Godfather of Persuasion

I was watching "The Godfather" recently.

For the uninitiated, "The Godfather" is the classic oscar-winning show about the Italian Mafia (or the "Mob").

The opening scene left a very deep impression on me.

It’s the scene of Amerigo Bonasera, an owner of a funeral parlour who went to Don Corleone to ask for a favour, which was on the day of Don Corleone’s daughter wedding.

His daughter has just been raped by 2 men. But due to the failure of the justice system then, the 2 men got away scot free.

Bonasera swore revenge. But the only one who can help him deliver justice is Don Vito Corleone, the head of the Corleone mafia family in New York.

Don Corleone agreed to "settle" the 2 men.

But the scene that particularly struck me was how he made Bonasera acknowledged him as his "Godfather" and promised to return the favor if he ever needs it in future.

In Don Corleone’s words…he said to Bonasera, "Some day, and that day may never come, I will call upon you to do a service for me. But uh, until that day, accept this justice as a gift on my daughter’s wedding day."

Persuasion – Mind Motivators – Part 1

When it comes to selling, you have to understand that people buy largely on emotion. Not logic.

For them to part with their hard-earned money, you have to first discover their innate wants and desires. We call these “mind motivators”. Once you get their sweet spot, keep pressing these emotional hot buttons.

As you slowly begin to understand what gets the buyer’s pulse racing, you can easily incorporate them in your sales presentation and sales copy.

Use it in your sales copy for PPC ad…landing page copy…banner…whatever!

Here are a few mind motivators for starters:

• Buyers want to avoid pain
• Buyers want to gain pleasure
• Buyers want to save time
• Buyers want to have an easier life
• Buyers want to feel safe and secure
• Buyers want to have a peace of mind
• Buyers love to receive compliments
• Buyers like to invest in future
• Buyers also love short term, instant gratification
• Buyers like experience happiness
• Buyers are fearful of being disadvantaged
• Buyers love to dream the dream

Small Change Big Impact Part 2

In the previous post (part 1), we talk about using the principle of consistency technique that helped a restaurant reduce their cancellation of table reservations by 30%.

This was achieved just by adding 2 “small words” to the call script used by the phone receptionist.

Today, we are going to explore another “Small Change Big Impact” scenario.

I got this from a newsletter issue from John Forde’s Copywriting Roundtable. I thought it’s pretty relevant to today’s theme.

And I think you will like this. It goes like this:

In Italy, and for many countries for that matter (including Singapore where I am based), you get penalized with points if you commit a traffic offence.

Once you accumulated points to a certain level, your driving license get suspended.

Now Italy is well well-known for bad driving on the road. And while this measure probably work to a certain degree, the authorities decided to do a small tweak to the system.

They Flipped It Around!

That means you start of with points on your record. With every violation, you get points taken off. If you hit zero, you are IN LUCK! Say goodbye to your license!

Small Change Big Impact Part 1

Do you know that you can have significant increase in revenue just by making seemingly “small changes” to your business?

Most people tend to think that if you want big results…you need big change! You need to spend big money! But that’s not entirely true!

If you know how to make the RIGHT change, you can still achieve great results even if it may just be a small tweak.

Let me tell you a story illustrating this concept.

I read about this story in one of Robert Cialdini’s presentation about how to be more persuasive.

Robert Cialdini is a world-renowned authority in the study of influence. He is also the best-selling author of “The Psychology of Influence”.

And it goes like this.

There is a restaurant that takes advanced booking by phone. But there was a problem. There were many customers calling in to cancel at the last minute.

The thing is that the receptionist was trained to say “Thank you for calling our restaurant. Please call if you want to cancel your reservation” to all the customers making their booking.

Help Others To Get What They Want – So That They Can Help You Get What YOU WANT!

Far too often, people only think about themselves.

They only think about their favorite radio station – WIIFM – What’s In It For Me?

And because of this, many of these people are very poor salesman.

And also because of this, there are only a few, comparatively, who know how to turn this around to become GREAT salesmen.

How?

Simply by thinking in terms of the person whom you want to sell. Since you know he is always thinking about what’s in it for him – it’s your job to understand what he really wants – and giving it to him!

Help him by getting what HE wants. And in turn – he will help you back by getting what YOU want.  By buying your goods, services or whatever you want him to do.

It’s that simple.

To sell, we have to snap ourselves out of the mind-set that we must do everything that is geared only to our favor. Clever salesman know how to create a win-win situation.

Genius salesman know how to create a situation that is slanted towards his favor..and yet make the other party think otherwise!

A Simple Trick To Persuade Someone Who Doesn’t Want To Be Persuaded

Persuasion is an integral part of salesmanship. Because if you want to get your prospects to buy your product or get your service – you want to persuade him that it is only in their interest to do so.

And obviously persuasion is a huge topic with a wide array of strategies you can use. So today I’m going to touch on just one.

A simple trick actually. As always. And also very sneaky. =)

So what exactly is the trick I’m talking about?

Let me first tell you a story…

I was away in Vietnam with my girl friend a while back, in part to holiday and in part to find business partners.

As foreigners, we stand out from the rest of the crowd.  Even when we are Asians like them, the Vietnamese sure knows a foreigner when they see one.

And that makes us prime targets for street sellers!

One day, while me and my girlfriend were walking along a crowed Hanoi Street, 2 ladies immediately appeared in front of us out of nowhere.