Don’t learn marketing in our information age of thought leaders, gurus, marketers, and the like and you will be mercilessly taken advantage of, again and again and again and again. We live in a weird economic time. One where some girl spouting mindless platitudes on Facebook and offering very expensive coaching can make 6 figures yet a guy working all day patrolling the streets wrestling with crack addicted criminals can barely feed a family of 3. Again weird time in a weird world. However waiting for things to right themselves is always an exercise in futility.
Instead you must figure out how the game is played and exploit it to your maximum ability. And trust me everything is a game, including life. And all copywriting, marketing, and sales is, is understanding human nature to exploit it. Yes, exploit it, I know all the modern marketers dress it up with fancy words and nice phrases but that’s the underpinning of it all. Regardless if you’re trying to make bank or simply trying to get through this world without getting screwed understanding the three following lessons is a good start.
Marketing Lesson #1 – Perception > Reality
Reality is really meaningless in the average persons mind. People love to live in delusions and look for anything that massages those delusions as opposed to looking at the world as it is. Put frankly most just don’t have the stones to stare the world in the face and take it for what it is. Those that do are the ones who end up in control and getting ahead, but that is not the average person. When it comes to marketing and selling your product, service, or idea perception matters above anything else.
Look at a brand like polo it sells cotton shirts at 10 times the price that other brands sell their cotton shirts for. But this is because polo isn’t in the cotton shirt business, polo is in the “Look at me I’m rich and stylish and therefore better than you” business. Or why some blended carrots and celery can go from a 20 cent investment you could do yourself to super organic life extending blend that sells for 40$ a container. Reality does not matter in the mind of humans (including you and me), perception is all that matters.
Marketing Lesson #2 – Never Underestimate The Ignorance Of The American Public
As H. L. Mencken once said “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people”. And this applies to the general public in any place, not just America. Also ignorance is just a nice way of saying stupidity. I don’t say this to say that you or I are superior, we’re humans just like everyone else. I say this because everyone thinks that their market is different. But even though they wouldn’t admit it doctors and lawyers respond to the same drives and materials that the trailer trash and convicts respond to.
A big mistake that many make is trying to sell doctors, lawyers, the affluent, professors, engineers, and the like through logic as opposed to emotions, when it’s emotions that sells all humans. That includes those who have lots of education, are more logical than others, and everything else. Your and mine markets are not different when it comes to the basic selling principles. They’re all still motivated by pride, greed, lust, and emotions. Try to sell through logic even to nerdy engineers and you’ll go broke.
Marketing Lesson #3 – You Can Make Millions From Doing The Wrong Thing
Let me explain what I mean by this. I mean that you can make millions from taking the wrong actions and screwing up. For example sending a direct mail campaign to a list that’s not going to respond, blowing bunch of money on Google adwords that brings back jack shit, or making a presentation that bombs completely. But there is a key to this. You can make millions from wrong actions as long as you keep moving forward and adjust as you go. The guy who crashes forward doing everything wrong but keeps moving and adjusting will out earn the guy who tries to get everything right before getting started.
Just get started as Dan Kennedy is fond of saying “Success is made in a messy kitchen”. Throw paint at the wall and see what sticks and then adjust from there. Just do the damn thing and worry about getting it perfect/better later. Sucking at first is fine as long as you’re taking action. Theory will never earn you a time, crappy implementation can make you a millionaire. Take action and worry about getting it right later, seriously leap of the damn bridge and build your parachute on the way down. Put another way “good enough is good enough”. Trying for perfect will keep your poor, throwing dirt at the wall (and then adjusting) can make you rich.
Understanding Marketing
The more you learn about sales, marketing, and copywriting the more your income will increase (granted that you implement what you learn) it also provides an entertaining view of events. Take these marketing lessons and apply them to your life or business and profit from them. And remember even if you don’t have a business it’s still important to learn these things to not get taken advantage of in the charlatan economy we’re currently in.
If you have any questions you would like to see answered in a future post send them to me at charlessledge001 (at) gmail (dot) com. If you found value in this post then I would encourage you to share this site with someone who may need it as well as check out my books here. I appreciate it. You can follow me on Twitter here.
-Charles Sledge
