Nippani cites numerous examples of the principle of deception in operation. Such as Starbucks, the world’s largest coffee chain with more than 15,000 stores and nearly $10 billion revenues.

“Howard Schultz was a young man who joined Seattle’s Starbucks as an ordinary employee,” the author narrates. “While on a visit to Italy, he was inspired by Italian Espresso bars. He tried to convince his managers to look beyond selling coffee beans and create instead an Italian experience in the US. He was flatly rebuffed. He quit the company and opened his own coffee shop. Soon he was able to buy Starbucks. The stupendously successful Starbucks… is an example of imitation and mimicry at its best.” In a different chapter, on ‘stillness, poise and control’, you’d read how butterflies that flutter around on warm summer days seem to disappear when large clouds pass by. “They close their wings and sit motionless when they cannot see their way clearly or spot an approaching enemy.”So too, poise and stillness of a few seconds can enhance concentration and focus manifold. Else, “Most decisive blunders and errors of judgment are made in those fleeting moments of time.” As, perhaps, in the case of Coke. John S. Pemberton, the pharmacist who brewed it in 1886, did not hold on to it despite knowing its potential. “Sales for that first year added up to a total of about $50. The funny thing was that it cost Pemberton over $70 in expenses, so the first year of sales were a loss.” In 1887, Asa Griggs Candler bought the formula for a mere $2,300. Instructive.

The Seven Lost Secrets of Success
Joe Vitale

Can you advertise today and not tomorrow? No, you can’t, says Bruce Barton. Because, you’re not talking to a mass meeting, you’re talking to a parade, he reasons. For starters, Barton is the second ‘B’ in BBDO, the famous advertising agency, and is “credited with naming General Motors and General Electric,” as Wikipedia informs. Retrieving the wisdom of the ‘forgotten genius’ is Joe Vitale’s The Seven Lost Secrets of Success ( www.wiley.com). Such as this nugget of Burton-speak dating back to 1920: “You think that you have told your story to the world, and that therefore your task is done. I tell you that overnight a new world has been born that has never heard your story.”

The first secret in the book is that you should reveal the business nobody knows. “As a profession advertising is young; as a force is as old as the world,” argues Burton. The business nobody knows is about thinking what people really want, explains Vitale. “Cosmetic companies don’t sell lipstick; they sell romance (and sex). They know women want to love and be loved. Lipstick is a device to attain the desired end.” Alas, most people sell what they have in front of them, he rues. “In other words, if you’re selling a shirt, you show the shirt. But a way to ‘reveal the shirt nobody knows’ is to show how the shirt satisfies a more deep-seated desire… Look beyond the obvious.”

Secret #2, ‘Use a god to lead them.’ Meaning, ‘emotionally packed archetypes’ in ads, such as celebrities, or gurus. “People love experts,” reasons Vitale. Next tip, ‘Speak in parables.’ Reason: Stories move people, and stories make life easier to understand. Great read.

D. Murali

http://BookPeek.blogspot.com

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