earlier today I did a review and had to illustrate the point of how “subtle changes” can have a big impact.

Here’s a short snippet that highlights the main point:

The key thing here is NOT that I’m ranting or in some way dismissing what Marie Forleo is doing on here site, but instead … well, you see in the video.

Probably even more important than the ‘obvious’ result is … that she may even do that on purpose!

Ask yourself this: who is her target audience? What are they aspiring to achieve? What have they quite possibly been struggling with? And what is it they’d like to be able to do? (and never dared to)

in that light … does the one ‘thing’ I so violently react to in the video perhaps even make sense?

As you see: subtle changes, massive difference!

your thoughts? Answer YOUR take on the questions above, and leave a comment below!

Cheers

Veit

so yesterday I had a fabulous conversation with a colleague of mine who teaches ‘sales’ (the nice kind, not the used-car-sales variety;-)

One of the gold-nuggets I wrote down was:

are you exhausted wrestling with your prospects – shouldn’t THEY be the ones who are exhausted, they are the ones with the problem after all

Great insight, and perhaps shift in perspective … and also something I observe with so many people when it comes to marketing:

they WRESTLE their marketing, instead of leveraging the energy and power in the system jiu-jitsu style:

jiu-jitsu is a martial art and combat sport that teaches a smaller person how to defend himself against a larger adversary by using leverage and proper technique” (source: Google)

Until about 2 years ago you could drive some ice-cold traffic straight at a sales-page (and yes, I still get a bit of a tear in my eye when I think back to those easy 5-figure days) … dream up some ‘interest’, send to sales-page, Bob’s yer uncle.

Well, sadly, Bob’s no more, and that brute-force (white-belt) approach is good for FB’s coffers, but not much else.

These days the ‘leveraged’ way, and

proper technique is to layer and sequence target & custom audiences

And that’s something Mario Brown does in practice (if you follow him, you’ll have noticed his campaigns unfold like a delicate dance over the last few weeks, see the example below), but also teaches in the new, updated version of his Video Ads course, which I highly recommend you get!

in it, Mario shares his 3-level method for stacking and/or segmenting your audiences, all combined with a real-life case-study of all of it in practice, so you can immediately go and model it – no fluff, all real actionable content.

I think this (leveraging and using proper technique, instead of using brute force against the ever growing bigger adversary/competition) is so important, that I’m offering the brand-new version of my WP FB Pixel plugin as a bonus – in this new version you can build custom audiences based on video-views ON YOUR SITE! (meaning: not just views of FB videos, but also YT videos on YOUR site)

Here’s a quick overview over what you can do with WP FB Pixel these days:

So, if you’re interested in using brain instead of brawn when it comes to do doing ads, get Video Ads Formula 2 through this link, and the download instructions for WP FB Pixel will be waiting for you in the JVZoo download portal.

Veit

you know how some people are “creative” or have “great intuition”, and others appear NOT to have those qualities?

Well, here’s my take:

Creativity and Intuition are ‘skills’ anyone can develop!

The recipe is simple:

look at the same problem long and hard enough – usually from as many different perspectives and angles, and your mind will suddenly and ‘unexpectedly’ come up with solutions that make no ‘logical’ sense. Aka: creativity and intuition.

Speaking from personal experience, I am extremely creative in some areas, and not creative at all in others.

And those where I am, guess what: it’s the stuff where I spend ages, sometimes months, sometimes ‘lifelong learning’ revisiting the same thing over and over again.

Yeah, I can be proud of the end-result (“oh look, he’s so creative”, or – even better for the ego: “oh look, he’s a genius”) …

… however: Really, there’s nothing genius going on, just persistence.

Your brain needs information, a LOT of information to come up with something ‘truly’ novel … despite the romantic image of Einstein just sitting there and suddenly THE BIG THEORY just came to him … it came to him, because he was so bored with his desk-job that he studied physics like a maniac – for YEARS. And kept looking at the same problem over, and over, and over, and over again.

Here’s an example:

Look at this picture:

6 pencils. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to arrange 6 pencils into 4 equal triangles. (yeah, yeah, I know, they’re not *exactly* the same length, just pretend they are – I borrowed them from my daughters)

The rules are simple:

6 pencils. Only the ends can touch. Meaning: no ‘crossing’. You must create 4 equal triangles.

