We all know that the marketing people for supplements just tell people what they want to hear to get rich selling their supplements but *how* you tell the lies is very important! ALWAYS MAKE UP EXACT NUMBERS!!! Lets look at this actual graphic from some marketing literature I saw recently:
Now they have done well here. They have exciting, bold colors. They show a huge arm and show the bicep throbbing with power. The message is kept simple and exciting. They entice with vague claims of research without actually confusing you with what that research is, who paid for it, or the fact that it was their 13 year old brother and his new chemistry set who did the research. Clearly these folks did not have the advantage of the three decades training as an engineer that I have had.
Always make up exact numbers!
About 3 decades ago on my first engineering job out of college I learned a very valuable lesson from a wise director of engineering whose name was Peter. He said (off the record of course) that if you want people to unquestionably believe you then make up exact numbers. Lets take the following example. Lets say at a party where nobody knows you, you let this gem slip out in a casual conversation with someone you want to impress:
“Wow, you are hiking the Inca trail to Macchu Picchu! Did you know that between 1956 and 1962 the GDP of Peru when adjusted for inflation but excluding energy costs went up on average of 18.356% making it the fastest growing economy during that period?”
They are going to think you are *really* smart! Who would even consider questioning a statement like that said with such authority and precision? Nobody! And even if they did, they would never be able to find the data to prove you wrong :) Had you used “10%” instead of “18.356%” the whole believability suddenly goes out the window. When you say 10%, its clearly some sort of approximation or worse yet, you have no idea what you are talking about.
So how could our greedy marketing people improve the above ad learning from the above example? Here is a much more effective graphic, all I had to do was change “6%” to “5.93%”:
How to make lots of money selling supplements!
Remember when you make up your lies to sell your products, always make up exact numbers!!!!