The Challenges of Marketing ThePowerMoves
I saw the discussion on this thread:
How self-made billionaire Sara Blakely generated natural attention for her business
I have a variety of observations but not necessarily conclusions yet.
Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on August 18, 2021, 9:02 pm from the thread How self-made billionaire Sara Blakely generated natural attention for her business
Interesting example, Ali, thank you for sharing (and for linking it to TPM).
I think that TPM / PU face one hurdle in terms of word-of-mouth/sharing, and it's that a percentage of people would rather keep it private because they:
- See it as a competitive advantage: so the fewer people know about it, the better it is for them (there is one review where one PU alumnus says that he erased his browsing history to keep it as secret as possible. That was so extreme that it made me laugh, but when you see extreme cases, it's often the sign that there are many less extreme fellas who don't erase their browsing history, but also don't share it)
- The stigma of learning about power dynamics: some people keep it private out of fear of judgment and labels. See for example a recent thread. The fact that TPM promotes win-win and becoming a value-adding individual mitigates that, but some of the stigma still remains.
Still, not everyone belongs to either of those two, so there are at least some people who share TPM with others.
I'm also planning to look deeper into an affiliate program after the various course and ebook upgrades. And I think the financial incentive should help.
Should More Work Be Done to Sell the Courses?
More work not in the sense of personal 1-to-1 selling but in changing the phrasing of the word to suit a wider audience.
If we only want to attract people who actively seek out power dynamics and people skills resources, then I think keeping things the same is good.
There are people who are probably interested in something specific for some immediate benefit.
Then, the content may spark their interest in learning power dynamics as part of self-development for the longer term.
Selling Short-Term vs Long-Term Benefits
When I share more specific subtopics relevant to their situation like negotiation, they become more interested.
Like I talked to a friend in sales.
He likes the negotiation books recommended on this site.
He sees the immediate benefit.
The call-to-action on this website seems to be primarily long-term.
If you are a driven man who wants more, this might be for you.
Mastering power dynamics will make you more successful in all areas of life because it contains the mindsets, skills, and strategies that the top 1% use.
Identity-based changes can be seen as long term.
To make it short-term, one has to use snake-oil sales tactics like promising change in 3 months.
This statement may seem a bit sceptical to some on the sales page:
If You’re Driven and Have Great Teachers, Change Happens Fast
Sometimes we need to see some short-term benefit to feel "less risk" and have a justifiable emotional investment for a longer-term goal.
And logically this makes sense.
Like, in entrepreneurship, we regularly review if things are working and measure how well a product is doing before committing to something longer-term.
On the front page, one could say
Check out how you can apply our principles directly in your life whether in career, dating and making friends in these articles:
- Career
- Dating
- Personal & Social Life
Side by side like how you did for the courses would be good I think:
Personal Experience Sharing the Course
From my personal experience sharing the course, when I share the course from the angle of learning manipulation and the darker side of people skills,
- Some people don't seem to be drawn to the analytic approach of this website
- One person read a popular book about Machiavellianism and now has a skewed impression of Machiavellianism.
He thinks one can only be Machiavellian or not Machiavellian. - Some think that they don't need to take a course on people skills
- Some are just not interested at all
One conversation went something like this:
Him: Do you want me to honestly tell you what I think about this website?
Me: Yes
Him: I think it's too Machiavellian.
Me: Yeah we learn about manipulation so we can spot manipulation and deal with it effectively.
Him: Ahh I see. So like you learn how to do business with the mafia.
Me: Kind of
Him: Okay will check it out
Not sure if he checked it out though.
On Word of Mouth: It's Not Easy to Share this Website
I think it's not easy to share this website because one needs to sell what power dynamics is about.
Why learning power dynamics, manipulation, and so on are important.
This website is novel in what it offers and the branding.
As such, it does not automatically feel emotionally relevant to people.
I find it challenging to share it on real-time channels.
Let alone over text messaging.
For a good restaurant, I can say
I really like the pasta at this place.
