What great salesmen know about the mysterious power that secrets hold over people
Savvy street hustlers know something most civilians do not: You can’t con an honest man.
You need two critical ingredients in the mix:
1. Greed (which is easily understandable), and...
2. Secrets (which is less easily understood).
Greed gets the mark hooked -- he’s thinking he’s gonna make a killing, or pull one over on someone.
But it’s the secret he carries -- the thought that he is operating almost sociopathically for a change, and feeling damned superior because of it -- that “cooks” the con game. Whether you’re trying to guess which shell the pea is under, or playing pool for money, or buying brand-name merchandise from the trunk of some guy’s car... if you think you’re pulling one over on the hustler, you’re meat.
You’ve just bought into the age-old idea -- once again -- that there could ever be such a thing as a “free lunch”.
All great salesmen understand the power of secrets. If you’ve ever bought “high octane” gasoline for your fancy car, don’t snicker at anyone who’s bought snake oil health remedies. You’ve both fallen for a pitch. You’ve both succumbed to the allure of “secret ingredients”.
Secrets are actually an enormous burden to most people. Have you ever found, say, a cheaply-priced antique or comic book or coin at a garage sale that you knew was worth a lot of money? You probably shook with glee and sweated with anticipation as you jammed your couple of bucks into the sellers hand, and actually gloated as you drove off.
Human nature. Most of us have done it.
However... you must also remember how urgent it was to share your secret discovery with someone. (Heck, I’ve known people who were compelled to tell the seller of the item what it was really worth, immediately after money exchanged hands. Cruel bastards.)
That “burden” of secrets works in many ways. You have a secret, it’s like having ants in your pants. You can hardly stand to have it inside you, percolating and annoying your calmer sensibilities.
Ah... but when you want to KNOW what a secret is... well... it can be worse. And that’s why so many hall-of-fame ads are nearly entirely “blind” -- full of teasing about the life-changing secrets you will learn. But only after you’ve bought the product.
I can’t count the number of times colleagues (really good copywriters themselves) have admitted to me they bought some product in an ad I’d written... not because they wanted the product (which they KNEW was similar to products they already possessed)... but because they actually couldn’t sleep until they found out what a particular secret was I’d teased them with in the copy.
One secret, in a 12-page letter dense with other sales points. Igniting the passionate “sweet spot” of the reader.
One super-juicy secret can make the sale.
No one is immune. The entire world is sitting around staring at locked doors all around them... and when you come along, offering the key to the secrets behind those doors, you earn undying trust and gratitude.
Remember this: One of the great secrets of great salesmanship... is secrets.
John Carlton, http://www.marketingrebelrant.com/
Further Reading
Advertising Secrets of the Written Word: The Ultimate Resource on How to Write Powerful Advertising Copy from One of America's Top Copywriters and Mail Order Entrepreneurs
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