A few years ago, I went to Ryan Lee’s Freedym Fest 2.
I met a woman there who was a therapist of some kind. She had a decent sized following but never knew what to write about when emailing her list.
She told me: “I feel like I’m writing about the same things over and over.”
It was boring for her and she worried it bored her audience, too.
But there’s a solution.
There’s a way to share the same content over and over while blowing people’s minds and getting them to go: “Holy crap I need to work with this person/buy their stuff.”
It hit me while I was reading The Alter Ego Effect by Todd Herman. (Really cool book btw.)
In it, he walks you through his step-by-step process for coming up with an “alter ego” which you can use to perform at your best.
For example, if you’re scared to speak on stage, you can create an alter ego that’s super confident and a great speaker. Then when you give your talk, you adopt that persona. So you feel comfortable and crush it.
In each chapter, he teaches a step in the process from several different angles.
For example, there’s a section where he talks about finding a “totem”. Which is something you use to “activate” your alter ego.
He did this in four ways:
First, he gave examples of how Winston Churchill had different hats that represented different personality traits. And how he’d choose what hat to wear based on how he needed to act that day.
Or how Martin Luther King Jr. wore glasses he didn’t need to look and feel more distinguished.
Second, he talked about a study that proved wearing a doctor’s lab coat improves people’s accuracy and attention.
Third, he shared his own story of using a “totem” to activate his alter ego.
Fourth, he gave examples and stories of how his customers did it.
Now there are two things going on here.
First, Todd is using proof stacking to get the reader to think: “Wow, this is legit. I need to use it…”
By this I mean he’s showing different layers of proof.
There’s the appeal to authority with Chruchhill and Dr. King.
There’s scientific proof with the study.
Individual proof with his personal story.
And social proof by showing how his clients succeed with it.
If you want to hammer a point home and change your reader’s belief, you can appeal to these four different proof elements. It’s a great way to prove the value of what you’re teaching and your offer.
The trouble is, if you rely too much on an appeal to authority people may think you’re just speculating. That you’re guessing at what others did and your method doesn’t really work.
If you focus too much on data, you’ll be dry and boring.
And if you just tell your story over and over people will tune out. They may think you’re obsessed with yourself or that your method only works for you.
That’s why I like to focus on social proof.
Because it lets you share the same lesson over and over but from different perspectives.
If you share a story of how your customer used a certain lesson to have success, it helps your reader see how they can achieve results, too.
It proves your lessons/product works for different types of people.
And it keeps it interesting because they get a different story every time. With different struggles, areas of emphasis, and results.
A great example of this is Ryan Lee himself. Who frequently shares great case studies in his daily emails.
So if you want to keep people engaged through email regularly, share more case studies.
It’ll keep your lessons fresh and emotionally compelling. So your audience keeps coming back for more.