You ever wish movies would just get to the good stuff?

Like cut out the first 63-odd minutes of Rocky and race right to the fight with Apollo Creed.

Show us the scene in The Shawshank Redemption when Andry Dufresne escapes in the thundering rain.

Zoom in on Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan when they finally lock eyes atop the Empire State Building in Sleepless in Seattle.

You’d watch that, right?

Heck no. It’s like gobbling up a cake that’s all frosting.

The climax in a movie is sweetest when the characters work for it.

We need to see Rocky batter his body into shape under the squinty-eyed glare of Mickey … witness the cons with hearts of gold suffer the corrupt rule in Shawshank  … watch as Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan limp through cheap imitations of True Love.

Otherwise …

The climax in Rocky is just two men slowly beating each other to death.

Tim Robbins is simply a guy who reeks worse than a silo of stale farts.

And Hanks and Ryan are just two strangers gaping at each other 86 floors above a Manhattan street corner.

Cue the violins, play all the soul-stirring music you want — without the struggle, without the conflict, without the context – the audience just won’t care.

In fact, actors and writers speak of “earning the moment” – justifying the emotional outburst at the end of a story by enduring all the trials that come before. If you don’t earn that moment, it has no value.

The same is true in sales. (And why the “Struggle” is a key component in the 60 Second Sales Hook. Try taking it out of the formula and notice how limp the result is.)

When we don’t establish context, we don’t establish value.

Here the hard-nosed engineer may cross his arms to his chest, shake his head ponderously and remark, “That’s all well and good for some flashy luxury purchase … or an information product (he sneers) whose value must be manufactured by advertising.

“But if you’re selling an honest, physical products — all that talk is fruffery, wasted hot air.

“When a customer comes looking for that kind of product, he just wants the facts.”

(Can’t you see that customer right now? Witness the plain honest face, emerging from a pair of faded overalls … a face filled with the horse sense of an Iowa farmer and no time for frills.)

Baloney, I say.

Facts are useless, mere data floating in space, unless they’re anchored to the grand drama of human experience. We need context to help them make sense. To know what they’re worth.

And what better way to establish context than with a story?

The STORY

Suppose you’re in the market for a stapler. Your last four staplers broke, stupid pieces of junk. You want something durable this time.

Maybe like that shiny red Swingline stapler treasured by Milton in the movie Office Space. (By the way, who else remembers the original “Milton” animation shorts on SNL that spawned the movie? Loved those.)

Miltion from Office Space guarding his red Swingline stapler
Bad things happen when you steal this guy’s stapler.

Anyway, you stomp into my office supply store with your demand: “I need a stapler that’s built to last.”

So I smile and pull off one from the shelf:  “This is our top of the line stapler. Highest rated for durability. Comes with a guaranty for the life of the stapler.”

Ho hum. You’ve heard it all before.

So I throw down a few facts:

“It’s made from a special steel alloy that’s used in the space shuttle. They only use 3 pieces of steel for the entire stapler, so there are fewer parts that can break.”

Now that’s better — you’ve got some proof. Space shuttle steel: it’s from the future.

But you’re still not sure. How do you really know this thing is gonna last until the days you’re drooling over your Cheerios?

It’s time to pull out the big guns: I tell you a story.

This stapler (I begin as I place the heavy object in your hands) was inspired by Ikiro Hashidachi, an accountant for Toyota, after he noticed the corporate office was bleeding a small fortune on shoddy office supplies – especially staplers.

They would crack after a few months of steady use (and forget about stapling any more than 20 pages at a time!)

So Mr. Hashidachi cornered the best structural engineers on the Toyota shop floor and tasked them with this challenge: make me a stapler that lasts until the human race doesn’t even use paper anymore.

Oh, and he gave them one piece of advice, too: try and use as few parts as possible. The tiny ones always jam up.

The team of young Toyota engineers concealed their scorn until the old accountant climbed into the elevator (off to his cushy office in the corporate tower, no doubt). Then the laughter erupted.

They mocked his advice. These men dreamed up complex machines with thousands of parts. They knew how to make parts that worked together.

Besides, this was a stapler. A challenge for Toyota engineers? How hard could it be?

… Sixteen prototypes and 417 hours of testing later, the crack team of engineers had lost their smirks. They had exhausted 14 different steel alloys – which had all bent, split, or cracked under stress tests.

Finally, the engineers submitted to Mr. Hashidachi’s wisdom: keep the absolute minimum number of parts. The fewer the parts, the fewer weak points.

Armed with this insight, the engineers swiftly drew up plans for a stapler unlike any that had ever been constructed, fashioned from just 6 pieces of micro-alloy steel.

That next stapler lasted much longer – it made the previous staplers look like a stack of popsicle sticks.

But the prototype wasn’t perfect (the swing joint still broke after 70 “years” of simulated stress). And perfection was demanded – Toyota ingenuity was on the chopping block.

Working nights and weekends, the battle-hardened engineers finally signaled victory 137 days later.

On the 138th day, the lead engineer humbly hand delivered the finished stapler to Mr. Hashidachi. The old accountant hefted the weight in his hands, walked over to an open window, and dropped it onto the street 30 floors below. The stapler survived (with a dent or two) and it sits on Mr. Hashidachi’s desk to this day — unless it’s in his hands, stapling away.

And that’s the model you’re holding in your hands.

Built to last for generations, it’s made of only 3 steel pieces – including the spring.

You can drop it on concrete or even hurl it against a brick wall — and the only thing damaged will be the wall. Pick up the stapler, dust off the bits of powdered brick, and it will gladly fasten the next fat stack of papers you place in its steel jaws.

Once you hear that, you clutch the stapler to your chest,  in case somebody is lurking behind you, ready to steal it from your hands. You’re not letting this beauty out of your sight until you get it home.

The MORAL

Establish value by telling a story that shows what went into the offer: a struggle against a long standing problem … the many failed attempts on the path to greatness … the history of an industry struggling for a solution. Then when you reach the climax of the story, your hearers will see the product’s true worth.

Stay Tuned For Next Week

In which we watch a mad man crack open … to reveal Truth

 

THE AMAZING 60-SECOND SALES HOOK THAT CREATES
AN INSTANT BOND WITH YOUR BEST PROSPECTS

PLUS: Get fill-in-the-blank templates that instantly establish “Know, Like, and Trust”

THE AMAZING 60-SECOND SALES HOOK THAT CREATES
AN INSTANT BOND WITH YOUR BEST PROSPECTS
PLUS: Get fill-in-the-blank templates that instantly establish “Know, Like, and Trust”
THE AMAZING 60-SECOND SALES HOOK THAT CREATES
AN INSTANT BOND WITH YOUR BEST PROSPECTS
PLUS: Get fill-in-the-blank templates that instantly establish “Know, Like, and Trust”
 
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