Casual Brainwashing Is the Key to Cultivating a 7-Figure Following

Making millions off an unwavering fan base is simpler (and much more redundant) than you might expect. Here’s how.

It took one impromptu podcast episode, an hour or so of Googling, and a brief (15-minute) in-person consultation to take me from complete stranger to $12,000 customer within three days. Yes, you heard me: Within three days of learning about a brand and service for the first time ever, completely unplanned, I was convinced to book a sales consultation and fork over $12k (for a personal, non-business-related discretionary service).

I’m guessing you want to know exactly how one interview-style podcast was able to get me hook, line, and sinker to the 5-figure degree in such a swift, seamless conversion cycle. If only you knew the marketing and sales formula they used on that episode, you’d of course be able to mimic it within your own business or industry and print money at lightning speed.

If that sounds hard or nearly impossible, I have good news: It is. The aforementioned sales cycle and 3-day-to-$12k conversion window is 100% true, but it isn’t common or easily replicable at scale, and here’s why: I wasn’t your average stranger or cold prospect. Though it was pure coincidence, that unassuming podcast episode offered a deep dive into a personal issue that’s vexed me for years. That said, no one would know I was a prime candidate for the service, and given the broad nature of the podcast, I wasn’t actively seeking out solutions in that moment.

I was simply listening to a few conversationalists I regularly enjoy, and this one time, they happened to cover a topic, guest, and service uniquely relevant to me. Thus, my $12k purchase was a bit of a fluke, a coincidence, or a lucky win for them, but certainly not a conversion metric off of which to draw any broader conclusions.

However, there are some other podcasters, authors, and influencers I know who have cracked the formula to “effortlessly” coaxing hundreds, thousands, and sometimes even tens of thousands out of their audiences at a similar clip. Let’s talk about how some of these “ordinary” people have built extraordinary, loyal, high-converting fan bases and unpack what they’re doing right, which many big-name companies are still getting wrong.

Stop wasting money on this

Have you ever watched a YouTube video or listened to a podcast? I’m going to assume the answer (for most of you) is yes to at least one of those. If so, I’m going to assume you know how to use the “fast forward” button to skip ahead thirty seconds or at least move the video’s timeline forward.

Assuming all that, let’s play out a little scenario:

• You’re watching a video or listening to a podcast
• The speaker abruptly switches gears or cuts to a clip from another day and launches into a not-so-relevant sales pitch for whatever brand sponsored this episode
• You have three options:

1. Listen to the intriguing commercial willingly, excited, soaking in every word about this new widget and perhaps even clicking the link to buy it
2. Let it play but tune it out mentally; this is a great time for a bathroom break or to check your email until the interruption subsides
3. Exercise the power of the “fast forward” button and skip ahead to the content you actually came here for without a moment wasted

I’m going to assume the vast majority of you fall into camps 2 or 3, ignoring or skipping over these sponsored ads entirely. Would knowing that a brand paid $5k, $10k, or even $50k+ for that two-minute feature make a difference to your behavior? I’m going to assume “no”, since you probably already know this and don’t really care. If you — an entrepreneur, a founder, an evangelist of your own startup or product — feel that way, imagine how non-founders feel when they hear your startup’s sales pitch forced down their throats by an uninvited ad break?

I’m not suggesting you’re heavily investing in these ads nor implying they’re 100% ineffective; however, I am asserting they are far from the most effective, efficient, profitable way to earn business, and they definitely shouldn’t stand alone.

If they shouldn’t stand alone, with what should they be accompanied to activate the potential effectiveness of the sales pitch? This is where the real secret to effective marketing and conversions comes in; this is a deep dive into the tactic of conversational brainwashing.

The silver bullet: Conversational brainwashing

The first time you hear something, it’s unlikely to fully sink in — at least not enough to trigger a behavioral change. By the tenth, twentieth, or thirtieth time, though, you may have soaked up enough preceding information, built up enough rapport with or fondness for the speaker, or been nurtured (brainwashed) enough that taking that next action feels like a no-brainer. That is the power of casual, conversational, relentless, redundant non-salesy brainwashing.

If you build an entire brand, persona, library, or platform around informing and educating listeners about a topic without trying to shove sponsored products or time-sensitive sales pitches down their throats, the organic trust you’ll be cultivating with this audience will be unmatched. That level of trust and assigned authority you’ll be granted after establishing such an informative and credible bank of content are the makings of a 7-figure following that seeks out your products, rather than the other way around (you seeking out those buyers).

Let’s take a common industry in which dozens of successful founders have carved out these effective niches and built 7-, 8-, and in one case that I know of personally, even 9-figure fan bases: Longevity, healthcare, and nutrition.

Longevity is a large and overarching topic, since it can potentially be relevant to and affect everyone. However, if you were to position your content or marketing around longevity, you’re likely to attract an older audience (who’s regularly considering their own mortality). If, alternatively, you were to focus on a niche within longevity, you could potentially attract a laser-targeted audience primed for the diverse products or services you’d want to sell — and one who would better resonate with you (or the “face” of your brand).

There’s one woman who’s dominating this space with a platform catering to women over 40 who need to build muscle, stave off osteoporosis, regulate their hormones, and lose fat. She’s built a captive audience around the many risks and problems associated with women aging, and she’s slowly woven her own branded solutions into her largely informative content. Since her audience has spent years learning about and buying into the problem, spending two seconds buying into her solution (literally) is a no-brainer, whether it’s a protein supplement, an exercise plan, a vitamin, or a calcium pill.

If you listen to a handful of her episodes and interviews, you’d probably think:

• Enough with the protein talk; we get it!
• If I hear strength training one more time…

But does she ever stop talking about protein or strength training? Never. Any regular consumer of her content would be inadvertently brainwashed to at least those two facts.

Likewise, there’s a similar voice in the male body-building community, the vegan space, and many more. Each of these successful founders has spent years immersing their audience in their knowledge base around a specific topic, its pros, cons, risks, and benefits, and has seamlessly become the #1 authority in said space. Selling products is a natural byproduct of that audience’s loyal listening ear, and a casual podcast conversation could easily make them ten times more money than a semi-relevant commercial break for another company’s product.

Patience is a strategy, not a virtue

You may have heard that “patience is a virtue”; while that may be true, most successful entrepreneurs who employ it effectively do so as a purposeful strategy, rather than their natural state of being. It’s easy to insert a call to action, a countdown timer, or a time-sensitive sales pitch based around a false sense of urgency while crossing your fingers it doesn’t get skipped. It’s much harder to spend months and years thoughtfully cultivating a trusted brand of authority after which you won’t need to rely on gamified urgency tactics to incite a sale.

If you build the right thing, “they” won’t come; they’ll already be there, asking for your next product release to solve the problem you’ve effortlessly convinced them they must address.

Think about it: If big companies were patient enough to do it this way, they wouldn’t splash out 5- and 6-figures for pisspoor conversions to a disloyal audience of strangers, 98% of which will skip the ad anyway. You can play whichever game you want, but if you have more time than money, I’d opt for option one all day long.