What follows below is the original email, his selected best response, my comments on that response, and my response.

I’m still plugging away at the tiny house (see the previous update post) but I figured I could post this since it was almost already written.

First, Harlan’s email to the list:

From: Harlan Kilstein

To: Louis

Sent: Mon, June 21, 2010 6:25:12 AM

Subject: Blue Balls and NLP – The Email Contest

Sometimes, I like to share a work in progress with you guys.

This is an email I sent out today to my list.

And I thought I’d have a contest.

The best explanation of what I am doing here wins a free copy of my book – Steal This Book. It’s $197 selling price so start your engines.

Just email me your thoughts by Midnight tonight and I’ll pick a winner.

I share your name publicly tomorrow.

Subject Line: Blue Balls. Not What You Expect.

You are receiving this email because you signed up at The Hypnotic Secret.com

The news out of Rome is shocking.

Italian police have seized 70,000 balls of mozzarella cheese because they turned blue when the packages opened.

The police and the agriculture ministry are investigating the world’s largest case of blue balls.

You see, mozzarella cheese is the pride of Italy.

They serve it on everything for pizza to salads. They probably even have mozzarella gelato.

And it it’s turning blue…

Could it be poison?

But Italians were shocked this weekend to discover their “Italian” mozzarella cheese isn’t really mozzarella.

And it isn’t really Italian either.

Real mozzarella cheese in Italy is made from buffalo milk.

This stuff is not.

And it’s not made in Italy either. It’s imported and re-packaged.

It’s shocking when you realize something you trusted isn’t what you expected.

It’s the same way with The Secret.

THEY CHANGED THE LAW OF ATTRACTION TO MAKE IT GO OVER WITH THE PUBLIC.

Now don’t get me wrong, teaching people about the Law of Attraction is great.

Changing it and diluting it is not.

And when you start changing the ingredients without telling anyone.

You don’t get results. You get blue balls of mozzarella.

What Rhoda Bryne did was re-write the Law of Attraction to fit her image.

She took Esther Hicks out and left her on the editing floor.

And she took out all mention of taking action.

You were left with ask, believe, receive.

Whoops!

What happened to take action? It’s not there anymore!

And that’s why so many people don’t get results with The Secret.

So if you want the real deal, take action now.

Click here to get The Hypnotic Secret.

It’s the real deal.

http://thehypnoticsecret.com/secret/index2

Peace,

Harlan

Here’s the response he chose as the winner (posted here):

Harlan, here’s what you’re doing in the great e-mail you sent out today.

1 – Pattern interrupt: the subject line starts with “Blue Balls,” which interrupts the readers’ patterns when the readers are scanning their e-mail in-box. “Blue balls” is a slang phrase relating to sex, and sex grabs the readers’ attention if the readers understand the phrase. Plus, since you are very religious, a subject line starting with a slang phrase relating to sex surprises me much more than it would if the e-mail were coming from, for example, a sports blogger. So the subject line grabs the readers’ attention and forces them to open the e-mail, regardless of how busy they might be.

2 – Humor, to get the readers on your side: you retell the news story about the tainted cheese in a way that makes the story much funnier, because it’s you, not the regular news stories, that refer to the tainted cheese as “blue balls.” So you reward the readers for reading by giving us readers a good laugh.

3 – Making clear the point of your retelling the cheese story: you highlight, in ways the news agencies did not, how the tainted cheese is fake and how, even if it were not tainted, it would still be disappointing, because it says it is made in Italy but was really made in Germany and calls itself mozzarella although it contains no buffalo milk. So you emphasize how much of a forgery the tainted cheese it.

4 – Metaphor: You use the metaphor of the fake cheese to introduce the important way in which Rhonda Byrne’s book and film The Secret changed the Law of Attraction to make her book and film sell more copies than it would if she had told the truth about the Law of Attraction. And because you related The Secret to the fake cheese, which is also tainted, your readers will infer that The Secret is tainted, too, in its own way.

5 – Problem and agitate: You have revealed a key fact: that The Secret is a fake version of the Law of Attraction, and The Secret cannot teach anyone how to succeed with the Law of Attraction. You have revealed a problem that all readers and viewers of The Secret will encounter. Then you have agitated to make those readers and viewers feel cheated and lied to.

