In Part 1 of this article, we began discussing how secrets are the most valuable commodity we can trade in any information market.

(In fact, I’d argue that secrets are the ONLY kind of information with any trade value.  But I digress.)

So we now know that our goal should be to generate valuable secrets that we can trade within our market.  To understand how we might do that, let’s talk a little about how people place a value on a given secret.

Fortunately for us marketers, this is a largely involuntary process that we can influence and even control.

We all do a number of unconscious internal calculations to determine how much a certain secret might be worth to us.  A lot of it has to do with context and frame of reference.  It can be relative even down to the individual level.

A secret method for driving a golf ball 300 yards is of no use to a fisherman, while a golfer would be willing to pay through the nose to learn it, for example.

For those of us in the business of creating secrets-for-sale, we can’t really be custom-tailoring our information for each and every potential consumer.  There just isn’t the time.  Personally, I don’t have the desire to either.  I want universal solutions.  So we need a shortcut.

After a lot of research and experimentation, I think I’ve come up with some useful generalizations you can use to help maximize the value of your own precious and protected information.

It’s actually really simple, too.

There are three main things I’ve discovered that make a secret valuable, and in this post, we’re going to talk about the first one.

A valuable secret represents a hidden “truth” while implying that reality as we know it is somehow inaccurate or incomplete.

People don’t like being misinformed, so if they encounter a secret which somehow reveals something that’s false about their life or reality, they’ll have a really strong desire to learn the truth.

The more drastically different the “truth” of the secret is from the “lie” of commonly accepted reality, the more value the secret has.

For example, a secret that will save you 5 minutes on your commute is a lot less valuable than a secret that can make you independently wealthy in less than a year.

That’s because having an extra five minutes a day is not a drastically different reality than the one you live in now.

However, if you’re a typical person in debt or living check to check, being financially independent in just a year is a drastically different reality from your current one.

A secret or shortcut that can actually make that possible would be extremely attractive and valuable to such a person.

And it doesn’t just have to be a secret that moves you from where you are now to somewhere better.  It can be a secret that can help your audience avoid an almost certain negative outcome.

In that case, you don’t move them towards the desired improvement, but you can keep them from being knocked even further back.

Depending on the severity of that setback, secrets that save you from pain or harm can often be perceived as more valuable than ones that help you get ahead.

But regardless, the factor that determines the relative value has to do with the degree of difference between what’s true and real, with what is the “big lie” that “everyone else” believes in.

Warning: Don’t underestimate how important this factor is in how people perceive the information you share.  If you can help people close the conceptual gap between where they are and where they wish they could be, you’ll never want for prospects or customers.

This isn’t a process that requires any action on your part either.  Discovering secrets is a transformational process in and of itself.  After all, when you learn a powerful secret, you’re changed.  You can’t go back, because once you KNOW a secret, you can’t un-know it.

So strive to create secrets that will put the stars themselves within the prospect’s reach.  Your secrets should make the seemingly miraculous appear possible in the lives of your potential audience.

And they don’t have to be grand miracles.  They can be as humble and small as you feel you can safely manage, but they SHOULD be miracles.  They should make the impossible possible.

Even if it’s something like the secret writing a 500 word article in 7 minutes or less – that’s a small miracle, but it’s miraculous nonetheless.

That’s it for this time.  In the next part of this article, we’re going to talk about SCALE.  We know that a secret can change an individual.  But a secret that can change the lives of a whole crowd of people is even BETTER.  (And more profitable, too.)

Until next time,
Colin Theriot

P.S. Is this stuff useful to you, or is it worthless mumbo jumbo? Let me know what you think – leave a comment below.  Thanks for reading!