What can we learn from con artists

Marketing your new ventures might be a difficult task. But in order to make something successful you need to find all the possible ways of getting the most of your efforts. That's where some lessons from con artists might come handy.

I was just watching a documentary about a swedish...I think he was swedish, con artist...Richard smth. He was pretty much able to do anything - sell fake information to Syrian embassy, pretend to be an airplane pilot with engine problems causing an evacuation of an oil platform or just getting people's personal data using just a phone. Or to make a phone call, pretending to be a police officer and getting dozens of men in uniform to certain he wanted to see them. And no, it's not the movie with Leonardo Di Caprio. Even though you can learn much from there as well. It's all pretty simple - you just need to have the skill, and more importantly, the will to it.

Well, I don't think selling fake names to Syria, names of innocent people who now might be tortured in hopes to get information out of them, just for fun, would be a good thing to do. But if you start thinking about it all, it really does show that everything is possible. You just need to open up your mind.

And I started thinking - how could this documentary, these ideas help me in promoting something. And realised there really is more than just one way once you manage to open up your mind. And I don't mean anything illegal. Any ideas yet?

The keyword here is buzz - "mouth to mouth" advertising, or in better words, word of mouth advertising is always the best way to get the info out there. And people like secrets, people like huge things, people like to talk, people like to talk about interesting and extraordinary things to be in the center of attention. And...people like to gossip.

You need to help them do that. And by helping them you're helping yourself. One way of doing that is to let people think things are bigger than they actually are. Just an example from the back of my head - imagine you're opening a new computer store. Whether online or offline. Not the easiest thing to advertise with all those other shops around you. You'll be just one of them. Unless....you manage to get your name out there with something. You could start a rumor that for the first week all computers cost $10. That attracts attention, right? That attracts interest. That makes people talk about it. That makes newspapers talk about your shop that will open in two weeks.

That's a rumor, it doesn't have to be true. You're not lying, you're not giving false promises. Actually you're not promising anything. You just let out one idea that someone misunderstood, told it to couple of friends and there you go, you have got loads of free advertising.

And once the shop opens, yes, many people will be dissapointed, others will tell their friends "I told ya so". Newspapers will say it was all a trick. Well, it was, but again they are writing about you, now for the second time. Even though it was a trick. And if your shop is good enough, you still have great sales numbers for the first weeks. And then you will give couple of interviews telling about your initial marketing strategy, and again you have got some extra free publicity. And just for the sake of ...something...you could actually sell the first computer for $10. Or you could give the computer for $10 to every 100th buyer. Or...well, loads of possibilities.

So - just open up your mind.