Episode #17 – The Reverend on How To Build A Cult Of ‘You’ With Email Marketing

Reverend: Brothers and sisters today we are gathered here to talk to you about the river of revenue. We are talking about the profits, the proverb of profits and ladies and brothers and gentlemen and sisters I want you to listen to me today. I want you to testify. I would you to take your hands off that keyboard. Take your hands off that iPhone. I want you to take action in your business. I want you to make money. I want you to help people brothers and sisters. If you do not do this today you are forsaking yourselves brothers and sisters.
John: Hey podcast listener. You’re about to discover insider tips, tricks and secrets to making more sales and converting more prospects into customers with e-mail marketing. For more information about the e-mail marketing podcast or to respond to Guy go to themcmethod.com/podcast.
Hey, everybody it’s John McIntyre here the autoresponder guy and it’s time for episode 17 of the e-mail marketing podcast where we talk about the top tips, tricks and secrets for making more sales and growing your revenue and profits with e-mail marketing. Now today I’ve got a bit of a different episode for you because my guest today, he refuses to reveal his identity. I’m not going to give you his name. I do know him personally. Some of you will know him as well, but he doesn’t want to talk about who he is. Okay? He doesn’t want anyone to know who the hell he is. So, I’m going to refer to him as the Reverend for this episode. Now if you listen to the entire episode you’re going to discover how to build a cult of view through e-mail marketing. So, in many ways this is about the marketing secrets that religions use to build just ridiculous followings. So, this is going to draw from religion, from ALP, from various persuasion tactics and strategies and it’s about using some very subtle things and very subtle marketing concepts in the way you write and the way you position yourself, the dynamics you create in your e-mails.
A lot of these things are very, very simple things that you can do right away to increase your revenue and increase your profits, but many people don’t do them because they’re a little bit higher level and they can be a little bit hard to execute without concrete examples. So, that’s what we’re going to get into today. Really, really cool stuff. Now, to get the show notes for this episode of the e-mail marketing podcast go to themcmethod.com/ep17. Now reviews, if you want to leave a review for this podcast you can leave a URL and I will read it out on the show, which would be pretty cool. So go to themcmethod.com/podcast click the review button, tell me what you think about it and if you have any topic ideas or people you would like me to interview leave them there and I’ll get in touch with them. Then we can find out how they do e-mail marketing.
So, that’s that. Let’s go talk to this Reverend and find out exactly how to build a cult with e-mail marketing.
It’s John McIntyre here the autoresponder guy. I’m here with a very special guest who I’ve convinced to come and talk about e-mail marketing, but I can’t tell you who he is so it’s a bit of a different kind of episode here, but he’s only agreed to come on to talk about his most closely guarded secrets about persuasion and influence and how they relate to building a cult of view through email marketing. So this is kind of like ninja stuff, which is going to make things pretty powerful. Some of you are going to know who he is, but he’s only agreed to come on if no one reveals his identity. So, if you know you’ve got to keep your mouth shut. I’m going to call him Reverend for this conversation. How are you doing today Reverend?
Reverend: I’m good actually, better than last time we tried to do this.
John: Yes, speaking of that. So, the first time we tried to record this we canned it because it wasn’t really up to our standard. We made a few mistakes and we wanted to make it a lot better so we tried a second time.
Reverend: We did.
John: But the audio file was corrupted. So this kind of makes this the secrets that my computer doesn’t want you to know.
Reverend: Yeah, and we’re not even joking. That’s the best part. This is legitimately, we’ve sat here after the recording and I borderline cried after finding all the files were corrupted. They were empty and we had like little sound bites.
John: I think I actually cried.
Reverend: You actually cried?
John: Yeah.
John: After you went home I curled up in the corner and cried. Before we get started give us a quick background on why we should listen to you.
Reverend: Look, this is the thing. If I have to tell you why you want to listen to me you’ll probably miss out. I can tell by the fact that you’re listening to the auto responder guy, this e-mail marketing podcast you’re not someone who is worried about the ego side of things. You want actionable stuff that you can use to get really positive results in your business. So, one thing I’ll say to you is you pay attention, you’re going to be able to walk away with techniques of building a cult within your consumers, your potential clients, your potential customers as well as the ones that already exist. So, that’s my perspective. So if you’re interested please keep on listening and if that’s not what you want to learn, no worries.
