Finch's Tedious Rants | Finch Sells

Moving to Thailand: Why I’m Going Back

Jul 02 2012

12 months ago, I traded the stifling heat of Thailand for the leafy safety net of West London’s suburbs. I wouldn’t say I made a bad decision. But like many expats returning from a tropical paradise, all I can think about is what I left behind. And why I left it.

Coming home was the weary culmination of a year exploring Asia and realising just how ‘safe’ I’d been playing my life. My passport was stamped to shit, my visa was running out and everything about Asia was a million miles from the home that I considered my own.

It’s only when you’re clung to the back of a Cambodian tuk tuk as it cuts up a group of veering motorbikes that you start to think, “Jesus, London might be plastered in chavvy little shites, but at least it never put me through a real-life game of Mario Kart…”

It’s difficult to move to a new country. Especially when that country has such a unique and foreign culture, not to mention a whole new language. There are mistakes I made in Thailand that held me back from ever calling it home.

When you are disconnected from friends and family for the first time, you imagine what’s going on without you. You see the photos on Facebook, the news on the BBC, and you feel like you’re missing out on the lives of those closest to you.

It’s only when you get home that you realise the nature of the illusion. All that you’ve been missing is a semi-occasional ‘catch up’ where everybody shares how little has actually changed. Rarely is it worth waiting for.

It’s a year since I arrived back in London and the only noticeable change is my own rising intolerance to the mundanity of these same old empty streets.

I am paying £1500/month to rent a house full of shagged fixtures, albeit in an area with good schools and a reasonable commute to Central London. It would be nigh on perfect if I had to commute, or if I had kids. But I don’t, and I won’t, so what in the heck am I doing here?

That’s the question I’ve been asking. And that’s why I’ve decided to do the sensible thing… and move back to Thailand.

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you may be starting to sense a pattern.

‘He gets bored, he bitches about it, he moves to the other side of the world, he rinses and repeats.’

That’s pretty close to the truth. But there are lessons I’ve learnt, things I will do differently.

Admittedly, breakfast on the beach in Koh Samui won’t be one of them:

Breakfast at the Library

So what did I learn?

Well, if you’re thinking of putting a boot through your apartment and escaping to a sunnier part of the world, these reminders will do you no harm.

Adopt the country as your own.

It doesn’t work otherwise. The reason I failed to settle in Thailand was because I never really tried.

I was guilty of treating it as an extended holiday rather than a permanent move. Small decisions like decorating my apartment, or buying new furniture would turn in to a personal revolt. I wasn’t fully committed, which is the equivalent of embracing a life in transit.

You need to put in the effort to make your home feel like home, not simply a residence where you’re staying for a short period of time. And if you work from home too, that means pimping out a proper office. Not getting by on the tiny bloody dressing table that serviced me in Sukhumvit.

Learn the language.

My target is to be semi-fluent in Thai (speaking it, not writing it) within 3 months of touching down. The difference language makes to your overall happiness is incredible. Not being able to communicate is a real pain in the balls. It’s like a wedge between you and the city.

Even though Bangkok is an easy place to get by without speaking Thai, it’s impossible to fully enjoy the quirks and sideshows if you can’t speak the native tongue.

I’ll be taking a year of language classes in Bangkok. It’s dirt cheap (only £500), and it gets me the education visa that takes care of another big stress…

Visa issues are a bitch.

Oh yes they are.

How do you settle abroad if you don’t know where your next visa extension is coming from?

It’s frustrating enough having to exit Thailand every 90 days to get a new visa, but the situation is even worse when you have no guarantee that said visa application will be accepted. I had my extension denied in Singapore and was forced to choose between an education visa, or returning to London. I eventually chose London.

If you’re going somewhere with the intention of settling for the short to mid term future (1-3 years), you better have your visa path mapped out like a hawk – or be prepared to relocate within 14 days and lose your existing deposits.

Make an effort socially.

When you relocate as a couple, there’s less pressure to push yourself in to social circles and get to know new people. You share experiences with each other.

While that is nice, I definitely want to spend more time meeting new people in Bangkok – and to network with the strong expat community. You’ve got to make friends and connections for any city to feel like home. As a couple, it’s easy to unintentionally insulate yourself from all the meetups and events that are going on around you.

I met up with several affiliates on my last trip, including some familiar bloggers like Andrew Wee, Justin Dupre and Nick[y Cakes].

