‘Money Motivators’ by Daniel Levis

Clayton Makepeace has released the latest issue of ‘Total Package’. The featured article by Daniel Levis is titled “Money Motivators”. [Article]

Clayton Makepeace has released the latest issue of ‘Total Package’.

The featured article:

Money Motivators

by Daniel Levis

Dear Web Business-Builder,

Many of us sell products that help our customers to earn more money. And many of us sell products that indirectly allow our prospects to make or to save money.

So the more we can understand about what money means to our customers, the more accurately we can align our selling stories, images, and language with their underlying subconscious drives and desires. And the more we can sell.

Make sense?

It’s not enough to simply say, “you can make or save x dollars in x time with this” in your sales copy. That’s a purely intellectual appeal that may or may not trigger a productive emotional response. You must go deeper than that.

You must draw a picture of cause and effect that reaches their core motivation for wanting money in the first place.

The most obvious of these money motivators is of course, security.

At its most basic level, money allows us to feel safe. It put clothes on our backs … a roof over our heads … food on the table … and allows us to nurture and protect our children.

Another prime money motivator is recognition. Money allows us to purchase upscale goods and services that communicate our superiority over others. It’s all very primal – part of the sexual imperative …

The male of the species is driven to pursue wealth in order to attract and impress females – because females are instinctively driven to seek out the most capable providers for their offspring.

And the female of the species seeks to enhance her physical attractiveness to males with fine clothes and makeup and jewelry – the more rare and expensive the better.

Of course we all want more of the freedom money can buy: Freedom to do what we please, where we please, when we please, and with whom we please.

Few of us want to do what is necessary to achieve this level of independence. None the less, the dream is enough to motivate a purchase.

Even when it comes to responsibility, there is a part of our brain that says, “leave me alone, give me the freedom to do this my way, I don’t need any help.”

Money is also a way of obtaining power and influence over other people and the environment.

We all crave the feelings of control, mastery, achievement, competence – even glory – that come from being able to impose our will on the world around us.

Acceptance is another prime money motivator. Money buys belonging …

If you can afford to buy the right clothes, drive the right cars, take the right vacations, dine in the right restaurants, and so on … then you can hang out with the beautiful people and be part of the “in” crowd.

Wealth also helps to satisfy our quest for creating more meaning in our lives. Within our hearts beats an intrinsic sense of social justice and fairness and an innate desire to get involved with causes that transcend our own self-interest.

The ability to support a favorite charity … or to fight what we believe to be wrong in society … can motivate us strongly to pursue money.

Vengeance is another powerful money motivator. Have you ever been put down by somebody … told you didn’t have it in you to do something you felt you really wanted to do … and found yourself driven to prove that person wrong?

Recently I interviewed John Carlton, and he related the story of his early days working as a color-blind graphic designer at an L.A agency …

One day he asked the copywriter in the next cubicle if he could borrow her copy of Tested Advertising Methods. She made some snide remark about how he should stick to drawing because he’d never make it as a writer.

John credits her comment as one of the reasons he became obsessed with making a fortune as a pro writer. Sometimes we want money – and the things money buys – simply to rub somebody else’s nose in it. She Laughed at Him For Thinking He Could Write Productive Sales Copy. Now He Earns More in a Minute Than She Earns in a Month!

If you can demonstrate in your sales copy how a dollar invested in your product today can bring back 2, 10, 50 or 100 dollars tomorrow … and then tie those new dollars convincingly to the irrepressible motivations I’ve listed here – the real reasons people desire money – you stand to sell a hell of lot of product.

But you’ve got to be thinking just as hard about the reasons why your prospects won’t buy as the reasons they will.

Some of the same primal drives that motivate your prospects to spend have a nasty way of de-motivating them at the same time in a kind of primordial tug-of-war.

The first de-motivator is a fear of losing what we already have. The saving instinct is part of our survival program. A part of us is programmed to behave like squirrels hoarding nuts for a rainy day.

In addition to the tried and true tactics of risk reversal and building up the prospect of gain to such huge proportions relative to the risk of loss, try a little psychological jujitsu. Meet your prospect at his point of belief.

Impress upon his mind the fact that all relationships, skills, and possessions require maintenance – or you lose them.

There’s no standing still in this world. You’re either forging ahead, or you’re falling behind. If you refuse to give up anything that you now have, where will the time, money, and energy come from for new achievements?

Another money de-motivator is the fear of failure.

You can present mountains of undeniable proof that all kinds of people from all walks of life are knocking it out of the park with your product, and still, your prospect is thinking “yeah but, will it work for me?” It’s annoying as hell, isn’t it?

And so you tirelessly try to reassure him that even a retarded chimp can do this. But there’s only so far you can go without stretching the truth.

Sometimes you’ve just got to level with people.

Again, meet them at their point of belief.

Would you like to learn a way to guarantee that you’ll never fail to achieve the goals you set out for yourself in life?

Here it is: Don’t even risk trying. You can avoid ever failing by just never trying.

The third big de-motivator is of course, the pain of change. It’s naïve to believe that the only risk your prospects perceive is dollar risk.

For many purchases, implementation is a much bigger hurdle. Your product has to find space in a person’s life, and that means change.

Why does change always seem to involve pain?

We resist change because it threatens our very identity. It means our old self must die, and an unknown new self will be born. We grieve the loss of the familiar, as we labor the painful birth of the strange. Once again, it’s all quite primitive and primal.

One of the best ways to overcome the pain of change is simply to make the unknown known. Walk your prospect step-by-step through the consumption of your product in your copy.

When your doohickey arrives by FedEx in about 8 days from now, here’s all you do …

First, take out the fast start CD (It’s the first thing you’ll see when you open the box). Pop that baby in the drive, and I’ll be right there with you – giving you an overview of each phase of your project.

When you’re done listening to the fast start CD, you have a custom tailored road map to follow, and you know exactly where to look in the rest of the program for detailed implementation instructions.

Next …

And then …

By week two …

Shine a light on the unknown, and you’ll fill the natural void in the prospect’s mind where all kinds of fearful things would otherwise fall in.

Hope you enjoyed this article. Let me know if you found it useful.

Until next time, Good Selling!

Daniel Levis

THE TOTAL PACKAGE

Daniel Levis is a top marketing consultant & direct response copywriter based in Toronto, Canada and publisher of the world famous copywriting anthology Masters of Copywriting featuring the selling wisdom of 44 of the “Top Money” marketing minds of all time, including Clayton Makepeace, Dan Kennedy, Joe Sugarman, John Carlton, Joe Vitale, Michel Fortin, Richard Armstrong and dozens more! For a FREE excerpt visit http://www.SellingtoHumanNature.com.

He is also one of the leading Web conversion experts operating online today, and originator of the 5R System (TM), a strategic process for engineering enhanced Internet profits. For a free overview of Daniel’s system, click here.

Attribution Statement: This article was first published in The Total Package. To sign-up to receive your own FREE subscription to The Total Package and claim four FREE money making e-books go to www.makepeacetotalpackage.com.

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*IMNewsWatch would like to thank Clayton Makepeace for granting permission to reprint this article.