5 – Solution: You present the solution, which is YOUR fine product, The Hypnotic Secret.

6 – “Tell them what to do”: You have revealed that what is missing from The Secret is the necessity to take action. Then you tell your readers to practice the Law of Attraction by taking action to get the REAL guide to implementing the Law of Attraction, and that real guide happens to be your product, The Hypnotic Secret.

Although I bought The Hypnotic Secret as soon as I received your first e-mail about it, today’s e-mail about Blue Balls is so good I want to buy The Hypnotic Secret all over again!

Sincerely,

Lee Marcus

The blog post then goes on to recap and tell you to buy more of Harlan’s stuff.

Here are my comments on the winner’s response:

1. Email isn’t a pattern interrupt unless you have it dinging you every time you get one. The classic pattern interrupt is to ask someone if they smell popcorn in the middle of a conversation. The title is a standard curiosity builder. It’s effective but not NLP.
2. Everything I’ve ever heard says to stay away from humor in your copy. Plus, I didn’t see it as terribly funny either. Interest provoking – very much so. Funny – not so much. Maybe I’m just the wrong demographic.
3. Now that I’m rereading it, I’m not sure what the 3rd point is saying. I think it’s just that he told a story. Not NLP.
4. Metaphor, yes. That’s the big one.
5. True, there’s problem and agitation, but that’s not NLP.
6. (Second 5) Yes, there’s a solution but that’s not NLP either.
7. (6) It’s a call to action. Not subtle or elegant at all and not NLP.

Much of the most valuable feedback I’ve received in my life has been in areas of improvement. I included that in my response but found it curious that the winning response read more like a product testimonial.

My response is here:

Harlan,

I got your email. I’ve read it over and here’s what I think you’re doing:

Your headline provokes curiosity but then has a double meaning not evident until you’ve read the email.

The “Not What You Expect” is a mind read because as soon as the person sees blue balls, they’re thinking that can’t be what it would mean in a more commonly used context. The second meaning is the therapeutic metaphor you use. It’s also an embedded suggestion (not quite a command). There’s also a presupposition that they are expecting something which they will be after reading it.

Your first line is a pacing statement. Hopefully they recall being on your list and if not, now they do.

I’m not sure whether your only hyperlinking the “Secret.com” was intentional or not. If so, it might be to foreshadow “The Secret” to which you later refer.

You then use a current event as a therapeutic metaphor. You also leave out a lot of details that are in the BBC article on it such as the fact that the cheese in question comes from Germany and they suspect it’s a non-toxic bacteria but are testing it to make sure. Leaving those details out (deletion) lets the reader assume the worst – that it might be poison as you suggest or that it was artificially manufactured in some third world country.

Through your metaphor, you’re mapping it onto people’s experience with “The Secret”. Blue balls becomes the “fraud” surrounding “The Secret.” This list probably prides themselves in their belief and use of the secret to everything including their gelato. I never came across mozzarella gelato when I lived in Italy and your readers probably suspect no such thing exists too. But that sets a context where they can think their interest in “The Secret” is normal by comparison. And you’ve set a generalized referential index by talking about Italians which are just a more specific “they” which are really “us” and “me.”

You transition to “The Secret” with the line about something you trusted not being what you expected. You do a time pattern starting in present tense “It’s” and “realize” (also a leading statement) while ending in past tense “trusted” and “expected”. The suggestion is that you now realize you no longer trust the old stuff and need a new paradigm (i.e. your product).

The transition applies to both the metaphor and your point with “The Secret.” The reader doesn’t notice the transition though until you come out and say it’s the same thing. You talk about changing it to go over with the public. That allows the reader to sit there and think, “yeah, they didn’t teach it right.” You don’t say that your reader specifically was one of the people that was deceived which would probably offend their intelligence. And even though they can sit there and think they already knew it wasn’t the whole story, they can also realize that they’re now curious about what your take on it is.

