The Greatest Motivator Isn't What You Think

        or, What I Learned From Drew Barrymore
            and Adam Sandler on Valentine's Day

                            by Joe Vitale
                        www.MrFire.com

    It's Valentine's Day as I write this. Nerissa and I
just returned from watching the new movie, "50 First
Dates," starting the beautiful Drew Barrymore and the
funny Adam Sandler. Besides being a hilarious movie in
a beautiful setting with a heartfelt message of true
love, it also caused me to have an "a-ha" right in the
middle of it.

    Somewhere around half way through the movie, as
Adam is again reminding short-term memory loss victim
Drew that he loves her, I suddenly realized the power
of the greatest motivator of all time.

    But let me first set the stage.

    Most psychologists, direct marketers, and anyone
who persuades for a living will tell you there are only
two basic motivators: Pain or Pleasure. You either go
toward what you want or away from what you don't want.

    The standard argument is that pain is more
powerful. I've tended to agree, but also stated I would
not focus on pain for idealistic reasons. I simply
don't want to spread pain in the world. Focusing on it
causes you to feel it. I don't want to contribute to
the misery many feel. So my stance has been to focus on
pleasure as a motivator in my sales letters and
websites.

    Most marketing experts agree that pain is the
best trigger to focus on in any ad or sales campaign.
They love to find a prospect's basic problem, and then
rub their noses in it. They figure the pain would make
the person buy or change.

    The most common example they give is the insurance
salesman who tries to sell you home coverage. If he
focuses on pleasure, you will put off buying. If he
tells you your house is on fire, you will buy. Pain
causes immediate action.

    So, like everyone else, I "knew" pain was the
greater motivator. I simply focused on pleasure because
it is a more noble route.

    But then I saw Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler in
their new movie and suddenly I felt awakened,
energized, and validated.

    Here's the film's plot in a nutshell:

    Adam is in love with a woman who can't remember
anything from the day before, due to a head injury in
an auto accident the year before. Every day is a new
day. And every day Adam has to win her over again.
Every date is new. Hence the title, "50 First Dates."

    At one point in it, as Adam was again wooing Drew,
I suddenly realized what I was really seeing.

     I saw pleasure was the greatest motivator of all.

    Adam was pursuing Drew every day, despite the pain
and the odds, because of his growing love for her. He
was going after pleasure. The pleasure goal was so
powerful it erased every pain he might experience.

    In short, all the marketing experts who say pain is
the greatest motivator have forgotten the power of our
driving force in life: Love.

    People will scale mountains with luggage on their
backs, swim upstream in a hurricane, and battle armies
and all odds in order to fulfill that hard-wired
emotion in us to love and be loved. Love rules.

    All the examples we were given were unfair. Someone
trying to sell insurance and resorting to pain hasn't
figured out the real pleasure button to make someone
buy. They've been too lazy to search for the pleasure
trigger. Focusing on pain was simply an easy cop-out,
a handy approach.

    It's the same with all the massive ad campaigns
that fail. Trying to get someone to quit smoking or
stop drugs because of the pain they depict in the ad is
the wrong approach. If we suddenly focused on the
pleasure someone would have when they stopped
smoking or taking drugs, we'd be moving in the right
direction.

    This is so obvious to me after watching the movie.
Our goal as marketing and business people isn't to tell
people what's wrong with them or to remind them of
their pain, but to help them imagine and then
experience the pleasure they long to have.

    It's noble, yes, *and* it works.

    Love moves everyone.

    Love is the great motivator.

    Love is the great pleasure trigger.

    According to my friend Kevin Hogan, author of "The
Psychology of Persuasion," love isn't an emotion but a
mindset. And as a mindset, it is actually stronger than
any emotion.

    In short, you're dealing with the most powerful
motivator of all time.

    Reveal what there is to love about your product or
service and you'll give people authentic reasons to do
business with you. Call it Love-Based Marketing. You
won't sell everyone with it. You'll sell only those who
are a match for your offer. That, in the end, is all
you want. Then you're happy and so are your customers.

    Just like Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler, you'll
find a match to write home about.

    And you might make a little money along the way,
to boot.

                           ********

Dr. Joe Vitale is author of way too many books to list
here, including the #1 best-selling book "Spiritual
Marketing," the best-selling e-book "Hypnotic Writing,"
and the best-selling Nightingale-Conant audioprogram,
"The Power of Outrageous Marketing." His latest books
are the best-selling "The Greatest Money-Making
Secret in History" and "Adventures Within." He's
being called "The Buddha of the Internet." Sign up
for his monthly ezine and see many articles by him
at http://www.MrFire.com