This is a bit out of the norm for me because this write up is not directly related to earning online. I’m going to tell you about a book called Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini. I got my copy from Amazon.co.uk for eight quid or so. And it’s some of the best cash I’ve spent in all my years spending tens of thousands on Internet courses.

Product review: Robert Cialdini’s Influence – The Psychology of Persuasion

The book is essentially about why people say “yes”. In our case we can use it to understand why people say yes when you promote a product, or if they have to read your sales letter or decide whether or not to give you their email address or click on an ad.

Why do people say yes? Well, it’s all in Roberts’s book. And if the Brady Bunch read it they’d change the way they do business straight away and make a lot more money.

A quick point though from the second chapter in the book that explains exactly why these ClickBank gurus are going about things the wrong way is reciprocity.

Cialdini gives some amazing examples. One of which is of a university professor who sent out Christmas cards to a sample of strangers. The response he received was amazing. People he had never seen nor met before sent him cards back. Not the cards he had sent them, but they’d gone out of their way to buy a card, address it back to this stranger and send it to him.

That’s a tad weird isn’t it? Why on earth would they do that?

Simple. Because we are bought up that we should try to repay in kind what others do for us. Think about the amount of times you’ve got a Christmas card from someone and thought you had to send them one back. Or got an invitation to a party and realised when you had a party you had to invite them (even though they’re about as much fun as a bikini contest in an old people’s home). Robert says “By virtue of the reciprocity rule, then, we are obligated to the future repayment of favors, gifts and the like”.

In simple terms if you do something good for other people they will be willing to do good to you. I stand by that in life, not just business, every single day.

This explains why you need to give out quality content often to your subscribers and site visitors. If you give them information that makes them go “woah, this person is giving this away. It’s great!” and you make an impact on their life they will always, always open your emails.

If you do nothing for them, they won’t open your emails. If they don’t open your emails they can never buy what you recommend.

If you are interested in any way in earning cash I suggest you read this book. It has become like a bible to me. It will help you to understand the basic human psychology of why people do things. And when you know that you can use it in your marketing to get people to buy lots and lots of what you recommend.

This book isn’t heavy reading, it’s actually quite humourous. And none of the techniques are unethical or “mind tricks” to confuse people into buying from you. Just good, solid, easy to read and implement information. Read it.

I saw this one coming. Just didn’t expect it to happen so quickly…

The Internet Revolution begins

If you have read this newsletter for any length of time you’ll have heard me talk on numerous occasions about “the ClickBank Brady Bunch”.

These are the “gurus” you’ll find on clickbank.com who promote at least one new “must have” every single week. It’s plain for all and sundry that they are only in the business for commissions and don’t care about the quality of the product they are promoting.

Well I have it on very, very good authority from not one but three reliable sources that it appears a minor backlash is occurring.

Students of my eFormula course will know that promoting one product after another (especially if they’re poor products) will result in a dead list. If people think you’re only in it for the money and will recommend poor products to them they won’t buy from you. Period.

How many restaurants do you go to again after getting food poisoning there? Same kind of thing with this business. If someone burns you and wastes your money you don’t buy from them again.

What my insider contacts have told me is that a lot of the ClickBank gurus are getting sky-high refund rates and poor returns from their email promotions. It appears people are (finally) starting to see these chumps for what they really are and refusing to buy.

In the past three years I have done eleven actual promotions to my email list, and I send out quality weekly content.

Most of these guys and girls promote eleven a month, and never send out any good content unless it’s for a lead up to yet another promotion.

Now watch what happens over the next few months. If I’m wrong I’ll eat my hat and record it on video for all to see. I have a hat made out of chocolate by the way.

The Brady Bunch will start to send out first good content and slow down promotions. Then they’ll start to finally only promote quality products. I can pretty much guarantee this is going to happen before the year is out.

The reason for this is because they’re slowly killing off their business with endless hyped up promotions. They keep trying to get new list subscribers so they’re business doesn’t tail off but even that’s a struggle for them now the recession has kicked in and people don’t have tons of spare cash.

Any genuine marketing expert will tell you that the most important asset is a list, first of customers then of people who are interested in your stuff and trust you.

I’m happy this is happening to be honest. It means that only those who are genuine will survive teaching make money stuff. If you sell shoddy products very soon you’ll be found out and your business will bomb.

I’ll come back to this in a couple of months with concrete examples as and when they happen. But trust me on this one. Watch The Brady Bunch change their tact. And smile knowingly that you heard it here first.

Harris Fellman. He’s done it!

Just when I thought Guru Harris Fellman couldn’t take things to a higher level he has done.

Unfortunately I mean in the “watch through your fingers and cringe” stakes. Not the money making stakes.

This is the guy behind Sal The Site Stealer. Not only was the product rubbish but I remember describing his video that was meant to be humorous as being “more cringeworthy than finding Viagra in your fathers draw”.

He’s gone and done it again.

I have to be honest here I’m not even sure what the guy is selling. I couldn’t watch this for longer than a minute without turning it off and shuddering. This guy just creeps me out. I remember watching him on Mike Filsaime’s Seven Figure Code DVD series when his attempt at making the audience laugh had me biting a cushion and wincing.

It’s painful but it’s worth a look just to learn how not to do a marketing video.

http://www.goodbuyharris.com

I’ve bought four Fellman products, none of which were any good to be honest. So I doubt this one is. From what I hear it’s just a collection of his old products. So my advice is to avoid it.