John: Okay, okay. That makes sense. Well let’s get right into it then. What did you want to share today Reverend?
Reverend: Well, look there’s three things I really want to focus on and these have all been really instrumental for me in building my own business as well as consulting clients who I have worked with. The first one which is … Unfortunately the thing that most people overlook is the way that you position yourself as not needing your client or your customer. Like what you have to offer is more important to them than it is to you that they buy it. The only reason it is important to you that they buy it is because it helps them. Right? It’s a power play.
John: So, you’re not doing this for money. You’re doing it to help them?
Reverend: Well, yeah it’s a bit like that.
John: That’s the frame anyway.
Reverend: That’s the majority of the frame and it also means that you come from a very different position. You’re not needy. As we all know the person who is needy is the person who is failing. There’s an old story which is from a Claude Hopkins book, Claude Hopkins, in where he talks about a client a copyright who would actually expose the ugly truth behind why …
John: Which book is this?
Reverend: This is from My Life in Advertising.
John: Great book.
Reverend: Great book.
John: Okay.
Reverend: But he talks about how they had a bunch of mackintoshes that were rotting and the client was like oh you can’t say that our mackintoshes are rotting. Very needy like I have to present my identity. Very ego driven, but the copy righter actually wrote we have mackintoshes that are rotting. We have this many of them and we believe that they are still worth this price that we’re going to ask for them. So, if you want come in tomorrow and buy them. The fact is by positioning himself as being direct and honest and being like hey this benefits you more than it benefits me, or hey I don’t need you, I’m not desperate for you it meant the people were able to buy into it.
John: So it’s kind of like we might have thrown these out, but you know we think they might be worth this price so come on in and if you want them you can have them.
Reverend: Yeah. The underlying message essentially is in a power frame he said there is benefit to you from listening to me. I don’t get benefit by you listening to me. You’re getting benefit. So, it puts the power essentially in my hands. So that’s the first big thing. I guess at the back of that is the one team, one dream concept.
John: That sounds cool. It rhymes. A little bit of a cliche right? Like one team, one dream.
Reverend: It is.
John: I’m waiting for my cheesy music to come through the background.
Reverend: Flashing lights, 80s suits.
John: Yeah man.
Reverend: The thing is one team one dream is another way of expressing the us versus them dynamic.
John: Oh I like this one.
Reverend: It’s a little different right? So, us versus them indicates a common enemy. We’re on this side of the trenches. They’re on our side. We’re going to battle. All that kind of crap. That classic thing that you start, this video is going to come down in the next three days and I don’t know when so pay attention to my 35 minute sales pitch where if you lose and no video playback controls. Let’s be fair. They convert. I’m not going to hate on that, but this is a little bit different. One team, one dream is something that you should be pursuing in all of your individual relationships with other people. It’s cooperation. It’s a fundamental aspect of biology. It’s deeply rooted in our human psyche in our evolution. One team, one dream is the kind of thing where if you’re in a relationship with a person, so let’s take the partner in your life your actual personal relationships. If you two are not headed in the same direction you will not stay together. If you have totally different interests, totally different values you are not sharing the dream.
If you’re on the same page, it doesn’t matter if there is a common enemy or not you guys are bound by that one dream. Makes sense right? The big thing here is, and I know we didn’t mention this last time I recorded it, was one team, one dream allows you to not need a common enemy. You’re actually instead united by a common goal.
John: Okay.
Reverend: There’s an implicit understanding that anyone who’s not following this goal isn’t part of us, but it also makes it much more intimate concept.
John: Much more uplifting. It’s kind of like dynamic and just going straight to the we’re all in this together let’s go do something great.
Reverend: Yeah.
John: It’s very inspiring.
Reverend: It’s kind of like it’s not just about the product. We’re trying to help millions of people.
