Go to a mall or public place.

Look at the people around you.

If you’re in North America or Western Europe, it won’t take you long to witness the obesity epidemic firsthand.

People are getting bigger and bigger. Adults. Teenagers. Kids.

None of these people are physically starving.

But their brains are constantly receiving hunger signals to eat. This happens thanks to our modern diet, lifestyle, and a thousand other reasons I won’t bore you with here.

It doesn’t take a marketing genius to see the demand is there. Hunger signals are hunger signals. The reasons behind them aren’t important. They’ll keep driving people to buy more fatty/fried/sweet food.

Are the people you want to be customers hungry for what you’re selling?

Copywriting, marketing, and storytelling “fan the flames” of desire.

They take the spark of demand and turn it into a blaze that’s impossible to ignore.

But, as great as they are, they can’t CREATE genuine desire.

Desire—the hunger signal that makes people crave your offer—creates the spark. Without it, your business has no foundation to build on.

Gary Halbert, one of the most successful copywriters of all-time, said he’d rather have “a starving crowd” than anything else when opening a restaurant.

If you don’t have a starving crowd, you’re in for an uphill battle.

It’s hard enough to persuade people to buy things as is; trying to convince them to buy something they don’t need or want is TORTURE.

I can’t help you in situations like this. People who say they can are frauds.

But you can help yourself…

Ask yourself:

“If I had zero copywriting skills, zero connections, and zero marketing budget, would people still be looking for what I’m selling?”

If your answer isn’t a resounding yes, tweaking your offer will put you in a much better position to profit than messing around with your marketing ever will.

Food for thought.

I’m not a huge fan of snobby people.

Some of the “haves” have a nasty trait of looking down on the “have-nots.”

So I could TASTE the irony when I found myself at an etiquette dinner while in grad school.

Everyone kept telling me how important it was to network. So I relented and decided to go.

I figured we’d learn how to hold our forks and swirl wine glasses obnoxiously in our hands…

But I was wrong.

Sure, we learned how to hold our utensils and cut our food. But we also learned how to project an image of competence—without being jerks about it.

You can do this with your business…

Here’s the deal. Unless you’re selling t-shirts for 5 bucks, you probably don’t want to work with everyone and their mom.

That means there’s a specific set of people you want to work with more than anyone else.

It’s fine to aim for the cream of the crop.

You want to work with Fortune 500 CEOs? Great.

You want customers who are single moms between 35 and 50? Awesome.

Being selective—a bit snobby, even—about whom you’re willing to work with makes you more attractive to your ideal customers.

Too many businesses try to include everyone and not hurt anyone’s feelings.

This waters down their appeal. They attract no one instead of everyone.

If you’re offering a high-end service and refuse to take on clients for less than 5 grand a month, don’t hide that fact. Feature it prominently on your website.

Being unapologetic about whom you’re willing to work with (and on what terms) makes you more appealing to that group.

And those are the people you really want to work with anyway, right?

Do you watch Game of Thrones?

This HBO show, based on George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire novels, has become a worldwide phenomenon.

As you might expect with anything HBO, Game of Thrones is full of violence, nudity, and political intrigue. Oh yeah… and dragons.

Anyway, George R.R. Martin is kind of, for lack of better words, sadistic. No one is safe—especially the characters you grow to love. The unpredictability is one element that makes it such a great series.

That’s what the quote from the subject line of this message is about. Tyrion Lannister, one of my favorite characters in the series, said that line in a recent episode. I felt sick to my stomach. And wondered which character the writers would kill off next.

That quote got me thinking…

Ideas of fairness and justice just aren’t suited for online business. They’re better off in the courtroom.

So if you’re “looking for a fair trial” from your prospects, now’s the time to stop.

The cold, hard truth:

People are cynical, especially online.

They’ve been burned in the past. They’re going to take that out on you.

There are a million other websites they can visit if yours doesn’t hold their interest.

They consider you a scammer or the equivalent of an alleyway dice player. In their eyes, you’re guilty until proven innocent.

You can accept this and do everything in your power to deliver a credible, compelling experience.

(Or you can do what I did and waste 6 months wishing things were different…)

The choice, as always, is entirely up to you.

If you watch/read Game of Thrones and are as obsessed as I am, email me. I’m always down to chat about that series!

Cheesy commercials aside, what’s the biggest difference between Microsoft and Apple?

Bueller?

Bueller?

Fine. I’ll take a stab at it

The biggest difference between Microsoft and Apple is how Apple has created a cult-like following.

Drive around your town for a while.

I bet it won’t take long to find someone rocking an Apple bumper sticker (or 10) on their car!

Do these people get paid to do this?

Nope.

Surely they most receive some type of compensation? Maybe a discount on future purposes?

Nope.

These people do this—they cruise around town providing free advertising—because they’re “Apple people.”

Their iPhones and iPads aren’t just shiny objects they waited in line to buy.

They cut to the core of their identity. They’re extensions of who they are.

Don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen a Microsoft bumper sticker. Maybe a “Microsoft sucks” sticker from a rabid Apple fanboy. That’s about it.

Microsoft’s business is profitable enough, but Apple would make Charles Manson proud.

People literally LINE UP for hours… just for the CHANCE to give Apple their money!

Think about that for a second…

What if your business could inspire even a fraction of that loyalty and fanaticism?

You can. You can make your business more charismatic.

You don’t even have to be a sociopath cult leader like Charles Manson to do it.

But you do have to know exactly whom you want to serve.

• What do they like?
• What do they hate?
• What do they stand for?
• What drives them to get out of bed in the morning?

Do you know the answers to these questions? If so, are you showing visitors you understand them in every piece of content you create?

Doing this (99% of your competitors aren’t) helps you cater to your target customers’ IDENTITIES.

That’s how you create rabid fans instead of lukewarm customers.

Imagine this scenario…

You’re at a cocktail party or networking event.

You don’t want to be there, but your boss expects you to make an appearance.

So you dutifully put on your nametag. Then it’s over to the bar to get just the right amount of social lubricant…

Someone taps you on your shoulder.

A man with a strong handshake.

He introduces himself.

Was it Robert… or Richard?

Oh well…

He launches into a story while you sip your drink. You try to smile and nod your head at the appropriate times. But your attention fades, and your eyes begin to wander.

Then you’re starting at the bottom of your drink. Robert/Richard is still droning on. You don’t have the slightest clue what he’s talking about…

You don’t want to be Robert/Richard.

Not in your personal life, and definitely not in marketing your business. There are too many of them running around already.

They’re full of stories, but none of them interest you.

How do you keep from becoming Robert/Richard and boring your visitors to tears?

By asking one simple question…

“So what?”

Before you open your mouth in a call with a prospect—before you open your figurative mouth in a blog post or landing page—ask this question.

“My product uses special packaging…”

So what?

“My materials are imported from the Amazon…”

So what?

If you can’t come up with a compelling answer from your prospects’ perspective, diving into that topic isn’t worth your time.

That’s how you tell engaging, persuasive stories.

That’s how you cut out the “boring parts.”

Everything else is just bad cocktail conversation.