“Maybe If I Watched It From The Beginning I’d Cry”

The other night my wife was flipping through the old movie channels while I worked on my laptop in the living room. You know, just a nice relaxing time at home.

Now, to better understand my wife, she’s one that cries for commercials, movies, and just about anything sentimental.

There was this old black and white movie that she stopped on. This old man was talking to his sick wife who was laying on her bed looking extremely ill. As he walked into the bathroom to go grab her something she stopped responding to his questions. When he walked back into the room the old woman had passed away. Tears began to come down this old man’s face and he just held her for a while.

I looked over at my wife, expecting a face full of tears. Nope… nothing.

Surprised, I said, “Wow, you’re not crying! What’s up?!”

She said, “Maybe if I watched it from the beginning I’d cry.”

This made me think about marketing (is that sad? haha). You might have heard from marketing experts that marketing is about telling a story. But what types of stories move people?

See, my wife was not moved by this movie’s very important scene because she had no background. Therefore in marketing it’s important for us to not only develop a story, but to give background to that story.

A good example of this is Shoemoney. In his videos for the Shoemoney system (and blog posts) Jeremy first establishes background. How he used to be 400 lbs, broke, fired from every job he’s ever worked at, and how he overcame every adversity to go on to make over $10,000,000 online. Yup, that’s $10 MILLION.

I also tried to build that a bit in one of my facebook ads guide sales presentation but looking it over now, I could certainly do a better job building the complete story. In fact, although my email list is smaller than most of the people who have promoted FBAdsGuide (like John Chow, and other large emailers), I still sold more copies than anyone else.

Why? I believe it’s because the people on my list know my “complete” story… or at least more than others. People on my life are more likely to know that I have gone from a part time computer salesman making $300-$500 per week to making millions per year in revenue thanks to affiliate marketing and internet marketing. [ You can read more about me here btw ]

John Chow was my second biggest affiliate. Why? Perhaps because he wrote multiple posts about me including THIS and THIS months before so his email list had a bit more of the complete story.

So there it is. Marketing is about telling a story. Make sure you tell the complete story or your message may not move people like you had hoped for.