I showed
below list to two marketing consultants. They both asked me not to publish it. I then showed it to a non- marketing person. He said he was going to print list and tape it to his computer, so he could refer to it every day. Apparently there is real dynamite here. It scares some people. It inspires others.After writing eleven books on marketing, reading several hundred other books on persuasion and psychology published over last century and a half, and spending more than twenty years creating advertising and publicity to convince people to do what my clients wanted, I sat down and compiled this list.
You could probably build an entire marketing campaign or improve an existing one with any one of below insights into human nature. Each week for next year I will take one truism from list and quickly explain how you might use it. If you want to receive weekly memos, just sign-in at my website, http://www.mrfire.com. (If you're already on my email list, you will automatically receive memos.) For now, here's list:
People can be persuaded to your side with a good story.
People only do things for good feelings they get.
People will pay any amount of money to have their inner states changed.
People only buy from people they know, like, and trust.
People make snap decisions about you and your business based on little things you usually overlook, even paper stock of your business card.
People pick up on your energy, more than on what you say or do, and decide to work with you or not based on what they sense.
People know when you are lying, though some may mistrust their own instinct.
People want you to do what you say you will do when you say you will do it; they will reward you if you go one step further and deliver more than what they expect sooner than when they expect it.
People only act for self-serving reasons, no matter what they say or you think.
People will never change their human emotions or basic desires, only their dress and their tools will change.
People never question their own beliefs, so don't try to change them.
People cannot tell you why they buy anything or predict if they will buy something.
People always respond to free offers of something interesting to them.
People will believe a wild claim if it is just this side of unbelievable.
