Welcome to day 4 of the crash course!

 

In this video...

 

...I'm going to get into why there's a ton of resistance, skepticism, and disbelief within your prospects you have to overcome before they'll become first-time buyers

 

(even though they choose to enter your funnel of their own accord)

 

At the core of this resistance, skepticism, and disbelief is a grand truth of human nature involving what people inherently love and hate about interacting in the marketplace

 

(what I call the biggest (non) secret of advertising, marketing, and selling)

 

The reason I call it a (non) secret is because it's obvious enough to be common sense, cliche' even...

 

...yet ignored to the point that it needs to be addressed as being as all-important as it is.

 

Once you discover this (non) secret...

 

...you'll understand the reason behind your prospects' resistance, skepticism, and disbelief towards you (and towards advertisers, marketers, and salespeople in general) and will have the awareness required to overcome it.

 

So...

 

...what's the biggest (non) secret of advertising, marketing, and selling?

 

It's this:

 

People love to buy...

 

...but resent being sold to.

 

Those who don't merely resent it hate it.

 

At best, those who don't resent it or hate it are wary of advertisers, marketers, and salespeople and usually have one foot out the door when dealing with them

 

(ready to hightail it out of the interaction if something doesn't feel right, if they lose interest in what they're saying, or if they confuse or overwhelm them)

 

So what's the difference between buying and being sold to?

 

The word "buying" means a person initiates an interaction with an advertiser, marketer, salesperson, and/or store clerk and makes a purchase through their own decision-making process and natural time-frame.

 

Here's an example of what buying looks like:

 

A person is running out of laundry detergent and realizes they need to buy some more.

 

Most likely, they even have a specific brand of detergent they normally use.

 

They then go to their local grocery store and buy the detergent.

 

Here's what didn't happen in this situation:

 

* A salesman didn't show up to their door wanting to sell them detergent

 

* A grocery store manager wasn't walking around the store trying to sell them detergent

 

* A cashier didn't try to sell them detergent while checking out

 

The only thing that possibly took place outside of their own decision-making process and natural time-frame was they might've seen a commercial recently that reminded them of a certain brand they prefer or a brand they want to try for the first time.

 

Other than that...

 

...they recognized the need through their own decision-making process and natural time-frame and then initiated an interaction with a store clerk to buy the detergent.

 

Done and done!

 

The words "sold to" means an advertiser, marketer, and/or salesperson initiates an interaction with a person and brings them through an agenda of their own design and on their own time-frame of when they want to make the sale.

 

Here's an example of what being sold to looks like:

 

A person conducts a Google search involving a topic of interest to them.

 

This particular person isn't looking for a product to buy at this time; they're just looking for useful and/or entertaining content in the organic search results.

 

However...

 

...an advertiser is targeting the keywords they're searching on and a PPC (i.e. pay-per-click) ad displays on their screen and draws their attention away from the organic search results.

 

(side note: this is known as interruption marketing. Interruption marketing is where an advertiser, marketer, and/or salesperson attempts to draw a person's attention away from their original intent. The advertiser, marketer, and/or salesperson initiates the interaction with them rather than the person seeking the advertiser, marketer, and/or salesperson out through their own decision-making process and natural time-frame. Interruption marketing is a viable and effective form of marketing when done right, but it creates a ton of resistance, skepticism, and disbelief that has to be overcome in order for it to be profitable)

 

The advertiser caters to the person's desire for useful and/or entertaining content by advertising a free offer that relates to the person's topic of interest

 

(usually free content packaged as a PDF and/or as an email newsletter)

 

The person decides to click the ad to get more details on the free offer.

 

As is most often the case...

 

...the advertiser then asks for the person's email address in exchange for the free offer.

 

A large number of people will stop right there and click (or tap) the back button.

 

(important note: providing an email address for a free offer like this isn't as non-threatening as it used to be back in the earlier days of the internet. Spam, email scams, and getting your information sold to the highest bidder have soured people on giving out their information so easily. Email marketing is still the cheapest and easiest way to follow-up with prospects and/or buyers and sell them on joining your opportunity and buying your company's products, but that doesn't mean you have to approach getting their email address like how the vast majority of online marketers do. I'll get deeper into this topic in future crash course videos)

 

But this particular person decides to give up their email address in exchange for the free offer.

 

Even though this particular person decides to give up their email address in exchange for the free offer...

 

...they proceed with caution because they realize an advertiser has initiated an interaction with them and is bringing them through an agenda of their own design and on their own time-frame of when they want to make the sale.

 

Until this person becomes a first-time buyer in this situation...

 

(i.e. buying the product or service the advertiser is ultimately wanting to sell to them and being satisfied enough with their purchase to not get a refund on it)

 

...they'll most likely have one foot out the door the entire time

 

(especially on the order page where money is supposed to change hands (and where shopping cart abandonment often occurs)

 

Being sold to like this creates a ton of resistance, skepticism, and disbelief within prospects that has to be overcome before they'll become first-time buyers

 

(even though they ultimately chose to enter the advertiser's, marketer's, and/or salesperson's funnel of their own accord)

 

Even though there's a lot of people who allow themselves to be sold to like this...

 

...it doesn't mean they don't feel a ton of resistance, skepticism, and disbelief towards the advertisers, marketers, and salespeople doing the selling.

 

Whether through actual life experience or societal conditioning...

 

...people know that advertisers, marketers, and salespeople have the potential to make them feel uncomfortable or even violated during their interaction with them...

 

...have the potential to over-promise and under-deliver on their offers...

 

...and/or have the potential to rip them off entirely.

 

This is how our prospects regard us before they've gotten to the point of becoming first-time buyers and before they're satisfied enough with their purchase to not get a refund on it.

 

Even after they've become first-time buyers...

 

...some of them will still be wary of us and will never quite warm up to us.

 

As network marketers looking to prospect and recruit online...

 

...this is what we're up against.

 

As network marketers looking to prospect and recruit online...

 

...we're (in a way) at war with our prospects.

 

To quote the late, great Claude Hopkins:

 

(known as "The Aristotle of Advertising" and author of the seminal direct marketing tome "Scientific Advertising")

 

"Advertising is much like war, minus the venom"

 

However...

 

...we're not waging war against our prospects themselves so they begrudgingly join our opportunity and buy our company's products against their better judgment.

 

No.

 

We're waging war against our prospects' entrenched barriers of resistance, skepticism, and disbelief that've been erected and hardened by a lifetime of negative feelings towards advertisers, marketers, and salespeople.

 

We're waging war against these barriers so they can see us as welcome guests in their lives who are offering solutions to their problems and/or ways to satisfy their wants, needs, and/or desires in a mutually beneficial way.

 

So...

 

...how do we win this war?

 

How do we get our prospects to know, like, and trust us enough to become first-time buyers (and eventually join our opportunity and buy our company's products) when they're aware we initiated the interaction with them and are bringing them through an agenda of our own design and on our own time-frame of when we want to make the sale?

 

The only thing we can do is to begin circumventing their resistance, skepticism, and disbelief as soon as they see our ads and enter our funnel

 

(enough to get a good ROI (return on investment) on our ad spend)

 

The way we do this is by using as much indirect persuasion as possible on the front-end of our funnel and message

 

(I'll get into how I'm doing this in tomorrow's video)

 

This marks the end of day 4.

 

P.S.