For readers who know the background of “The Secret”, you probably lost them a little in next part. First off, you misspelled Rhonda Byrne. You suggest an unsubstantiated ulterior motive (fit her image?). Esther Hicks was actually in the first version of “The Secret” and the real story is more interesting than the version in the email. She wasn’t left on any editing floor. She didn’t feel congruent with the way it was being mass marketed so they created an “extended version” which was exactly the same as the first except they replaced her with a little more footage from one of the other speakers. At least that was all I could find when I researched the subject before. Private opinions are usually different than what can be found online.

I think your closing could be improved. I see the tie-in between the missing ingredient being action and taking action to buy your product. That part works fine. The gap is that if you just revealed what was missing – action – why do they need to buy your product anymore? They can just go take action. Your readers are probably also familiar with Joe Vitale’s work in writing “The Missing Secret” too. Are they now to think that your hypnosis version is better than his? No doubt your differentiate on your landing page but without further investigation, this sounds like a me-too (or rather the more popular – not-me) spin off from “The Secret.”

We all know people buy emotionally but a leap in logic can throw them off course too. Saying action is the missing ingredient so take action and buy my product that will tell you to take action… well, it isn’t a compelling value proposition. If you’ve just told them “The Secret” is right except for taking action then why would they need to spend more money instead of just taking action in their life?

The words you use in your call to action is to tell them it’s the real deal twice and then click the link. If you use the words “click here”, they should be hyperlinked. Otherwise, it should say “click below”.

Overall, good tie to current events, use of curiosity and metaphor. If you make sure the facts you include are accurate and have a stronger call to action, I bet you’ll increase your conversion rates even higher.

Good idea to have a contest for have your readers evaluate your email (and maybe even have a few click through and buy your product or get on that particular list).

Louis

So what do you think? Was I off base offering points for improvement? Did the winning response offer better content?

Also, if you happen to know any of the major publishers or anyone else looking to hire a direct response copywriter with an NLP advantage, let me know that too at writing@louisrburns.com.

The letter is here:

www.louisrburns.com/writing

Let me know which techniques you recognize.

And of course if you’d like to learn NLP copywriting, hop over to my course:

http://hypnoticwriter.org

The reason I didn’t go into depth last time was that I was also using that post for article marketing. I wanted to give you, my dear blog reader, a more exclusive look.

Also, as a disclaimer, let me say I haven’t reviewed the actual course. My comments here are based on the sales letter and his “Confessions of a Hypnotist” book.

The page I referenced is here:

Jonathan Royle’s NLP Master Practioner Course

The paragraph I was referring to came about 1/4th of the way down the page after the subhead:

HOW BAD DO YOU FEEL FOR MISSING THIS COURSE?

You can look and see the rest of the blatant attempt at manipulation there. I want to point out a couple of other observations I had in reading his sales letter.

Hypnotic writing aside, there are a few basic copywriting issues with this letter. Namely, 1) poor headline, 2) fonts are all the wrong shapes and sizes and 3) unconvincing testimonials.

Poor Headline

Here’s the headline:

YOU ARE ABOUT TO SAVE MANY THOUSANDS OF ££££ – $$$$ ON OTHER INFERIOR – LONG WINDED AND OVERPRICED NLP MASTER PRACTITIONER COURSES AND YOU’LL SAVE A FORTUNE ON TRAVEL & ACCOMODATION COSTS WHILST ALSO LEARNING SECRETS NEVER BEFORE TAUGHT ON ANY OTHER NLP MASTER PRACTITIONER COURSE – SO FOR YOUR FUTURE HAPPINESS AND SUCCESS YOU WOULD BE WISE TO READ ON…

First off, the headline is too long. It’s a paragraph rather than a headline. One marketer who did extensive testing said the outer length of a headline can’t be past 131 characters and this one is 353. Ironically, he’s comparing his product to the others by calling them “long winded.”

Secondly, never put your whole headline in all caps. Caps mean you’re shouting. You can put individual words or phrases in caps for emphasis (or maybe to embed a command) but not whole sentences and definitely not for a whole paragraph.

Finally, the benefit statement is weak. To sum it up, he’s saying save money and my course is better and save money and I’ll tell you secrets you won’t hear anywhere else and you better buy it because you won’t be happy if you don’t. Hmm… really? Some questions then come to mind:

• People know you typically get what you pay for. Why is he selling something that you might expect to pay thousands for for 150 pounds?
• How did he compress weeks into a weekend? (Not answered in the sales letter either)
• What kind of secrets could only he know? (Turns out, probably nothing he didn’t repackage and/or rename himself)
• How does this compare to a legitimate master practitioner course?

