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Old Tricks For New Dogs Makes NLP Copywriting Real is my take on this guest post by Jon McCulloch. He takes apart the hype and promises of the copywriting gurus and gives us an honest and open appraisal of the use and usefulness of NLP in writing copy.

Read this carefully, enjoy the witty comments and anecdotes and take a step forward in your understanding of what NLP really means.

NLP Copywriting – Old Tricks For New Dogs

by Jon McCulloch

It seems there’s something of a buzz recently with a new wave of miraculous copywriting techniques the peddlers are promising will take our copy to soaring new heights, enabling us to persuade and sell like the great copywriters of yesterday and today, all by adding a few simple tricks and tweaks to our copy.

And the name of this wonderful new technology? Neuro-Linguistic Programming. NLP. A copywriter’s linguistic Utopia.

Hmm.

If only it were true, if only it were true.

In my experience, NLP is only one tool of many a copywriter can (and probably should) use to improve their results and let’s face it, that really means “make more money”, and it’s not even the most powerful.

But let’s back up a bit. What is NLP copywriting?

Well, according to one loud proponent of it (he’s selling NLP copywriting products, so don’t expect too much objectivity), it’s what you see in the copy coming from some of the best copywriters around.

Sounds convincing, doesn’t it?

And it is… until you realise the flaw in the argument he actually uses.

His argument goes like this: “Top copywriters use NLP in their copy. Look at this copy from this top copywriter: it’s got persuasive language patterns in it. They MUST be NLP patterns because top copywriters use NLP in their copy”.

CIRCULAR REASONING

First, this reasoning is flawed. Technically, it’s called circular reasoning and it’s flawed because you use the assumed truth of your assertion to prove your assertion. It’s in his interest for you to accept this “proof” as legitimate because he wants to sell you something teaching you how to use NLP in your copy, too.

Secondly, just because something looks like NLP, doesn’t mean it is NLP. NLP is now a huge area of study and not all of it is immediately relevant to copywriting. But in the beginning NLP sprang up as codified form of what naturally persuasive people have done for hundreds, perhaps thousands of years. Even Shakespeare does it, when he says in Hamlet, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”. That’s basically talking about reframing.

In fact, if you look at some of the old great old-time copywriters like Robert Collier and Claude Hopkins, you’ll see persuasive language patterns in their work which could not possibly have been NLP because they were both long dead before Bandler and Grinder developed NLP (and I suspect even the most ludicrously self-aggrandising NLPers still hesitate to claim they can communicate with the dead, but nothing would surprise me).

Is it any surprise NLP-like patterns turn up spontaneously in persuasive writing by non-NLP trained people?

No.

It would be surprising if they didn’t, because form follows functions and NLP was born of modelling behaviour. The defining behaviour came first and is now passed on by NLP trainers in codified form (amusingly, the two things I’ve done repeatedly in the sales letters I’ve had the best results from… neither of them came from NLP; one I lifted from Collier, the other came from Tom Hopkins).

And thirdly, if we take a given letter which has been successful, can we be sure it was the NLP in it doing all the work for us?

No.

Well, that’s not strictly correct.

We can if we set up a proper double-blind peer-reviewed experiment to test the hypothesis, but I know of no-one who has. Even split-tests are not set up to do this.

OK, let’s imagine we send a letter with NLP in it to a list and get some results back.

Here are some typical things I’ve heard proponents of NLP copywriting say:

• If the results were good, then it was the NLP doing the heavy lifting.
• If the results were not so good, then either the NLP wasn’t done right or, more likely, something else in the copy blew the chance of the sale (and you will in fact see this in sales letters in bullet points of the form “the one thing you MUST NOT write or you’ll blow the sale INSTANTLY!”).

And this is all very unscientific and the presupposition is the NLP is going to be effective if it’s done right. It’s like the guy who said he didn’t do double-blind testing any more because it didn’t work (meaning objective facts didn’t support his subjective and erroneous belief).

