Consumer behavior is just like that. Don’t forget, your prospects and customers are human beings. And because of that,
most consumer and buying behavior is driven by unconscious
processes, without the consumer being consciously aware of it.
For that reason, we can conclude that, as a marketer,
it’s your job to understand and infl uence your prospects’
unconscious desires, fears, frustrations, motivations and
drives. Good marketers are like alchemists: We acknowledge Pre-Lessons
14
and embrace our prospects’ emotions and underlying drives;
we work with them, speak to them, and transform them into
action. Bad marketers try to logically convince their prospects
to buy their product or take a specifi c action. Marketing has
nothing to do with logic or rationality. It has everything to do
with emotions and feelings.
The two key driving emotions are shame and fear .
Of course human behavior is also driven by love and by plea￾sure, but in many cases pleasure is used to distract from an
underlying feeling of shame and fear . The porn industry isn’t
really based on pleasure; it’s based on shame, loneliness and
fear.
The three biggest expert niches are all based on shame . The per￾sonal development industry is based on shame—the idea that
“I am not good enough” and thus need to improve myself. The
fi tness industry, too, is based on shame, in terms of personal
weight, physical appearance and looks. Then there’s the dating
industry, which is entirely shame-based. The list goes on and
on: think of acne treatments, anti-aging creams, penis enlarge￾ment pills and plastic surgery. They’re all based on shame.
If you want to better understand the hidden psychological
dynamics that drive buying behavior, I strongly recommend
that you study shame . As an introduction to the topic, read
John Bradshaw ’s classic book Healing the Shame that Binds You.


The 5 costly mistakes of miserable marketers:
1. Self-centeredness, ego , narcissism and feeding one’s own emo￾tions
2. Using logic and rationale to convince prospects to take a spe￾cifi c action
3. Communicating only to the conscious mind
4. Letting assumptions and opinions dictate one’s marketing
5. Not measuring and tracking marketing results
Don’t do this. Even if you stop reading this book right now and
never touch it again, at least avoid these 5 costly mistakes. Your
business will grow a lot faster.
The 5 exceptional habits of world-class marketers:
1. Compassion , focusing on the prospect, feeding the prospect’s
emotions
2. Emotionally triggering prospects to take a specifi c action
3. Communicating to the unconscious fi rst and then to the con￾scious
4. Only relying on hard facts, numbers and test results
5. Constant and never-ending tracking and optimization
Now that you know the 5 costly mistakes of miserable market￾ers and can start replacing them with the 5 exceptional habits
of world-class marketers, you’ve got a solid new foundation
that will allow you to grow your business more efficiently.
See, most marketing is what Jeff Walker calls “hope market￾ing. ” You place an ad in a local magazine or you stick a bill￾board in front of people’s eyes and you hope that people will
somehow walk into your store or visit your website and buy
from you. But whether any of that is actually going to occur is
completely left in the dark. That’s why all bad marketers rely
on hope.
Great marketers, however, rely on predictability.
Hope marketing comes in many forms, colors and shapes. But
the predominant and most established form of hope market￾ing is branding and name recognition .
In order for you to avoid this pitfall, let me introduce you to the
next lesson