Many political pundits underestimated Donald Trump, mistaking Trump’s lack of political experience for a lack of talent and skills. Even today, many critics fail to understand how 9 political leadership tactics have powered Trump‘s business and political career.
- Self-Promotion and Media Management: dominating the news cycle through “engagement”. Trump’s self-promotion skills were a key differentiator when the Republican Primary had 17 candidates. Had there only been 3 candidates in the primary it would have allowed other candidates to compete more on substance, drawing attention to his empty healthcare policy. With 17 candidates, the contest worked against those who were weaker at self-promotion.
- Salesmanship/Marketing of a certain type: Trump appears to become what you want him to be. Once he identifies his “mark’s” most core desires– what they are willing to sell their soul for– he could “shoot someone in the middle of 5th aveue and they will still support him”
- Looking out for #1: getting others to take the fall. Trump’s associates often try to protect him from the consequences of his actions. Inevitably, it is the associates who end up getting hurt (H.R. McMaster). When he borrows money, it is the lenders, contractors, and employees who suffer, while Trump maneuvers through bankruptcy.
- Avoiding Accountability: moving goal posts, and making excuses. If people attempt to try to hold Trump to account, even if it is a promise he made himself, such as releasing his big beautiful tax returns, he will move the goalposts, for instance, by suggesting that Hillary need to first release her emails. A later excuse was that he can’t release his tax returns because his was under audit, even though that is not true — Nixon release his when he was under audit. In actuality the audit threat was not a legal barrier he faced, but a fear that a new audit might be initiated were his tax returns to face the harsh disinfectant of sunlight.
- Attacking the Referees: Trump has seldom been accountable to anyone. Trump so frustrated his father, that Fred Sr sent him to military school. Ever since that experience of accountability, he has run his own business, reporting to no one. As president, the media represents a source of accountability that he can not abide. While in New York, Trump found he could manipulate the tabloids to his own purposes. He expected the national political press to work the same way, but has been dismayed to find that they can not all be co opted as easily as the New York Tabloids.
- Fighting Spirit: Always Attack and Double Down: He learned from Roy Cohn: Never admit you were wrong. Always go on offense and double down.
- Identifying and Insulting Weakness in Rivals
- Using Conflict for his own purposes
- Channeling Fear and Grievances, often on scapegoats
Seth Godin: Life, the Internet, and Everything
I’m thrilled that almost everyone I meet has no idea who I am and what I do. Because I don’t want lots of people showing up and saying, “I read this, I read this, I read this. Can I have your autograph?” That’s not the point. The point is, will someone come up to me and say, based on what I learned from you I taught 10 other people to do this, and we made something that mattered.
.. Whereas, the other way to think about it is, how few people can I influence and still be able to do this tomorrow? Because if we can influence just enough people to keep getting the privilege to do it, then tomorrow there’ll be even more people. Because we’re doing something genuine that connects, as opposed to doing something fake that’s entertainment.
.. Oprah Winfrey problem, which is that every writer who wanted to make an impact 15 years ago dreamed that Oprah would pick them.
In a media-saturated world, we want to get picked. Like you, every day people show up to me and say, “pick me, put me on your blog.” If you would just talk about me, then my art will reach everyone I want to reach. But if we distinguish that from Darwin, the first lizard that crawled out of the mud and started walking on legs didn’t say to the media, “please pick me so that more for walking lizards could come along.” That’s not the way it worked; it’s bottom-up. So what I say to people is, I’m not in charge of what’s good. I don’t get to pick what’s a purple cow, what’s remarkable — anything. The world is, the bottom is, everybody, I’m on the bottom too, everyone is. So tell 10 people. There are 10 people who trust you enough to listen. And if you tell your thing to 10 people, if you send your e-book to 10 people, if you do your sermon to 10 people, or show your product to 10 people and none of them want to tell their friends, and none of them are changed — then you failed. You didn’t really understand what was good. But if some of them tell their friends, then they’ll tell their friends, and that’s how ideas spread. It’s this 10 at a time — 10 by 10 by 10. How do you put an idea in the world that resonates enough with people if they trust you enough to hear it. Then it can go to the next step and the next step.
.. I don’t have employees, so that way I don’t have meetings. I don’t spend time on Facebook and Twitter because that would be a huge suck of my time, and I could deny that I was wasting time, because everyone does it. The challenge for me with technology is this leveraging me in a way that makes me uncomfortable — that puts me in a spot where I have to dig deeper to do the work that I’ll be proud of. If that’s what it does, that’s what I want.
MS. TIPPETT: So your answer, if it’s harder, what did you say? If it’s challenging…
MR. GODIN: Right. If the leverage makes it harder for me to do that thing I’m defining as art, then I want to do it. The Kickstarter project I did — I did it because it was interesting, not because it was a financially important thing.