John: Yes. There’s something … Everyone wants to buy into something like that.
Reverend: Well, let’s take a good example. Crossfitters. Okay crossfit is one of the best modern cults on the planet. People who love crossfit they live, eat, breathe crossfit. They do their WODs. They eat Zone or Paleo.
John: They sleep there too right?
Reverend: Oh they may as well, but the thing is they’re one team, one dream.
John: Yeah.
Reverend: They’re not talking about the medical establishment trying to keep you down and like big farmer. They’re focusing on I want to build the best machine that my body can be. I want to be able to get the benefits of positive health in everyday life. So it’s one team, one dream versus us versus them. That’s really important. The first key of having a cult.
John: Fantastic. Okay. Now let’s get onto what’s the second key.
Reverend: Well, I mentioned before cooperation right? Cooperation, community; one team, one dream; the us. One of the most baseline levels of human interaction and our biology is the way we communicate. Right?
John: Okay.
Reverend: The easiest way to distinguish two people as being from the same group or not is the language they use in terms of Chinese versus English or might be …
John: That’s a very obvious one isn’t it? Chinese versus English.
Reverend: It’s simple.
John: It happens on a much more subtle level though doesn’t it?
Reverend: It does, but the fact is with language and verbals what you’ve actually got is the way that you give meanings to things. It also gives you indication of verbal patterns. So what happens is when you and I talk about something right so we’ve just used one team, one dream. We’ve just defined a concept in our language and anyone who is listening to this show who shares our visions of helping people improving their businesses by improving lives of other people they share that dream right? Where all on the same team here.
John: Right.
Reverend: And we’re all going to call it one team, one dream.
John: Absolutely.
Reverend: So, what’s happened in an implicit underlying way that we’re not being explicit about is we’ve actually defined the reality. I’ve given you a set of rules.
John: You’re doing it right … We’re building a cult right now in this episode.
Reverend: We are because I’m sure that everyone who is listening to this would agree that they want to build a profitable business.
John: Absolutely.
Reverend: They want to help their clients, their customers, consumers.
John: Yes.
Reverend: They want to do it ethically, positively and they want to leverage e-mail marketing and as a result we’re all on the same team. This isn’t about people telling you to buy TV ads that are a waste of fucking money. It’s about let’s use a really low friction medium that people use every day to help improve their position in life. One team, one dream.
John: Yes.
Reverend: But because we’ve called it one team, one dream we have now framed that concept.
John: Right.
Reverend: So, that when you the listener is at your day job or if you’re out talking to your friends and family you will start to see this one team, one dream concept live and in action whether it’s drinking with friends, your party friends, and you go out and you have a big boozy night or you go down in the cans you get fuck-eyed. Whatever you want to call it. You phrase that and you create a situation, environment the name of it which then determines who is part of the crowd and as a result who isn’t. That’s a really big part of it.
The other side of it then in being aware of your language and verbal patterns is everything you say should be a soundbite.
John: Yeah.
Reverend: Everything. So yes isn’t a soundbite.
John: But everything you say should be a soundbite is a soundbite.
Reverend: That’s like one of those things that if this was in a post people would have that little link next to it.
John: Click to Tweet.
Reverend: Exactly. Right?
John: Okay.
Reverend: Everyone feels good sharing it. That’s what a soundbite basically is. It’s where you get to stand on the shoulders of giants. A nice little quote, make yourself look good. It’s positioning. It’s hey I’m part of this view. If you can find a way to simplify everything into a soundbite …
John: Yes.
Reverend: To instantly communicate to me, identifies who isn’t part of the belief you’re steps ahead of everyone else. A basic soundbite structure is something we’ll come to in just a second, but before we do there’s the third thing. Do you remember what the third thing was?
John: I do remember, and it’s definitely not written down on a screen in front of me.
Reverend: No.
John: Going by memory here. Controlling the frame, number three.
Reverend: That is correct and this comes from having already established one team, one dream, having common verbal and language patterns. As a result …
John: The funny thing is this has already been acting this entire episode.
