[thrive_headline_focus title=”When My Cousin Completely ‘Punk’d’ Me” orientation=”left”]
April 10 is National Sibling Day in the good ol’ USA.
I have one brother. And because Facebook seems to be Ground Zero for celebrating the most obscure holidays, I noticed everyone was posting childhood pictures online.
I decided I’d do the same with a rare photo I have of my brother and parents.
We were attending the 50th Wedding Anniversary party for my father’s parents. My brother John and I were all dolled up. Everyone was all dolled up.
I was twelve and had a pale yellow dress with a flouncy skirt. My brother who was ten-years-old, wore a ghastly red plaid jacket with a striped shirt and a clip-on bow tie too large for him.
Ah… family events. You do what you gotta do.
My father’s side of the family was large, with a ton of cousins to play with when we got together. Somehow, Cousin Carol (who was my age), convinced us that a UFO had actually landed on top of the high hill behind the reception hall.
We were all over it.
John and I excitedly climbed that hill. I remember it being so steep that I had to crouch down to use my hands as I scrambled over muddy grass to reach the top.
My brother did the same. And I’m sure you can imagine our crushing disappointment when we discovered there weren’t any burnt marks on the grass from when the UFO took off.
Nope. Nothing but normal, everyday grass.
And a few out-of-breath, muddied kids who suddenly realized they’d been duped.
And my cousin, who at that point was laughing herself silly.
The unfortunate part was carefully going back down and learning that my father was looking for us because… a picture had to be taken. (We didn’t know!)
And boy, did we get in trouble for being as muddy as a couple of farm dogs.
My poor brother had to deal with my father dragging him into the bathroom, yelling at him ‒ while swatting him and trying to clean the mud off his pants and shoes at the same time.
My mom took me into the women’s bathroom and gave me a highly annoyed speech while cleaning my shoes and muddied legs.
We took the photo.
My brother was unusually quiet, eyes still moist. He usually acted like a goofball whenever a camera was nearby. But not on that day.
I gave a slight, small smile… also very much kicking myself mentally that I even fell for such a stupid trick. I should have known better!
Here’s the deal: I wanted to believe.
I wanted to believe that somehow, a UFO had chosen to land in the rural little town of Ripley, Ohio, leaving earthly scorch marks behind.
I wanted to believe in something magical.
In something bigger than me.
Something mysterious that needed to be examined and figured out.
Or at least something that caused awe in my ultra- curious twelve-year-old mind.
This “want” is a very, very powerful element in your marketing alchemy bag.
People want to believe.
According to their beliefs.
So if someone believes that the government is out to get them, they respond like a Pavlov dog to anything that hammers on that point.
If a woman wants to believe that her Prince Charming exists, then doggonit, she’ll plop down her last dollar to buy something that will make her irresistible to him.
Consumption follows beliefs.
We all feed a hunger that lives within us… a gnawing hunger that at times we don’t even know we have until our mental stomachs grumble and BOOM! A hamburger stand is right in front of us.
Figure out what your customer hungers for… find a way to give it to her… and you’ll be in business for a long, long time.
By the way, if you need to stir up more ideas about this, the perfect way to do it is grab a copy of my book, “The BIG Marketing Idea Book.”
Did you know that US businesses have a 96% chance of failing in 10 years? You’ll see on this page why that happens. And what I believe would fix the problem.
When you get the book, you’ll also be invited into my private Facebook group. We’re discussing marketing ideas (duh) and other dangerous ideas on how to make your business so wildly successful that it’ll make you the talk of your next family gathering. In a good way.
See you inside!
Your punk’d-savvy pal…