BAD NEWS

Moreover, I have some bad news for all you budding copywriters out there: what most copywriters won’t tell you is the biggest deciding factor determining whether copy succeeds in making a sale or not… is the person reading it. Even Dan Kennedy claims only a 12.5% success rate. John Carlton cheerfully related to me the time he wrote 17 versions of an ad before it worked (hey, maybe someone ought to tell these guys about NLP so they can become good!).

See, despite what some people claim, you can’t actually hypnotise people against their will or convince anyone to do anything – all you can do is lead them into convincing themselves. Yes, there are things you can do to help them along that road, and indeed NLP is undeniably useful some of the time.

And clearly, this is going to be easiest if your audience is already half-convinced.

Bottom line: the “hunger” of your list for what you’re selling makes the biggest difference in response rates and conversion rates, and by several orders of magnitude.

I’ve seen one of my sales letters convert 46% of one list to buying a £6,000 ticket item and the exact same letter and offer get ZERO responses, never mind conversions, from a different list. And there was NLP in the letter!

And the thing most likely to sway your audience? Usually the offer itself – the mechanics of it and how it matches what they want, not how it’s phrased or padded out with embedded commands, sensory words, presuppositions or pattern-interrupts.

LOOK AT IT THIS WAY

Look at it this way: I don’t care how good a copywriter you are and how much NLP you put into your work, you are NOT going to be able to write an ad or sales letter and sell a whole bunch of pork sausages to vegans. You can tell ‘em they look, sound, smell, taste and feel as good as you like, but you’re wasting your time.

The trouble is, many people, especially when they’re first exposed to NLP, swallow it and the frankly outlandish claims made by some of its practitioners hook, line, and sinker.

They seem to assume it’s akin to magic in its ability to persuade, influence and hypnotise ordinary mere mortals. If many of the claims are to be believed, certain well-known “gurus”, including one very well known British “celebrity hypnotist”, can put an entire 800-strong audience into an “altered state” and install “radical new learnings” to the degree they can cram 10 days’ education into 3 days’ navel-gazing. This is an extraordinary claim, and to be taken seriously by anyone claiming to have a rational mind requires extraordinary evidence.

Worse, copywriters new to NLP are very often like teenage-girls with their first proper make-up: they slap it on willy-nilly with scant regard for the subtleties and don’t realise the final result looks hideously contrived and drives people away. Admittedly, NLP-copywriting peddlers often bring this point up themselves, and suggest they can somehow “accelerate” your “learnings”.

And I doubt it very much, in much the same way I doubt you can hypnotise 800 people into cramming 10 days’ knowledge into their heads at over 3-times normal speed. Extraordinary claims, guys, so let’s see some extraordinary evidence. Even the phrase “altered state” is meaningless — I can alter your state by punching you in the mouth, but it’s got precious little to do with NLP. One NLP chap recently claimed “everyone is always in a trance”. Uh-huh. If that’s so, it’s impossible to put anyone in a trance and any and all claims by anyone to be able to do so are necessarily false.

More to the point, Claude Shannon proved (mathematically) the information conveyed by an event is proportional to how unlikely it is. In other words: if something is certain, its happening tells us nothing. So, if everyone is always in a trance the fact someone is in one tells us nothing. The term ceases to have any useful meaning.

WE WANT TO BELIEVE

So, the question then is, why do people swallow these irrational and often illogical statements and claims about NLP? In particular (I love the irony of this), why is NLP so successful in getting people to buy into NLP trainings and copywriting courses?

Chiefly because we want to believe there’s some amazing secret power to give us the keys to the vaults of Earth and the gates of Heaven and everything in between.

If people didn’t have this hankering for belief you wouldn’t get large numbers of people selling CD and DVD programmes claiming to free you from the necessity of obeying the laws of physics and biology, or books “proving” we’re ruled by shape-shifting lizards from another dimension.