Now typically, you want to generate curiosity with a headline. This one though generates questions all right… but the skeptical kind, not the interestingly curious kind.

Inappropriate Formatting

People who have tested fonts will tell you the bigger, the better for headlines. In my Firefox browser, the headline looks the same size as the body copy.

Typically, you’ll want your subheads to be smaller than your headline but larger than your body copy. Again, in my browser, the subheads look bigger than both.

For readability, you usually don’t want paragraphs to be longer than 4 lines. One line is okay here and there especially if that line is a complete idea. I count one paragraph with 11 lines in it. Scanning through the letter you see that about half the paragraphs are more than 4 lines.

Also, you want to use a san-serif font for  headlines and subheads and serif font for body copy. The default on Microsoft Word is the opposite of that and that’s what this letter did as well. Serif fonts are what you see in books and newspapers and what we’re used to seeing in paragraphs. San-serif is slightly faster to read because there are less shapes involved for your eye to identify. That’s probably why they’re for headlines.

Testimonials

When I first read this letter, there was one thing I wanted to see in the sales letter AND backed up by a testimonial… how does this course compare to accredited NLP practitioner courses? While the letter talks about a regional UK accreditation (which I wasn’t able to locate in Google),  no one in a testimonial says it’s better than real NLP courses.

Here’s what the sales letter says to that effect:

Some of the delegates were already ANLPTA and ANLP approved & certified NLP Practitioners, Master Practitioners and Trainers, and even many of them made comments such as “Blimey I would never have thought it would be possible to learn NLP & Hypnotherapy to this level in just two days if I had not seen it with my own eyes, what’s even more amazing is that I learnt more from Royle in the past two days than I ever did on my original “Approved” NLP course which took Seven days for the first level of training alone!”

No one is quoted. None of the testimonials are from anyone with an NLP designation following their name. In fact, they’re many if not all the same testimonials he uses for all of his products.

He uses the argument that even NLP Trainers attended his seminar. What that’s an argument for is that NLP Trainers understand the value of continuing their education, not that his course was better than accredited versions.

His Book

A final piece of evidence I have was that I read his way too long book, “Confessions of a Hypnotist.” While the personal anecdotes are entertaining, I was left feeling he has a limited understanding of NLP. His forte is as a stage hypnotist. His only reference for learning NLP was to read Tony Robbins. Tony’s stuff is good but it’s far from the gold standard for NLP.

Overall, I’d say Jonathan Royal may be one of the closest things we have to a modern day PT Barnum. He does crazy stuff for public relations which was Barnum’s most well known attribute. No doubt he’s a good stage hypnotist. I have serious doubts though that his master practitioner course reviewed here is worth the money you’d pay.

And if you’re thinking of taking NLP courses to buff up on your marketing, look no further. My “Be A Hypnotic Writer” home study course includes all of that for a marketing context. To get the first lesson free, go to:

http://hypnoticwriter.org

For instance, one of the most widely known patterns are embedded commands. They work in spoken language because some words and phrases can have two or more meanings and your subconscious can recognize both.

The most obvious use of this is when writers use the phrase, “By now…” With that, they’re hoping your subconscious will take the suggestion, “Buy now.” That might work in person depending on a bunch of factors (voice inflection being the most important), it won’t achieve the same result in writing.

For a more involved example from the seminar “Persuasion Engineering,” John La Valle tells a story. It’s about how his young son came up to him and said, “When is now a good time to get me some ice cream, isn’t it?”

Clearly, the command is that now is a good time to get him ice cream. In speech, when you embed a command in a question like that it’s more likely to go unnoticed. And if it IS noticed, you can pretend you said something else.

As you were reading that ice cream command, did you have to go back and read it again? If so, it’s because it’s not grammatically correct. Also, in writing, you CAN go back and read it again so people will catch you if you’re not much more subtle.

This applies to all hypnosis and NLP. You can say and do things in person that simply won’t work in writing. You could speak in continuous run-on sentences. If you did, the transcript would be a mess.