Check it out or I can bring you there next time.
Or notetaking software
Yeah, great notetaking tool.
I dump all my ideas here: pictures, snippets of sentences, etc.
Check out the link to it here.
I tried this before and didn't work (yeah one data point only so maybe you have a different experience):
I found this website that helped me understand power dynamics in different situations.
Website
Thought you may be interested.
Maybe we need to help people sell this website by giving a template message.
For a career, something like
I came across this website which has really helped me deal with nasty people in the office.
Now I know who to deal with people who correct me at meetings and presentations.
Thought you may be intereseted too!
https://thepowermoves.com/office-politics-players/
Or in dating
I recalled that we were discussing on how to deal with your cockblocker friend!
I found this article which has helped me.
https://thepowermoves.com/how-to-deal-with-cockblockers/
Marketing Manipulation Differently?
There's a group of people who acknowledge and accept manipulation as a daily part of life.
A lot of people are uncomfortable with manipulation even though they use manipulation daily.
I shared about manipulation with a person.
Then, he told me he's uncomfortable and later on proceeded to use manipulation on me (green light so no big deal but still there).
It's mentioned somewhere in Power University which I think would sell well:
Everybody manipulates to a degree.
Have you ever polished up your interview skills or wear a suit to look better?
That's good manipulation which we tend to denote as persuasion.Then, there's the manipulation that car dealers use on you.
If you have every felt pressure to buy a car at the dealer's office, you know what I mean.
This normalises manipulation and puts it into a day-to-day perspective which people are more comfortable with.
People May Not Understand What this Website is About from the Current Approach to Social Media Marketing
Again, I'm viewing this as a third-party observer.
So I may be missing out on the wider strategy or long-term plan.
I feel that the content put out on social media of this website follows after the strategy of search engine optimisation (SEO).
The focus is on putting out good content.
In SEO, the content self-selects the people interested in that content.
In social media, a follower views all types of content on the company's page.
If the content is too diverse, the follower may not build an impression of what the site is about.
Social media is noisier too.
People scroll down all the time.
I think people who bother to search for power dynamic strategies may spend more time looking at the search results.
They are less likely to mindlessly scroll through.
This is a guess though.
As an example, I think a series of posts like
This month we are going to delve deep into office politics.
Post #1 out of #30
How to deal with people tasking you without authority?
...Post #2 out of #30
How to have a good relationship with your boss?
...Post #30 out of #30
There you have it.
30 practical tips for advancing your career.Last one.
How to negotiate a flexible working arrangement with your boss?
Root Cause of the "Issue"
Inverted commas because everyone has a preferred manner to do business.
So I'm stating my opinion on what's potentially happening.
Lucio mentions that he focuses on providing value to current customers rather than potential customers.
Well, of course, I personally favour that because I'm a current customer.
But I wanted to highlight what could be happening as a result of this.
What could be happening:
- Lucio understands the current customers better than potential customers. Hence, consciously or unconsciously
- Selling to potential customers is more challenging when you don't speak to them as regularly.
- Lucio may view things from the lens of current customers even when considering new customers.
- Lucio may portray his courses to new customers like how he portrays the courses to current customers.
- There's more jargon like success strategies, frame control, and Machiavellianism.
- Fewer sales naturally
This is awesome Matthew, thank you so much for sharing!
So much material that this could go in a million different directions, so just a few notes:
- Social media feedback & "threads": yes, and great idea
All you say about social media makes sense.
And the "thread" idea, yep, that's a great one.
Remember that thread on "Machiavellian plagiarizing"?
The guy who literally copied the frame control article word for word did something similar on this Twitter, and he had followers in the thousands for what I remember.
That being said, Twitter followers is a vanity metrics, and don't necessarily translates into buyers. It doesn't even translate too well into a well-developed community of people who agree and follows a certain code or approach to life.
So not sure the strategy is bottom-line successful (don't think that guy was selling or changing anyone's mind).
