NYGMan, your message gave me a couple insights to what makes an effective or ineffective Prosperity Guru sales pitch. I've been thinking about this, because there was a conversation earlier about how Dove of Oneness was a more effective guru than others. Since we're all interested in prosperity programs and other scams, I think it's interesting to analyze their techniques, and see why some are better than others.
This is all just my opinion, mind you. But since you wanted to try your hand at being a guru, I thought I'd channel my inner Simon Cowell and critique.
NYGman wrote:Interesting, I originally was going to offer it myself directly, but thought that was too obvious, I went with a partner, who in reality may also be me, to give the sound of Independence. I also wanted to keep the information strictly upon enquiry so that there would be this feeling of being let in on a secret which seems to be something they like. These Guru's seem to offer the path to riches, based on information they only know.
In this scam, you have to earn the credibility
before you ask for the money. Dove and the like send many, many informational messages that make no demand for money. It's to construct the narrative, and build credibility. This is a long con. By the time you ask the marks for money, you shouldn't have to prove your bonafides. They should believe that you
are the secret insider, not just that you have access to them. They subscribe to your Dinar Guru Newsletter for that very reason; because you offer the super-secret information that will make them rich.
And, in any sales situation, you want to make it as easy as possible for your prospect to give you their money. "Request the secret contact info" makes them go through an additional step. So I think it is wise to cut out the middleman. (Unless the middleman is part of a mechanism to escape prosecution later.)
Also do like the suggestion of specific dates, I had misjudged their importance, thinking the events were good markers of time.
Specific is good. Vague time frames like "the election" make people think too much. Some of your marks may not be intimately familiar with the American election calendar.
But specific date ranges seem to be a hallmark of these messages, which surprised me at first. You'd think Dinar gurus would avoid that, since we all know the event is not going to happen in any stated time frame. But I think the specific dates actually help credibility if you can do a good enough job of explaining the failure away later.
Which you did well with "give the Iraqi government enough time to retake Mosul, to prevent ISIS from benefiting and present the next president from objecting." We all know that's geopolitical nonsense, but it has a veneer of plausibility, and enough verifiable real-world details to satisfy the more credulous readers. I would have been more specific, though, and said something like "to prevent ISIS from capturing a hidden store of Iraqi dinars before the revalue." But that's a minor nitpick.
Which ties into my next bullet point: your topic is the driving force behind every event in human history. That's a theme you want to maintain throughout. If you're pushing Iraqi dinars, then the presidential election is all about the RV. The ISIS conflict is about the RV. Crimea is about the RV. Global warming is about the RV. And so forth. If you can invent believable Iraqi Dinar-based explanations for any news item that comes down the pike, you can keep this scam going forever.
I am glad you liked the one candidate thing. That was my favorite part too. Let the reader fill in the facts, but also lays the groundwork for failure without having to predict which will actually win. Often it isn't what you say, but what you don't say...
Correct. And, there's a third benefit: it avoids offending anyone who might support one candidate or the other. That was another skill of Dove's; she avoided offending anyone. Her evildoers were always "dark forces" or otherwise vague. Yeah, sometimes you have to say
j'accuse at the US president or other world leader to keep the story believable, but you want to avoid turning anyone off politically. People who are mentally invested in your fantasy world will still have mental investments in real-world issues, political parties, and so forth.
The counter-example is Peter of England. His noxious personality, casual bigotry, loudly picking sides on issues, and crazy-even-to-crazy-people demeanor all turned off some of his true believers.