Storytelling for Fun and Profit
I’m at a Dan Kennedy seminar this weekend hanging out with my best Armenian friend, Pedros Cooleyann, and Kennedy can’t stop talking about the importance of stories.
As he said last night, “In three weeks from now, you ain’t gonna remember the facts I give you up here, but you will still remember the stories I tell.” And that is #truth.
That is also why I’m putting a lot more effort into Storytimez here at Internet Independence.
So a couple of funny stories today that have real big takeaway lessons…
These stories also prove I’m an idiot and prove that an idiot can make money online.
And since you’re NOT an idiot, and you are in fact much smarter and better looking than I am, then you can succeed online too. So get rid of all your doubts…you CAN do it.
Storytime is now on.
1) The “Embarrassing Action Still Makes You Look Smart” Story
On Wednesday, during a closed-door Mastermind meeting with Kennedy and a few other high-level business owners, I asked a stupid question.
It was necessary, but stupid. During his reply, Kennedy:
a) Told me my sales results were terrible
b) Asked me questions that I had no answer for
c) Just to make sure I heard him the first time, he told me several more times that my sales results were horrible.
Now in theory, it was embarrassing. But I wasn’t embarrassed because I don’t care what the other people in the room thought of me.
But when the meeting ended, several people thanked me for asking my question and then proceeded to ask me a bunch of questions about my business as if I was some type of guru.
They associated my Action-Taking with superiority. Later as I thought about it, I realized why.
90% of the room was too SCARED to ask a question.
They were too scared of being embarrassed.
But by channeling my inner-idiot, taking action, asking a question, and putting my pride on the line, I was actually looked at as a guru by some, instead of a clown.
(Although I know there were a couple of guys in the room who remained of the ‘clown’ opinion.)
Bottom line: Action attracts.
I’m not saying you should try and be a clown or a dunce…what I’m saying is, that if you simply do SOMETHING, you’ll attract more people into your life and business than if you do nothing.
The only catch is you can’t take risky action.
Remember that there was no risk to me in that environment. I wasn’t going to lose any potential business and I had the potential to gain a lot of valuable knowledge.
So access the risks, and if you know you can deal with the downside, then don’t hesitate to take action if you want to attract success.
2) Commitment and consistency story
Back in 2009, I attended a Dan Kennedy Super Conference in Nashville. Yanik Silver was there and he gave a presentation on his 11 hot buttons for selling (that I shared with you this week).
If you remember, the last hot button was commitment and consistency, and it worked on me that day.
At the end of Yanik’s presentation, he passed the mic around the room and asked people to share their experiences of attending his Underground Seminar.
As a recent attendee and big fan of his event, I eventually grabbed the mic and told the audience that Underground was not to missed. It’s the best seminar out there for Internet Marketing – for both content and for making connections.
A few minutes later, after myself and a few others had our say, Yanik then did a sales presentation for the complete “Best of Underground DVD set”.
This included content from a few years where I hadn’t attended.
Now having just made a public testimonial for his event, I was committed to the belief that the Underground content was awesome. And therefore, it would be inconsistent of me to NOT buy the the “Best of DVD set”.
So I basically sold myself on the DVDs. I bought them, of course, and they were well worth it.
But had I not given that public testimonial, I certainly would have found a reason to NOT buy the DVD set that day.
There I was, living proof that hot button #11 works. And that should give you some ideas of how to use commitment and consistency in your business – online and offline.
THE END
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Finally, I just want to mention that I’ll get back to QnA next week. I’ve been in planes and seminar rooms – writing this email on my Blackberry – but with limited access to the Internet so I haven’t been able to look through my email or your questions on the blog.
So if you are waiting for a reply on something, next week I’ll get back on track.
Then again, next week is crazy launch week, so who knows if I’ll have time for email.
But speaking of launches, if you haven’t gone through the exact step-by-step launch sequence I outlined a couple of months ago, haul your Internet butt over to this article. It shows you “how to make the real moniezzz in 9 easy steps“.
Storytime is over,
Craig Ballantyne
“If you’re interested in selling to people, the first book you should read is Dr. Robert Cialdini’s, ‘Influence'” – Matt Smith