But it can definitely help at least in some way.
The point from TPM is: am I going to focus on advancing power dynamics, improving the course/articles, or on social media organization?
My answer so far has been the former, and it will stay that way.
BUT, getting a social media manager onboard could be a good idea eventually.
- Closing off from potential customers
Yes, I basically walled myself off from potential customers.
The current forum also doesn't accept random registrations anymore, so non-subscribers and non-PU members people can't even ask questions on the forum.
That's more for small-time technical reasons so far (I don't want to add a plugin against spam registrations) and it might change in the future.
But generally making it easier for people to write and ask might be a good idea.
Hiring someone to answer inbound questions and then making it easier for people to get in touch might be a good idea.
Especially now with the increase in price: people can be understandably skittish before departing with 700+.
- The guy who thought it was too Machiavellian
Very interesting dialogue.
And it made me smile as well, thank you for sharing :).
As you also suggest, I think it might be a mistake to overreact to one person who didn't vibe with it.
Being polarizing can be a good thing, and some people just aren't a good fit for a product. Or, often, not yet ready for a product.
When someone has that type of reaction, I'd frankly wonder if they aren't being too naive in their current approach to life.
Edit: notice his type of joking as well. "You want to make business with mafia, as if mafia wasn't an organization of people, just like any other business".
It's true that maybe presenting the material in a different light might better appeal to people like him.
But I'm not sure that's the right way to go for now.
Jargon can become the new industry standard
Power dynamics is not a new term per se.
But as you also say, it's a new approach to learning and developing social skills, and a new approach to general self-development for life success.
That's not (just) marketing: the content is in line with that "novel" approach.
And so is much of the feedback: several reviews that say "first time I hear this stuff" confirm that.
Albeit that is jargon today, it might eventually become more accepted in the future.
And if TPM spearheads those new terms into wider and wider common parlance, then TPM by reflection becomes the go-to place for those whole categories.
Same goes for some connected categories such as "Machiavellianism", "Machiavellian strategy / thinking", "power intelligence", etc.
The root cause of it all: product before marketing
Overall, I think these are all consequences from the same root cause:
focusing less on marketing and sales, and more on the product.
As well as "mission", and advancing power dynamics in general.
That is still my preferred mode.
This probably leads to fewer sales indeed.
So far sales were to a level that I didn't have to switch focus.
Now I need to re-assess if that is confirmed with the new pricing.
In any case, it doesn't have to stay that way forever.
Eventually it'll come to a point where one can say "power dynamic as a discipline now is developed to the point where one can enter from A (totally clueless about power dynamics), and the material is developed, structured, and simple enough to revolutionize his understanding of social interactions, and potentially take him to 80%" (that doesn't necessarily mean everyone will make that journey, only a minority will, but the material and product allow for that journey).
I think PU can reach that stage by the end of this latest core upgrade already (the traffic light, plus several tweaks and pictures that simplify more complex dynamics will help people better understand the basics).
At that point, I can focus more on marketing without "betraying" the mission or the product development, since it'll have come far enough to stand on solid ground.
That was a long one, but you definitely gave me a lot of food for thought, Matthew :).
Thank you again, happy to read more feedback if there is any.
Allow me to understand what your thoughts on product means better:
Overall, I think these are all consequences from the same root cause:
focusing less on marketing and sales, and more on the product.
As well as "mission", and advancing power dynamics in general.That is still my preferred mode.
Here is what I am guessing product means from your perspective.
I interpret that the priority is to develop the product in a way such that any relatively advanced individual who has the product can maximise their learning of power dynamics.
So 80% to 100% and beyond since social research is limitless.
From this, I can see how this prioritisation would really push the challenging portions of power dynamics forward.
From this definition, I can see that focusing on the product may naturally lead to deprioritise marketing.
Marketing involves convincing people to understand the value which inherently requires a certain standard of social intuition and social skills.
In this case, I can also see how being polarising would work very well towards advancing this prioritised goal.
