What makes optical illusions so interesting, isn’t that they cause people to make a mistake, it’s that they cause everyone to make the same mistake.

And that’s what most marketing is like. You see someone else doing something, and so you think, “Let me try this. It must be working, since this fellow seems to be successful.” Then, your competition sees you using it and she thinks, “Holy Cow! This guy’s a genius — how’d he come up with that?”

And soon she’s using the same piece.

And so on, and so on. This is the perverted business-person’s version of the old schoolyard game, “Telephone,” when one child whispers something into another child’s ear, and this is repeated over and over again from child to child.

By the time the last child hears the story, “Mary went to get Milk with Johnny last week” is turned into something like, “Mary and Johnny are having a baby next month.”

The bottom line is, if you’re going to take advice from someone about something, make sure they have a proven track record and know what they’re talking about. Your wife’s brother, the plumber… probably isn’t the best person to give you advice about why you’re heart’s been racing lately, just the same way that “copying” your competitor’s marketing isn’t the best thing for you to be doing, either.

Often, what looks good on the outside, is crumbling and about to fall apart on the inside.

So be careful, and then…

Go sell something, Craig Garber

P.S. In this month’s Seductive Selling Newsletter there’s a contest: Can you figure out why I WON’T run this ad again? Let me know and win my upcoming e-book, The ABC’s Of Internet Marketing. Take your 30-day free trial of the newsletter and get 15 bonus gifts, right here : http://www.kingofcopy.com/ssnl

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