This is the look you want on your customers’ faces. Sheer exaltation when they have what you offer in their hands. You don’t have to be Apple, or offer something as world-altering as an iPhone, but you do want to elicit this look.
So, what do you feel that way over? Anything that is going to 1) bring you unadulterated joy and/or 2) dramatically uplevel the quality of your life and/or 3) enhance your status.
What has to be there in the product/program for you to feel so elated? 1) Certainty in its quality; 2) Clarity that you’re getting more value than you’re paying; 3) A true love for it (i.e. some warm and fuzzy emotional connection).
When this is there, they urgently want what you’ve got. This is true whether it’s a product or a program, of course.
Too many intellectual products and programs (books, CD’s, seminars, presentations, opt-in gifts, etc.) are not urgently wanted. They’re not “Brain-Sticky”–compelling, original and memorable–but the authors think they are and are confounded as to why they have few clients.
Following the logic above, then, it is essential that you design all of your intellectual property around the needs and fantasies of your market. Make sure that they:
- Will bring them great joy
- Improve the quality of their life
- Enhance their status
- Have obvious quality–in other words, tangible, concrete, WANTED results
- Give FAR more than the ticket-price would ever reveal
- Enable your market to feel confident, capable, smarter, prettier, sexier–whatever they want SO much that it evokes powerful emotions in them.
I just returned from a meeting with the principal of my
daughter’s high school. Great guy. Just love him because
he is student-centered, not teacher-centered. At one point,
we got to talking about the poor teaching that occurs across
the board in our district (despite its being one of the most
affluent in the state) and he asked me for any insights I had.
He didn’t know that I teach adults how to use brain-based
learning in their presentations and seminars, so he was
surprised, to say the least, when I rattled off many things
these teachers are not doing that they should. Things that
are brain-antagonistic. These are 
For this very reason, it is appalling that that the information
industry is a trillion-dollar industry. There is no excuse for
trained teachers, who get paid, not to know how to tap the
brains of our students. Equally so, if you are getting paid to
teach anything–via the internet (especially), or in books or
information products (especially!), or in live seminars—
then learn how to teach first!
And student beware! If you are about to learn from a million-
aire, STOP! Ask them what they know about learning. I
took a course from a 
So, if you read my post from last Monday, it will put the results below in context. Suffice it to say that I got a “knock on the head” about the phoniness of the internet information marketing gurus and asked my list to chime in with their opinions. It is a small sample–with a BIG message!
#1 How “fed up” with the Internet Information Gurus are you? (OPTIONS)
1. I used to admire them, but have stopped because they feel superficial to me. –60%
2. I’ve never followed them because they have always seemed “slick” to me.-–25%
3. I have no problem with them–and very much aspire to their levels of success and how they got there! –0%
(Interesting…NOT one said they had “no problem” with them!)
So, as I was sitting there, waiting for the show to begin, I
started thinking about something and would love your
opinion. As all TV shows do, Oprah has a staff member who
gins-up the audience; get us really roused and energetic
before Oprah comes on. So, this energetic woman got on stage
and said things like, “Hey, New York! Let me hear you!” And
when we weren’t loud enough, she cried, louder herself, “I
can’t hear you!” She had people dancing on stage…and as I
was in this sea of energy, I recalled a comment that
someone made on my blog-telecall the other day, as
we were talking about mirror neurons.
She talked of feeling manipulated at seminars and presen-
tations when the leader “froths up” the audience, as this
woman did today. You’ll want to listen to that telecall; it
was really interesting. I gave my 2 cents about that, which
I won’t go into here, but I was thinking of her statement
when I was in the audience this morning–not at ALL feeling
manipulated. I thought of how rock and pop stars do this
same thing: they get the audience revved up. And here’s my question.
I don’t believe it can be answered without some careful thought.
It doesn’t have a shallow answer, I believe. When and where
was the line drawn, where it became taboo to have high-energy
like that in a presentation or seminar? (Or boardroom!) Why is
it that the woman on my call the other day associates “manipul-
ation” and “phoniness” with getting an audience ginned up before
content is delivered? Why is it okay to do it at a rock or pop
concert–and before a television show, but not at a seminar
or presentation?
When was the line drawn–and