POWER OF FREE! #4: Feel Your Market in Intelligent Content Marketing: Evolution Can Be Harnessed

So now that we’ve gotten the old chestnut of what it’s going to cost out of the way, putting ourselves back into the shoes of our customers so that we can deliver a completely remarkable experience, you have to understand that there are certain, you know, shortcuts that exist in our lives.

That in a complicated world that we face today, we simply don’t have the intellectual progress, to go through a process of logic in making decisions about what we should or what we shouldn’t do. So what we do as humans is we rely on the evolutionary imperative that has kept us alive all of these generations. And that is, these shortcuts, say that if these are present in our relationship, there is an increased likelihood that the relationship will ultimately go on to become profound and profitable, because you’re able to create the environment for these things to assist you. So the first is the law of reciprocity, I do something for you. And you have this innate sense that because you’ve done me a favor, I need to return it at some stage.

Well, the Law of Reciprocity in our business model is just to give everything away. By giving everything away and making ourselves available, by answering people’s questions and answering their problems. That creates this karma of pay it forward. And everybody that has had a relationship with us on that basis has been touched by us in that way. And so people talk about us and good things happen. It’s just the natural forces of humanity in play. And then scarcity in our scarcity is that something that takes more value, the less available it becomes. And so for example, in our business model, I don’t take on every client, I only take on every, I only take on those clients that I think we can get approved.

And so because I don’t accept everybody that comes my way there is value reflected in the rest of my services, because the persuasive science of scarcity is in play. And you can see in that way, that’s a perfectly ethical way to construct your business model. Because I don’t want to be taking money from people whose visas I can’t get approved. And because I’m the expert in the relationship, I’m really the person who’s best placed to determine whether or not I can deliver value to this person in this relationship. So it’s better for me to say no, than it is just to accept the business. Because scarcity, in this instance, enhances the reputational effect of the service and product that’s being delivered. But it’s perfectly ethical authority, it’s well established, evolutionary response that people will pay attention to and will follow the orders of people, or symbols of authority.

Was there was an example I think, from Cal Dinis work where they went to a man who was the went to patent they went to people in an airport. And they said, Can you lend me 50 cents for the to make a telephone call. And when they did the research, the actor that went dressed as a pilot, was more effective in getting the money out of the stranger to make the telephone call than the man who was or the person that wasn’t dressed as a pilot. And so the implied evolutionary response to authority in that situation, increase the likelihood that somebody was going to do the things that you would hope and expect them to do. And so with authority in our content, proposition is the fact that I’ve been doing it so long. And it’s clear on the evidence when you look at our material that is authoritarian, but you can also attack this authoritarian turf. But you can’t dictate expertise. You have to earn expertise. And over time through publishing in your niche, that expertise becomes manifest in the parent for itself and so you then acquire authority or authority status in that relationship, and that then in turn increases The likelihood that somebody will have to choose to have a relationship with you. And consistency.

Consistency is part of evolutionary science with where, if you are, if you do something once that’s related to the same matter, but it’s a small step that you take first, the likelihood of you taking that much bigger step is improved significantly, if you’re taking that first step first. And in my business, what this means is that we ask people to access our free resources, of course, but to have the first step in the relationship with us, we ask them for their email address, because their email address will deliver specialist content in a way that we can deliver through the website. But that small step, whilst delivering significant value to them gives that gives us an opportunity to have them commit in a in a small way to then subsequently going on to do something more bigger and committed later on. Not necessarily, by the way, relieving them of their cash. But simply guiding them through the use of your content in an efficient and effective way. So that they’re having the experience that you want them to have. And in the case of people giving their email addresses, the next experience that they have from us that may require another stage of commitment is just a question of, will you watch this video that you’ve agreed that I will send you that’s actually going to help you in the context of the problem that you’ve got, or can I invite you to come along to a free talk, where I’ll teach you how to, for example, get your right of abode application approved without paying for professional help.

So it’s by having these small steps that lead to bigger steps later on, you move your relationship forward with the customers and in our service proposition. The way that we’ve collected consistency is the fact that you can have a relationship with us commercial for just 2000 Hong Kong dollars. And you can move your way through later on, to engage at a higher level of financial commitment, as and when you feel most comfortable about doing that. And then liking Well, you’ve just simply got to try to be a good an honest person, you got to have a business proposition, you’ve got to have great service you’ve got to come across as being human, you’ve got to be transparent is going to show you vulnerabilities, you’ve got to get everything that people need to know what you’re about as a person, and drop all the facades. And then if as a result of all of that relationships form, you will find that people start to like you. And when people start to like you, that in itself is reflected in the tribe as that emerges. And so the social front, the science of persuasion phenomena of liking, comes into play here. And then finally, is consensus, the idea that if somebody else is doing it, then it must be okay for me to do it too.

Now, in our business model, this takes the form of testimonials. And we use readily available software that costs very little money each month all told to assisters harvest the words of our customers relevant stages in the service experience both whether it’s a paid service or whether it’s an unpaid service. And then by being able to harvest all of this social proof, you end up with a body of testimonials that looks something like this. And as you can see, we’re on page for an hour of each page containing 10 testimonials. So this is just a random selection.

So if you’ve created these circumstances in your business model, and you’re committed to being generous and making art, then knowing the power of reciprocity. You’ve got this incredible tool available to you. If you just know how to harness it. My intellectual hero Charlie Munger says you should be really mindful of not getting the man with a hammer syndrome. And the man with a Sam man with a hammer syndrome is where if you’re a man and the only thing you have is a hammer. Pretty soon everything you see starts to look like a nail that will fix it. That’ll fix it. So I don’t want to leave you with the impression that just because of the way that I did it is the way that you will do it. What I want to leave you with is an understanding that these are all the constituent parts to a business model that is founded on the dynamics of the connection economy. That is, fundamentally almost costs almost nothing to implement, other than intellectual endeavor and produce something so remarkable that you end up winning by default.

And in our instance, what we do is we give advice, we answer questions and we help people out. That’s ultimately what we do. And by doing that the law of reciprocity comes boomeranging back. And it literally reigns relationships. And every single relationship is founded on us having earned that relationship because of our acts of generosity, and because we’ve earned the trust of the people that want to have relationships with us. It’s also important if you’ve got expertise to say you’ve afforded me set the sign of being an expert while in exchange for that I’m going to give you something that gives you the confidence to realize that actually I deserve that.

THE REST OF THE SERIES

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