We all want to believe there’s an easy, effortless and “secret” way to being wealthier, smarter, more successful, slimmer, fitter, more attractive to the opposite sex (or the same sex if that’s your thing), and have better sex, more fulfilling orgasms AND live on our own tropical island with a handy selection of young, fit, insatiable and uninhibited sexual partners (or perhaps this is all just me? No, on second thoughts, there’s that business of Eliot Spitzer, isn’t there?).

Just do a search on Amazon.com now for success and you’ll get something like 186,361 results – and that’s just books.

READING THE SALES LETTER

So one thing the NLP copywriting gurus don’t mention – maybe because they either don’t know themselves, or, less charitably, perhaps, they don’t want you to know – is anyone who’s going to buy any product is already half-sold on the idea before he even starts reading the sales letter.

And why should the same not be true of their own NLP courses and products?

What about the happy customers’ testimonials?

Well… first, we see only the positive ones. No one is going to put up a bad testimonial (there are rare and specific exceptions, but let’s keep it simple).

Secondly, people are very good at fooling themselves. They’re already sold on NLP. The hysteria and feel-good factor of these things can leave us feeling euphoric, plus they’re already sold on the idea. Few people go into a seminar with a truly objective and open mind.

PATTERNS & MEANING

Human beings are not very bright. It’s in our nature to look for the evidence to support what we already believe and to give patterns and “meaning” to events that simply don’t have any. You can look back on any event in your life and give it any flavour or meaning you like. If you doubt this, I invite you to think about how this is any different from that very powerful NLP technique of “reframing”. It isn’t.

CIALDINI

Thirdly, Cialdini’s “Law of Commitment and Consistency” is at work here: the seminar-goers and product buyers have made a commitment to their training, both financial and emotional. Many of them have faced criticism from peers, family, friends, and colleagues. Almost no-one is going to come away from this kind of event or studying a product and say it was a waste of time and money and they’ve been screwed. Don’t underestimate the power of this Rule. The Chinese used it to get patriotic American airmen to denounce the US and support Communism; the Rev Jim Jones used it to get 900 or so people to commit suicide in Guyana in 1977.

GROUPTHINK

Fourthly, there is groupthink. It’s like the Emperor’s New Clothes. Who wants to look idiotic by denying they’ve “uncovered” these wonderful new “learnings”. What’s up, Doc? Whaddya mean you didn’t get put into an “altered state”? You schtoopit or sumpink?

Now, with my having said all that above, you’d be mistaken in thinking I was knocking NLP. I’m not. I believe it’s very powerful and my experience tells me I’m right.

But the kicker is, how much of this is true and how much is just my perception, I don’t know. I have no evidence other than my own anecdotes, and they’re not valid evidence because they’re too subjective.

Am I more successful because the NLP does the “heavy lifting” or is it just that I’m more confident about it all which in turn means I’m relaxed and so come over more trustworthy and competent to my prospects and clients? Does my being relaxed and confident about my writing mean I write better and so get better results? Or is it all just coincidence?

I don’t know the answers to that. But nor do you. Nor do the NLP gurus, no matter what they pretend.

NOT A MAGIC BULLET

NLP is not a magic bullet for copywriting. If it was, there would be only one copywriting product out there and everyone who bought it would become a star.

It can serve to improve your copy but if you’re an illiterate baboon who can’t string more than a couple of words together to form a coherent sentence, then chucking a bunch of NLP language patterns onto the page isn’t going to help you much; nor is putting your sales message in front of people who aren’t interested in you or your product.

By all means learn NLP. Knowledge is useful.

Although, as I tell my mentoring students and my clients, they’re going to be better-off learning to write in general terms and developing long-term relationships with their prospects and clients using the normal everyday hard-wired abilities they already have so they have a genuinely trusting and eager starving crowd to submit their non-superhuman copy to, than they are swallowing the extraordinary claims of self-proclaimed gurus and following them in search of some holy copywriting grail.

Because, frankly, it just isn’t there.

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