Reverend: Correct. It has and by me approving what you’ve just said, giving validation to it, this is still my frame. Now, to be fair John and I have known each other for a while and we’ve had nights drinking. We’ve had nights not drinking. We’ve worked along side each other and we’ve done everything but work. The key part behind that is that John will regularly accuse me of flipping frames on people.
John: All the time.
Reverend: So, one my favorite things is in our local group, in our tribe, our local friendship group I guess you’d say is …
John: That sounds fun. Friendship group.
Reverend: Friendship group. A collective. Yeah. It’s a bit questionable, although one thing I introduced now has come quite far in how often it’s used is old John would have done it. You want somebody to do something just try telling them that the old version of them would do it. What you’re doing is two things. First of all you’re applying a frame that it’s something they would have done in the past. They would have done it in the past. Also you’re applying the frame that they aren’t as cool as the old version of them was. You don’t approve of this new version and that again lays down another frame. So there’s three frames kind of stacked. That two word sentence, two word basis, old John would have done it suddenly changes the way people behave. You can try this if you’re out on your own. You can go to a bar with a few friends and try to get someone to order a round of shots. Say, hey John your round to get shots. No one has bought shots yet, and John is going to be like no man I’m not getting shots. Come on. Old John would have done it. He was a good guy. Not like this new John who is pretty boring, plays it safe.
John: It works man, it works.
Reverend: It’s frame setting.
John: I really haven’t bought any rounds of shots, but yeah.
Reverend: Yeah, but someone did the other night when I was out. Can’t argue with it. It’s a classic trick and this all comes down to again is when you control the frame you determine how someone sees the world. So John and I will catch up from time to time. We’ll talk nonshop. We’ll talk things outside of business and it will consistently be a game of we’re trading frames. Hey I saw this and this is how I perceive something. Oh, that’s kind of cool. I agree with it or I approve of that frame which puts it in my frame. Even to the point where you talk about relationships with people I might say hey man that guy looks like he’s trying really hard. He’s dedicated. Where John might flip it and go I disagree man. That guy just constantly fails. Two sides of the same coin. The thing is the coin has infinite sides.
John: Right.
Reverend: So, those are the three things in particular.
Reverend: You can never escape the frame. This is the thing that really gets me. Is that when you’re looking at anything the frames is never not there.
Reverend: Correct.
John: It’s always there. Even if you think you know you’re thinking in logical terms something is right, wrong or anywhere in between you think you’ve got the most true or the most logical the most reasonable assessment of the situation it’s still just a frame.
Reverend: Yeah.
John: And when you start to think about that you start to wonder. For a little bit you might go through this stage of like what’s really true here. That’s kind of irrelevant. What’s really going on is that there’s a frame and you’ve got to choose which frame you want to buy into. Are you buying into other people’s frames? Or are people buying into yours?
Reverend: Yeah, it’s a perception is reality thing. John and I discussed this a couple of hours ago. Not even about the placebo effect. Your perception of what happens actually affects your biology, the way you interact with the world and the placebo effect is you have a sugarpill and it affects the way you interact with the world. So, it’s a really important thing to understand. Your perception is your reality and there’s a quote at the start of the 48 Laws of Power by Robert Green. Highly recommended reading. Big influence for this episode in particular, but he states basically that whether you want to acknowledge it or not power games exist. They always will exist. Right? So you may as well accept that they exist and then work within their parameters.
John: Right.
Reverend: The frame will always exist. So as long as you understand that and if you’re smart enough to jump aboard and go right this is the frame that exists in this situation and you need to break that frame or replace it with a new one you’re still in the parameters of the game that everybody is playing.
John: So, there’s an interesting concept here that I like to pull out is that it doesn’t really matter. We’re not looking at what’s good or what’s bad, what’s right or what’s wrong. What you’ve got to really know how to do is step back from moral judging, moralizing about the situation and think about what’s actually going on and how can you work with it. Because you sitting back and moralizing out what’s right, what’s wrong in marketing isn’t necessarily going to help your marketing. What you really need to do is get rid of that for the time being. You can think about that later.
Reverend: Yeah.
