Stealth Influence: Making Powerful Content

The Trick To Making Content That Moves People

Mar 17, 2024

∙ Paid

Originally posted on the Nic Peterson substack, the Stealth Influence strategy works on all mediums - especially video or audio. Since this publication is big on video and video ads, it felt appropriate to move it over here. Stealth Influence is a great compliment to the strategies shared in The Laurel Corner

Stealth Influence is a Force Multiplier.1

What’s In This Post.

A Short Overview of Stealth Influence, my content and marketing framework
The Stealth Influence Reference Guide
The Full Stealth Influence Content Masterclass
The Stealth Influence Accelerator, Tools and Workbooks (Paid subs only)

Content seems to be king these days.

The rest of the world is optimizing for likes, follows, and engagement. This gives you a massive advantage - if you bias influencing people over vanity metrics.

To be clear, this post is about mastering the art of using content to help beneficially change their behavior. That is very different than getting more likes, shares, and engagement.

See, the things that create engagement are not the things that get people to take action.

Below is the framework I have used for almost a decade. My gym was on a waitlist - even though it was the most expensive option in town. My nutrition company actually grew so fast that it grew past my capacity to run it effectively at the time. My private mastermind, The Network, had 44 people paying $36k a year within three months of launching it. Certainty U cohorts are always filled immediately upon opening the cart.

Wanna know what they all have in common?

I’ve never had a large list, a lot of followers, or a lot of engagement. I’ve used the same content formula on all mediums - in person, written word, video, and audio.

A few years ago, I taught it as a live workshop on it called “Stealth Influence, Content Mastery”. You can get it for free at the bottom of this post. Since it was a live workshop, there was a lot of rambling. You can use the outline below and the worksheets inside the course to stay on track.

Note: this is what I have found effective. If you are optimizing for likes, follows and shares this is probably not the best strategy. I believe this is one of the best frameworks if you are running ads to content with the intent of acquiring new clients,

I don’t put a lot of resources into production quality, but that doesn’t mean you can’t.

Adapt this framework to your style.

Stealth Influence, Content Mastery

Adoption Decisions: Five main adoption decisions will push people over the fence to adopt your thing. Remember, by spending time and money with you they are not spending time and money with someone else.
The first step is identifying which adoption decisions you can lean into.
1. Relative Advantage: Spending time and money on my thing is better than what they are already doing or the alternatives
2. Complexity: My thing is simpler than what they are already doing or the alternatives.
3. Compatibility: My thing is compatible with their lifestyle, religion, identity, and belief systems.
4. Trialability: I can let them try it.
5. Observability: They can see what it’s like to have or use my thing.
Proactive Empathy (breaking false beliefs): You must identify the false beliefs holding your prospects back. This means you must be practicing proactive empathy, working to truly understand your prospects - better than they understand themselves. Write down:
1. What they are saying to themselves
2. The experience that gave them that belief
3. A personal or client story that crushes that false belief
You’ll want to do that for 8-10 false beliefs your best prospects are carrying around with them. If you don’t know what your best clients are saying to themselves, talking to them is more important than making content directed at them, in my opinion.
The Story: Take your personal or client story and create a consistent framework. I prefer a version of the Pixar storytelling framework. Pixars framework has proven to be consistent and effective. Here is a simplified version:
1. Once upon there was… (character like your ideal prospect)
2. Every day…(pain or struggle they are facing)
3. Until one day… (new thing or belief that changed their life)
4. Because of that…(immediate benefit)
5. And because of them (secondary and tertiary benefits)
6. Until finally… (reaches goal or happy ending)
The Trust Profile* Lenses: Take the story above an extract the following:
1. The Aspirational: This is already done, the story is the aspiration.
2. The Actionable: What are the action steps someone can take right now?
3. The Anthropological: What are the biases and beliefs present in the stories struggle or solution?
4. The Analytical: What are the numbers?

Some people are moved by stories, others by numbers. Some people want to know why their behavior is what it is, others just want to be told what to do. By breaking one story into four pieces of content - one for each lens - you are speaking to different people.

Making one video covering all four lenses might seem like a good shortcut. It’s not. In doing so, you’re asking someone to watch 5-10 minutes of things they don’t care about before getting to the lens that speaks to them. If you ever think to yourself “I already said that, it’s four minutes into this video” you should make a new video that starts with the thing people are asking for.
*The Trust Profile was made for me by Jack Butcher while he was in my mastermind a few years ago. Jack is one of the best branding minds on the planet, it’s worth following his stuff.

Recap

Identify the adoption decisions that you can lean into. These are the things that you have the most conviction about being true.
Identify the false beliefs preventing your prospects from being successful regarding the thing you help with. Get to know them better than they know themselves.
Craft a story breaking each belief with personal or client stories.
Run the story through the Trust Profile lenses, creating additional content from the same story.

Don’t get caught up in getting it perfect.

I know it can seem like a lot when lined out this way, but I promise it’s not.

The Stealth Influence Content Mastery Masterclass

The secret to mastering something new quickly
The process of reliably finding motivation and reaching flow
How to get everyone else to think you’re a mind read and a fortune teller
Creating a gravitational pull with your content
Turning one story into four or more powerful pieces of content that gets people to take action

1. Learning And Intelligence. Watch this for yourself, but also remember that it applies to your prospects, as well.