This blog gets a ton of traffic from Thailand, so it’ll be great to catch up with a few more marketing scumbags when I get the chance.

If you miss ‘home’, visit it.

By speaking to a lot of expats you will notice a recurring trend. They move to Thailand, they move back home, and then they move to Thailand for good.

Sometimes this is down to visa issues, but more often it’s a case of homesickness followed by the realisation that home isn’t what it once was.

It’s not just expats that encounter the problem.

Even students who’ve enjoyed the time of their lives at University can suffer from boredom and unrest after returning to their hometowns. You learn a lot about yourself in the time away and when you return, you’re not quite the same person.

Often the place where we grew up isn’t the place where we feel we belong. But we’re always going to miss the friends and family that we associate with that place.

This time, when I’m feeling homesick, I’ve learnt enough to realise that I can fix it by visiting home for a couple of weeks and catching up with everybody. There’s no need to move back for good.

Nothing crazy or otherworldly will happen while I’m gone. It never does.

Bangkok at Night

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How to Sell Well: No Cleavage Necessary

Jun 25 2012

The most powerful sales copy in the world is often the most simple.

It creates the least friction. It shapes existing beliefs in to motivation for taking action.

Something I try to get across in every landing page I build is that the user is always right. That doesn’t equate to being smart, and it certainly doesn’t mean rational. It means the user’s beliefs and motivations are worth infinitely more than any of the bullet points on my page.

When we start replacing product benefits with nods to the user’s belief systems, we erase all friction and speak directly to the identity of that user. This is powerful because a customer will only buy what he believes in.

Look around you.

Your possessions are a testament to who you are and what you believe in. Everything from the pile of books, to the brand of laptop, to the type of drink you’re swigging is a mark of who you think you are.

So, if a swaggering arsehole were to fall from the ceiling, slap you in the face and pitch you something that didn’t match your predisposition or beliefs… you wouldn’t buy it.

And yet many affiliate marketers will try this technique regardless.

To give you an example of a particularly embarrassing howler I made in the past, I once tried to sell the angle of ‘dating at Christmas‘ to a target demo of 250,000 Jewish women – who weren’t necessarily even single.

Doesn’t sound like a profitable campaign, does it? No shit.

While my clanger is an extreme case, the mistake I was committing is the same that many marketers are committing every day. They try to sell a story, a concept, an idea, that simply isn’t relevant, wanted or desired.

When it fails, what do we blame? Probably a bad offer that didn’t convert, or a banner that didn’t draw enough clicks. Rarely do we criticize the story being told. We’re reluctant to question the authenticity of our sales message, and how it might be received by the people with the pleasure of experiencing our ads. Why are we so deluded? Because that shit takes skill! It’s no lazy man’s cup of tea to connect with real people.

We too often take it for granted that our target markets are packed to the ceiling with numb nuts who need only see a “Click to Order Now” to part with their cash.

There’s a real lack of authentic storytelling.

What happened to that priceless ability to sell not by preaching what the user doesn’t give a shit about, but by tapping in to their beliefs and convincing them that Product X is who they are?

The best sellers in the business rarely sell. They reassure. They mould their products in to extensions of the customer’s belief systems. Sometimes those beliefs are deluded, stupid or wrong; but the customer never is. Selling requires that you embrace that insanity and shine a light on it.

How effectively are your landing pages selling the story behind your product?

Yesterday I found myself scanning through the holy motherload of landing page collections.

It’s probably not the most glamorous way to spend a weekend – peering shamelessly at the work of other affiliate marketers – but it’s an excellent source of inspiration, and a reminder of the thousand scandalous ways to skin a cat.

What struck me is that while our industry never tires of finding new and inventive ways to build trust – usually through association and brand misdirection – there are very few affiliate marketers who truly ‘get’ the art of selling.

You sense that affiliates are making money in spite of their copy and headlines, rather than because of them. That’s a testament to some of the sick creative minds out there, and their ability to find the perfect amount of cleavage that steers clear of the Facebook Banhammer while still popping a monster CTR.

I do have to wonder though, from a career advancement perspective, what is going to take you further? A library of 56,000 high-CTR 110x80s… or the ability to use words that spark conversions through the power of classic story-telling?

The next time you launch a campaign that bombs in the first hour, resist the urge to throw new offers, images and landing pages at the wall. Ask, instead, if your message is consistent. Is the total sum of your product benefits a person that the target user would want to be?

If the answer is no, you’ve sold the wrong story.