John: But really think about how does the world actually work. How are people behaving. How does persuasion actually work and then make decisions based off that and filter it through your right and wrong things, but at the end of the day like these games are all going on. The framing is always going on and whether you think this is manipulative or immoral or unethical it’s totally irrelevant to the extent that it’s happening and whether you like it or not you’re engaging in it. It’s a case of are you going to control it and work it to your advantage or are you just going to let it happen and let people take advantage of it who actually do decide to use it.
Reverend: Yeah. That’s it man. It’s a case of just because you stick your hand in the sand and don’t look that doesn’t mean it’s not still happening.
John: It’s really important. I think the other thing that we should drive right off the bat is the realism in the situation. We are going to bring all of this into very specific, actionable stuff for your e-mail marketing. The action plan, but an action plan is useless without the strategy and the execution
Reverend: But the fourth thing is the realism and that is you are not standing on a podium being an amazing individual who influences the world. You’re not Martin Luther King. You’re not Tony Robbins.
John: Tony if you’re listening to that, great bloke. You’re right.
Reverend: I put my frame on you. This is the catch. People forget this and everyone gets e-mails like this all the time where they look at it and be like this isn’t written as though one person is speaking to another. Even if it’s a clear broadcast. It’s a broadcast message. It’s a sales message. Whatever. If the language is telling me that you’re talking to a crowd it tells me implicitly that you do not give a shit about me. The same thing happens when you send out your e-mails. I actually recently started this new habit when I send out e-mails. If I’m sending it to a group I actually type it in a draft in a Facebook window to a friend of mine.
John: Oh, that’s interesting.
Reverend: Well it mentally frames you right?
John: No, right. Totally. I tell people because what we’re going to talk about with you in a minute is some stuff, what you’re really going to need to do. I tell them to go in their e-mail inbox and go and look at an e-mail that they sent to their mum, their dad, their personal friends, anyone who their going to talk with just like a friend and look at the language they use and then just write like that. This idea of Facebook, writing to a Facebook friend, that’s genius.
Reverend: It’s like setting up your environment for success. Right? We could get into all that kind of conversation but the key thing is if you want to write like you’re writing to a friend put yourself in a position where you’re writing to a friend. Really, really good. That’s the reality of it. Keep that in mind. When you are writing an e-mail it goes to one person and then a different person and then a different person. Whether you use a dynamic variables like names or what not, that’s up to you.
John: The interesting thing here, kind of still on the Facebook theme, if I was to say I’m going to write an e-mail to this weight loss for pregnant women list and then I was going to go on Facebook and pretend I’m writing it to a friend so I brought up your profile and started typing out the message there. I might get the messaging a bit wrong because you’re a dude and you’re not pregnant. There’s kind of a bit of a mismatch there. One way to kind of avoid that happening is do I do something … We’re not going to go too much into detail here, but create what is called a marketing avatar or persona give it a picture. Just jump on Google image search and type in some random names that sound like they’re from the target market like Linda or Sam or Jason or whatever and find some sort of random face that you don’t really recognize and put that at the top of your profile, your marketing avatar which is like three or four paragraphs on who your person is. Like Jason is 24 years old. He lives in so and so. He’s been in college.
Reverend: Do you want me to step this up a notch?
John: Step it up.
Reverend: Tweek into this Facebook thing?
John: Do it.
Reverend: I have Facebook profiles for avatars. No one knows the exist except me.
John: Wow.
Reverend: Yeah, yeah. This is like a little secret. No one else knows this except a partner in one of my businesses. Right?
John: Okay.
Reverend: That’s the only other person who knows this. I think I have like four or five that I use that have got no friends except me.
John: Yes.
Reverend: They are not connected to anything that I am connected to with the exception of that friendship and maybe some overlap in interests or what not. Facebook is the modern day avatar.
John: You set up their profile as if they’re an actual person.
Reverend: Even movies they like and music they like.
John: Wow.
Reverend: What they do, their image.
John: I love that. That’s cool.
Reverend: It’s really useful though. One of them I used maybe …
John: It’s a cool little secret.