(don’t ruin the fun by reading the comments, they give away the solution)

Most likely it’s hard for you. (it took me a good 5mins to figure it out … but then, my 10 year old daughter took only a fraction longer, so either she’s a genius, or it’s not that hard;-)

Statistically speaking (I’ve tried it with quite a few people), you’ll give up. (**)

And that’s precisely where you starve future ‘creativity’ and ‘intuition’.

Btw, when you figure it out (yes, it is possible!) it is immensely satisfying – and IMO it’s so satisfying precisely BECAUSE it’s a creative moment, and you only got there because you stuck with it!

thoughts?

Leave a comment!

[WPChatBot id=”16″ width=”responsive” height=”400″ showfrom=”50%”]

Veit

PS: (**) boo, bad Veit: now I’ve put the thought of ‘giving up’ in your head, and because statistically speaking most people give up, well, social psychology tells us your brain is going to tell you that it’s ok to give up. Well, most people in this world are mere statistics, give up far too early, and spend their lives admiring the bright shining stars. Don’t be a statistic! Figure out that darn 6-sticks-4-triangles thing yourself!

So yesterday, Drayton Bird (whose work I greatly admire), sends out an email with the subject line:

“Why Black Friday is for idiots”

Certainly got my attention, so I checked it out, and it’s basically about the fact that people jump onto a bandwagon without really thinking about what they’re doing (and the only reason they’re doing it, is because others are doing it, which as the lemmings demonstrate isn’t always necessarily the best course of action)

He then goes onto (very cleverly) using this angle to “polarize” against jumping on bandwagons, and instead focusing on fundamentals (I hope you’re starting to see why I admire his work;-)

Despite all the admiration, today I’m going to (respectfully) disagree with this “polarization” step:

Polarization is a beautiful (psychological) tool for getting people to taking a stance, getting them to ‘buy into an idea’ (or reject it outright)

but sadly, it also chops off about half of your options!

Meaning: it’s great as a tool of influence, it’s rubbish when YOU the decision maker have ‘polarized’ views:

because you’re now operating in a Universe of limited choices, most of the feedback the Universe gives you tends to ‘confirm’ what you already suspected.

Thus confirming your original choice, and limiting your options even further.

Which then leads to far too many ‘untested’ beliefs like:

“oh, this is never going to work for my target audience” (so you’ll never even try)

or

“oh, I don’t like this, so surely (yeah right!) my target audience wouldn’t like it either”

and so on.

Very practical example:

a couple of friends just sent out a beautifully crafted email (I know you’re reading this: another job well done;-) that pretty much says “we will never discount”

And there’s the problem right there:

the word “never”.

Generally speaking, (and personally) I’m against discounting as well (we could have a whole debate why the ‘holiday season’ is THE season for brick ‘n mortar businesses … my take: it’s in (large) part because people shop less during the year KNOWING that there will be hefty discounts around Black Friday/Cyber Monday, and then right after Christmas)

However, there’s a time and a place for discounts.

Used sparingly, they can be very effective at growing your customer base, showing some (massive) good-will, or even doing something as mundane as creating a quick cash-flow if and when you need it.

I’m not sure where I’ve read this, but apparently the mark of a great executive is that they can hold 2 different, and often opposing thoughts in their mind at the same time, without dismissing one out of hand.

And that’s my advice too:

Before jumping on bandwagons, before taking on a totally polarized view, at least ask yourself: is this likely to rob me of options later on?

if so, well, perhaps worth keeping an open mind!

Cheers

Veit

PS: first exercise: neither reject nor adopt “polarization” outright. Like I say above: great tool for getting a ‘buy-in’ from your audience, rubbish when making strategic decisions. There’s a time and a place…

PPS: and with that ‘open mind’ in mind: you’ve probably heard me say this over and over again: the launch-model ***as a business-model*** sucks.

And I still believe that 100%.

However, that does not mean ‘launches’ in general suck.

They are fantastic for all kinds of things like:

• learning how to market
• building a list
• doing market research 100 time faster than before
• creating JV relationships
• forcing yourself to finally finish your product
• (or figuring out what product you should be creating in the first place)
• or even something as mundane as creating some quick cash-flow.

just don’t “do” them as the one and only business model because you’ve jumped on the bandwagon and now you can’t get off.

PPPS: ah, the power of Google;-)

just found this:

“It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” – Aristotle

Thanks Aristotle

ok, ok, this should probably be “create content/do marketing that connects”, but as the case-study is comparing 2 emails, well, you get the idea: