BS Your Way to Internet Riches

One of my favorite psychological button-pushers (to observe, not follow) is Robert Allen. I know I am saving sources for later, but I just received an email in my spam folder from Robert Allen that caught my attention. It was entitled:

"Stumickel, I found you a job"

(Actually, he gave my name as my email, but I changed it here.) Talk about hitting where it hurts! This guy's a heavyweight shark at getting attention. People can bash Allen all they want for being sleazy (and he is), but he's good?real good at what he does.

Here's the email. I removed the link because the purpose of this post is to comment on a sales copy technique, not to sell anything.

Dear Stumickel,

On live TV, I was challenged to take someone from Regis Philbin's studio audience and teach them my wealth building strategies.

Just 90 days after following my system Pat Watson was $20,000 wealthier.

Your turn:

[LINK REMOVED]

Sincerely,

Robert Allen
America's Foremost Millionaire Mentor

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Your turn??!!!

Heh.

I love it!

Short and sweet with a knockout punch. It's a shame this is spam. Imagine what kind of effect this could have if it were allied to a real opportunity and not just an excuse to sell the person something.

I don't know why experts haven't thought of mentoring some broke, hungry, ambitious, even desperate newbies for a cut of the income generated under their tutelage during a a fixed time. Some people will sting them and some deadbeat students will have to be weeded out, but I have no doubt the honor system will work?at the very least?as well as it does with shareware. And the possible income could potentially be greater from a talented student than even the BS Riches Tributary milk-a-sucker-for-all-he's-worth scheme.

I am going to reconstruct my last post on this thread. It was deleted in the hacker attack and it is not in the Google cache. I am going from memory and made some changes (hopefully improvements), so it is a little different. However the essence is the same.

I have been mulling over an idea recently and I want to leave it registered here. It concerns storytelling. I mentioned above that you should BS some personal story in a product review, but this deserves to be expanded on.

On the positive side, many of the gurus I read say that you should include stories in your commercial writing because it is in the nature of all of us to love a good story, that people like to feel you are human just like them, they like to confirm ideas with examples, yada yada yada...

A story actually is a psychological trigger for action, but it is subtle. The action is for the reader to keep reading. Since people tend to keep doing what they have been doing, if they read a small story, they are more likely to continue reading the rest of the sales copy than if they came across the sales copy cold.

But on the negative side there is even another action trigger: to get attention and get people to click on a link, especially in a busy marketplace where everyone is hawking like there is no tomorrow. Positive-wise people love a good story. Negative-wise they are nosy as all hell and love to gossip.



I have not read this negative part in any guru's material. I am merely observing and musing. This thought came to me as I was looking at the headlines of those sleazy gossip tabloids while standing in line at the supermarket. "God, what crap!" I thought as I read about some young thing checking into or out of rehab along with some scandal or other. (I forgot who. It wasn't Paris or Britney, but you get the idea.) Then I paused. Maybe it's crap, but it's good bullshit.

Off the top of my head, here is an example of what I am talking about. Imagine the following two headlines:


or


In the first case it works if the person is famous, especially if he has a solid reputation for family values. But in general it is not nearly as attention-getting as the second, which not only promises to identify the lover, but also tell a good juicy tale full of dirt. Who is the lover? Is she famous or a slut? Where did the stink happen? When? Was there violence? What was the result of the scandal? Is John Doe's career now down the tubes? And so forth.

Here is another example that just came to me on a moneymaking level.


as opposed to


The same observation applies about the second promising to tell a good story about dirt. Of course, if you don't know Armand Morin and never talked with him, you could then talk about something you read that he wrote and bullshit up a storm while you hype another product. The main point is that you got the person to start reading the story.

I recently had personal proof (inside myself) of how powerful the drive to gossip is in human nature. This episode got me mightily amused at myself.

I was watching a screencast video on YouTube about hacking into MySpace accounts. I am not particularly interested in this and, frankly, find it a bit dull to wade through. I was researching MySpace since I am drifting toward this venue as a marketplace, stumbled across the title and thought this information could be useful in learning how to defend my accounts.

The hacker was good, too. He showed how he got into a guy's account with no problem, then where and how he could alter they guy's layout, personal data, content and so forth. At one point, as he was looking at the guy's private correspondence, he said in an offhand manner, "Hmmm... this guy is cheating on his wife." He didn't even pause, but continued showing other things in the screencast.

Boinnnnnnng!!!

My antenna suddenly popped up and wiggled. Say what? Cheating?



Ah, the folly of being human...

The technical stuff that could help me protect my money was boring me to tears and the dirt about someone I didn't even know suddenly got me wide awake and bushy-tailed again. The sad truth is that we all love to gossip. Maybe that's not nice, but there it is. A good marketer will make use of this negative psychological trigger.

(Leaning forward, cupping hand behind right ear and cackling like a dirty old lady...)

"Confession is good for the soul."

NEED TESTIMONIALS?

Hey, hey, hey
Go the BS way!

I just found an online resource that has me laughing so hard the tears are streaming down my face. Check out the following "Testim*nial Gener*tor."


I plopped in "BS Your Way to Internet Riches" and came up with the following results:

Everything happened so fast! I would gladly pay over $600 for BS Your Way to Internet Riches. BS Your Way to Internet Riches is great. I don't know what else to say.

--John Roberts

Click to expand...

Since I invested in BS Your Way to Internet Riches I made over $100,000 profits. I can't tell you how happy I am with BS Your Way to Internet Riches. It's exactly what I've been looking for.

--Kenneth Wood

Click to expand...

I would also like to say thank you to all your staff. This is the most reliable thing of thing we've ever used. BS Your Way to Internet Riches is great. I don't know what else to say.

--Kate Williams

Click to expand...

I didn't even need training. BS Your Way to Internet Riches did exactly what you said it does. I love BS Your Way to Internet Riches.

--John Moore

Click to expand...

This is the most reliable thing of thing we've ever used. Thank you for making it painless, pleasant and most of all hassle free! You company is truly upstanding and is behind its product 100%

--Kenneth Williams

Click to expand...

Oh... the pain... the pain...



Obviously you need to clean up the names a bit and change it around enough so one doesn't sound too much like the other, but I could go on all day with this thing, or do all my testimonials in about 5 minutes.

I think there is a new category raising its ugly but competent head in the BH world: Automated Bullshit.

I love it...

Ahhh !! That#s hilarious - pity is can't generate composite photos out of a bank of facial features. That would be so funny I am almost tempted to do it myself...

Well I have to admit that this is a really great post stumickel. It kinda remind of what nearly all of the guru's are doing nowadays + extras.

Really loved the psychological triggers both white and black. As I am doing a lot of research in this area. I am not sure but maybe I just like to take control of other people.

This would really make a real good ebook. But you won't have much of a backend.

Anyway nice post. And hope to see from you soon.

Great post, and the testimonial generator is quite funny. I hope someone would come up with a photo generator to accompany it - all you need to do is feed it with a picture and it would modify the picture beyond recognition.

Thank you folks for the kind words.

Who needs a photo generator? I just Googled "public domain photos" and here are some photos I got off of one of the first sites to pop up.

I uploaded them to my Photobucket account so they will always be here, but the site I got them from was here:

hxxp://www.public-domain-photos.com

So tell me you can't do anything with the following photos. You can even get creative (adding mustaches, changing book titles and background, etc.) if you know some imaging editing stuff. Hell, this was just one site. It took me all of 5 minutes to find these. These are public domain pictures. Do with them what you want and it's all legal. There are oodles of pd picture sites.

Any questions?

Enjoy.

Great reading, one thing i would like to add to the testimonials part- use "quality" initials and names under them (like P. Allen). People automatically assume it's their loved Paul Allen who gave his thumbs up for the product. Well actually it was Pavel Allen who loved the product so much he bothered to write a testimonial...

thanks for telling us so much about this black hat and white hat i tried a lot from you hope it works 4 me

I just had one of those moments when it occurred to me that some people might use all this information in the way I presented it as a literal blueprint without thinking about their own attitudes. I am afraid you can get hurt if you do it the wrong way so here are some thoughts.

Although I have had oodles of fun lampooning all the BS in the Internet marketing world and will more than likely be adding my own share of BS to the pile over time (and believe me, I have tons), you should keep in mind that there is only one reason to sell shit. Ever.

Fertilizer.

Never sell shit as anything else. Otherwise you will be a shitter and nothing more. You must make good things grow with your life. If you do not sense that kind of self-value, I doubt you will sell anything well, even BS.

Here is what I mean. Roses are beautiful and smell pretty, but they have thorns that can prick you and they eat shit. That's what they do. It's a good idea to keep this reality in mind when making your products, writing your copy and peppering them all with BS.

How this works inside yourself is that you have to love roses. If you do, a rose might know you are selling it BS, but it wants to eat shit so that's cool. In other words, you can't allow yourself to feel contempt for roses because they eat shit. You must make yourself aware of the fact that the BS you are feeding them will eventually turn into blossoms and lovely perfume.

It you don't love roses, you will come across as a phony. I don't expect phonies to make many sales, whether it's BS or anything else. I personally can spot a phony a mile away and I make it a point never to buy anything off of phonies. Don't think newbies in general don't do the same. They do to the extent they can. You might fool some, but they all eventually wake up.

Here is another manner of looking at it. I listened to an interview with Eben Pagan recently and he said that he uses the following three criteria as the underlying basis when he profiles his customers. If he doesn't like the answers to these questions, he stops profiling right there and moves on to another niche.

1. Are the targeted people experiencing pain plus urgency or do they have an irrational passion or both?
2. Are the targeted people actively searching for solutions?
3. Do the targeted people have few or no perceived options?

Now in the Internet marketing world this "few or no perceived options" can get tricky. There are options all over the place. People's perceptions vary, but there is still a lot to perceive. So that takes some righteous analysis to get it right. The good part is that if you look, you can find plenty of pain, urgency and irrational passion. And you see swarms of people actively searching like crazy. All this is something you need to think about.

But even deeper is a spiritual matter. If you address a person's pain, then make him stop suffering, at least for a while. Do not feed on his pain. Feed on relief. Find joy in killing the pain. (This applies identically to urgency and passion.) You must love people enough to feel this, otherwise you are a phony through and through. Your contempt will show and it will show on your sales records. Make it a point to change if this is you.

You must sell BS to those who want it, not be BS—not have a soul made out of BS. When you peddle BS, you are either feeding beautiful roses you love who are hungry for it, or you are trying to treat people like any old shit. What do you think is going to sell more?

If you have trouble understanding this concept, I suggest spending some time every day in a rose garden until you get it...

Stumickel,

God bless you. This is some REAL good shit you are feeding us here.
We know you LOVE us I love you too.

Here's a market research tip for ya'.

I was just reading a thread about something else and RentaCracker came up. I never heard of it before (I told you I was new at this), so I took a look.

Lo a behold, there is a category called "Most Popular." This got my brain to twirling.

If you want to BS affiliate sales, ultimately you should reserve the BS for the hype, not the product. This means you want to establish a sales reputation for delivering the real deal regardless of what you say about it. That reputation will carry you far.

So you need market research. If you want to find out about a product, sure you can look at what people are buying. But so much crap is being sold along with the good stuff, it's hard to judge if it's the real deal or not.

But if you analyze the popularity of WHAT PEOPLE ARE STEALING, I can't think of a better market parameter of true everlasting value. Sure, there are fads, but people are not going to go to the effort of ripping off crap for very long. They want the real deal.

You can do this research at torrent and warez sites, too. Be careful about reliability of information, though.

Here's the principle. It's a hell of an market research principle, but it's a sound one. If some people are stealing it, others are buying it.

As an affiliate, choose your products wisely...

First of all, I have to say this thread is absolute "gold." Through and through. I read every word carefully (there had to be one guy who went "too long blah blah" didn't there) and was refreshed with how much excellent straight-to-the-point information there was.

Definitely deserves the sticky it got and I'm very surprised that it has so few replies considering some of the crappy threads that run for pages and pages. Typical.

Bloody brilliant stuff, Stumickel. I saved the thread so I can read it whenever I want at my leisure (I believe that will be quite a few times.)

I'm a semi-noob (I've progressed a great deal in the almost four months since I started this game but still have a long road ahead of me as well) and some of the stuff within my own zone of current understanding was just spot on. Nail meet hammer.

{o,o}
|)__)
-?-?-
O RLY?

Peace bro.

I'm a little guy.

Love the post title...great hook. Awesome content.

This forum is priceless - I just love the vibe and all of the great minds milling about in here. Sorry for dropping the collective IQ by participating

Here is some interesting keyword info I got from Jim Morris (NicheBot).

WordTracker = 0.63% of all Internet traffic (coming from Dogpile and Metacrawler) and is valid for the last 100 days.

Keyword Discovery = 1% of all Internet traffic (coming from a toolbar used on browswers in making searches) and is valid for the last year. There are 2 databases: (1) Premium, which is the current one (about a billion search terms), and (2) Historical, which has about 32 billion search terms but the figures are all over the map. The Historical Database is used mostly to suggest long-tail phrases.

Google = +-50% of all Internet traffic (coming only from Google) and is valid for the last year, but Google also omits stuff all the time to keep ahead of gamers.

Just something to think about when doing keyword research. You read right, too. WordTracker and Keyword Discovery together represent less than 2% of Internet searches while Google gets around 50%. This is for traffic.

For number of sites (competition), use the intitle:http://URL command to get pages actually optimized for the keyword, which is the real competition. Simple number of pages will change, but the optimized ones will tend to stick around. And they will compete on purpose.

If you don't understand what this means or implies, look it up. You might learn something (and it is well worth learning). Even if you don't, put it in your writing, anyway. It's both correct and great BS to impress customers with.

This is post 200.

I am supposed to be crossing a divide or something and enter the halls of Valhalla.

Finally, I can't think of anything to say. Just bullshit.

Hell, I can't think of a better place to bullshit than on this thread. So here I am.

200 and rocking.

great read here....