Magic and the Art of Honest Marketing (Write Testimonials that Dazzle)

Yesterday I watched a documentary about famous magician David Blaine. Coincidentally, today I read Jonathan Field’s post about Steve Cohen, “The Millionaire Magician.” Although the magic these two men perform fascinates me to no end, while watching and reading about their work I noticed something tangentially related, yet equally fascinating.

In two separate situations, each magician performed in front of men who held their arms folded across their chest. This body language speaks volumes. It says, “Look, bud, I’ll watch, but I’m skeptical. Show me whatcha got, but don’t expect me to believe it.”

Obviously, no one likes to be deceived. However, it’s equally true that most people love to be dazzled. And the thing about great magicians is that they are skilled at the art of deception in such a way that it ultimately leaves their viewers feeling dazzled.

In the end, when the magic is magnificent people not only forgive the deception, they forget it completely. It becomes irrelevant. Instead, we revel with delight in the performance.

Reflecting on this got me to thinking about the parallels between magic and marketing. Although there is hopefully no real deception involved in authentic marketing, people often assume marketers are deceitful advertisers who prey on the unsuspecting minds of potential customers.

Simply put, even when marketers are 100% honest some people will listen with metaphoric arms folded across their chest and expect to be swindled into buying something they don’t need.

But you have to promote yourself, right? So how do you deal with the unfair assumption that you’re deceiving people?

You have to perform some magic. You have to dazzle your audience with solid examples from real life that demonstrate how your services help others succeed. This is called “social proof” because it proves that your services do what you say they will do.

Let me give you an example. A few weeks ago I was invited to teach a 3-hour marketing class at a local university. The class was comprised of psychology PhD students. They were spiritually conscious people who planned to be counselors.

They were also skeptical of marketing. One student even told me he felt all marketers are deceitful liars.

It was my job to help these students see the positive side of marketing. No small task.

Anyway, after giving a thorough overview of marketing basics, the main teacher asked me to give examples of how my spiritually conscious, counselor-type clients have put my marketing techniques to good use.

It felt like a challenge. The silent message was, “Talk is cheap. Show me how this really works.”

For a minute I was stumped. I hadn’t come prepared with stories and my mind temporarily went blank. “Have none of my clients succeeded?” I thought to myself, nervously. There I stood, with a room full of eyes staring at me. I knew I had to find a good story. I knew I had to pull a rabbit out of my invisible hat.

Fortunately, that’s exactly what happened. As my clients’ success stories fell into place, I was able to share with them how one of my clients, a spiritual counselor, increased her email list from 5000 to 33,000 people (in a very short period of time) and started having near six-figure teleseminar programs after implementing the marketing techniques she learned in my program.

I then proceeded to outline everything this client did to market her work.

I talked about the free telesummit she offered that gave her community tremendous value. There was no deception in that, only heartfelt offering.

I talked about how she collaborated with others to help spread the word about her offer. (So she didn’t have to do all of the outreach and marketing herself.) There was no deception in that, only honest communication.

And finally, I talked about how she quickly launched a related program right after the free telesummit that attracted a large and excited – paying – audience. There was definitely no deception in that. These people simply wanted more of a good thing, and they were willing to pay for it.

I emphasized how this woman shared her work, authentically and from the heart, in such a way that she was able to make money as a spiritual counselor.

Suddenly everything I’d been teaching about marketing felt more relevant to the Ph.D. students. I could feel the tension drop and the excitement mount. The teacher even said, “Wow. We could do this for our school. How much do you charge for marketing work?”

The class went from feeling uncomfortable to feeling dazzled. They could see that deceit didn’t have to be part of the marketing agenda. They saw how they could offer interesting, fun and valuable gifts to their community and make money at the same time. By using my clients’ success stories as examples I was able to give them “social proof” that marketing can be 1) authentic and 2) effective for spiritual counselors.

Sadly, when many counselors, coaches, guides, etc. market their work they often feel like they are playing the role of magician and that “getting clients” means being good at the art of deception.

But in truth, being a magician is also about the art of transforming skeptics into believers. When you promote your work you can do the same thing by sharing true, compelling stories that demonstrate the value of your services. This is your magic show. When you do this well, skeptics will turn into believers who will forget they ever doubted you.