“Notice how sad you start to feel inside, as you realise that no other course or training on the market has ever (or will ever) teach you the True Inside Secrets of NLP, CMT and Clinical Hypnotherapy in the way this course would have done ? How Sad does that make you feel?”

If someone did this to you in person, you probably couldn’t help but go along with it especially if the person had been talking for a while already and established some good rapport.

But here you see it and immediately catch on what he’s trying to do. “How Sad does that make you feel?” Really? How do you feel seeing IN PRINT that someone is callously trying to make you feel bad so you’ll purchase his course? You’d probably feel something like irritation, not sadness.

If you want to achieve stellar results with hypnotic writing, you have to help people feel good in a way that doesn’t feel obviously manipulative. That’s where the real power is.

Realize that hypnotic writing is substantially different than spoken hypnosis or NLP. Take the time to learn elegance and you’ll be well on your way to greatness.

You can learn elegance by reading this blog over time. If you’d like to get everything I know altogether, check out my course, “Be A Hypnotic Writer.” The first lesson is free:

http://hypnoticwriter.org

Typically, I feel like he’s overstating the case or violates the intent of hypnotic writing which is to be elegant in your persuasion. He doesn’t allow comments or I would have posted there. His loss, your gain.

He posted on Asking Obvious Questions to Plant Doubts today.

The part I want to draw your attention to is the two questions he uses and the conclusions he draws from the distinctions.

He says to leave out modal operators (could, would, should) and conditionals (if) in favor of declarative statements using the two examples:

• What would you do if the economy collapses?
• What will you do when the economy collapses?

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you may recall that it’s usually best to avoid asking questions at all. In person (as NLP is taught) it’s encouraged as it controls attention. In writing, you’re giving an opportunity to lose focus or interest.

The issue that isn’t addressed in saying the first question is more powerful than the second is the effect on the reader.

As a reader my personal responses to the respective sentences are:

• Hmm. I wonder what it would take for the economy to collapse.
• Yeah right. He’s just scare mongering to get me to part with my cash.

The second probably isn’t a response you want your reader to have. People aren’t simply passively agreeing with everything you say.

It’s much more elegant to mind read instead. For example:

I’m wondering about your plan for the looming economic collapse.

He goes on to give examples that seem like they’re intentionally written to provoke a negative response. For example:

“Would you hire a window washer to do your taxes? Then why would you hire an ad agency copywriter to write your website copy?”

The both questions put the reader in a “no” state. That may not be the best approach if you’re trying to get someone to eventually agree with you.

If I’m reading that as someone who might hire a copywriter, I’d think this person has very little connection to logical reality and pass. Or maybe that he’s insulting my intelligence. I’m likely to start arguing with him in my mind.

For more effective writing, calibrate what you want to convey. Make it elegant so that you avoid creating unnecessary resistance. Remember that people just want to feel good.

For more on modal operators, see Steve Andreas’ article on it:

http://www.inspiritive.com.au/article_Andreas_modal.htm

As chair, I took a large role in the marketing as you can imagine. Our typical attendance over the past few years has been 80-100 people. Most of those conference lost a substantial amount of money. We budgeted for 125. People were saying we were too optimistic and needed to make plans for what to do if fewer people showed up.

I put NLP marketing to the test… and we ended up with 202 paid registrations. I credit much of that to the quality of the speakers, the offer we created and that we focused on creating a good value for people. Of course people wouldn’t have known about all that without the marketing.

You might be surprised to know we had no budget for marketing. We’re a non-profit. We were supposed to break even for the conference when it was all said and done. So far, we’ve made a profit and will have more money coming in from audio recordings we’ll be offering our members. Our biggest problem now is what to do with the extra money so we can bring it back down to break even.

This event consumed most of my time the past couple of months. I should be done with all the final wrap ups in the next couple of weeks.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on a model for graphic design. I’m actually meeting with my exemplar for the last look at the model to make sure it’s all an accurate representation of what she does. It includes everything from project planning and management to what she actually does to make it look good. I’ve learned a lot about it myself.