Recommended This Week

Make sure you grab your copy of the newly released Premium Posts Volume 5. It’s the perfect tonic for anybody wanting to crack Internet Marketing on a shoestring budget.
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Marketing Tips From An Indian Call Centre

Feb 01 2012

I’ve just reached the end of my existing phone contract. Despite bitching and grumbling about Three, my ‘service provider’, for as long as I can remember; I decided to shoot myself in the balls yet again by renewing with them. I don’t like the idea of losing my current phone number, even if it means dealing with half a signal bar in my own house.

The Samsung Galaxy S2 looked sufficiently tasty to merit a goodbye to my HTC, so I got the ball rolling. I hit 333 on my keypad and waited to be put through to somebody who could help me.

Calling a sales representative at Three is like challenging Derren Brown to a game of misdirection. There’s something deliberately perplexing about the South Indian dialect, and the guy on the end of the phone can call himself ‘Graham’ until he’s blue in the face; I’m still not buying it.

I believe I made the critical error of calling Three with the stated intention of upgrading. Had I waited for them to call me, I could have easily fudged their sales funnel with my threats to move network. Guys, if you ever want more from your phone contract, press x to speak to somebody about canceling your existing deal. It works every time.

To my surprise, it took all of about 37 seconds for the bloodsuckers to translate my keyword ‘new contract’ in to an apparent desire to be upsold the moon. I found myself being shoved towards ‘Steve’ on the sales team.

We went through the usual security verification, littered with bullshit idle small talk. Apparently there is a command in the Three support system that encourages employees to wish happy birthday to anybody whose birth date falls in a 4 day range. I found myself describing my celebrations three times in a row.

“Oh, I see that it was your birthday four days ago, Mr. Osborn. May I ask how you spent it?”

“Well actually, ‘Steve’, I spent it in the darkest corner of my basement. I’m still there now. I’ve been waiting for this call, ‘Steve’. I’ve been chanting my security answers in a tribal beat. Oh yes, I’ve been praying for this conversation, ‘Steve’. Now why don’t you tell me a little more about that Samsung?”

“…uh, excellent, now, Mr. Osborn…” By this point, his cordial laugh has degenerated in to a nervous hush. All thoughts of a commission have been banished in the name of a psycho on Line 107.

You see, the only way to play Three effectively is to beat them at their own game. And their game is essentially ‘the mindfuck’. It’s a tour de force in disorientation, rapid-fire T&Cs and blatant trickery.

It wasn’t long before I was being offered my sparkling new contract.

“Yes, Mr. Osborn, I can certainly help you today. Now, you say that you are interested in the Samsung Galaxy S2. Well, I am going to give you a special deal on that phone, your preferred handset. I’m going to give you unlimited Internet usage, 8000 texts, 8000 minutes for a monthly charge of just £40. Would you say that that is a good deal, Mr. Osborn?”

“Sounds pretty good to me.”

“Excellent, fantastic. Well, that’s great. Now as a loyal customer to Three, I’d also like to tell you about a special ‘benefit’ that I’d love to offer to you exclusively. I think you’re going to really love it. Would you like to hear about that, Mr. Osborn?”

Marketing note: Clearly the salesmen at Three have the classic ‘benefits over features’ argument drummed in to their heads. They crowbar the words ‘special benefit’ in to their pitch like relentless drones. Also, they’re skilled at using one of my favourite sales techniques: they build up momentum by feeding a barrage of questions where the only answer is ‘yes’. Get a prospect to say ‘yes’ to a bunch of smaller questions and his answer to the big one is likely to be influenced.

By this point, I knew damn well where the conversation was heading. I’ve been cold-called several times by Three in the last few months. They seem absolutely determined to sell me a second handset, or to draw family referrals like blood from a stone.

Sure enough, ‘Steve’ pitched me with a second handset. 300 minutes, 200 texts and 500mb of Internet allowance. But best of all, I could have this handset absolutely free. Now here’s where their shenanigans get somewhat murky.

I asked twice, specifically, if the handset was available for £0 and no monthly charges. Both times, ‘Steve’ confirmed that it was.

Reluctantly, but sensing something was amiss, I agree to be sent the second handset. I figured I’d flog it on eBay, or give it to one of my many friends with cracked iPhone screens. I do love a gesture of irony.