Eventually it'll come to a point where one can say "power dynamic as a discipline now is developed to the point where one can enter from A (totally clueless about power dynamics), and the material is developed, structured, and simple enough to revolutionize his understanding of social interactions, and potentially take him to 80%" (that doesn't necessarily mean everyone will make that journey, only a minority will, but the material and product allow for that journey).
From this, I can interpret that maybe you have a second or third priority of bringing an intermediate or even beginner person to the 80% level.
This is also one of my goals as I am working on the idea/product of developing social intuition further.
I am working on the idea of developing the feel for both
- basic social skills (my 1st priority from our discussion) and
- the more advanced power dynamics (2nd priority, a bank of examples to supplement Power University; on the way to "working prototype" because I paused for the 1st priority)
This is where I am venturing a guess that having more feedback from potential new customers (not really sales) may help develop the product further.
Social media can be a good tool to "ping" and get feedback from people.
(Let's use people instead of customers because the latter denotes a focus on sales.)
This is why I thought posting polls on LinkedIn may help understand this better.
Though I realise having a sizeable audience may help with that.
Not saying that this is a priority at the moment as it will take up time. (It's also not mine)
For the more advanced people, it's easier to attract them because this website offers a unique product (little competition) catering to them. and they naturally will fill in the gaps of the product whether it's doing their own analysis, research, thinking, asking on the forum, etc.
What Does Marketing Mean?
A social media campaign would indeed be more effort-intensive like the thread idea.
Though what I wanted to say is that we don't need effort-intensive marketing campaigns.
We can showcase the portions of the product that sticks to people.
This can be the bridge from the full product to people's short-term interests.
The active, advanced people will naturally find the bridge whether through Google, social media, etc because they feel in the gaps.
The intermediate people may need more help to understand how they can benefit from the course.
The beginner people may need even more help.
This is why I suggested putting some articles on various social situations on the home page.
Unless people don't usually stumble on the home page of the website.
I think as the course progresses, naturally, it would contain more social situations to resonate with people.
Then, one can cut and paste whether, on the sales page or social media, to highlight the relevancy to people with different social situations.
Jargon can become the new industry standard
Power dynamics is not a new term per se.
But as you also say, it's a new approach to learning and developing social skills, and a new approach to general self-development for life success.
That's not (just) marketing: the content is in line with that "novel" approach.
And so is much of the feedback: several reviews that say "first time I hear this stuff" confirm that.Albeit that is jargon today, it might eventually become more accepted in the future.
And if TPM spearheads those new terms into wider and wider common parlance, then TPM by reflection becomes the go-to place for those whole categories.Same goes for some connected categories such as "Machiavellianism", "Machiavellian strategy / thinking", "power intelligence", etc.
I am on the same page.
What I wanted to say is that there are a few types of people.
By forging ahead with the new terms brought by analysing power dynamics, you naturally attract the people who vibe with it.
And the people who vibe with it can be split further into
- People who like it and find the course valuable
- People who love it and champion the product
Two things can happen:
- The natural organic growth of this group of people becomes large enough to push this over to the more mainstream group of people
- You hit a plateau in the uptake of the course and growth is not as fast
So I am talking about how this jargon can become more mainstream through describing social situations to help the champions spread the message and a wider group of people: the intermediate and beginners.
This is also what I mean by showcasing manipulation and Machiavellianism by describing in an emotionally relevant manner:
Everybody manipulates to a degree.
Have you ever polished up your interview skills or wear a suit to look better?
That's good manipulation which we tend to denote as persuasion.Then, there's the manipulation that car dealers use on you.
If you have every felt pressure to buy a car at the dealer's office, you know what I mean.
Putting these messages somewhere may allow people to copy and paste this to their friends and help with the word of mouth.
Kind of like the Facebook/LinkedIn share button.
Basically contextualising the jargon to make a vehicle for people to spread what the concepts of power dynamics are about.