Reverend: It’s like five years ago I used one of them, maybe six now, and actually kept an e-mail address from back when I set it up when I signed up for a bunch of shit I didn’t care about. That person became a persona in my life.
John: Yes.
Reverend: One that I could write to. As a result because I was signing up for all this other stuff they actually have a very full blown persona. They have music interests. They have video interests. They are so detailed and that’s what gave me the idea. If you use them you will grow a persona. It means that when you open that chat window they’re never going to be online to see you typing to them because they’re not a real person, but you’re still thinking hey I’m writing to Brendan or Simon or Catherine. You’re typing to one person.
John: Yes.
Reverend: Anyone who knows who I am don’t bother going through my friends looking for these people because there’s too many of them with the same name. It was very intentional. I have to go delete them all now. So that’s a really key thing. I guess what’s important for you and for me is that we turn this into really actionable e-mail marketing based stuff.
John: Yeah. What can you do about it? You know?
Reverend: How can we use this stuff in the real world right? Well, we’re going to have to go hard and fast. We’ve got about seven minutes before we wrap this up right?
John: Yes.
Reverend: First thing you want to do is focus on the fact that you don’t need them. You want to focus on that position. Make sure that is the underlying idea, the underlying mindset of all your communications. Right? Are you confident with the product you’ve got? The easiest way to improve your marketing is to build a better product. If your product is shit, if what you’re trying to sell is shit get out or improve it because no matter what you do you will be faking it until it’s on top. That’s really key takeaway. The mindset of your communication has to be confident with you in a position of power where you are improving their life to their benefit and your benefit is secondary. Not the other way around. It just, it will unintentionally seep through what you do. The second thing is the language patterns. Right? Which is setting the tone. Are you being fancy or are you being authentic. Are you being direct or are you being like a big look at me I am a business. I have big fancy words I am a corporate. I will not put my name on this. There’s some dumb embarrassing work.
John: Those were pretty simple words you just used.
Reverend: They were, they were. Whatever. The fact remains that if you’re ever concerned about putting your name at the bottom of an e-mail …
John: You shouldn’t be sending it.
Reverend: No, you shouldn’t be sending it. There is an unresolved issue in your own head. I’m not a psychologist right, but I’ll solve your problems. I’m telling you if you don’t put your name on the bottom of an e-mail you send you’re either embarrassed about it or you’re embarrassed about the product your flogging.
John: Right.
Reverend: That’s it. That’s like the main reason people will refuse to put it. It’s not because you’re scared that someone will write you an angry e-mail. You’re actually more scared that someone will see through the illusion you’re trying to create, see your product is shit and then send you an angry e-mail because you’re faking it. Think about that. That goes back to …
John: The key for you is understanding who you are writing to. If you’re writing to weight loss for mums that’s a very particular market and you’d want to be like writing from a pregnant mum perspective, female image all that kind of stuff. You’re not writing to 25 year olds who want to get ripped and take steroids and get jacked. That’s going to be different language again. If it’s B to B marketing where you’re writing to business people or even people … I’ve done autoresponders for clients where the e-mails are going to say not the head of the company but someone in the marketing department. What happens is the language and the benefits all have to be addressed in context with the person they’re going to which means that I can’t write about making more money or anything like that because that’s not the main concern of this person in the marketing department. They just want their bosses approval.
Reverend: They want their boss to be happy with the amount of money they’ve just made as opposed to in person.
John: Yeah. So you’ve got to really keep in mind what do people really want and then create an e-mail to that exact thing.
Reverend: Yeah. As a quick aside before I give you three actionable tips on that, one thing that is really important is to understand the dynamic in which you’re writing. Are you the expert because you went and did all the research and you’ve compiled it into an easy-to-follow guide book for them. Are you the expert because you created the product from scratch and you innovated and designed and reworked. Are you the expert because you’ve been in that situation and you’ve overcome it. That’s why you’re the authority. Be very aware of that because that’s like a hidden tonality point that most people miss. Why are you the authority in their eyes. So, if you’re a pregnant woman weight loss blog …
John: Post pregnancy weight loss.
