“It’s all in your head”
Something is not right. You’re struggling. It’s not your fault. It’s just where you’re at right now.
Perhaps you’re due to give a speech and you’re dealing with primal, gut-wrenching fear.
Or maybe, it’s 4am, and you’re wide awake for the 5th night running because you’ve overspent, not told your partner, and the guilt is gnawing away at you like a rat in a box.
Or it could just be plain old biochemistry repeatedly punching you in the face with no-obvious end point.
At one point or another I’ve fallen prey to all the above and many MANY more. I’m currently waving goodbye to a 6-month stretch of the last one. (It’s more of a see ya soon though).
But never, at any point, has it ever, (however heartfelt or well meaning), been nice, comforting, or useful in any way, shape or form, to be told:
“It’s all in your head”
Oh, is it? Really? Wow, thanks for that. That’s fine then, I’ll just what… swap my head out, remove it, shut it down?
I mean, wow.
Of course it’s in my head. Where else would it be?
Everything is always happening in our heads (brains, minds, consciousness – choose your definition)
Sure, we live in an inter-subjective world.
My actions effect yours and your mine.
But we experience them alone, through our own filters, and instantly overlay our own thoughts and prejudices upon them. You’re doing it now, aren’t you.
Mhmm.
Yeah.
That.
See!
And this is why the #1 skill any copywriter should POSSESS is the ability to enter into the conversation in a prospect’s head.
Wanna make it sound cool and edgy? Call it Mind Control.
Want to know it for what it is? Call it common human decency.
Call it what you want.
The ability to breakdown barriers, bypass BS detectors, know what the other person is thinking, feeling and asking, at any given moment is what makes you stand head and shoulders above all the buttoned-up pollies and their soundbites, Mega Corps and their catchy jingles, and endless supply line of self-obsessed money grabbing marketers hawking their wares on social media.
Because here’s a truth:
No-one woke up today wanting to spend money on your product, be interrupted by your emails, and spend their finite time paying attention to you and your marketing pitch.
We have strong defences. The man that says yes to everything will be broke before he’s finished breakfast.
So your ability capture attention and makes sales is directly correlated to the empathy, assurance, recognition, belief, desire and the urgent and deep sense of need you can create within your prospect.
You do this hacking into their internal monologue, confirming their world view, or for advanced practitioners challenging them to change it.
And it works because…
Everyone’s favourite subject is themselves.
It’s like Dale Carnegie said in How To Win Friends And Influence People, and I’m heavily paraphrasing here:
“Do nothing else but ask people about themselves and they’ll think you are the most interesting person they ever met.”
(Side note: This works almost 100% of the time, and it’s a fantastic tool for anyone who’s socially anxious at a party. Just ask people about themselves, keep the convo on them, and you’ll be the most exciting, engaging conversationalist at the party until some motherflipper pulls his pants down.”)
Back to it:
There are a multiple tricks you can use to enter the conversation in your prospect’s head, and they should be infused into just about every element in your copy from your headline to your close.