Again, this will take time but I thought this takes less time than conducting a marketing campaign, which is why I decided to share this.
Quote from Matthew Whitewood on August 19, 2021, 10:52 amOn Word of Mouth: It's Not Easy to Share this Website
I tried this before and didn't work (yeah one data point only so maybe you have a different experience):
I found this website that helped me understand power dynamics in different situations.
Website
Thought you may be interested.Maybe we need to help people sell this website by giving a template message.
For a career, something likeI came across this website which has really helped me deal with nasty people in the office.
Now I know who to deal with people who correct me at meetings and presentations.
Thought you may be intereseted too!
https://thepowermoves.com/office-politics-players/Or in dating
I recalled that we were discussing on how to deal with your cockblocker friend!
I found this article which has helped me.
https://thepowermoves.com/how-to-deal-with-cockblockers/
I agree with you here, Matthew.
Sharing the website and then saying it "helped me understand power dynamics" as the WIIFT is what Blakely calls "selling the product instead of selling the problem" (see "Sell It").
And, I think that's because TPM is so closely tied to power dynamics that, to an outsider, they're one in the same.
"Understanding power dynamics" isn't the incentive that comes from the product to them, power dynamics is the product. And, they're looking for the incentives that would come from that product—that understanding of power dynamics.
Another obstacle in that example is the "fluency of consumption imagery". In other words, the receiver has a hard time imagining how they would use a better understanding of power dynamics in their life, so they devalue it.
So, I think selling the problem (nasty work associates, cockblocker friends, etc.) works as a better WIIFT. And, maybe we could even try using the top of Nick Kolenda's hierarchy of benefits (e.g. "helped me get more life satisfaction, a better social life, etc.).
Do you guys think that right now there is not enough focus on solving a problem with the course / website?
I think we have quite a lot of examples actually.
This is actually why I'm thinking about how to showcase them better.
Maybe there's no easy way.
Brainstorming off the cuff
- Concrete examples on the home page or sales page (one-off effort)
- Mailchimp - cut & paste your social blunder examples (requires recurring effort)
Example from the home page
Original
Power University distills thousands of studies into
practical strategies for acquiring power, mates, & riches.
If you ever wished to join the top 1%, this is for you.Use it responsibly, and go get what you deserve.
Modified
Power University distills thousands of studies into
practical strategies for acquiring power, mates, & riches.
If you ever wished to join the top 1%, this is for you.Learn how to handle cockblockers, manage your boss, handle manipulators.
Use it responsibly, and go get what you deserve.
Or maybe leave the first part to be general.
Then, put it over here.
One could put the article links to high-power behaviour, charisma, frame control, leadership strategies.
Maybe a link to some forum threads where people used these concepts to handle situations in the reviews:
How I learnt how to handle shoves while talking to the president of an organisation? - Matthew Whitewood
If traffic to the home page is significant, I suspect this may help a bit to those who do not immediately resonate with the website.
They need to click around a bit to see the value.
Awesome, thank you so much, Matthew!
Quote from Ali Scarlett on August 19, 2021, 5:25 pmAnd, I think that's because TPM is so closely tied to power dynamics that, to an outsider, they're one in the same.
"Understanding power dynamics" isn't the incentive that comes from the product to them, power dynamics is the product. And, they're looking for the incentives that would come from that product—that understanding of power dynamics.
Thank you for this, Ali.
I guess that it wasn't clear to me how clear that was to the outside.
It had to sit with me for some more hours, but it makes sense now.
Quote from Lucio Buffalmano on August 19, 2021, 7:25 pmDo you guys think that right now there is not enough focus on solving a problem with the course / website?
Quote from Matthew Whitewood on August 19, 2021, 8:32 pmI think we have quite a lot of examples actually.
This is actually why I'm thinking about how to showcase them better.
I have the same feelings as Matthew here.
I think there are a lot of examples around the TPM website. And, I also think that those examples are too hard to find right now.
If I get the chance, I'll see if I can share a few analyses of what I mean.