Reverend: Post pregnancy, okay. Post pregnancy. As a guy I could write that from the Reverend. Now the Reverend writing that might seem a bit odd, but what if I said hey my name is the Reverend and I actually run this pregnancy weight loss blog because my wife had a child and she struggled with weight loss for a little bit afterward. So I’m giong to research the best ways to do it and I found that there are five things in common for absolutely everyone who wants to lose weight after pregnancy to use. That’s one way. The other way would be me retaining myself as the reverend and hi I’m a doctor who, I’m obviously not, but I’m a doctor who works with women who work on losing weight after pregnancy. That’s my job. That’s how I finish things. Really be aware of why you are the authority.
John: The three actionable points, what are they?
Reverend: Yeah. Easiest way to get better at writing e-mails. Short, sharp sentences. Get rid of all of your commas. If you have a comma it’s a new sentence. Secondly, write like you talk. Okay, that’s a really important one. Do not try and start inserting $5 words and being fancy and not being yourself. Write like you talk.
John: What’s a $5 word?
Reverend: A $5 word is, I think it’s an idea I stole from Steven King. Don’t use a $5 word when a $0.50 one will do. I like that. A $5 word is …
John: Like encyclopedia.
Reverend: That’s not a $5 word because it’s very clear what it is.
John: Well you could just say book.
Reverend: You could but an encyclopedia is not a book. A five dollar word is we here at believe in synchronisity of values, ideals and compassionate outcomes. Shit that doesn’t mean anything right? So, that’s essentially what I mean. When I say don’t use a $5 word I’m saying be clear, be direct. You should be able to re-read your copy and it should be unmistakable what you’re saying.
John: There’s a great article I read just the other day that is by George Orwell on writing.
Reverend: No it’s by Chuck Palmer the guy who wrote Fight Club. He’s talking about getting rid of the thoughts.
John: No there’s a few different types. Steven King has written another one on writing. They all have kind of similar rules, but George Orwell talks about, we’ll have the link down in the show notes, about how you get people coming out and saying synchronisity and saying all the stuff without really saying anything at all.
Reverend: Yeah.
John: The real point is that you should just say whatever you need to say. Stop farting around and just get to the point.
Reverend: Lower your fog index. It’s the easiest way. If you guys haven’t used a fog index tool it’s in Microsoft Word. You can get it online. It basically shows you the level of reading that your writing is equal to.
John: You either use grade four to grade six.
Reverend: That’s it. Yeah. Keep it simple man.
John: Generally unless you’re writing to PhD scientists or something.
Reverend: Even then. Keep it simple.
John: Just a quick note. We’ll also put a link in the show notes to Chuck Palmer. I’ve probably spoken his name wrong.
Reverend: Yeah, Fight Club. He actually wrote extensive notes about how you should tell a story. You should get rid of thought verbs. Somebody never thought something, they’ve thunk something. They were sitting there wondering. You imply specifically what they thought, implicitly say what.
John: That’s interesting. That’ll be down in the show notes. Cool.
Reverend: Yeah, for sure. The third thing … To cover back actually first of all, staccato, short, sharp, simple sentences. No commas or false stops. Write like you talk. Be clear. No $5 words. Finally, give a name to anything possibly can. Now, we happen to know John and I have a lot of common friends who work online and have their own followings, their own communities and a consistent thing amongst all of them is that the name things. The give a name to common every day concepts and make it sound special. Make it sound magic and they create ownership over someone’s life or ownership over someone’s domain.
John: Right.
Reverend: I’m sure you can think of a couple off the top of your head. You don’t have to say them because we’re trying to keep who the Reverend is private and also who are shared connections are private.
John: Right.
Reverend: But if any of those people that we know, know these shows they’ll be able to pick it. Real key thing here is if you can give a name to something. If you can define it this puts you in the one team, one dream category.
John: Define someone’s reality.
Reverend: That’s it. You actually show that you understand it better than them. This is the key in selling. If you can define somebody’s problem better than they can themselves they instantly will see you as an authority, give you due credit and believe whatever you say.
John: Right.
