Working With Your Computer

1. If you want something from someone, ask for it.

My wife used to be subtle about gifts she wanted. She would walk me by a store and comment on the leather purse in the window. Or she might leave a catalog open on the coffee table, the corner of the page turned down, pointing to a bracelet. Then she would be flabbergasted on the big day when she tore back the wrapping paper to reveal a bread maker or battery-powered socks.

She has learned that a direct approach works best. Now, she writes down her wish list, complete with price, color, size, store location, and item number. I buy two or three of the items, wrap them, and hand them over on the big day, all the while thinking I’m clever for getting just what she wants.

Everyone is happy.

The child in my previous example knows what he wants and asks for it. Repeatedly. There’s no question. No confusion. It’s clear, direct communication.

2. If you want someone to do something, give a reason why they should act.

In a famous experiment, a psychology student tried to skip ahead of a long group of people waiting to use an office copier. The first time, the student walked to the head of the line and asked, “May I please use the copy machine?” Between choice expletives, most people told the student to go to the back of the line.

Later, the student tried again. Only this time the student said, “May I please use the copy machine because I have to make a copy?” Even though the reason given was meaningless, that one word (because) generated a “yes” nine out of ten times!

It’s a natural human instinct to want reasons to act. We make emotional decisions, but we temper those decisions and rationalize them with logic. We need to know the reason why. In our opening story, the child not only asks for the toy, but gives a good reason for prompt action: “You promised.”

Why use a reason? Because it gets results.

3. If you want something now, create a real and unavoidable time limit.

Sales reps know from experience that people are more inclined to give you what you want if you establish a time limit and ask for an immediate decision. People have difficulty making decisions, and given enough time, they will find reasons to say “no.” Limiting the decision-making time, and bypassing the opportunity to find negatives, makes “yes” more likely.

Car salesmen running a one-day “mark down event” know this. Store owners promoting a “Saturday Only” sale know this. And experienced bloggers and online entrepreneurs know this, too.

The wily child waits until the parent is walking out the door before asking for the toy. There’s no time to think. Say no, and you get a crying fit. Say yes, and, while you may have to make a trip to the store, you’ve maintained the peace.

The conclusion? If you want response and you want it now, make like a kid asking for a toy.

1. Ask for it.
2. Give a reason.
3. Create time pressure.

Dean Rieck is a leading direct marketing copywriter. For more copywriting and selling tips, sign up for Dean’s FREE direct response newsletter or subscribe to the Direct Creative Blog.

Sad Content

Turn on your TV at 6 pm. What do you get?

The news, right?

Then turn it on tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, and the week after.

You can turn in on at any day and guess what?

The news is still on at 6 pm.

Now imagine if you tuned in on a Monday, and they had a sitcom. What if you tuned in on Tuesday and oops, it’s an adult movie with clothes flying all over the place. And then maybe on Wednesday it’s the news again.

Would you continue to watch that channel for news? Or would you simply go to a channel that was more reliable?

Many people don’t understand that the most important thing in content marketing is reliability. I don’t care if you put out ten or twenty or seventy-three pieces of content a month.

I just want to see it same bat-time, same bat-channel. So be reliable.

If you’re going to write an email newsletter, the first thing you need to know is that it needs to be published on a pre-fixed schedule from now until the year 2025. If you’re going to post videos on YouTube, plan for 2025 too.

It doesn’t matter if email newsletters or YouTube will change or even continue to exist in the years to come. What’s important is that you’ve created a channel, and you’re the content producer. And you jolly well better show up, or I’m leaving you for a more reliable channel.

* It’s not just your credibility that takes a beating; it’s also your sales.
* And not just your sales, but also your pipeline of new customers.
* And not just your pipeline of new customers, but also return customers.

Your whole darned business really depends on your reliability of communication. Why? I’ll tell you why!

It’s because if you don’t show up, the customer’s memory of you gets increasingly blurry. And that’s only one part of the problem. The other part is that if you don’t show up, and the customer wants to buy your product or service, they’ll buy the product or service anyway… from someone else.

* Remember the time you bought an iTunes album, just because you got the newsletter?
* Remember the time you bought something online just because you saw a video?
* Remember the time Oprah recommended a book, and you traipsed off to buy that very book?

Of course this brings us to a very important juncture: The problem with perfection.

What if you don’t really like the quality of your current content? I have news for you. You’re never going to be completely satisfied—ever!

But you’ll look back at your work six months from now, and the work you’re doing then will be much better, even though you still think it’s not good enough. You’ll look back at today’s work two years from now, and you’ll wonder how you ever got anyone to pay attention at all.

If you really want to get better, you won’t get better wondering about it. You’ll get better only by producing content consistently. You have to put out newsletter after newsletter, video after video, to get better.

Put out what you have today. It doesn’t matter how crappy it looks to your eyes… just put it out. And then improve as you go.

People will put up with less than polished prose, or less than professional video or audio, but they won’t put up with fruity frequency. They’ll simply change the channel and go elsewhere.

If you don’t want customers and prospects to leave, you need to have a plan.

So here’s your plan:

1. Get started today by putting a schedule in place.
2. Promise this schedule to your audience (even if you have a list of three people).
3. Get your content out on the day/days you promised.
4. Don’t forget that reliability is everything, because quality comes from consistently doing.

About the Author: Sean D’Souza offers a free report on ‘Why Headlines Fail’ when you subscribe to his Psychotactics Newsletter. Check out his blog, too.