the phone. Ring, Ring, Dammit! And now I don’t care if rings or not.
Do you want to be in the same yacht? I’ve given you the secret to build trust, to get unending clients. You’ve just got to pay attention.
Ok, it’s not going to happen overnight. But you’re not into building a wall are you? You’re going to build the Great Wall of China. When someone stands in front of it, they think that it’s really cool. Then they start walking and walking and walking, and it never stops. Aspire to that greatness.
And read Good to Great by James C. Collins. That book made it all fall in place for me. It should for you too.
Giving has been a strategy and it builds Trust. Hasn’t this article done just that? Think about it. Then do something about it. You’ve got a lot to do.