Reverend: And your best bet to do that is by naming it. It’s no longer a sharp pain in the wrist. It’s an acute pain running down the right hand side of the left wrist that only really pops up when you move your thumb. I call that thumb triggered inner wrist pain. Perfect example of it right? So, I’ve just given you …
John: Is that thumb triggered inner wrist pain?
Reverend: Thumb triggered inner wrist pain.
John: Oh, I’ve got some thumb triggered inner wrist pain and you’re the only guy …
Reverend: I’m the thumb triggered inner wrist pain guy.
John: Yeah.
Reverend: That’s what I do.
John: Isn’t that crazy?
Reverend: That’s it. The Reverend. The wrist pain Reverend.
John: Why is it that no one else deals with thumb triggered inner wrist pain?
Reverend: The thing is I’m sure there is. There will be, but they don’t call it that.
John: Right, right, right. So if anyone comes up now what’s my problem? It’s thumb triggered wrist pain all of the sudden they can’t go to anyone else to solve their problem because you’re the only one tho does it.
Reverend: That’s correct, and you’ll also notice the name I’ve given it is something that A instantly communicates what it is, B impossible to misunderstand. Thumb triggered inner wrist pain.
John: Okay.
Reverend: Pretty hard to misunderstand and also you don’t need to be a special person to get it.
John: Right.
Reverend: So, if you’re explaining this to someone or someone is actually coming up to you and is like man just here on my left wrist, just on the right hand side of it gets really sore whenever I move my thumb what are you going to call it then? After you’ve heard me refer to it as thumb-triggered inner wrist pain. You’ll call it thumb triggered inner wrist pain.
John: Right.
Reverend: Because you’re using my language you are now in my cult. It’s as simple as that.
John: And finally yeah, that leads us to the last thing.
Reverend: If you’re in my cult I’m controlling the frame. If you’re building your own cult you’re controlling the frame. It’s how people end up drinking poison while thinking a comet’s going over head while wearing a track suit.
John: Has anyone ever done that?
Reverend: Well, they haven’t lived to tell the tale. I think that’s the point. You haven’t heard the story?
John: I’ve never heard that story.
Reverend: I can’t remember the name of the cult but basically when I think it was Haley’s comet was going overhead … Heaven’s Gate. I think Heaven’s Gate was the name of the cult. They dressed up in track suits and drank spiked punch and killed themselves thinking that their souls would go up and actually it was like the second coming of God or something and that would take them to the next life.
John: Hmm, maybe it worked because they’re not here anymore.
Reverend: Well debatable. I’m just going to put that out there. If you control the frame that’s the power you have. If you put all the other pieces in place like we’ve discussed if you’ve assessed your mindset and you come from a position of power. If you offer value to other people’s lives you become somebody who brings positive news, positive value. You are on the profit center side of the balance sheet as opposed to the expense side of the balance sheet. You’re in the power play. If you’re easy to understand you can inspire people to action. If you can put names on things that they experience in every day life you can frame their world. You control the frame they see the world in you’ve got a cult. That’s the basics.
John: Fantastic.
Reverend: Go create a cult.
John: Okay, let’s do it. Well we’ve got to get going. We’ve got a bit of poker to play over here. It’s raining outside. I’m looking forward to some poker.
Reverend: John’s going to lose some money.
John: I’m going to do my best. We’ll see how we go right? Anyway before we go the Reverend does a very special voice and he loves doing sermons and I’ve convinced him to say good bye with the Reverend voice. So before we go give us a quick line from the Reverend.
Reverend: Brothers and sisters today we are gathered here to talk to you about the river of revenue. We are talking about the profits, the philosophy of profits, the proverb of profits and ladies and brothers and gentlemen and sisters I want you to listen to me today. I want you to testify. I want you to take your hands off that keyboard. Take your hands off that iPhone. I want you to take action in your business. I want you to make money. I want you to help people brothers and sisters. If you do not do this today you are forsaking yourselves brothers and sisters.
John: All right I think that’s a good note to finish on. Thank you for coming on the show Mr. Reverend.
Reverend: It’s a pleasure.
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