Delighted with his coup, ‘Steve’ then hit me with the small print. The sales process is designed to extract audible sighs while you agree and confirm a merciless list of T&Cs. Eventually we neared the end, and I was hit with this…

“So, Mr. Osborn, today you have agreed to not one but two handsets. Firstly, the Samsung Galaxy S2 for £40/month, your desired handset, and secondly a Samsung Europa Whatever, absolutely free as a special benefit for being a loyal customer to Three…”

“…Now I have to tell you, Mr. Osborn, and it’s just a minor detail, but we can’t process the second phone in our system on a free contract. So what I’m going to do is set up two direct debits. The first will charge you £30 for the Galaxy S2, and the second will charge you £10 for the Europa Whatever, which of course, you are receiving free of charge as a special benefit for being a loyal customer. So, all in all, you will be paying £40/month for the Samsung Galaxy S2 and getting a second handset absolutely free of charge. Can I go through and confirm this on the system, Mr. Osborn?”

Hold on, what the hell?

Suddenly it hit me that from the moment ‘Steve’ offered me a £40/month contract, I’d been setup for one of the most long-winded upsell tricks in the book. I directed my browser at the Three website and sure enough, there was the Samsung Galaxy S2 on sale for £35/month. Forget the loyal customer bullshit. He’d actually given me a small discount on my intended phone, which I’m probably entitled to after seven years with the company. And his ‘special benefit’? It was no more than a second contract, lumbering me with a phone that I initially rejected.

Marketing note: Upselling can be effective, but even more effective is getting your prospect to agree to an inflated price and then bundling in the upsell. Customers are notoriously bad at valuing products. They rely on contrast and comparison to decipher the good deals from the bad. As soon as I signaled that I was happy with a £40/month price point, I took on the identity of lamb to the slaughter, so easy would it be to get me to approve of the same contract I’ve been declining for the last 6 months…

I tip my hat to Three, because by this point, I truly couldn’t have given a shit. I’d been on the phone for close to 30 minutes.

In the UK, we have a customer protection scheme for online and phone-based sales. It’s a statutory cooling off period, where contracts can be cancelled in the first few days (Incidentally, the same law does not apply in-store so always get your contracted shit online, guys.). I decided to wait for the phones to be delivered and then send back the second unwanted handset. By canceling, I would get the Samsung Galaxy for £30/month – finally, a good deal that looks, smells and tastes like a good deal!

So, I waited for the delivery and then called Three again… pressed 4 to speak to a cancellation assistant, pressed 6 to confirm that I was serious, pressed 9 to answer some algebra, before finally muttering the ‘secret word’ to reach the help desk: “ARRRGHHHH!”

It’s no surprise that from the moment I mentioned ‘cancel contract’, I found myself plunged in to a labyrinth of darkness, holding queues and the motherfucking Black Eyed Peas. If you think upgrading your contract is a pain in the arse, just try canceling one. Invariably you’ll find that the most persistent, crafty bastards are placed on these desks. Their mission is to make you think twice.

Before long, you’re pleading to speak to ‘Steve’ again. Except this world resembles the Orwellian dystopia, where ‘Steve’ is now known as ‘Abraham’, and your sanity is questioned for stating otherwise.

Note to service providers: If you’re a large company like Three, you can generally get away with making the cancellation procedure a thousand times more agonizing than the sales funnel. If you’re a small business, this is reputation suicide. In fact, I would even suggest that dealing with the customers looking to cancel is more important than wooing new prospects. Prospects are still prospects, they’ll come and go. But your customers possess the ammunition to leave your reputation in the gutter. Make life easy for them – even when their intention is to ditch you.

If you’re still following by now, you’re probably wondering: did I manage to cancel the contract? or did I succumb to the web of lies and tricky? Well, I’m about to find out.

After negotiating the Black Eyed Peas, a sore arse, and close to an hour being bounced around on hold, I finally reached the contract cancellation help desk. What did I discover? My contracts weren’t even active in the system yet! And, of course, the Three system is designed in such a way that inactive accounts cannot be terminated. I was told to call back today, which I’m about to do.

A final marketing note: If the customer is aware of his cooling off period, insist that he observes another cooling off period before he can make his final decision. If you’re that customer? Congratulations. The ‘cooling off period within a cooling off period’ is the very last hurdle guarding the light at the end of the tunnel. You’re almost home and dry!

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Make sure you grab a copy of Premium Posts Volume 3. Featuring over 75 pages of tips and techniques to help you dominate the dating niche, Volume 3 should give your campaigns a nice boost for 2012. Download a copy here.
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