The Oldest Trick In The Book – Marketing Lessons From A Saint

This morning, I read a pretty powerful marketing lesson written by a Saint. I'm pretty sure he didn't intend for it to be a marketing lesson, but it's a good marketing lesson. Nonetheless, the Saint's name is Nikolai Vella mere Avik and in his writings, he says that we are better off. If we do not engage others in lengthy debates and fruitless discussions, we can better change their hearts by our love and good.
Deeds. If we take that sentence and we apply it to marketing, it really makes a lot of sense because one of the most effective ways to persuade someone that you can help them is to demonstrate. That you can help them by actually helping them. I know this sounds really, really basic and really, really simple.
Usually the most basic and simple things are the things that work the best. So here's why this technique is so powerful. We as humans make decisions in two ways, I'm going to make up some words by the way, to describe this. So the first phrase that I will make up. There's something called an external decision trigger.
The second phrase that I will make up is something called an internal decision triggers. Both of these things are methods by which we, as people come to conclusions when making a decision, your prospects are no different. So here's the thing that's really interesting. An external decision trigger is something that happens outside of ourselves.
That cause us to make a decision such as. Someone convincing us of something such as someone giving us a lengthy debate. And we finally give in things like social proof and testimonials and large claims and big promises in advertising. Those are all examples of external. Decision triggers. Now there's really nothing wrong with external decision triggers and using them in your marketing or more accurately using your market to cause them to occur.
The challenge with an external decision trigger is that your prospect's mind can be easily changed. Think about this. If someone convinces you of something, really the decision that you are taking on is largely influenced by that other person. Therefore, that decision can be altered by another person just as easily.
However, the opposite. Is when we make a decision based on what I call an internal decision trigger. Again, these are totally made up terms, but I think they reflect what actually happens. So an internal decision trigger is when we make a decision based on our own conclusions without being convinced of anything.
When you cause your prospect to decide that they want to do business with you through an internal decision trigger, two things happen. Number one, your prospect's decision to do business with you is much stronger. Because they came up with that decision on their own without having to be convinced.
Number two, that decision to do business with you will be longer lasting because when we decide something for ourselves and we are not convinced of it, it is very, very difficult to change our mind. So the best marketing really is marketing. That creates an internal decision trigger within your prospect's mind.
The easiest way to create an internal decision trigger is by demonstration, which of course is what caused those words by Saint Nikolai to make me think about marketing. So to cause an internal decision trigger, you literally simply demonstrate that you can help your prospect get what they want by actually helping them get what they want in advance of asking them for payment, a classic example of this.
Is content marketing done well, I'm sure you've had a situation similar to this. Hopefully you have it with me. And that is where you watch videos by someone, or you listen to a podcast by someone and you enjoy it and you get benefit from that. And then as a result of that, you begin consuming more of that content and the result of that content, you make the internal decision that this individual can be of benefit to me.
I would like to do business with them. Then you seek them out and you do business with them. That's a classic example of an internal decision trigger being fired off as a result of. Action. As a result of someone demonstrating, they can help you by actually helping you. There's a relatively easy roadmap to follow when it comes to figuring out how to do this and works like this.
You imagine that your prospect is standing at the very beginning of their journey on the road to get what they want. And you imagine that in order to reach their final destination, which is arriving to the point where they have what they want, they have to go through a series of milestones. Each one of those milestones might be one step that they have to take in order to get what they want.
For example, If we were dealing with a prospect whose desire was to be fit and healthy, step one might be to cut out refined sugar from their diet. Step two might be to increase raw fruits and vegetables step. Three might be to exercise 30 minutes a day. And step four might be to ensure that they got no less than eight hours of solid rest every night.
So if we know what the steps are, then we can create marketing that actually. Takes the prospect down the path and leads them through each step. When you do this, your prospect actually experiences to a degree, a little bit of their end result in advance. In fact, this entire methodology of marketing is something that I refer to as results in advance marketing.
What's interesting about this is when we start to get some of our desired results. What, what happens is we have a much greater desire to get more of those results. So the more results you can provide to your prospect in advance of them ever having the opportunity to do business with you. The greater their desire to actually do business with you will become because you have demonstrated that you can get them these results.
And at the end of the day, the prospect just wants the results as quickly and as efficiently as humanly possible. This is possibly the most natural and frictionless way of marketing and selling that ever existed. The caveat to it is it sometimes on our part as marketers, it takes a little bit of patience because sometimes it takes a little bit of time to guide our prospect towards getting the results that they want.
If we understand that basic human nature dictates that most individuals will not make a purchasing decision rationally and immediately anyway, then in reality, using this type of marketing and taking the time to help them get the results they want in advance. Of actually buying something from you is simply going along with human nature.
And I don't know about you, but personally I've found that it's always easier to go with the flow of nature rather than to go against it. So when you're contemplating your next marketing message, ask yourself, how does this demonstrate to the prospect that I can help them by actually helping them? And when you create a marketing message that does that, chances are that message will be successful.
I hope you found this helpful. And I hope you have a great day.