I’m also going to be working on a model of using violence to save your life. I realize it’s not marketing but I’ve had an interest in self defense for years. I’ve found a couple of fighting systems that are principle rather than technique based so I can model them. The trick to this one will be connecting kinesthetic knowledge through hearing. I think as long as it’s anchored to movements the listener is already familiar with, it will work. One idea I’ve been wondering about is whether “muscle memory” is simply subconscious knowledge.

I’m thinking of doing another business skill after that. I haven’t settled on one in particular so if you have any preferences, let me know – either comment or email me.

That’s all for now.

Louis

PS. If you’re wondering how I got so many links to my prior post, I submitted it to a bunch of blog carnivals. I’ll do that again for the next post with more universal appeal.

If you have the option, it’s usually better to tell people what they can do rather than can’t. Here are 3 examples:

I was just reading an e-book titled, “The Top Ten Secrets of Instant Wealth” by Salad Seminars CEO Jamie Smart. He encourages sharing it so here it is (pdf). Normally I would pass over anything like that but I’ve recently acquired two sets of Salad playing cards (the Ericksonian Hypnosis and Persuasion decks). I highly recommend the cards for acquiring a spontaneity to creating your hypnotic language. I got mine on Amazon.com.

Jamie talks about asking better questions for wealth. Instead seeing something and saying, “I can’t afford it,” he suggests asking, “How can I afford it?” The glass being half full significantly affects your attitude as it will with your audience.

The second example is that I sometimes see marketers bad mouth “hypnotic techniques.” Here’s a quote from an article in the Early to Rise e-zine (July 31st Issue):

“Don’t try to be a copywriter. Just explain what you’ve got and why anyone should care – and then just get out of the way.

“In other words, don’t mess around with mystical, manipulative tactics that are supposed to magically vacuum money out of your prospects’ wallets while they grin stupidly in a hypnotic trance.

“Just talk to people. Be interesting. Be respectful of their time. Share value. Make your pitch. And shut up.”

The point I think the author was trying to make was to not make the amateur mistake of making it sound like you’re trying too hard or using hype. He’s telling you to do exactly what a copywriter tries to do but then starts out telling you not to try to be a copywriter.

The reason I point this out as an example is that I see this kind of attitude toward NLP copywriting now and then and realize the glass is still at least one tenth full. The full part is that this guy must not understand how to use hypnotic writing or how much it could improve his persuasive ability. That just means more opportunity for those of us who do.

The last example was the one that prompted this post. I went to see The Dark Knight at our local IMAX last week. It’s inside a state history museum. While everyone was waiting in line, one of the museum employees made an announcement with an interesting one tenth full twist.

He announced that food and drinks were allowed in the theater as long as they were water with screw top bottles and candy bars still sealed in their wrappers. There’s no doubt that this approach was better received than telling people that no food or drinks were allowed except bottled water.

It reminds me of the saying attributed to Henry Ford that you could have any color of Model-T car as long as it was black.

I don’t know how many people noticed the approach at the museum but I found it humorous. That was actually much less than one tenth full but you get the point… be affirmative as much as possible for best results.

I think we got a couple of inquiries and only one person came over to look at it. We ended up renting to a brother of one of the current residents.

Since then, I’ve learned what I know about hypnotic writing. I only went to Harlan’s NLP Copywriting seminar last September.

Several weeks ago I posted another ad for a roommate. This time I got 17 email responses in about 24 hours before I took the ad down because I didn’t want any more responses. I invited 8 of those to come look at our place… and they all showed up. Most of those would have been fine but our first choice seemed the most excited (and oddly beyond coincidence) so that’s who we went with.

I post the two ads below to show the differences in “creative” type ad writing and hypnotic writing that uses pacing and leading and quite a bit of Milton modeling. Rereading that first ad, I think I was trying to be humorous to sound more like a real person… keep Austin weird [a local motto] style. It feels like I was trying too hard when I see it again now.

The hypnotic ad is more about creating an internal experience for the reader. Of course the numbers also reflect things like the month, the current real estate market, etc.

Another difference on the second ad is that I got email inquiries with subject lines, “room for rent sounds perfect” and “my imagination is excited.”

Non-hypnotic 1st ad:

$$$$ All Bills Included- 3 Roommates Seek a 4th For A Brentwood 4-2

We are three 20 something males. We’re mostly quiet professional types. We all keep the place pretty clean. We’re smoke and drug free but drink in moderation.

