I’m developing my persuasion scripts idea into a commercial website. I’ve purchased the domain name: www.PersuasionScripts.com. And, I’m developing the site content even as you read this. While I have a comfortable grasp of the content, I’m not exactly sure how to market this idea.

See, part of my motivation goes beyond profit and into a deeper form of self benefit. Every day I encounter incompetent interactions with various commercial and nonprofit groups. I’m sure you experience the same thing. You call a business about an immediate need you have (for example, our dishwasher just dropped dead and I want a new one while Melanie really needs it) and the interaction with various repair and sales folks has been clumsy, inept, and silly. The person who answers the phone isn’t the one you need. The one you need isn’t here. Or is here, but when they pick up the phone you can tell they are distracted with another task. I can think of many instances where I was literally trying to give my money away for some product or service and I made that clear, yet the people I was talking with couldn’t figure it out and lost the sale. This can happen over the phone or over the Internet or face to face. People are generally lousy at communication, particularly persuasive communication.

Scripts would help a bit. If everyone had a good basic script for standard encounters (initial contact, maintanence, growth, conflict, termination, etc.) and always used them, sales, service, and satisfaction would improve faster than the addition of computers caused. If you think about it, a persuasion script is a bit like using computers for your work. A computer requires a kind of script before it can be effectively employed. But once you understand that computer script and use it, you accrue serious advantages. With a computer in the system you can bring inventory control to the cash register. With a computer you bring accounting to the cash register. With a computer you bring your catalog to the telephone marketer. A persuasion script provides the same kind of connection and efficiency.

Okay, so if everyone used my persuasion scripts I can make some money and better still, I might get better service in my commercial and noncommercial interactions. So if I sell scripts I get a lot of benefits besides the obvious one.

The trick is how to market this. I can’t decide whether to write up a bunch of fairly detailed scripts with those fill-in-the-blank variables (e.g. INSERT YOUR BUSINESS NAME HERE) for very little customization and sell them like little books or whether this idea more of a consulting service that requires some interaction between me and them to create a truly custom script. I know that I can do both, but then that creates some tension in the potential buyer (should I go simple and buy a vanilla script or go complicated and get the consulting service) and you don’t want to make a buying decision complicated.

I’m toying now with the idea of making this rather like Amazon where the scripts are like books. I’ll write up a bunch of vanilla scripts, then give each one a page and price, just click and buy. The marketing is interesting.

You’ll recall that workers with the guerilla marketing firm, Interference, Inc., managed to get themselves arrested under terrorism-related charges for their activities in Boston as they put up bomb-like devices around town aimed at getting an audience for a new cable TV cartoon show. Under the premise that all publicity is good publicity, did this persuasion and influence stunt work? We now have some tentative evidence.

And, it appears that all publicity is good publicity. Various indicators of viewership show favorable changes. For example, hits on the cable TV website were up 77% following the media uproar and actual viewership of the new program also rose 20%. Whether any of these increases will hold remains to be seen, of course, and the point of the Interference activity was to get new eyeballs and not necessarily to hold them. As a result, I’d have to say that Interference did its job.

Remember, all bad persuasion is sincere and Interference is sincerely insincere.

Did you hear about it?

Two applied persuasion researchers are in jail for terrorist activities, arrested by Boston Police for planting suspicious bomblike devices in and around Boston. Authorities initially set bail at $100,000 for each perpetrator. Man, and you thought persuasion was easy?

Yeah, there is a catch to all of this. See, the two guys were doing guerilla marketing for the launch of a new cable cartoon show on the Cartoon Network. The Network hired the guerilla marketing firm, Interference, Inc., to handle the promotion. Guerilla marketing aims at gaining attention through street level, face to face, and sometimes in your face activities. It is, in essence, smartly done street theater that attracts a crowd and promotes a simple message. The crew at Interference, Inc. (a great company name, huh?) got the contract to promote the new cartoon show that features the adventures of a talking milkshake, so Inteference Inc. created a boxlike device with blinking lights and wires coming out of it, then stationed these devices across Boston and many other large cities in the US over the past couple of weeks.

So far, this is just fun guerilla marketing, but apparently the authorities in Boston got freaked out over these mysterious, bomblike devices popping up on freeways and in tunnels and managed to arrest two Interference workers. There is a lot more to this story than we currently know. This promotion has been going on for at least a couple of weeks across the US and yesterday, the Boston Police get nervous and arrest two young men. What scares me is that if the Boston Police genuinely saw these devices as potential security threats, why the hell did it take them over two weeks to notice them?

Everyone involved is apologizing (Interference, the Cartoon Network, and Turner Broadcasting which owns the Cartoon Network), but I don’t take it too seriously. I’m guessing that some cop or prosecuting attorney got honked off for some silly reason and wildly over-reacted here. For example, when the two Interference workers were first arrested, their bail was set at $100,000. It’s already been reduced to $2500. That would seem to indicate that adults are now getting involved in this case.

Meanwhile, the “bad guys” in this case (Interference, Cartoons, Turner) have got to be crying crocodile tears over this. They are getting a phenomenal amount of free media coverage today over this event and everyone is getting their name in the paper big time. Under the assumption that there is no such thing as bad media attention, it appears that the applied persuasion guys are the big winners right now.

For me, well done guerilla marketing demonstrates by contrast one of the Rules: All bad persuasion is sincere. This attempt by Interference Inc. is good persuasion because it definitely achieved its persuasion goal: It got attention to its message. And it did so in a most insincere way. The initial actions of the Boston authorities illustrates the exact problem when you are sincere in your efforts to “persuade” others. Boston police sincerely believed they had a problem on their hands and sincerely charged Interference guys. And they look sincerely foolish doing so.