Over The Shoulder: Stealth Influence In Action?
Over The Shoulder: Stealth Influence In Action?
what does it look like?
Most of our Q&A and workshopping around Stealth Influence, advertising, and sales is done inside the Success Circle1 calls. Now and then a question pops up in the comments of Substack, Facebook, or Twitter that we tackle publicly.
In this case, Frederik is the number one referrer to this publication. That makes it really easy to justify taking the time. It’s also a great question. Here it is:
Frederik:
Q.
Are there any pieces of content that really exemplify Stealth Influence? Something I can use to guide my skill development?
I've been banging my head against writing stealth influence for a few weeks now, and my content always either comes out as direct response or infotainment.
Same situation - same behavior.
Are there any articles or "small scale funnels" that you KNOW exemplify Stealth Influence so I can use those as a sort of cross-reference when I practice my writing?
I've always found it helpful to first get the textbook from someone, and then compare the insights from the textbook with the exact way the authours themselves implemented.
As in: Study Breakthrough Advertising and study Gene Schwatz' ads alongside to see his concepts in action.
Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.
A.
Really well done infotainment is Stealth Influence.
Remember, fundamentally, Stealth Influence is…1
Knowing what belief we want them to have
What false belief is preventing them from adopting that belief
Telling a story or showing them something that puts a crack in the false belief.
The reason it’s stealth influence is because we never tell them what to believe, they come to the realization on their own. Take this example:
What we want them to believe: being overprotective of your children can push them away and lead to rebellious behavior that puts them at even greater risk.
False Belief: If I hover around my child all the time nothing bad can ever happen to them.
Story: Finding Nemo
Finding Nemo is Stealth Influence.
The trick, in my opinion, when studying marketers who are good at stealth influence is looking beyond what they say…
Ben Settle's entire brand is steeped in Stealth Influence. What he writes is a small part of it but his whole brand is intended to shift your beliefs. First, using himself as proof and then positioning you - as a participant - to be your proof. You may believe that you need to make a lot of videos all the time to be relevant. But if you're a fan of Ben Settle, who does no video, you are proof of your own belief being false. Ben is masterful at finding subtle ways to point that out to you, as a prospect.
Gary Halberts Boron Letters. Because it's a series of Letters written to his son, it slips a lot of ideas past the reader's defenses.
John Carlton's blog and books are great examples. They rewire the brain a little bit at a time and are super entertaining - they’re infotainment.
Russell Brunson is probably the most obvious. The belief he wants you to adopt: “I am only one funnel away”. Everything he does to make you believe you are one funnel away without saying it is a version of Stealth Influence.
Many of the people you follow probably deploy some level of it - and it’s probably one of the reasons you follow them.
Just remember… It’s all about the B message.
Finding Nemo has to get you to realize:
"If I am a helicopter parent, it could lead to really bad things"
Without telling you that directly or telling you they are doing it to you - for it to be impactful it has to be YOUR idea/realization, not theirs.
When you study great marketers, pay attention to what you're learning/realizing that they are NOT saying - and then you can start to figure out how they got you to come to that realization "on your own”.
If you can recognize when you’re learning something other than what’s being directly said, shown, or taught, you can recognize stealth influence in action.
If you can start to understand how they led you to the realization without telling you what you’re supposed to realize, you’ll start to see the strategy.
You can learn the basics of Stealth Influence here.
It’s simply the process of developing the skill to help people come to realizations and develop beliefs on their own.
It should not replace direct response. Direct response is the most efficient way to get people ready to take the next step to…take the next step. Stealth Influence is the most efficient people way to get people who are not ready to take the next step…ready to do so.
Take click funnels as an example.
The checkout page is enough to convert you if you already believe you’re one funnel away.
The sales page is there for those who need a tiny bit of convincing that they are one funnel away.
The funnel exists for those who need more convincing to adopt the belief.
That’s mostly direct response marketing.
Everything that comes before the funnel is an opportunity for stealth influence, chipping away at the existing beliefs and replacing them with beliefs that will make your funnel or process more effective. You may have to remove beliefs around “all emails are pushy” even if you’re not selling anything related to email - but so that they open the emails in your campaign about your thing.
Behavior is belief-based.
When you ask someone to go through your funnel, buy something from you, watch your videos, or use your product you’re asking them to change their behavior. One of the reasons ads stop working is because you’ve reached all the people who already have the beliefs necessary to take action - and no mechanism to change the beliefs of the rest of the market. To scale that, you will need a mechanism to change beliefs.
Hope that makes sense.
For the sake of transparency, we generally don’t use funnels unless it’s to segment the audience. Stealth influence done well will make funnels more effective, but can also make them unnecessary.
Thanks for asking a great question, Frederik.
Live to learn. Give to Earn.
If you found this useful or interesting, pass it along to someone like you.
Nic
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