We’re located in the Brentwood neighborhood and a short walk to the #1 bus route on Lamar, a coffee shop, fast food, and McCallum High School. We’re right between 35/183/Mopac. We have all the dishes we need. We have a basketball hoop in the driveway and a set of kettlebells. There’s one year old carpet throughout. You’d share a bathroom with an almost compulsively clean guy.

We share wireless internet and we split the cost of cleaning supplies/TP/paper towels. The walls are fairly thin so if you like to crank up the stereo all the time or have screaming nightmares, this probably isn’t a good fit. The living room will accommodate up to around 25 people for social gatherings. We don’t have or plan to get a TV. The room is in the back, unfurnished and has 2 large windows.

There’s no deposit and it’s available June 1. The landlord wants a one year lease. He’s pretty quick about fixing things.

The recent hypnotic ad:

$$$$ bills included – a home and private room (NW side of Lamar/2222)

Imagine a quiet neighborhood… you rocking on the porch, enjoying the large shade tree in front or the basketball hoop out back. Or perhaps you’d enjoy seasonal roses or pomegranates.

The Lamar bus stop, a coffee shop, a neighborhood park and fast food are all a short walk away. Our neighborhood, Brentwood, ranks as one of the best neighborhoods in Austin. We’re close to it all… 183, 35, Mopac, UT or downtown.

Inside… a large living room, antique coffee table, wi-fi, modern appliances, gas burners, two refrigerators, pool table, guitar hero, kettlebell set, Kirby vacuum and ample cooking space. There are 4 rooms and 2 shared bathrooms.

The roommates… easy going guys aged 27-30, clean and considerate. We often savor a good brew. Both guy or girl are fine for us.

The landlord… pays all bills except internet. He works out leases on a personal basis.

The room is around 10′ x 12′ including 2 large windows facing east and south. Small, confined pets are fine.

The room is available August 1st.

Email to arrange a tour.

What else do you notice between these two ads?

He said the following headline had at least 8 presuppositions:

How Many Of These Secret Thai Chicken Recipes Have You Tasted So Far?

See how many you can find before you look at the way I unpack it…

***********************************************

1. There are such things as recipes.
2. There are more than one ("how many")
3. It’s possible to taste them.
4. You’ve tasted some.
5. You’ll taste more in the future.
6. They are chicken recipes.
7. They’re Thai recipes.
8. They’re secret recipes.
9. You’ll find out what the recipes are ("these").

How did you do?

The reason you might want to do this in a headline is the idea of the mind being able to keep track of 7 (+/- 2) chunks of information at a time. No doubt some of the chunks will already be in use just by the activity of reading. If they can’t distinguish something as a separate piece of info, they’ll generally accept it without question.

Fortunately, there’s not much in the headline that anyone would object to anyway. Maybe a reader could ask if there really are secret Thai chicken recipes. I mean secret recipes? It’s not like they’re KFC or Coke with a secret formula, right? But then if you’ve taken up the remaining slots available to separate things out, they won’t even notice there could be something worth objecting to.

Of course that’s something else that needs to be calibrated and tested. You’re not going to an elephant into the living room without anyone noticing just because you used a bunch of presuppositions.

I only had a few hours until I was to make the announcement (due to procrastination on my part) and most of that time was already accounted for in other events.

I decided to throw some patterns in there anyway just to see what would happen.

Here’s what I scratched together on 3 pocket sized spiral note pad pages:

Do you… remember a time when learning was fun.

You’re excited and fascinated with both the journey and the destination.

Imagine a day devoted to your improvement. Do you want to…

• Improve your voice
• Relax your body
• Iron out internal resistance
• Resolve external conflict
• Align yourself with what you really want out of life

The theme of the fall conference is, "Your Best Self Ever."

We’re taking a value based approach where you could easily pay the full price just to hear any of the speakers we have lined up. It will be a one day conference.

As you’re getting your [registration] fliers, you’re probably already thinking about other members who’d like to come as well.

Then I talked about how to sign up and who to give the money to.

Did it work? Who knows. We had more than the usual number of early registrations but that could have as easily been due to the fact that the price was lower than usual and the value was higher than usual. It was fun trying it out.