MS. TIPPETT: To raise the money for The Icarus Deception?
MR. GODIN: Right. But it wasn’t to raise money; it was to raise a tribe, to get 4,500 people to say, “we haven’t read it yet, but we trust you, go write it.”
.. Now those are pretty high stakes. And it meant I didn’t have any excuses left. I couldn’t say, well my editor wouldn’t let me do it, or my publisher wouldn’t let me do it because they weren’t a factor. It meant that these people trusted me and gave me a tool that could bring it straight to them. That raises the stakes.
.. the opportunity for each of us to be artists is that it’s precisely when you are doing something that no one has done before that you are not going to get the loudest applause, that you will not get picked. And that then requires us to develop some different kinds of internal resources. Right? I mean, how do we internally have faith in what we care about?
100 of the most powerful marketing words.
1. Guarantee
2. Sale
3. Unconditional
4. Promise
5. Risk-free
6. Pledge
7. Now *
8. Expires
9. Quick *
10. Instantaneously
11. Immediately
12. Soon
13. Hurry *
14. Instantly
15. Suddenly *
16. Going-fast
17. Minute
18. Second
19. Last
20. Bargain *
21. Easy *
22. Best-seller
23. Satisfaction
24. Simple
25. Smooth
26. Painless
27. Light
28. no-fuss
29. Cinch
30. Straight-forward
31. Success
32. Ironclad
33. Safe
34. money-back
35. Protected
36. Privacy
37. Tested
38. State-of-the-art
39. Invite-only
40. Fresh
41. Hand-crafted
42. Small-batches
43. Pristine
44. Spick-and-span
45. Brand-new
46. Premium
47. luxurious
48. Wealthy
49. Secret
50. Limited
51. Rare
52. Few
53. Edition
54. Unique
55. Exotic
56. Select
57. Authentic
58. Model
59. Revolutionary *
60. Extraordinary
61. Amazing *
62. Remarkable *
63. Startling *
64. Sensational *
65. Magic *
66. Miracle *
67. You
68. Improvement *
69. Results
70. Announcing *
71. Start
72. Stop
73. Running
74. Deal
75. Introducing *
76. Offer *
77. Compare *
78. Challenge *
79. Wanted *
80. Discover
81. Release
82. Soon
83. Dazzling
84. Ravishing
85. Brilliant
86. Honeyed
87. Compelling
88. Ultra
89. Plethora
90. Unicorn
91. Zesty
92. Cosmic
93. Supernova
94. Killjoy
95. Bulletproof
96. Staggering
97. Titanic
98. God-speed
99. Smashing
100. Triumph
The psychology of selling.
An in-depth look at why people buy what they buy.
At the most basic level, it’s important to understand that most people buy for one of two reason — they buy to move closer to pleasure or to move further away from pain.
.. People don’t buy a cherry red Maserati because it’s the logical thing to do — they buy it because it’s makes them feel something.
The same can be said for a $10,000 speaker system or a $500 pair of Denim Jeans or a $300 plate of caviar or a $1,000/night stay at a luxurious resort.
These decisions aren’t logical, they’re emotionally driven.
.. So, when selling a product that is pleasurable to your customer, be sure to consider triggering their emotions. Make them feel something.
.. People justify their purchases with logic.
In the previous section we discussed that when people make purchases to move them closer to pleasure they will make their buying decisions based off emotion.
.. When Mark goes out and makes the emotionally charged decision of spending $60,000 on a brand new Maserati, sooner or later he will have to answer the question, “Mark, why the hell did you spend a small fortune on a cherry red Maserati?”
This is where the concept of logic enters into the picture. Generally speaking, while people make emotional buying decisions, they will justify their purchases with logic.
.. People buy because other people buy.
.. There is a reason products “trend” on Amazon, they become increasingly popular as more people use them, wear them and show them off.
.. what’s very interesting about this concept of trust is that 84% of online shoppers are now trusting product reviews as much as recommendations from their actual friends.
.. As a marketer, be very aware of what your customer’s are saying both online and offline about your product or service. Not to mention, create products or services that are easily-shareable to strengthen their chances of going viral.
.. Ask your customers how they feel when they use your product. Pay extra close attention to the words and emotions they describe. Recycle their words and feelings and enhance them in your marketing messaging.
.. You need to find out the logic behind buying whatever you’re selling. I would start by asking your customers the following question — our product is kind of expensive, why did you spend your hard earned money on it? Their answer(s) will be heavily factual. They won’t say “because I love it and it makes me feel good”. They’ll be more likely to say something like “because it had features A, B and C and because it solved this specific problem.” Yes, this question will be a bit abrasive, but it is important. It puts the customer in the hot seat much in the same way if they were asked by a friend or family member. Once you’ve established the logical reasons for buying your product or service, this should also be included in your marketing messaging.